'Meet the new secretary of state for package holidays – Jacob Rees-Mogg'

The Package Travel Regulations fall within the ambit of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis), which is now the home of Jacob Rees-Mogg, described by one commentator as ’the minister for the eighteenth century’.

It seems very unlikely that he is a fan of package holidays, and probably has little or no comprehension of how they are created.

That said, when his new department began a review of the UK regulations last year, Rees-Mogg lobbied on behalf of the UK Tourism Alliance for UK packages to be excluded from the regulations altogether, an outcome that many – including what is now his own department – objected to, and nothing changed in that regard.

Beis began a series of workshops in 2021 to discuss with the industry exactly what could be done to make the regulations easier to work with.

At the same time, the EU Commission began a review of the original Package Travel Directive on which the regulations are based, and found some of the same issues appeared to be concerning the travel industry in Europe.

On the issue of refunds, European operators want a legal right to offer refund credit notes as an alternative to refunds on a permanent basis. Here in the UK, Atol protection for RCNs ends in a couple of weeks time.

Everyone has agreed the rules on the right to cancel and obtain a refund are confusing and, most importantly, it seems agreed Linked Travel Arrangements confuse everyone, give very little protection and should be removed altogether so sales are either packages or there are not.

After many months of deliberation, Beis – through the lead civil servant on package holidays – agreed to tinker, to very little effect, with the definitions, but could offer no major changes.

A week later, she was removed from the post and moved to nuclear fuels, an indication of just how wide a portfolio Beis actually has to deal with.

Now the prospect is that unless the secretary of state comes under sustained pressure from other MPs, further important changes to the regulations seem very unlikely indeed unless there is a serious sedan chair accident in the near future.

Alan Bowen is legal advisor to the Association of Atol Companies and former head of legal services at Abta. He has more than 30 years experience in the travel industry.