NHS app to be used as Covid vaccine passport to enable overseas travel, Grant Shapps confirms
2 min read
Holidaymakers and business travellers will be able to use the NHS smartphone app as vaccine passports, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has confirmed.
Mr Shapps also hinted that the ban on non-essential overseas travel is likely to be lifted on 17 May under England’s lockdown roadmap and be replaced by a “traffic light” system ranking the risk from Covid-19 in foreign countries.
He told Sky News: “In terms of vaccine certification, I can confirm we are working on an NHS application, actually it will be the NHS app that is used for people when they book appointments with the NHS and so on, to be able to show you’ve had a vaccine or you’ve had testing.”
No globally recognised system for proving a traveller’s Covid-19 status has been agreed, with popular destinations sending out varying signals over the tests and checks visitors would face.
But Mr Shapps said of the English app plan: “I’m working internationally across the world to make sure that that system can be internationally recognised.
“So that’s the way forward and actually I’m chairing a meeting of the G7 secretaries of state for transport, my equivalents, from America and Canada and all the other G7 countries next week on exactly that subject.”
The Government has said it will reveal its plans for foreign travel early next month with 17 May pencilled in as the earliest possible date for overseas flights to resume.
Mr Shapps told Sky News: “I have to say that so far the data does continue to look good from a UK perspective, notwithstanding those concerns about where people might be travelling to and making sure we’re protected from the disease being reimported.”
He added that he will set out which countries fall into the “green”, “amber” and “red” categories under the new risk-based traffic light system “towards the beginning of May”.
Holidaymakers returning from “green list” destinations will be able to avoid quarantining if they test negative upon their return.
Travellers coming back from “amber” countries will have to self-isolate for 10 days, while people arriving from a “red list” country will have to stay in a “quarantine hotel” at their own expense for 10 days.
