Transport Select Committee
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps appeared before the Transport Select Committee on 3 February 2021 for scrutiny of the work of his Department. Shapps stated that the approach and goal to travel corridors & quarantine is now less about the spread of Covid-19 in general, but more about preventing spread of new variants. He added that there are over 12,000 variants so far. On topic of an Aviation Recovery Plan, Shapps replied that he will provide such a plan as soon as the Government can set a route-map out of lockdown. As previously announced, the Government will start setting this out on 22nd February, although it is unclear whether this will be an overarching route-map for the country, or sector specific. When challenged on the extremely low levels of passenger confidence in bookings, Shapps said it was necessary to “wait and see” what impact the vaccine rollout has, not just in UK but abroad too, prior to encouraging air travel.
