Quarantine ‘sledgehammer’ won’t be reviewed for Scottish holidays

The 14-day quarantine being imposed on arrivals to the UK is “a sledgehammer to crack a nut”, shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray has said.

Mr Murray argued that a policy of testing all travellers within 48 hours of their arrival could protect the UK from importing the virus, while quarantine would be a “massive hindrance” to the recovery of the tourism and hospitality sectors.

His comments came as the Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the daily coronavirus briefing from Downing Street that a three-week review of the measures introduced yesterday would not be moved forward to take account of Scottish school holidays.

MPS from all parties have appealed for clarity on whether the UK could agree air bridges with countries that have low rates of coronavirus infection.

But updating the Commons, Home Secretary Priti Patel was unable to provide further detail, insisting that the policy was informed by “medical and scientific advice”.

“It is a massive hindrance to progress not just for tourism but for all the other aspects of the economy as well,” Mr Murray said about the quarantine.

“It seems like a sledgehammer to crack a nut because what we’ve been quite clearly saying is you get everyone into the country, they get tested within 48 hours, they get a result from that test and if they are negative in that result they can just go into the main lockdown regulations as everyone else, if they are positive they have to isolate as per the lockdown rules.

“Now that lockdown is being eased you have to find a way of treating people who come into the country differently.” and surely the way of treating them differently is to temperature check.”