The transport secretary said test providers had been focused on PCR and were not ready for mass lateral flow testing.

Shapps was answering questions from parliament’s transport committee. Committee member Ben Bradshaw said the government was putting travel’s half-term reboot in danger. 

“Why wait until possibly the end of October to switch from PCR to lateral flow tests?” Bradshaw asked. “It is exactly the same companies that provide the Day 2 PCR tests as provide lateral flow tests. 

“They could provide them now if you just changed the rules now, so why are you potentially jeopardising the very important half-term for the industry which would be a lifesaver for many companies and dragging your feet on this?”

Shapps said the matter was one for the Department for Health and Social Care, which understood the importance of the issue to the travel industry, but added: 

“My understanding is the ramp up of supply of lateral flow through the private testing sector has some way to go, in as much as they have been almost entirely involved in providing PCRs currently.

“I think it’s just a question of scale, we’re going from a situation where they probably provide the low number of thousands to probably millions of tests very quickly and they need a few weeks to scale up on it.”

Shapps also said he would not step in to regulate prices charged by test companies.

“I’m a believer in the market, that competition drives prices down. I hope we see lateral flow tests for much more reasonable prices,” he said.

Technical changes were also required to Passenger Locator Forms before lateral flow tests could be accepted for travel. 

“The sooner this can happen the better,” Shapps said.