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Coronavirus testing at airports can give a “false sense of security,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, following suggestions that it could be used to reduce quarantine times for travelers.
Johnson said the on-arrival tests would only identify 7% of virus cases.
It comes after a senior Conservative MP backed calls from the struggling aviation sector to introduce testing at airports.
Former Brexit secretary David Davis said the tests could reduce quarantine times to “less than five days.”
But speaking during a visit to Solihull, the prime minister rejected Davis’s comments, saying: “The quarantine system that we have has to be an important part of our repertoire, of our toolbox, in the fight against Covid.”
The BBC has been told that a cabinet decision on the introduction of tests at airports has been repeatedly postponed and may now never happen.
Johnson said that while he understood “the difficulties” facing the airline industry, “93% of the time you could have a false sense of real security, a false sense of confidence when you arrive and take a test.”
People entering the UK face 14 days of self-isolation unless they are traveling from countries that are exempt, a decision determined by the separate authorities of the four nations.
Johnson also insisted that the UK was “overwhelmingly … proceeding as one” regarding quarantine rules, after its transport secretary admitted that the different rules in the four nations were “confusing.”
Earlier, Grant Shapps defended the decision not to place restrictions on people entering England from Greece and Portugal, even though Scotland and Wales chose to do so.
He described Portugal as a “border”, adding that “the opinion of England and Northern Ireland is that it does not justify the quarantine this week.”
Shapps said the four nations “often come up with slightly different results, which I appreciate is confusing for people.”
In Wales, people must now be quarantined for two weeks if they arrive from Portugal, Gibraltar or six Greek islands: Crete, Mykonos, Zakynthos (also known as Zante), Lesbos, Paros and Antiparos.
Arrivals in Scotland from Portugal and French Polynesia must be isolated from 04:00 on Saturday. Scotland has already reintroduced quarantine for arrivals from Greece.
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The rules apply to where passengers live, not where they fly back to, so a traveler flying to England and living in Wales must comply with Welsh quarantine rules.
Portugal, Greece, and French Polynesia still feature on England and Northern Ireland’s travel broker lists.
Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye has been urging the government to introduce tests at airports since May, arguing it will help save the economy.
Speaking ahead of the prime minister’s comments, Holland-Kaye told the BBC that on-site testing facilities had already been set up and they were “waiting for the government to give us the go-ahead.”
“It’s frustrating that the government just hasn’t made a decision to go ahead with this, when the governments of other countries in Europe are moving forward and making it happen,” he said.
Some countries, such as Iceland, offer travelers an option upon arrival if they have stayed in areas with high levels of the virus: Anyone entering must be quarantined for 14 days or get tested for Covid-19.
It occurs when another 10 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus in the UK, according to the latest figures.
Another 1,940 people tested positive for the virus, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 342,351.
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