Cap Cost of Covid Tests at £40, Government Told by Tory MPs
Brits are being priced out of holidays abroad due to the hefty costs of PCR tests, which Tory MPs say should be capped at £40 and scrapped altogether for holidaymakers returning to the U.K. from ‘low risk’ countries. The Telegraph has the story.
Senior Conservative MPs are calling on Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, to take immediate action to end “rip-off” prices of PCR tests that still average £75 per person and risk turning foreign holidays into the “preserve only of the wealthy”.
Writing for the Telegraph, Henry Smith, the Tory Chairman of the All-Party Future of Aviation Group said the Government should cap PCR tests at around £40 and scrap them for holidaymakers returning from “low-risk” countries.
“The rationale for the testing regime looks increasingly dubious. Why not, instead, sample a random group of arrivals rather than require everyone to pay for tests frequently run by shoddy companies failing to deliver tests on time and guilty of making hugely misleading price claims?” he wrote.
He was backed by Huw Merriman, Chairman of the Transport Select Committee, who published a letter he has sent to Mr Javid in which he urged the Government to give “serious consideration” to more “affordable” tests and rethink the need for PCR tests for passengers from Green and Amber List countries.
“The high cost, poor quality and lack of sequencing from PCR tests needs to be urgently addressed by the Government. They are an unnecessary barrier to affordable international travel,” he said. …
David Davis, a former Cabinet minister, said it would be “perfectly sensible” to cap test costs to prevent profiteering and axe the 20% VAT charge on PCR tests, which the Government say are necessary to prevent the import of Covid variants. …
Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the powerful 1922 Conservative backbench committee, said: “Analysis of test results shows fewer positive test results than in the general population. If the Government is mandating so many tests, then it should also require providers to offer them at a reasonable cost.” …
Fewer than one in 50 travellers from Red or Amber countries are testing positive for Covid, while only one in 20 of those positive tests are being genome sequenced for variants because the presence of the virus in the samples is “vanishingly small” after being suppressed by the vaccine.
Worth reading in full.
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so why not drop it altogether?
Why have tests on people coming in from abroad? Are foreign variants any more dangerous than the thousands which will occur naturally in Britain? Having renamed the Indian variant, why this stigmatisation? Is it even possible to hold back the tide? Or advisable? Large scale international travel has surely resulted in stronger immune systems, and to tax travel to such a ludicrous degree is surely a nonsense for a bug within the range of severe flu. Unleess there is an ulterior motive.
Don’t mask, don’t test, don’t vaxx.
Indeed. Zero co-operation. Zero compliance. Zero collaboration. That’s the kind of Zero COVID we need.
Never did, never will, won’t.
my thought too we just need to find each other in person and have more numbers
Very true, we may need to be able to put crowds together quickly if they really start to come down heavy!
What do you mean “if”?
Still cannot believe people are getting tested using a test that doesnt find infection, is proven fraudlent and is barely as dangerous as flu.
Good luck people, I hope you wake the f up as we approach 18months down the line…
gotta take that fake vaccine though..
Silly money for a test for healthy people visiting their family – and then they put 20% VAT tax (why do we still have VAT anyway?) on top of that? That’s just highway robbery!
Sir Graham Brady may be biased, with Ringway Airport in his town, but he surely has a point. He’d be a sight better than Grant Shapps/Dick Turpin anyway.
The PCR test is being blatantly misused. It cannot identify poorliness, it cannot identify an illness which has itself not been identified.
It’s all FAKE. All a SCAM.
ALTERNATIVELY, STOP THE TESTING ALTOGETHER.
THE SHEEP WILL HAVE TO GET THEIR “TESTING” FIXES ON THE BLACK (SHEEP) MARKET
Baa baa…
Bleat,bleat!!
My first thought was stop testing, then it won’t cost anything. Except of course the VAT on the tests is more income for the government.
the VAT is outrageous
Hugh,
As you seem to be the oracle on here, can you explain this lateral flow test to me please.
I am soon to participate in a major golf tournament and have been told I MUST have one.
Are they still doing that anal swab one which the Chinese were doing last year?
I haven’t heard of the anal swab being used but I do a lateral flow test every time I want to visit my Dad who lives in a care home. They are still the made in China tests. They are a thin swab which is to swab your throat and one nostril (I only bother with nostril). The swab is then dipped in a fluid which is dripped on to a hole in the test plastic strip. A line appears showing positive or negative. Mine have always been negative since February, which doesn’t surprise me as I am certain I had covid in early 2020.
Hope that helps. At the moment I can get the tests free from a local test centre or the care home.
What Wendy said! 🙂
Tbh, I’ve never had a “test”, never used the pingdemic app. I’ve heard some terrible stories about them, and been told I must hold out against them. Still, some things are more important in life, I suppose, just go in with your eyes open…
I suppose you are talking about and just need a self administered one, same as for the pilot scheme, like for the Goodwood FoS, for example.
Just unpack it, do nothing with it and register the number of the test as a negative with the NHS text messaging service, the instructions and links should be provided by the event organiser.
say you are exempt i heard you can be exempt from testing too and good luck at golf tournament see if you can find fellow sceptics
Tests? That don’t even work. Its astonishing people are still talking about them let alone using them!
“Make bio-tyranny affordable to all” is not a sound argument.
how about make return flights to central Europe affordable to all?
But….. but ….. the whole point is to use this method to price the peasants out of their annual jaunt to the Costas!
Only the Prize Pigs will be allowed to fly in their Brave New World.
Yes but people who are desperate to see their relatives in central Europe for any number of reasons are suffering.
Yup already happening. Obviously private jets don’t affect The Climate.
even £40 is too much.. 3 or 4 tests can be the price of a return British Airways flight to France.
I hate this fucking government…
I remember you used to be able to get a return flight to some places for forty pounds. An absolute disgrace what they’re doing.
Good to see Rishi Sunak enjoying the cricket at Lord’s. Thurday, is of course, his day off from worrying about the national debt. Howzat?
One jab, one kebab. Two jab, two kebab. Booster jab, three kebab. All served with gene altering sauce.
Just stop testing!!!
if we all refuse to do any tests they’ll stop
Here’s a radical idea I’m just going to throw out there. Instead of reducing the cost of these useless invasive tests, FUCKING BIN THEM!!!!
Cap Cost ofScrap Covid Testsat £40, Government Told by Tory MPsFixed.