The UK’s travel industry has been dealt a blow after the government revealed plans to limit the cost of private car insurance.
The california covid restrictions are a law that limits private car insurance companies to charging no more than $40.
Many Britons have yearned for a vacation abroad (Picture: EPA; SWNS)
Covid is a costly product. A Tory MP has said that 19 exams are hurting the tourist sector and should cost no more than £40.
Henry Smith, head of the Future of Aviation All-Party Parliamentary Group, warned that the costs faced by families simply to satisfy testing standards risk making vacations “the province of the affluent.”
Popular locations, such as Spain, do not presently need travelers to undergo a test if they are completely vaccinated.
Arrivals to the UK, however, are required to undergo at least a private ‘day 2′ coronavirus test, which may cost anything from £20 to £399.
Sajid Javid, the health minister, requested the competition authority to look into the cost of tests last week, citing the widely disparate amounts being provided.
‘Every single traveller, including fully vaccinated arrivals from green countries with vanishingly low rates of Covid, is being treated as potential vectors of some dangerous new variant, and must pay through the nose for a battery of tests that on average still costs around £100 per traveller,’ wrote Crawley MP Mr Smith in the Telegraph.
‘How many companies, theaters, or restaurants would be able to exist if the government imposed a £100 tax on every transaction? There aren’t many.
‘Yet that is exactly what we are asking the travel industry to bear, when the price of required testing may be many times the cost of a plane ticket.’
Professionally conducted tests may be more expensive (photo courtesy of LHR Airports/AFP/Getty).
Travelers and the tourist sector have had a tumultuous two years (Picture: EPA)
‘The real danger is that air travel becomes exclusive to the affluent, for whom £400 extra to the expense of a family week in Spain is no great thing.’
‘The government could build on recent success with vaccine exemptions from quarantine by removing testing requirements for low-risk nations and limiting the price of PCR tests at about £40 – if and when they are still required.
Private PCR tests may be capped at £40, bringing them in line with nations like France, where the average is £42.
Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, has called for a ban on ‘rip-off’ pricing for private Covid testing (Picture: PA)
Further reading: Coronavirus
The Competition and Markets Authority responded to the health secretary by saying it will submit its recommendations ‘within the next month.’
‘We are aware of concerns regarding the developing markets for Covid-19 testing for foreign travelers, worries about pricing, the quality of service individuals are receiving from test providers, and what happens when things go wrong,’ said CEO Andrea Coscelli in a letter on Monday.
‘Throughout the epidemic, the CMA has focused on safeguarding consumers and fair-dealing companies, and we welcome the chance to delve further into the problems in the PCR testing industry.’
MORE: Quarantine hotel regulations dubbed “Draconian” are being challenged in court for “violating human rights.”
MORE: After being hospitalized with Covid, a father who rejected vaccination feared he’d never see his family again.
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Covid, the company that provides holiday testing for companies, has said that ‘private tests should be capped at £40 to help save travel industry’. Reference: covid holiday testing.
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