Letter from the Health and Social Care Secretary to the CMA: 6 August 2021
Published 11 August 2021
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From:
Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
39 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0EU
To:
Dr Andrea Coscelli CBE
Chief Executive
Competition and Markets Authority
25 Cabot Square
London E14 4QZ
6 August 2021
Dear Andrea,
I am keenly aware of the excellent work that the CMA has undertaken during this COVID-19 pandemic and am grateful for the role you continue to play in working to protect consumers and hardworking families across the country from exploitative practices such as excessive pricing or misleading claims about products.
Our world-leading vaccination programme has helped to save thousands of lives and given us a protective wall which has enabled us to restore so many experiences that we’ve all been missing, like the opportunity to travel abroad.
However, I know that for too many people the cost of PCR testing can act as a barrier, especially for families who want to travel together. We have all experienced enormous disruption to our lives over this pandemic but it is not right if some families experience yet further disruption unnecessarily because of potentially unfair practices in the market for private travel tests.
It is important that the sensible measures we have introduced at the borders are fair and transparent and don’t involve unnecessary costs or low-quality provision to people who have made so many sacrifices during this pandemic.
It is for these reasons that I am writing to you to ask you to conduct a rapid high-level review of the market for PCR travel tests to assess what action might be taken to ensure that consumers do not face unnecessarily high costs or other poor provision. I would be grateful if you would provide me with advice on what further steps we might take to stamp out any exploitative behaviour in this market and would also urge you to take action to prevent such exploitation where you can under your existing powers.
I would be very grateful if you could keep me and my officials abreast of developments in relation to this and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours ever,
Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP