UK ministers have said they will not adopt Scotland’s harsher hotel quarantine regime, increasing the prospect of checkpoints being erected on the English border.
Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, dismissed SNP calls to impose mandatory quarantine in hotels for all travellers from outside the British isles, saying it was “not practical” and would close off vital supply routes for essential goods such as Covid vaccines.
In Scotland, all international arrivals, not just those arriving from 33 “red list” countries as is the case in England, will have to go through 10 nights of state-supervised quarantine from Monday.
However, there is a flaw in the SNP plan, with nothing currently in place to stop Scottish residents flying into England from non-red list countries and then travelling to Scotland by road or rail.
Although discussions are ongoing, UK Government sources last night played down the prospect of Tory ministers agreeing to the SNP’s proposed solution, which would see Scots identified at English airports and then forced to quarantine south of the border.
Michael Matheson, the SNP transport secretary, also suggested the Scottish Government was considering road and rail checks at the border with England to prevent Scots from trying to cheat the new curbs, if necessary.
“We’re looking at the possibility of a range of measures and whether the individual should then have to come to a quarantine facility within Scotland,” he said.
“However, the danger with that approach and the challenge with that approach is that it involves individuals travelling potentially on public transport to get to that particular facility.”
Six hotels have been block-booked in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, with up to 1,300 rooms available. Travellers arriving into Scotland will be forced to pay £1,750 for the compulsory stay.
Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly pressed the UK Government to follow her lead by imposing a blanket quarantine requirement, with only very limited exceptions.
She has claimed this is necessary to prevent the reimportation of the virus and potentially dangerous new strains. However, Mr Shapps dismissed the call on Wednesday.
“Scotland is in a slightly different position,” he said. “A lot of their supply chain comes through England.
“If we were to do what Scotland have done we would actually be closing off their supply routes for critical goods.
“Sometimes people need to come and go, we wouldn’t have the vaccines, we wouldn’t have medicine for all sorts of purposes, we wouldn’t have food on the shelves
“There would be massive social costs and economic costs. That’s not practical.”
It is likely that the rules north of the border will remain in place for several months, meaning an effective ban on overseas summer holidays for Scots, even once existing travel restrictions are eased.
Mr Matheson suggested that lifting of restrictions could only come once vaccination programmes had been rolled out across the world, not just in Scotland.
“We don’t want these restrictions to be in place any longer than they have to be," he said.
“But one of the principal reasons that we are introducing the quarantine or the managed isolation provision in Scotland is to protect the roll-out of our vaccination programme.
“So the likelihood of any change in this is going to be dependent upon the roll-out of our own vaccination programme, and the progress it’s made internationally in the roll-out of the vaccination programme.”
Meanwhile, airport chiefs hit out at the lack of consultation on the plans.
An Edinburgh airport spokesman said: “We await to hear how they intend to implement this, how it will be enforced, who will enforce it and what we are being asked to contribute.
“The requirement for restrictions is understood, but we also need to know when we and many other businesses impacted by this decision can expect support to allow us to plan for some sort of recovery.”
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