Sturgeon may put in border controls
NICOLA Sturgeon has said she will not shy away from taking a decision to impose quarantine on English visitors to Scotland, but neither will it be a decision she takes lightly.
Asked on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday about the possibility of self-isolation for visitors from south of the border, the First Minister said the UK nations need to work together on outbreak management in a way that “mitigates against having to put any border restrictions in place”.
She said she is not “immediately planning” to implement a quarantine policy but will “take decisions the best I can to protect the health of Scotland and to take that absolutely from a public health perspective.”
She said the Scottish Government has to take a “very close look” to make sure the virus is not coming in to Scotland from other parts of the UK.
“This is not about saying to people in England ‘You are not welcome in Scotland’ – of course people in England are welcome in Scotland,” she said.
“This is not about politics, it’s not about a constitutional agenda, it’s just about taking decisions to protect people in Scotland as much as possible from Covid.”
Ms Sturgeon said she would like to see the UK Government be more explicit that it is trying to get to levels of coronavirus that are “virtually elimination levels”.
“We need to be sure that any outbreaks in England are being properly managed, just as England will want to be sure that any outbreaks in Scotland are properly managed,” she said. “It’s when there isn’t that confidence that the concerns about possible importation would grow.”
The First Minister also rejected comments from Chancellor Rishi Sunak that Covid-19 financial support is only possible because “we are a United Kingdom”.
She said: “These kind of nonsense points, frankly, I think are a bit regrettable and ridiculous, particularly given the severity of what we face.”