Sturgeon reveals no firm dates in Scottish exit plan
NICOLA STURGEON took a swipe at Boris Johnson yesterday as she revealed plans to exit lockdown in Scotland with no ‘false assurances’ or ‘arbitrary dates’.
Her plan came a day after Mr Johnson revealed a set timetable for lifting rules in England, ending on June 21.
Ms Sturgeon (pictured) instead said a phased approach would take place, with further news in mid-March once the impact of school reopenings was gauged.
Asked about Mr Johnson’s June 21 deadline, Scotland’s first minister said she could not commit to that ‘with any certainty at all. I don’t know what the grounding for that is’.
She said each stage would be separated by at least three weeks so officials could check the latest data before relaxing rules further.
The partial return of pupils to schools, which took place on Monday, was the first phase, she said, with the second set to take place no earlier than March 15. This is expected to involve more children returning to classrooms, including at secondary level, along with an increase in outdoor mixing to four people from two households. Communal worship, a further extension to outdoor mixing and a relaxation of rules about shop openings are also planned to be put in place from April 5, with Ms Sturgeon saying her ‘hope and expectation’ is that the stayat-home order would be lifted by then. She told the Scottish parliament that if all went to plan, the country would then move back to the levels system of restrictions from April 26.
Jo Bisset, of campaign group UsForThem Scotland, said the school reopening delay left secondary pupils ‘on the scrapheap’ and was a course that would ‘wreck their education and obliterate the formative years’.