Sturgeon faces call for data that sparked U-turn

BY CHRIS McCALL THE Scottish Government’s Spain quarantine U-turn has been branded “shambolic” as thousands of Scots holidaymakers face the prospect of selfisolating for two weeks upon their return home.

The decision came just days after the Scottish Government had relaxed restrictions on travellers from Spain by adding the country to the green list of air bridges.

This follows earlier confusion three weeks ago when Boris Johnson cleared Spain for UK tourists – but the Scottish Government kept it on a list of countries that required quarantine.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie yesterday wrote to Nicola Sturgeon, urging her to publish the data that led to the U-turn so soon after the country was initially given the exemption.

The decision to remove Spain from the exemption list was taken across Britain.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said yesterday the UK Government would “not apologise” for reimposing strict quarantine rules at short notice.

The sudden timing of the announcement was criticised by the travel sector and consumer rights groups but Raab said ministers had been right to take “swift” action.

In his letter to Sturgeon, Rennie said: “It is little surprise that you were obliged to reverse that decision on Saturday evening.

“This is now a shambolic situation and there is a big question as to how Scottish ministers have made such poorquality decisions.

“I must ask again: why did you release the quarantine from Spain when the infection rate was many times higher than when you imposed the quarantine? If it was not safe to lift the quarantine measures three weeks ago, how had it been judged safe to do so earlier this week?”

Justice secretary Humza Yousaf defended the move, saying: “The decision to exempt Spain earlier this week was taken when the data

LETTER Willie Rennie showed there was an improvement in the spread of the virus. But clearly the latest data has given us cause for concern to overturn that decision.”

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: “Our overriding priority is public safety and continuing to suppress the virus.

“Where evidence emerges that causes concern – as it has done in Spain – we must act quickly.

“The situation with coronavirus around the world can change rapidly and the First Minister has advised that a cautious approach should be taken to foreign travel because of that unpredictability.

“We have been clear that we may require to remove a country from the list of places exempt from quarantine requirements should the virus show a resurgence.”

Yousaf later tweeted that data belonged to the UK Government and therefore cannot be released by Holyrood but said he had written to Westminster to see if it could be published.

The quarantine U-turn was made after Spain recorded more than 900 fresh daily Covid-19 cases for two days running.

Raab told Sky News yesterday: “The data we got was on the Friday, it showed a big jump right across mainland Spain, that was then assessed yesterday afternoon and we took the decision as swiftly as we could.

“And we can’t make apologies for doing so.

“We must be able to take swift, decisive action, particularly in relation to localised, or internationally in relation to Spain or a particular country, where we see we must take action.

“Otherwise, we risk reinfection into the UK, potentially a second wave here and then another lockdown.”