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

Select Committee

Public Accounts Committee HC 29 26 July 2022

Report Status Government responded

Conclusions & Recommendations 30 items (11 recs)

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Government Response (AI assessment · 26 of 30 classified)

Accepted 15

Acknowledged 5

Not Addressed 2

Rejected 4

Government response

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Sixteenth report from Session 2022-23 · published 14 Oct 2022

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Recommendations & Conclusions

6 results

5 Recommendation Not Addressed

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

Recommendation

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 Summary

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

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8 Conclusion

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

Conclusion

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

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9 Conclusion

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

Conclusion

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

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20 Conclusion Not Addressed

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

Conclusion

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

Government Response Summary

The government states it agrees with the recommendation and that it is implemented, referring to quarterly updates on chargeback and hardship recoveries already provided by the UK Health Security Agency, with the next letter due in September.

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24 Conclusion

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

Conclusion

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

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27 Conclusion

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

Conclusion

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

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