'Abta has fought for us and its critics have been unfair'

Josephides, who in the past has been publicly critical of the association of which he served at the helm from 2013 to 2019, argued those who had not dealt with Westminster policymakers “would not understand the amount of work Abta has put in to get the message across” on certain issues, such as refunds.

"I’d rate the performances of individual ministers [during this crisis] very low. They are very good at opening their mouths without much forethought and very little charm,” he said.

“It’s an inexperienced government, you can see it very plainly and the biggest problem we have had is – right at the beginning as soon as this crisis struck – there were all sorts of voucher schemes out there and Abta came on the scene with the Refund Credit Note [RCNs], which regularised what all of us were doing. But trying to get that common sense approach to government has really been impossible."

“We are faced with inexperienced civil servants who do not understand the industry,” he added, slamming government for “trashing the reputation of the industry” through its inaction over RCNs.