Grant Shapps: We are ahead of EU, as PCR day two test scrapped for fully vaccinated

In an interview with GB News, Grant Shapps stressed that changes in coronavirus testing will be made only to people who are fully vaccinated when travelling.

He said to GB News: "if you are fully vaccinated you will be able to come and go".

The Transport Secretary said that the PCR day two test will "drop right back to just a lateral flow" so it will be "much much easier to travel from here".

You have to have taken a lateral flow test by day two, which means that you will be able to take a lateral flow test as you arrive in the airport announced the Transport Secretary.

Grant Shapps also told GB News that scrapping the Government's red travel list will mean that transport "becomes very straightforward".

Thomas Cook chief executive Alan French said the recently announced changes to travel rules are “good news for both ourselves and our customers”, but stressed that more clarity is needed from the Government.

He said that while there will be no catch-up this year with 2019 because “most of the holiday season is really gone” for 2021, the opportunity to now book a half-term or Christmas break is welcome.

He told LBC: “I think if people are starting to plan for the winter sun break, which is really around Christmas time, again, way more options than they had before, much better deals, so we are upbeat about that.

“But those are, in all honesty, slightly smaller parts of our business than the summer, which is obviously behind us.”

He added that he wants “clarity” from the Transport Secretary, particularly in relation to changes around lateral flow testing.

He said: “If there was one thing that I would like from Grant Shapps, it’s clarity as to what’s going on, when things are going to change, and give us some notice.

“Even if there has to be a provision in there that says if something goes wrong it might change, but at least give us a road map of activities that we can plan for, that’s what we really would like.”

Grant Shapps said the US had indicated “early November” for travel there to reopen fully for people coming from the UK.

He said it is a “practical” issue for the US, rather than a reluctance to reopen to British travellers.

He told Times Radio: “It’s not that they don’t want to do it. It’s actually that in many ways they don’t have the kind of level of sophistication in place on international travel that has become normal to us.

“For example, they don’t actually have domestically there a Covid certification like the NHS app, it’s a piece of paper. So you might say well, why does that matter to Brits going over there? Well again, they just don’t have a system set up to read the NHS barcode or to be able to recognise other people’s tests.

“So all of that is being worked through. They are still saying, November, they’re still saying to me, early November.

“Obviously it’s not in our hands to dictate this but I’m very keen for it to be reopened. It’s the world’s busiest route actually, by the way, the transatlantic route, so it’s very important to the airlines, as well as families and friends getting together again.”