The UK government’s restrictions on international travel during the CCP virus pandemic were “disproportionate to the risks to public health,” a select committee of MPs said.
Ministers’ decision-making process regarding the restrictions was “not transparent or consistent, nor based on scientific consensus,” the committee concluded.
It also criticised the “arbitrary nature” of 15 different rule changes for travellers that it said “left them struggling to navigate a confusing ‘traffic light’ system, access affordable testing, and secure refunds.”
Since June 2020, the UK government deployed a “traffic light” system for international travel that consisted of a green list, an amber list, and a red list of countries, with travellers from green list countries facing the least restrictions, and amber list arrivals having had to take more tests and sometimes self-isolate.
Rules that applied to each category varied over time. Only British or Irish citizens and residents were allowed to travel from the red-list countries, and those who did were subject to mandatory hotel quarantine, a pre-departure test, and a number of post-arrival tests.
The report said the system was “opaque, ambiguous, and inconsistent.”
According to the report, the government “sought to balance the needs of the economy against the maintenance of public health during the pandemic,” but had “not always been transparent about how decisions on restricting international travel were informed or made.”
The committee also heard from British Airways’ Acting Chief Commercial Officer Colm Lacy that no other European country had forced hotel quarantine, which incurred a “completely prohibitive” cost of £2,285 ($2,909).
“Using case numbers as an indicator, there is no evidence that the requirement for travellers from certain countries to quarantine at a hotel, rather than at a location of their choice, has improved the UK’s coronavirus situation compared with other European countries,” the report reads.
The committee welcomed the government’s decision to lift all travel restrictions and its promise that “future international travel contingency measures will only be implemented in extreme circumstances.”
The committee urged the government to publish by June 1 its aviation recovery plan, which “must” include a commitment to developing a “transparent and predictable system that can be used to facilitate safe international travel during potential future health crises.”
The report also outlined the difficulties for customers in securing refunds from airlines even when they’re legally entitled to one.
The committee recommended the government bring in new laws that would give customers automatic compensation when they’re entitled to a refund, saving them from having to apply for one.
But the report also mentioned “a gap in the law” that left passengers out of pocket owing to the CCP virus restrictions.
Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority Consumer Panel Jenny Willott told the committee that when “a flight goes ahead as scheduled despite the imposition of local restrictions or a national lockdown,” it was “not really clear whether passengers are entitled to a refund or not.”
The report said Willott concluded that it seemed “quite extraordinary” that passengers couldn’t get a refund after being banned from travelling by the government, and the confusion had also put people off from booking flights.
