Stricter quarantine for all incoming travellers to Scotland to be introduced

Nicola Sturgeon has announced plans for stricter quarantine measures for incoming travellers into Scotland.

In a major diversion in policy away from the UK Government plans for quarantine for those arriving from areas with confirmed new variants, the First Minister said such a plan was “too reactive”.

Instead travellers into Scotland will be required to quarantine for two weeks in “managed” accommodation such as hotels.

All incoming travellers to Scotland from abroad will have to quarantine in hotels for two weeks.

Ms Sturgeon has previously said agreement on a four-nations basis was the main driver for not introducing stricter measures sooner.

She had previously said Scotland was not in the same position as New Zealand and Australia when it came to issues around borders.

No details on the new plans were announced by Ms Sturgeon, including no date for when travellers will start to be quarantined in hotels.

It is understood the aviation industry was not directly briefed on the plans or divergence with the UK before they were announced by the Scottish Government.

Speaking in Holyrood, the First Minister said: “It is to that end that the four UK nations have already agreed that travellers coming into the UK from countries with a travel ban in place will be required to quarantine in hotels.

“This is a necessary measure, but in the Scottish Government’s view, it does not go far enough. Firstly, there should be very few people coming from countries with a ban in place anyway.

“Second, this approach leaves open the possibility that people will travel into the UK from those countries via third countries.

“And thirdly, an approach to managed quarantine that only includes countries where new variants have already been identified is too reactive – because often by the time a new variant has been identified through genomic sequencing, it will already have spread across borders.”

Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Government will continue to urge the UK Government to adopt a stricter and “more comprehensive” approach. She said she could not “unilaterally implement” the measures for those travelling to Scotland after arriving into the UK from abroad.

The First Minister added: “So we will continue to urge the UK Government to adopt a comprehensive approach.

“And if they do not wish to do so – as is their prerogative – we will ask them to work with us to reduce the risk amongst people travelling to Scotland via ports elsewhere in the UK.

“We will set out more detail of how and when the managed quarantine system will be operationalised as soon as possible.”

In response to the announcement, Edinburgh Airport said it still did not know any details and claimed the plans would be “damaging”

A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said: "We still don't know how this is expected to work, when it is being enacted and what it means for airports and our industry so yet again we ask the Scottish Government to talk to us.

"Business changing policy with no detail is damaging because we can't plan our response or our recovery, which will feed into Scotland's recovery. We understand restrictions are required, but we're now coming up for a year of little to no passengers without direct industry support.

“We urgently need to agree a road map to recovery."

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.