Vaccine passports WON'T be ready by May 17

Heathrow’s boss today warned of his ‘deep concerns’ about impending chaos at passport control after it emerged covid passports will not be ready for the start of foreign holidays from May 17 and could be delayed until ‘later in the summer’.

John Holland-Kaye told Sky News the Home Office and UK Border Force ‘need to get a grip’ immediately or risk repeats of six-hour waits in queues where social distancing proved impossible.

Grant Shapps revealed yesterday that the NHS’ app for appointments and prescriptions will double as a covid passport for tourists, providing evidence of their covid vaccinations and test results. 

But Mr Shapps also gave a hint that its rollout could coincide with June’s G7 summit in Cornwall in early June, where he hopes to seal bilateral travel corridors with Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US.

Reacting to the delay Mr Holland-Kaye, CEO of Heathrow Airport, said: ‘I am deeply concerned. They [Border Force] are struggling to cope with even the few thousand of travellers coming in at the moment, and all the additional checks they have to carry out.

‘They either need to change that system or have more Border Force officers on the desks. Border Force and the Home Office need to get a grip on this ahead of May 17th so that immigration does not become a stranglehold on the UK’s economic recovery’.

He added: ‘We are focused on 17 May, we are getting ready to open up then, working with the airlines to make sure we can give a really warm welcome to passengers. But the key question is whether Border Force will be ready to receive those passengers when they come into the country, so they have a smooth journey through the airport and not the kind of lengthy queues that unfortunately we have seen too often in recent weeks’.  

MailOnline understands the long delays are being caused by a perfect storm of problems with the Home Office accused of using a ‘rigid and inflexible’ bubble system for staff meaning those not on the rota for passport control cannot be moved in to ease pressure at peak times.

But Border Force experts claim that Heathrow’s decision not to completely surround passport control desks with perspex screens meaning only a maximum of 20 of the 40 passport control desks at Terminal 2 are currently being manned because of social distancing.

It came as consumer experts warned that the system for testing returning holidaymakers could collapse when mass international travel resumes due to a lack of capacity, while there are concerns that a delay in bringing in vaccine passports could cause more chaos at Heathrow, where people have had to wait for long periods at border control due to problems with paperwork. 

More details about Britain’s covid passport emerged as: 

• Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi admits Government is considering if large festivals or sports events also need vaccine passports; 
• The consumer group Which? said the testing regime was already failing to deal with the relatively small number of people arriving in the UK from overseas, and it could be overwhelmed when large numbers of Britons come back from hotspots; 
• England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van Tam says it would be ‘incredibly safe’ for two fully Covid vaccinated people to meet up, and reveals that UK’s infection rate has probably hit lowest possible level;
• UK has bought 60million more doses of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine to supply autumn booster jabs to cut the risk of mutated variants, Matt Hancock reveals;
• Mass coronavirus testing could lead to spikes in transmission because Britons with symptoms may bypass more accurate lab tests, experts fear;

Spain, which plans to open up at the end of May to tourists with digital proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test result, is said to have that the UK must reciprocate the same deal to its own tourists after Mr Shapps gave a muted response and told people to ‘wait and see’ before booking. 

Portugal said yesterday that it hoped that all British tourists, regardless of whether they’ve had a jab, could visit from mid-May with a negative test result while Greece says it will accept a paper card from the NHS vaccination scheme as proof despite fears they are easily forged.

Britain’s covid passport is being developed by NHSX, the tech arm of the health service, with sources briefing The Times that despite ministers trying to rush it through for May 17, it will not be ready despite the Transport Secretary saying  the chances of a foreign holiday ‘look good’ in just under three weeks.

The newspaper has also reported that the government could still end up opting for ‘another app solution’ because of concerns people may risk sharing larger parts of their private medical history by using the current one long term. 

Nadhim Zahawi said today that the Government was considering whether large events in the UK would require the use of so-called vaccine passports.

The vaccines minister, who previously labelled the concept ‘discriminatory’, told BBC Breakfast: ‘We are exploring through the different pilots that we are running, certainly for mass events which could prove more challenging for us to open up, say, Wembley Stadium for the semi-final of the FA Cup or the final.

‘If you want to go to 100% seat capacity at Wembley, you have to look at all these technologies which are available to you and I think it is only right and responsible for any government to explore that.

‘Michael Gove is reviewing how we would do that – there are some very important questions that people will be clearly worried about, including issues around discrimination and we can’t be discriminatory in any way on this.

‘Hence why, domestically, it is something that we have to explore, we have to be able to answer those questions.

‘Internationally, it is right to make the certification available for our citizens and to shape the protocols around the world because clearly a number of countries are going to do this – we’d much rather do it in a co-ordinated way, which is what (Transport Secretary) Grant Shapps is trying to do at the moment and he is chairing the G7 meeting of ministers on this.’

Pre-departure forms will ‘begin’ to be automated at airports when international travel is allowed, the Transport Secretary has also said.

Answering a question from Labour’s Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) on the ‘totally inadequate social distancing’ and queues at airports, Grant Shapps told the Commons: ‘People shouldn’t be travelling right now, in fact you cannot travel right now without a very exceptional reason indeed because people have to stay at home, stay domestically.’

He went on: ‘It is the case that Border Force are checking currently every single person who enters the country to make sure they completed the pre-departure test and the locator form to say where they’ll be.

‘So, I’m afraid at the moment it is the case that that inevitably creates some queues.’

Mr Shapps added: ‘As we move towards the unlock of international travel we will be addressing this issue, not least through beginning to automate the electronic e-gates with the pre-departure form.’

Tens of thousands have rushed to download the app and many were shocked to discover details of their vaccinations – including how many they’ve had and the type of vaccine administered – were already waiting for them. 

But the Department of Health has denied claims on social media it has secretly rolled out covid passports, insisting that all vaccines are automatically added to the app when it connects to the user’s medical records.

Sources said the app’s covid passport update is still in development but is being rushed through before May 17, when foreign holidays become legal. Ministers hope an updated version of the app will allow people to display their vaccine and test status on their phones, with a personal scannable QR code for use at passport control.

Mr Shapps gave a hint that it could its rollout could coincide with June’s G7 summit in Cornwall in early June, where he hopes to seal bilateral travel corridors with Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US. 

Mr Shapps refused to be drawn on the finer details of how it would work – leaving huge unanswered questions about how people would get record of a negative non-NHS test uploaded, and what happens to un-vaccinated people when they return from their holidays.

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.

‘I’m working internationally with partners across the world to make sure that system can be internationally recognised, as that’s the way forward. Actually, I’m chairing a meeting of the G7 secretaries of state for transport, my equivalents from America and Canada and all the G7 countries, next week on exactly this subject’.  

Mr Shapps’ announcement led to a rush of people trying to download the app, including former footballer Stan Collymore, who shared details of his Oxford/AstraZeneca jab with his 895,000 followers. It led to a flurry of replies from others who had discovered the same thing. 

Manuel Lobo Antunes, Portugal’s ambassador to the UK, said UK holidaymakers could be able to visit the country next month. He told Sky News the country is ‘hopeful’ that ‘from the middle of May, regular mobility between the UK and Portugal and vice versa can be established’.

Asked if Britons who have not been vaccinated can travel to Portugal, he added: ‘Yes, that’s the idea, that’s what we wanted, to as much as possible go back to the regime that existed before the pandemic. It’s in that direction we are working and that is possible.’  

It was Transport Secretary Grant Shapps who revealed the NHS app is being worked on to become a health certificate for international travel – but explained it will be housed on the app used to book appointments and repeat prescriptions, not the Covid-19 one currently used to check into pubs, cafes and other venues or ‘ping’ when somebody came close to a positive case. 

But people using smartphones such as the Apple iPhone 6, launched in 2014, claim they were unable to download it because the NHS app says their smartphone is too old. 

Domestic coronavirus statistics ‘look good’ enough to enable the resumption of foreign holidays from May 17, Mr Shapps also revealed.

Spain’s tourism minister, Fernando Valdes Verelst, has told an international summit held by the World Travel & Tourism Council in Mexico that the country will welcome back tourists – including those from the UK – in June.He said: ‘Spain is going to be ready in June to use this digital certificate. We are doing a pilot programme in May, in all our 46 airports.

‘We are going to give all these travellers that certainty. Spain is going to be ready in June to tell all travellers worldwide that you can visit us.’ 

Overseas leisure travel could resume for people in England on May 17 under Boris Johnson’s road map for easing restrictions.

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 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’.

That will determine what testing and quarantine requirements travellers will face when they return from various destinations.

Revealing Spain was throwing open its beaches, tourism minister Fernando Valdes Verelst said: ‘June will be the start of the recovery of tourism in Spain. By then, we will have a digital vaccination certificate in place and we will be able to reopen our borders.’

He said Spain was pushing for the UK’s digital vaccine passport to be ‘mutually recognised’ and that he welcomed Boris Johnson’s plans to restart international travel. 

Mr Verelst said he expected Spain to be on the UK’s travel green list when international travel resumes thanks to the country’s successful vaccine rollout which has seen 22 per cent of the population receive a first dose.

This would mean Britons returning to the UK from Spain would not have to quarantine.

But Mr Shapps said the public will have to ‘wait and see’ about whether the UK will permit travel to Spain.

He told Times Radio: ‘Spain specifically, I’m afraid I just don’t have the answer to that because the Joint Biosecurity Centre will need to come up with their assessment and we can’t do that until a bit nearer the time.

‘So we will need to wait and see.’

Speaking at the World Travel and Tourism Council in Mexico, he added: ‘Because of the progress in our vaccine rollout with 22 per cent of our population having had their first dose already, we expect by June to be at the green light.

‘We are having close conversations with UK authorities and we are exchanging information on Spain’s digital system and the trial happening at our airports in May.’ 

Spain is the UK’s most popular overseas destination with 18.1million people visiting the country from the UK in 2019.

The port city of Malaga in Spain’s Costa del Sol was easyJet’s top beach destination for British tourists in 2019. 

The UK has earmarked May 17 as being the earliest date when international travel would be allowed for non-essential reasons following a winter lockdown, with a ‘traffic light system’ based on individual countries’ COVID risk levels.

Shapps said he would set out into which categories countries would be placed early next month.

‘The data does continue to look good from a UK perspective notwithstanding those concerns about where people might be travelling to and making sure that we’re protected from the disease being re-imported,’ he said.

Talks between the UK and the EU are set to resume in days in a bid to sort out Covid passports for summer holidays in the hope they could be in place by June, officials have suggested.

Vaccinated Brits with Covid passports could holiday in the US, France, Italy and Germany by June 28, it was revealed, though Greece insists the handwritten paper NHS card handed out with a jab will suffice.

The EU is closing in on a deal with the US on Covid passports, with officials also saying they are open to a similar policy with the UK. 

In response, a UK government spokesman said Britain was also ready to open talks with the EU shortly.

The spokesman said: ‘Ensuring free and open travel with our European partners is vitally important which is why we will be engaging the European commission on reopening travel routes from the UK shortly.’  

Meanwhile, it was revealed UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps will hold talks with G7 counterparts at the Cornwall summit between June 11 and 13 with a view to securing a free travel agreement to popular destinations.

Mr Shapps will argue that they should agree international standards for vaccinated travellers heading to ‘green list’ nations who show digital proof of vaccination, a negative test or proof of immunity at passport control.

There would also be talks on bilateral ‘travel corridors’ to the US, France, Italy, Germany and other nations for passengers with a covid passport, according to the Daily Telegraph.

But Greece, which will open its borders on May 15 – two days before the UK allows holidays – is planning to go it alone, for now. 

Harry Theoharis, the Greek tourism minister, told The Times their resorts will be open to any vaccinated Britons as long as they present their NHS vaccination card, signed by a nurse of doctor after getting the jab.

He said ‘Until the UK has a digital passport, we have seen the paper cards that are provided with the two vaccine appointment dates and we are recognising them. They can be used on the ground and at the borders.’ 

Mr Theoharis said that testing would take place on arrivals, but only at random, with a review if positive cases jump upwards in the UK.

He added that once the EU sets up a digital scheme then they will sign up, but they are not willing to wait.

The European Union will throw open its borders to America this summer as it uses ‘the same jabs’ as the bloc, its top Eurocrat said yesterday.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the EU was in advanced talks with Washington about kick-starting holidays by using ‘vaccine passports’ to re-open transatlantic routes.

But yesterday a Commission spokesman said there were ‘no such contacts yet’ between the UK and EU over recognition of health certificates for getting Britons back on European beaches.

In an interview with the New York Times Mrs von der Leyen said: ‘The Americans, as far as I can see, use European Medicines Agency-approved vaccines. This will enable free movement and the travel to the European Union.’

She added: ‘Because one thing is clear: All 27 member states will accept, unconditionally, all those who vaccinated with vaccines that are approved by the EMA.’

Lavishing further praise on the Biden administration she added that the US was ‘on track’ and making ‘huge progress’ with its campaign to reach so-called herd immunity, or the vaccination of 70 percent of adults, by mid-June.

America is currently rolling out the Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccine jabs, which are also approved for use across the EU by the European Medicines Agency.

Asked whether Mrs von der Leyen was in similar talks with the UK, a Commission spokesman said: ‘So far there are no contacts to this end with the UK.’

The majority of Britons want the UK’s foreign travel ban to last until next year – and most have no intention of going on holiday anywhere this summer, an exclusive poll for MailOnline revealed last week.

As Spain said it was ‘desperate’ for Brits to return this summer, some 55 per cent back extending the Covid restrictions on non-essential trips abroad into 2022 – while just 21 per cent would oppose the idea.

Meanwhile, 43 per cent say they are not planning to go anywhere at all on holiday this summer, with only a quarter harbouring hopes of a break in another country.

The findings, in an exclusive poll for MailOnline by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, underline the level of nervousness among the population after a year of brutal lockdowns.

It comes as ministers try to rush through ‘Covid passports’ in time for the scheduled easing of the non-essential travel ban on May 17 – but will only reveal the UK’s ‘green list’ of countries on May 7 – as Spain talked up a quarantine-free travel corridor.

Greece says it is ready to welcome vaccinated British tourists immediately when its resorts open up on May 15, while Spain and Portugal say they will throw open their borders from June along with much of the EU.

Spanish Tourism Secretary, Fernando Valdés, said he wants UK holidaymakers to ‘restart holidays’ in six weeks, adding: ‘We are desperate to welcome you this summer. 

‘We’ve been having constant conversations with UK authorities’. Mr Valdes said a travel corridor between the two countries, allowing quarantine-free breaks, is firmly on the table but only with covid passports ‘easing’ the return of ‘safe’ travel.

The European Union’s ban on visitors in 2021 is not expected to apply to the UK because of its world-leading jab programme that has seen more than 33million get one dose and 10million of those receive both doses already.

A Government source told MailOnline that the Covid passport scheme would be in place next month to help people who want to travel to countries that are requiring proof of vaccination – but the source insisted that the key factor for Britons will be the rules on quarantine when returning to the UK.

‘You’ve got countries saying we will welcome you. But it depends what the precautions on return are. We will have that green, amber, red system. It is about what you face when you come back to the UK…. Can you isolate for 10 days?’, the insider said.

And they suggested that holidaymakers will not know what countries fall into what ‘traffic light’ category until around a week before May 17, probably May 7. The criteria for assessing countries are set to include whether there are variants of concern, how good their genomic scanning system is, vaccination levels, and overall infection levels.

‘That will all become clear much nearer the time,’ one source said. ‘India has just gone off… You’re going to book a holiday in Spain in June? Well, good luck, but just make sure you are insured.’

Britons are preparing for the ‘longest summer ever’ as lockdown-weary holidaymakers rush to go abroad as late as November to beat global Covid crackdowns.

Autumn bookings for international trips have seen an 80 per cent surge in interest compared to 2019 – as tour operators, hotels and airlines all report increased queries about later holidays.

It comes amid warnings that summer trips could be under threat if the Foreign Office advises against travel to green list countries.

The Government is preparing to lift the ban on international travel on May 17 and is finalising plans for a ‘traffic light’ system to determine which countries will be authorised destinations.

However, experts have warned of confusion because the Foreign Office is expected to publish its own advice which could differ from the colour-coded scheme.

This means if the FO advises against travel to a certain country – even if it is permitted by the traffic light system – holidaymakers could see their plans disrupted.

Most holiday companies will not operate services in countries the Foreign Office has advised against visiting.

Meanwhile, going to a country against government guidelines will invalidate travel insurance.

Britons keen to avoid potential holiday issues – and those concerned about a much-slower vaccine rollout in several European nations – are looking at going abroad much later in the year.

Online flight booking website Skyscanner told The Times that more sunseekers are looking at holidays in September, October and November now than they were in 2019.

Some 43 per cent of all bookings at Co-op Travel fell into the late-summer category.

It was earlier revealed that even destinations on the green or amber list – where travel is permitted – could be off-limits if the Foreign Office advises against travelling to them.

Their advice is based on factors such as the risk of individuals getting stuck by Covid restrictions or the capacity and quality of the country’s health services.