No checks under quarantine laws
‘Isolating’ air passengers not visited due to security issues
NOT a single air passenger arriving in Scotland from abroad has had a quarantine check, the health secretary has admitted.
Jeane Freeman said yesterday that a ‘problem’ with security clearance for staff meant that passenger checks could not be carried out.
Under current laws, everyone arriving in the UK from abroad must quarantine for 14 days – with fines of up to £5,000 for those who fail to do so.
From Friday, people arriving in England from more than 60 countries will no longer need to self-isolate.
Nicola Sturgeon has yet to sign up to the plan for ‘air bridges’, leading to accusations the First Minister is ‘playing politics’ with the issue.
It emerged yesterday that the current quarantine laws in Scotland have not been enforced since they were introduced on June 8.
Last night, a UK Government source said the Scottish Government’s protests about air bridges were ‘completely unfounded given quarantine hasn’t been in place for those arriving over the last month’.
Miss Freeman admitted on the BBC’s Politics Scotland programme that no quarantine checks had been carried out on visitors arriving in Scotland, or those returning home from overseas – despite apparently strict quarantine laws.
She said this was because staff did not have security clearance to access passenger details, so they could not check if people were self-isolating.
Security clearance has now been approved, allowing Public Health Scotland (PHS) officials access to the Home Office systems and meaning passenger checks will begin this week.
Miss Freeman said: ‘Our officials had to get that necessary security clearance in order to be able to access that data that then allows the follow-up calls to be made. That’s now thankfully resolved and those calls begin this week.’
Despite insisting that checks would begin this week, Miss Freeman could not say specifically when this would be.
Asked whether Scotland was the only part of the UK where no checks had been made, she said: ‘I don’t know about Northern Ireland or Wales.
‘I know Public Health England have been able to do that, but they are part of the Home Office system.
‘We were not part of the Home Office system.’
The revelation comes just days after Chief Constable Iain Livingstone said Police Scotland cannot enforce the quarantine law because PHS does not inform it of any breaches.
Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw said this was the ‘latest testing and checking failure by the SNP’ during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said: ‘From care homes to NHS workers, the whole testing scheme has been a mess. It’s clear that behind Nicola Sturgeon there is an entire team simply not up to the task.’
It comes as a row between Miss Sturgeon and the UK Government continues over the introduction of air bridges.
On Friday, it was announced that from July 10 air bridges will be introduced, meaning people in England can travel to a number of destinations without having to quarantine on their return.
However, the policy has led to a public dispute between the UK Government and Scottish Government – with Miss Sturgeon branding Boris Johnson’s approach ‘shambolic’.
So far, Miss Sturgeon has failed to sign up to the air bridges policy, citing her concerns over the prevalence of the virus in Scotland which is lower than it is elsewhere in the UK, and in some of the countries included on the list.
Writing in the Scottish Mail on Sunday, Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said Miss Sturgeon was ‘stopping hard-working families from getting the summer holiday they are desperate for’. He said she was ‘penalising our struggling hospitality, tourism and airline industries’ and urged her to ‘put politics aside’.
It is understood that Miss Sturgeon will make an announcement about air bridges on Tuesday.
‘An entire team not up to the task’