Huw Calls for Travel PCR Tests to be Scrapped

Local MP and Chair of the Transport Committee Huw Merriman joined Monday's BBC Politics Live and called for travel PCR tests to be scrapped.

Huw said:

At the moment, if you're an HGV driver coming from amber France, you have a lateral flow test. If I'm coming from green list Germany, I have to pay £100 for a PCR test from a company that the Competitions and Markets Authority has described as having dodgy pricing practices.

And the reality Jo is it feels like some form of state-sponsored racketeering and I would like to see us drop that immediately. If it was because we want to sequence variants of concerns then fair enough, but like Alex, I've done research on NHS Test and Trace data, it showed during a three-week period in July, only 5% of positive COVID cases were being sequenced.

So on that basis, there doesn't seem to be any point. It’s stopping people traveling and I would now like to see us open up borders or if we can't do that, we have to extend furlough for the travel industry. You can't have both.

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