Burnham anger at Sturgeon over travel ban ‘hypocrisy’
Mayor demands compensation after Covid ‘double standards’
GREATER Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has accused the Scottish Government of treating the north of England with “contempt”.
Mr Burnham said he would write to Nicola Sturgeon to demand compensation for those affected by a travel ban between Scotland and Manchester and Salford.
The First Minister announced on Friday that all non-essential travel to Manchester and Salford would be banned from today.
She pinpointed the areas as Covid hotspots, despite figures in the cities matching case rates in parts of Scotland.
Mr Burnham said his administration was not contacted before the announcement and accused the Scottish Government of “double standards” and “hypocrisy”.
Speaking on the BBC’S Andrew Marr Show, the Labour mayor said: “I was really disappointed on Friday that the First Minister of Scotland just announced, out of the blue as far as we were concerned, a travel ban, saying that people couldn’t travel from Scotland to Manchester and Salford and couldn’t go the other way.
“That is exactly what the SNP always accuse the Westminster Government of doing, just riding roughshod over people.
“The SNP are treating the north of England with the same contempt in just bringing that in without any consultation with us.”
Asked how he felt about Scottish football fans “dancing and partying” on the streets of London when they will be banned from travelling to Manchester, he said: “I just think it’s double standards, it’s as simple as that.
“It’s hypocrisy, because they’ve done to us exactly what they always complain that the UK Government does to Scotland.
“I’ll be writing to the First Minister today.
“I’ll be asking for compensation for the individuals who might lose holidays and businesses who might lose bookings.
“Why should a couple from Salford who are double-jabbed who are about to go on a walking holiday in Scotland not be allowed to go? It’s completely disproportionate, in my view.
“We could have come up with a different arrangement if the First Minister had been in touch with us.
“The second thing I’ll say to her is – we need an arrangement here.
“The Scottish Government can’t just impose things on parts of the north of England with no discussion with us.
“That is simply wrong, and they need to live by the same standards that they’ve always called for from others.”
Yesterday, a senior legal figure
also criticised the travel ban.
Roddy Dunlop, QC, dean of the Faculty of Advocates, suggested it was “difficult to understand” given Manchester has similar coronavirus rates to Dundee.
He wrote on Twitter: “Consistency desperately needed here.”
Yesterday’s figures showed Scotland recorded 1,205 cases of coronavirus in the previous 24 hours, with no registered deaths.
It means the death toll under this daily measure
– of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – remains at 7,692.
Figures show 254,325 people have now tested positive for the virus and the daily test positivity rate is
5.8 per cent, up from 4.5% the previous day.
So far, 3,611,266 people have received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccination, up 19,628 on the previous day, and 2,555,308 have received their second dose, up 19,505.
NHS Lothian saw the highest number of new cases, at 321.
It was followed by Greater Glasgow and Clyde on 294 and Lanarkshire on 125.
Ivan Mckee, the SNP minister for business, trade, tourism and enterprise, said there was a “significant issue” with case prevalence in Manchester and Salford.
Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show, he said decisions are made quickly “because the virus moves quickly”, and are then communicated across the UK’S four governments.
He said: “Andy Burnham is going to write to the First Minister about it, that’s absolutely fine and I’m sure there will be a conversation about how we can keep him better informed in future going forward.
“But, as I say, those decisions are made based on the data, and the data is clear.
“They’re made quickly because the virus moves quickly, and they’re communicated across the four governments, as is the process that we follow.”
But Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross, speaking on the same show, said: “Ivan Mckee’s defence was that these decisions are taken very quickly and somehow there wasn’t time for the Scottish Government to notify Greater Manchester.
“We know that law was made on Thursday morning to introduce these restrictions into Greater Manchester and a ban on travel, yet it wasn’t announced until over 24 hours later.
“If Ivan Mckee says there’s not good enough dialogue between the UK Government and the Scottish Government, there was 24 hours that passed before anyone in Greater Manchester knew of a decision taken by the Scottish Government a day earlier.”