The Department for Transport’s Stephen Powton revealed that the “joined up” consultation with the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (Bis) was expected to begin after next month’s referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU.

“We are working on it being before the summer holiday,” Powton told an Abta Travel Law Seminar in London. “If we need primary legislation, we expect it to be before the summer. It will be autumn for the second consultation on secondary legislation.”

The British government has until January 2018 to pass legislation that will ensure the UK meets the requirements of the PTD. Travel firms will then have another six months to implement the changes necessary to comply with the law changes by July 2018.

Powton would not be drawn on the potential impact of a vote to leave the EU on June 23. But he added: “There still could be a regime broadly in parallel to the Package Travel Directive. But these are discussions for the future, whatever comes out.”

Robert Scott, a policy advisor at Bis, said: “We are working and planning as if we are still going to be in the EU. We would have to review it – we cannot speculate on anything that happens after June 24.”

Abta’s head of public affairs Stephen D’Alfonso said the original plan by the government to consult on the PTD this spring had been affected by the run-up to the referendum, and he warned the timeframe was now becoming “tight”.

“Very little regulation or law-making has been going on in the UK parliament since the end of last year,” he said. “The government is entirely focused on keeping the UK in the EU and, as a result, we are seeing very little else happening in Westminster.

“The timescale is getting tight but it really depends on how the government approaches this. Initially we thought that there would be quite radical reforms to the Atol scheme, but now it is more likely to be a phased reform of Atol over a longer period of time.”