Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said ministers had agreed a new testing regime that would reduce the need for quarantine upon entry to the UK.
The new regime would comprise “a single test, provided by the private sector and at the cost to the passenger after a period of self-isolation”.
Addressing the Aviation 2050 conference on Monday he said: “I’ve heard a lot of people saying ‘why has it taken so long?’. The answer is simply this – we weren’t sitting on our backsides doing nothing. What we were actually doing was defining a lot of the [scientific] detail.
“We have already worked incredibly fast in the 10 days since [the taskforce] was been set up. We’re talking to vast parts of the testing industry.
“I’m hopeful this will happen very quickly. It will now depend on the [testing] industry’s ability to provide it. I don’t want to overpromise about something that’s not in my hands directly.
“This will now be in the hands of the private sector to make sure sufficient tests are available – we’ve said from the start this cannot impact on NHS testing capacity.
“But yes [it could be in use by 1 December], with the simple proviso that the testing capacity is there in the private sector to do it – they tell us it is – but I’m extremely hopeful.
“It’s confusing for passengers when every nation has a different scheme in place – we need a global system and the UK will show leadership for developing a framework for international travel to provide global consistency.”
