LOL, this logic is just ignorant and doesn't make any sense. Your taxes are paying for people sitting around and doing nothing at a lot of these NHS test centres to start off with (which is why I said capacity is not being used up). Secondly, it is your taxes that are paying the furlough for hundreds of thousands of people in the travel industry who are staying at home doing literally nothing. If testing was affordable, then the government would not be paying millions in furlough, because more people would be flying, therefore more people in the travel industry would be working instead of staying home doing nothing, collecting your tax money.
...it's almost like the government doesn't want to make it easy for people to travel abroad right now...
I do however agree that there appears to be a lot of thumb twiddling going on at test stations that I pass by regularly. And there is definitely thumb twiddling going on at vaccination centres, although that is sporadic based on vaccine availability on any given week.
If these people are employed, then give them more work, and by all means charge a nominal fee for commercially driven testing (ie if you want your passport number included, charge £30 or whatever for the privilege). Maybe we could even recoup a bit of the wider cost to the taxpayer...