Sturgeon denies possible travel bans would be ‘state over-reach’
NICOLA Sturgeon has said she may introduce legal limits on travel within Scotland to help curb the spread of coronavirus.
The First Minister told MSPS she was “actively considering” whether to move from advisory guidance to enforceable legislation next week.
She denied it would amount to “a massive over-reach of the state”, but refused to say if people could be asked to provide ID to show their address.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats called it a “hasty” measure that could punish people whose daily exercise crossed a council boundary.
At Holyrood’s Covid-19 Committee, Ms Sturgeon said recent data offered grounds for “cautious optimism”, with a slowing of new infections.
However, the situation remained fragile, with intensive care bed capacity being watched closely as she mulled whether to maintain the country’s current tier settings.
The levels that came into effect this week are due to be reviewed by the First Minister next Tuesday. Any changes would take effect from Friday, November 13.
Current guidance is generally to minimise or avoid all unnecessary travel and, in particular, not travel from a higher-level area to a lowerlevel area.
People are also asked not to travel into Level 3 areas or to England.
The First Minister said: “We are actively considering whether we give a legal underpinning in the future weeks to these travel restrictions, and I’ll probably say more about that at that review point next week.”
Later, at the daily briefing, she said that if travel restrictions were put into law, police were likely to enforce them with fines rather than driving licence points.
She admitted people could see such restrictions as “completely unacceptable”, but said the pandemic was an unprecedented situation.
She said: “The worst thing any government could do right now is not act quickly when required, and not take the action necessary to stop this virus transmitting, because the consequences of that will be severe.
“I don’t take any decisions about guidance versus legislation lightly.”
She said legal restrictions reflected the regional system now in
place instead of the country-wide lockdown as the start of the virus.
She said: “You couldn’t go from Glasgow to Inverness to have a pint because pubs were shut everywhere.
“When you have a different situation, you clearly have to have more emphasis on travel restrictions, otherwise you take the virus from the high-prevalence areas to the low-prevalence areas and it spreads everywhere.”
A new statute would empower the police to take action where “they have evidence people are flagrantly breaching the law”. “This is not an inappropriate over-reach of the state,” she said. “If it is that, it is about keeping people safe, and we’ve got to make sure those checks and balances are right and not lose sight of that central objective.”
She insisted any measure would comply with the European Convention on Human Rights.
“What may be judged to be completely unacceptable in a normal situation, you have to see through a different prism when it is about protecting people’s lives.”
Scottish Libdem leader Willie Rennie said: “Rather than hastily opting to use the law to enforce travel restrictions, we would prefer advice and encouragement.
“People need clarity about why measures like restricting non-essential travel are important. We don’t want a situation where the government is coming down hard on people who have gone to a park just over the border of the next council area.”
Tory MSP Donald Cameron added: “Any travel restrictions must avoid unnecessary confusion and they should be communicated clearly to the public. We cannot have another shambles like the SNP’S mixed messages over what’s a cafe and what’s a restaurant.
“If further restrictions are necessary to suppress the virus, they should be considered by Parliament, and the public should be left in absolutely no doubt about where they should and should not travel.”
Green MSP Mark Ruskell added: “If there is evidence that cross-boundary travel is importing the virus to areas with low infection rates then mandatory travel restrictions must be considered [and] include exemptions for essential journeys such as for crossboundary medical appointments.”