Correspondence
Test to Release Scheme
11.We drew the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) (Amendment) (No. 26) Regulations 2020 (SI 2020/1337) to the special attention of the House in our 37th Report of this session on the ground that the explanatory material laid in support provided insufficient information to gain a clear understanding of the instrument’s policy objective and intended implementation.2
12.The instrument sets out how travellers arriving in England from a non-exempt country, territory or region can shorten the (then) requirement to self-isolate for 14 days if they take a private COVID-19 test five days after their arrival and receive a negative result (“Test to Release”). Given that these travellers all come from places where the infection rate is too high to allow free movement after their arrival, we said that we had substantial concerns about whether the new approach, which allows them to break quarantine after five days in order to take a test, was justifiable.
13.Following an All Peers briefing session on the matter, Robert Courts MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, wrote to the Chairman to address points raised in our Report (letter published at Appendix 1). While we wish to thank the Minister for the further information provided, we regret that our concerns have not been allayed.
14.We are told that the new approach mirrors that taken by close partners, such as Germany and Iceland — but no mention is made of the fact that infection rates have been much lower in those countries than in the UK.
15.We are also told that an Enhanced Enforcement Posture has been adopted by Border Force in relation to the completion of Passenger Locator Forms (PLF), meaning that more people will be issued with fines if they have not completed the PLF. While we have no doubt that this is a positive step, our greater concern is whether travellers comply with the rules once they are in England. The lack of adequate links between agencies’ databases seems unlikely to make in-country compliance checks effective. Nor does the Minister’s letter address the figures in our 37th Report, which indicate that 23% of the small sample of travellers whose completed PLFs were investigated by the police were either in breach of self-isolation (7%) or untraceable (16%).3
16.Finally, and most worryingly, is the information provided by the Minister to underpin the assertion made in the Explanatory Memorandum that “the protective effect of testing to release international arrivals after 5 days of self-isolation is only marginally less effective than 14 days of self- isolation”. The Minister refers to Public Health England modelling, which says that the effectiveness of testing after five days is 85%, whereas it is 96% after eight days and 98% after 10 days. We would not describe a difference of 13 percentage points as “marginal”, particularly when it relates to hundreds of thousands of travellers who have recently arrived from countries with high infection rates.
17.We remain of the view set out in our 37th Report that there is insufficient explanation to support the policy objective and intended implementation of the instrument. The Minister’s letter also raises further concerns about how closely the Department for Transport has consulted Border Force, the police and above all the Department for Health and Social Care, in formulating this policy.
2 37th Report, Session 2019–21 (HL Paper 189).
3 More details on the numbers involved can be found in our 37th Report.