Covid tests free for Scots but not the English
Westminster calls time on the giveaway but Holyrood will continue, despite ‘not knowing how to pay for it’
PEOPLE in Scotland will continue to receive free Covid tests after they have been scrapped in England, as Nicola Sturgeon was accused of picking a fight with Westminster on the issue.
The First Minister yesterday said her administration would uphold the “principle” of free tests for all, but criticised the UK Government for failing to provide extra funding for them.
It follows Boris Johnson’s “Living with Covid” in England announcement on Monday, when he scrapped free tests for all but the most vulnerable from Apr 1 and ended mandatory selfisolation.
In Scotland, where the isolation requirement has never been enforced by law, Ms Sturgeon said guidance to isolate after a positive test result would remain and that laws forcing Scots to wear face masks and present vaccine passports would be scrapped, along with all remaining legal restrictions, on March 21.
She also expressed a desire for tests to remain free, even though Mr Johnson has scrapped the policy amid concerns about its £2bn monthly cost to the Treasury.
“We consider it important – in line with the principle of healthcare free at the point of use – that they should remain free of charge for any circumstance in which government recommends testing,” Ms Sturgeon told MSPS.
But she was yesterday unable to say how the Scottish Government would pay for the tests, expressing “frustration at the position of the UK Government” which, she said, may reject requests for extra money and “demand instead that funding is taken from elsewhere in the health budget”.
It is expected that free tests will eventually be scrapped in Scotland, but that the policy will run for longer than in England. Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, accused Ms Sturgeon of having “created a fight with the UK Government over this issue, just weeks before her own plans to scale back testing anyway”.
Yesterday Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, suggested that if Ms Sturgeon wanted free testing to continue, she should use a windfall that will be created by the Government’s increase in National Insurance Contributions (NICS), which is due to take effect at around the same time.
The way NICS are distributed between England and Scotland – known as the Barnett formula – means that the Scottish Government will receive around £150m more than Scots pay in extra contributions after the rise.
Mr Javid told the BBC that Scotland would receive “hundreds of millions of extra funding” and Ms Sturgeon was “free to decide how to spend it”, rather than demand additional funding from the UK Government in Westminster.
Craig Mackinlay, a Tory MP, told The Daily Telegraph: “In another six weeks, Covid is going to be back to really background levels, so to make that commitment, which could be better spent on other health measures that are woefully lacking in Scotland, seems to be a colossal waste of money.”
In England, where test kits will be free for the symptomatic and vulnerable and some healthcare workers, most people will be required to buy them from supermarkets or pharmacies.
Lateral flow tests cost £17 for a box of four, or £5.99 each, at Boots. But the retailer has said that by next month, it will have reduced the price to £15 for five tests or £2.50 for one.