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Government ‘will introduce travel certification’, says transport secretary

The transport secretary has confirmed that the government “will introduce” a form of travel certification.

Grant Shapps told MPs today that the Global Travel Taskforce was looking at both Iata’s Travel Pass and the World Economic Forum’s Common Pass.

He also confirmed the Global Travel Taskforce’s report will be made public on April 12.

Boris Johnson said the taskforce would report on April 12 when he laid out his roadmap out of lockdown on February 22 – but he did not specify whether this was to him or whether details would be released to businesses and the public on the same day.


More:Ministers urged to stick to May 17 restart date


Asked by transport committee chairman Hew Merriman to confirm that point, Shapps said: “April 12 is the date that we will report back, and make that public as well on the same day.”

He also stressed: “Travel won’t resume until, at the earliest, May 17.”

The transport committee had been calling for confirmation of the April 12 report to be made public, and called on ministers not to delay the proposed May 17 restart.

Airlines and tour operators have been calling for sight of the report on April 12 as it is five weeks before May 17, giving them time to plan for a restart of operations on that date if given the go-ahead.

Anthony Higginbotham, MP for Burnley, said manufacturing companies in the aerospace industry also needed “aircraft in the air flying again” as he asked Shapps to update on plans for implementing a form of travel certification.

Shapps said the ‘mark two’ of the Global Travel Taskforce “will introduce travel certification by using things like Iata’s Travel Pass, or indeed the World Economic Forum’s Common Pass in order to do that.”

He added that he had been having conversations with the US government “and many others around the world, in order to get that travel going again”.

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