Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic
Select Committee
Public Accounts Committee
HC 29
26 July 2022
Recommendations
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Conclusions (4) Observations and findings — click to expand
1
Conclusion
Acknowledged
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Cabinet Office, the Home Office, the Department for Transport (DfT), and the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC), about the latest phase of government’s cross-border travel measures.1
Government Response Summary
The government acknowledges the report and provides administrative details about the evidence taken and publication date.
13
Conclusion
Acknowledged
We asked the Department about the support it had provided the aviation industry during the pandemic. DfT told us that government had provided up to £8 billion of support to the aviation industry during the pandemic, but recognised that this was mostly the take-up of general support, from the furlough …
Government Response Summary
The government references its response to the Transport Select Committee, stating that the default approach will be to use the least stringent measures to minimize the impact on travel as far as possible when responding to COVID-19 variants.
26
Conclusion
Acknowledged
In addition to not tracking costs, government did not formally set out what it regarded as successful implementation of the cross-border travel measures, nor its measurement of success.45 We therefore asked the Cabinet Office how it knew whether measures were effective and how it would determine whether they had been …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and states that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, departments considered the efficacy of policies implemented, and those lessons learned continue to inform contingency planning.
29
Conclusion
Acknowledged
We found in our report on Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk that government would have been better prepared for COVID-19 if it had applied learning from previous incidents and exercises.52 The NAO reported that, following the removal of travel restrictions in March 2022, government …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the committee and states that lessons learned continue to inform contingency planning across government, including for future public health threats. They retained COVID-19 surveillance and set out an overarching contingency strategy based on pharmaceutical interventions.