UK Inquiry Tracker

Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic

Public Accounts Committee Closed Inquiry

Opened: 25 Apr 2022 Closed: 14 Oct 2022 Parliament page

Putting cross-border travel measures in place during the COVID-19 pandemic often at speed to time-pressured deadlines then adapting and sustaining them required considerable efforts by government and others. Although individual departments have been monitoring their own spending on implementing cross-border travel measures in response to COVID-19, the National Audit Office … Read more

10 Recommendations

20 Conclusions

1 Report

1 Oral session

2 Letters

1 Event

Activity timeline 6 events

14 Oct
2022

Report published

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Sixteenth report from Session 2022-23

26 Jul
2022

Report published

Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic

5 Jul
2022

Correspondence

Correspondence from Dame Meg Hillier, Chair, Committee of Public Accounts to Patricia Hayes, Second Permanent Secretary, Home Office, re Ma…

14 Jun
2022

Correspondence

Correspondence from Gareth Davies CB, Second Permanent Secretary, Department for Transport, re Managing cross-border travel during the COVI…

23 May
2022

Oral evidence

Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic

23 May
2022

Formal meeting (oral evidence session) · The Grimond Room, Portcullis House

Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

23 May 2022

View on parliament.uk

Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic

Alex Chisholm · Cabinet Office Gareth Davies · Department for Transport Patricia Hayes · Home Office Phil Douglas · Border Force Shona Dunn · Home Office

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-border travel during the COVID…	HC 29	26 Jul 2022	30	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

8 results

5 Recommendation Not Addressed

Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-…

The Department for Health & Social Care’s failure to properly set up the market for...

The Department for Health & Social Care’s failure to properly set up the market for travel tests put the public at risk of fraud and poor quality of service. DHSC required companies looking to conduct tests to be accredited by … Read more

Government Response

The government did not address the recommendation regarding the CMA recommendations on the testing market.

HM Treasury

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8 Conclusion

Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-…

The NAO found that government had limited data on the impact of the exemptions and...

The NAO found that government had limited data on the impact of the exemptions and as a result it did not know how frequently exemptions were used, how many people with exemptions tested positive, or whether the number of exemptions … Read more

HM Treasury

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9 Conclusion

Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-…

We asked DfT why government granted exemptions for one-off events such as Euro 2020, London...

We asked DfT why government granted exemptions for one-off events such as Euro 2020, London Fashion Week and the COP 26 summit. It said that government had put in place bespoke measures to reduce the risk of transmission at these … Read more

HM Treasury

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20 Conclusion

Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-…

The largest part of government’s spending on COVID-19 border measures was on the MQS, which...

The largest part of government’s spending on COVID-19 border measures was on the MQS, which cost the taxpayer £329 million. This is after the recovery of £428 million from guests paying for their accommodation and tests. In total, the service … Read more The largest part of government’s spending on COVID-19 border measures was on the MQS, which cost the taxpayer £329 million. This is after the recovery of £428 million from guests paying for their accommodation and tests. In total, the service cost £757 million.34 DHSC explained that it originally intended to recover, where possible, the full cost of 29 Q 128; C&AG’s Report para2 2.14–2.15 30 UKAS, C19-Stage2 UKAS Appraisal, https://www.ukas.com/c19-stage2-ukas-appraisal/; C&AG’s report para 2.15 31 Qq 124–125, 127–128; C&AG’s report para 2.15 32 C&AG’s Report para 13, 2.16–2.17 33 Qq 125, 129, 145–6 34 Qq 87, 89, C&AG’s report Figure 12, para 2.33 16 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic managed quarantine from the people who had used it. It expected to charge people using the service £1,750, for one person quarantining for 10 days, but decided to raise this to £2,285 in August 2021. DHSC explained that the original cost was set using internal cost analysis as DHSC considered it was not possible to benchmark the cost against quarantine systems in other countries. The percentage of passengers arriving in the UK from red list countries fell from 4% in July 2021 to 1% in August 2021. DHSC said that, once countries were removed from the red list, the number of people required to quarantine in hotels fell, and ministers decided that to continue to recover the costs from people quarantining it would have needed to raise the cost per person to unreasonably high levels.35 DHSC considered that the amount spent on the MQS was value for money, as the percentage of people in the MQS testing positive was higher than the rate in the overall population. DHSC also said that it had designed the system to minimise the number of people choosing to travel from high-risk countries to the UK. But between February and December 2021, only 2% of quarantine guests tested positive, which only rose to 6% during the early stages of the omicron wave.36 Protecting the taxpayer Show less

HM Treasury

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24 Conclusion

Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-…

We asked about the experience of guests in quarantine hotels and what had been done...

We asked about the experience of guests in quarantine hotels and what had been done to safeguard people staying in the MQS. DHSC told us that it had put a great deal of effort into making sure that hotels were … Read more

HM Treasury

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27 Conclusion

Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-…

The airport industry commissioned its own research into the costs and benefits of travel restrictions...

The airport industry commissioned its own research into the costs and benefits of travel restrictions which found that, had there been no travel restrictions in place during November and December 2021, the peak in omicron cases would have occurred only … Read more

HM Treasury

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28 Conclusion

Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-…

The NAO reported that the circumstances in which government had to implement the traffic light...

The NAO reported that the circumstances in which government had to implement the traffic light system had often been a crisis response requiring government to move at pace.49 The Cabinet Office explained that the system was a response to the … Read more

HM Treasury

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30 Conclusion

Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-…

The Cabinet Office explained that decisions about the rules were taken by the COVID-O (Operations)...

The Cabinet Office explained that decisions about the rules were taken by the COVID-O (Operations) ministerial committee who met frequently, with support from committees and working groups of officials.56 The NAO found that supporting groups had 49 C&AG’s Report, para … Read more

HM Treasury

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Government Response AI assessment · 23 of 10 classified

Accepted 14

Acknowledged 4

Not Addressed 1

Rejected 4

Total 10 recs + 20 conclusions

Correspondence 2 letters

5 Jul 2022 Correspondence from Dame Meg Hillier, Chair, Committee of Public Accounts to Patricia Hayes, Second Permanent Secretary, Home Office, re Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, 29 June 2022

Parliament page

14 Jun 2022 Correspondence from Gareth Davies CB, Second Permanent Secretary, Department for Transport, re Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, dated 6 June 2022

Parliament page