Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing compulsory covid-19 pre-flight testing for international flights into the UK.

On 7 December, pre-departure testing was introduced for all arrivals into England aged over 12 years old, regardless of vaccination status.

Early information suggests that the window between exposure to the virus and infection may be shorter for the Omicron variant. This may increase the efficacy of pre-departure testing as it is more likely to identify positive cases before travel.