Sturgeon slams "shambolic" decision making in London
Last updated 3rd Jul 2020
Nicola Sturgeon said the UK Government's decision-making on air bridges has been "shambolic''.
Speaking during the Scottish Government's coronavirus briefing, the First Minster said: "When so much is at stake as it is right now we can't allow ourselves to be dragged along in the wake of, to be quite frank about it, another government's shambolic decision process.''
"We want to welcome visitors again from around the world and we also want to allow our own citizens to travel.
"We also want, if possible for obvious practical reasons, to have alignment on these matters with the rest of the UK.''
She said it has been really challenging'' for Scotland to come to a position on the UK Government proposals with speed.
But she said that it is very likely'' that the Scottish Government will be able to agree the low-risk countries on the air bridge list over the next few days.
Nicola Sturgeon said it had been "really quite challenging for Scotland to come to a position'' on UK Government proposals to lift quarantine restrictions on those flying into the county from other parts of the world.
She said there were "difficult and complex'' decisions to be made, and added: "Just to illustrate the point (on) the shifting sands of the UK Government's position - the list of countries that they were yesterday demanding that the Scottish Government sign up to, and suggesting we were a barrier to getting an agreement on, is not the same as the list they have shared with us today.''
She said the Scottish Government would need to analyse the proposals "properly and rationally'' from both a public health perspective and a legal perspective before coming to their own decision, and that her officials have assessed the prevalence of coronavirus in Scotland is five times lower right now than it is in England.
The First Minister added: "When so much is at stake, as it is right now, we can't allow ourselves to be dragged along in the wake of another government's, to be quite frank, shambolic decision making process.
"So we will take time to properly and rationally consider this before hopefully very soon setting out our own decision.
"I think I can say now it is likely, very likely, that we will be able to agree the list of countries the UK has categorised as low-risk, although we will need to do a proper assessment of that.
But we need to take some particular care in our assessment of the risk categorised as medium-risk, because that is where there may be some countries that have a higher prevalence of the virus than Scotland does right now.''
She said she hoped a decision could be made "quickly''.
Ms Sturgeon also suggested Scots who are "desperate'' to book a summer holiday could take a break in Scotland this year, supporting the local tourism sector at a time when they have probably never needed that support more''.
"We want to welcome visitors again from around the world, and of course we also want to allow our own citizens to travel.
"That is important for our tourism sector, it is important for our aviation sector, and it is important for our economy generally.''
But she stressed: "We must make sure we open our country up again safely and we absolutely must make sure the decisions we take don't put at risk the progress we have made in tackling Covid.''
She said measures such as requiring those coming into a country to quarantine became "arguably more important'' as levels of the virus in Scotland fall.
"When there are low levels of the virus here one of the key risks we have to manage... is the possibility of new cases of the virus coming into Scotland from outside,'' she said.
"That risk is of course greater when people might be coming to Scotland from countries where the virus is still more prevalent than it now is here at home.''
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