Coronavirus UK: Police WON’T set up road blocks to enforce Scotland border crossing ban

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Two million Scots were tonight plunged into a draconian Level Four lockdown, as police insisted they won’t set up a patrol to enforce plans to make crossing the border illegal. 

Entering or leaving Scotland without a reasonable excuse was banned from 6pm today and anyone caught doing so could now be hit with a £60 fine. 

People living within Level Three or Level Four lockdown areas – which includes vast swathes of central Scotland – are also not permitted to leave their area. 

And in Level Four all non-essential shops have tonight been forced to close for three weeks alongside restaurants, cafes and bars.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said the stricter restrictions will ‘lower the risk’ of people getting Covid-19 at Christmas, with Scotland today confirming 32 deaths and 1,018 new cases.

But some experts have claimed rules on crossing the border cannot be legally put in place by the Scottish parliament, with one MP warning: ‘Any self-respecting lawyer would advise a client not to pay a fine.’

Shoppers in Glasgow, which was plunged under Level Four restrictions tonight, made a last-minute dash for Christmas presents as shops prepared to close for three weeks.

Some stores in the city’s Buchanan Street and Argyle Street – including TK Maxx, Debenhams and House of Fraser – closed ahead of the 6pm deadline, leaving a few frustrated shoppers searching for gifts elsewhere.

The High Street was left deserted as the 6pm cut-off hit, with employees seen pulling the metal shutters down on stores. 

At the Berwick border in Northumberland, police made no moves to actively enforce the crossing ban while traffic continued to flow slowly between England and Scotland. 

Around 15 miles away in the village of Coldstream, it appeared to be business as usual in the Borders as cars and lorries continued to pass through.     

Cumbria Police today confirmed to MailOnline they would not be conducting border checks and would expect anyone travelling to England to comply with the English lockdown rules currently in place.

As Ms Sturgeon faced a growing backlash over the new rules:

• Scotland has recorded 32 deaths from coronavirus and 1,018 positive tests in the past 24 hours;
• There was a mass rush to the shops in areas entering Level 4 lockdown as families tried to do their Christmas shopping before the new rules begin;
• Nicola Sturgeon is considering whether tougher curbs will be necessary in January as a result of relaxing lockdown rules at Christmas;
• Ministers said they hope to vaccinate one million Scots against coronavirus by the end of January in the biggest immunisation programme ever. 

Ms Sturgeon announced the latest restrictions for Scotland on Tuesday in yet another attempt to slow the spread of Covid-19. 

However, a list of bizarre exceptions to the rules have been put in place which would allow the travel restrictions to be breached. 

Scots are permitted to leave the country – or their locked down area – to feed an animal, donate blood or take a driving test. Exemptions to the travel ban also apply for more common essential travel reasons, including for health, work or for school. 

Gill and Iain Dickson, who live in the border village of Coldstream, Scotland were tonight careful not to cross the border line into England as they usually would while on their evening stroll. 

The pair, in their mid-50s, are in favour of the travel ban despite the restrictions meaning they will not be able to see their daughters, who live in England, for three weeks.

Mrs Dickson said tonight: ‘I technically can’t see my daughters for three weeks now. That will make a difference for me but we’ve kept a close eye on it all from the beginning. 

‘People are generally quite happy around here with [the restrictions], but there are a lot of people who work and cross the border. There will still be cross-border traffic.’ 

Her husband added: ‘I think if people had just behaved themselves, stayed on the area and do what they were asked to do instead of moving around, they wouldn’t have caused the problem. I think it’s absolutely right to do it.’ 

However, some passing through the border at Berwick ahead of the 6pm cut-off did not share the couple’s positive attitude.  

Mark Watt, who was in Berwick visiting an ill relative, said he didn’t understand how people crossing the border can be policed. He faces a 220-mile trip back to his home in Aberdeenshire on Sunday, two days after the closure. 

‘They can’t really stop you,’ he said. ‘People cross the border for a lot of reasons. 

‘However, you probably shouldn’t be leaving your area to do non-essential things like shopping. I’m only down here visiting a relative who is very poorly, it’s probably the last time I’ll see her. ‘ 

Mr Watt, 52, added: ‘Unless they stop every car and ask about their reason for crossing, how are they going to police it? 

‘A lot of people have genuine reasons for crossing the border, I’ll be crossing it one way or the other to get home.’     

Alan Brown, from Berwick, has been a taxi driver for eight years but now faces uncertainty over where he can and can’t travel for work following tonight’s 6pm deadline. 

‘I think it’s a ridiculous idea,’ the 37-year-old said. ‘There’s people who cross the border who need to do things like see their family. ‘I think it’s another one of Nicola Sturgeon’s daft ideas and I think it’s just her stroking her ego. 

‘To be honest, the dual carriageway in Berwick isn’t the only way of getting in and out of Scotland – people can use other ways. 

‘If they’re going to do it properly then they’re going to have to spend a fortune doing it. They don’t have enough police as it is to patrol the streets so I don’t know where they’re going to find the resources to do it. 

‘For us at work, it means we’re going to suffer as a result of this. We can’t do jobs either side of the border depending on what the terms and conditions are at work. 

‘I’m not 100 per cent sure how things are going to pan out.’

Michele Kane, who lives in Eyemouth just north of the border, admitted the travel ban is a ‘contentious issue’ but added it ‘makes sense in terms of controlling Covid-19.’

‘It will bring some difficulties for locals,’ she said. ‘For me personally though I think it’s a good move. People are actually dying from coronavirus. We have still got the shops open and we’re not in complete lockdown. 

‘I don’t go through the border much to be honest. Fundamentally, I just stay in my home town usually so it shouldn’t effect me too much.   

But despite a mixed opinion of the restrictions, Ms Sturgeon tonight insisted the new restrictions will help infection rates come down further before the Christmas period.

‘The fact is the fewer people who are in the population who have Covid by the time we get to Christmas, the lower the risk of people being infected with it during that period,’ she told the Scottish Government’s daily coronavirus briefing.

‘It’s very important for me to be clear that the risks would not be zero – which is why we must be very careful about any relaxation over Christmas and people will have to think carefully themselves, even with any relaxation, about what they want to do or not.’   

On Thursday, Ms Sturgeon said the chief medical officers of the UK nations have been tasked with developing a ‘concrete’ proposal for household mixing, details of which could be revealed next week.

Ms Sturgeon also said the new travel restrictions are ‘vital’ to ensure there is no need for a national lockdown. 

‘These travel restrictions – nobody likes them, I don’t like them – but they are vital in helping us minimise these risks,’ she said. ‘They are vital in helping us avoid having the whole country in the same level or restrictions.

‘It is these travel restrictions that mean that even although the central belt has to be in Level 4, we can avoid the Highlands or Edinburgh or parts of the country with lower prevalence being in Level 4 too.’

The First Minister admitted to being ‘utterly scunnered and fed up’ with new coronavirus restrictions.

But she said life could return to some semblance of normality by spring, with the Scottish Government hoping to have vaccinated one million Scots by the end of January.

‘These restrictions are difficult and we are all scunnered and fed up, and I’m not going to stand here and pretend otherwise because I feel that same sense of being utterly scunnered and fed up as the rest of you do,’ she said.

‘But we do now see a possible end in sight and I think it’s really important that we don’t forget that.’

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has dubbed the travel ban a ‘poorly conceived and ill-considered piece of legislation rather than the evidence-based intervention we need,’ adding: ‘It risks uneven application and, as a result, uneven treatment across Scotland and the risk is this uncertainty will eat away at the trust of the public.’ 

Conservative MSP Adam Tomkins has also claimed there are ‘serious legal questions to be asked about the draft regulations published by the Scottish Government which include rules about who may ‘enter and remain in’ Scotland.’ 

He added: ‘These rules appear to affect British and Irish citizens across the UK and Ireland. Is this within Holyrood’s competence? For one thing, freedom of movement would appear to be expressly reserved to the UK Parliament under the Scotland Act.’

‘For another, it’s not clear that the Scottish parliament can make rules contrary to the common travel area, as agreed to by the UK and Ireland.

‘It’s not at all clear if the draft regulations published today are within the remit of the Scottish parliament. There are, at least, grave doubts about the legal competence to act in the way Scottish ministers propose.’

Liberal Democrat MSP Mike Rumbles warned that ‘any self-respecting lawyer would advise a client not to pay a fine’ while Mr Leonard slammed the ban as ‘deeply flawed’.

The Scottish Labour leader added: ‘People want a government that works with them, not against them, on things such as the travel restrictions.

‘As things stand, the best-case scenario is that the travel ban will confuse them; the worst-case scenario is that it will criminalise them.’ 

The travel regulations, published on Thursday, only a day before they came into force, set out restrictions between Scotland an other parts of the common travel area: England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

Under the heading ‘restrictions on leaving Scotland’, the regulations state that ‘a person who lives in Scotland must not leave Scotland for the purpose of entering or remaining in a place within the common travel area’.

Speaking about people crossing the border to England, a spokesman for Cumbria Police said today: ‘Anyone travelling to England must comply with the English Regulations.

‘This means that they must have a valid reason for leaving their home e.g. work, study, shopping for essentials, exercise and they must abide by other regulations including not staying overnight away from their home.

‘The same applies for people from England travelling to Scotland so anybody travelling to Scotland must make themselves aware of the Regulations in the area of Scotland they intend to travel to.

‘Cumbria Police are not conducting any sort of border checks and will continue to us the 4E approach to compliance, using Enforcement regardless of where people may have started their journey.’ 

The restrictions on entering Scotland say: ‘A person who lives in a place within the common travel area mentioned in paragraph 4 must not enter or remain in Scotland’.

However, the regulations do set out that travel can take place ‘in order to reach a place outwith Scotland’. 

Dr Nick McKerrell, a senior lecturer in law at Glasgow Caledonian University and an expert in human rights law, told the Scotsman: ‘Public health is a long-standing reason for state intervention limiting individuals’ human rights.

‘However, the big difference with a legal enforcement of a travel ban within local authority boundaries are that for it to be operationally possible, it requires giving arbitrary powers to the police to stop random cars.

‘This is something we do not allow in our law for drink driving offences – there needs to be a reason that the police stop the car.

‘What sort of drivers will be stopped under the travel ban? People driving late at night? People driving near local authority boundaries? People whose cars are registered outwith the area they are travelling in? No one knows. It is in that legal climate that abuse of human rights becomes more likely.

‘The law when published will need to be explicitly clear on what precise power it is giving to police officers.’ 

A Scottish government spokesman told the Guardian that the regulations are ‘entirely within the remit of the Scottish parliament’.

They added: ‘Restrictions on unnecessary travel are in place in law in various forms in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland and in many parts of Europe. In Scotland they are necessary to underpin an approach that puts different parts of the country under different levels of protective measures.’

The First Minister added: ‘In a situation like this, it is absolutely incumbent on somebody like me to do my level best to do the right things and the necessary things, even if these are not always popular or welcome things.

‘I would be failing in my responsibility if I didn’t do that on travel restrictions.’ 

Eleven council areas in West Central Scotland, with a total population of 2.3million, entered Level 4 lockdown at 6pm today.

All non-essential shops as well as pubs, restaurants, cafes, swimming pools, gyms and tourist attractions are forced to shut.

Last night, shoppers flocked to their local highstreets to enjoy one last hit of non-essential shopping before the rules kick in.

Pictures showed vast swathes of locals taking advantage of the shops before they – along with gyms and beauty salons – have to close their doors.

What was previously guidance asking Scots to avoid travel into or out of Level 3 or Level 4 areas will now be put into law, with a £60 fine levied against those who break the rules.

And yesterday, MSPs voted by 99 to 23 to back the restrictions. The parliamentary debate was not to approve or reject the changes, but to express the support of the parliament for the regulations.

An amendment by the Conservatives, which was voted down by 71 votes to 51, called for the Scottish Government to publish evidence for the move into the highest level of restrictions.

Scottish Labour attempted to amend the Government motion to strip away the travel ban and push for mass testing and improvements to Test and Protect, but MSPs rejected the amendment by 99 to 22.

A Green amendment pushing the Scottish Government to improve support for self-isolating people also passed unanimously.

Closing the debate, Transport Secretary Michael Matheson said: ‘Despite some of the differences of opinion that have been shared this afternoon, I am in no doubt … we all have a shared objective of seeking to suppress the virus as best we can and to manage our country through the course of this pandemic as best we can.’ 

Tory MSP Donald Cameron said: ‘We have not yet heard of the justification for maintaining a Level 4 lockdown for three weeks and the Scottish Government has not shared any evidence as to why that particular length of time.

‘I wonder if they would commit to that three-week time span as an absolute maximum period and enshrining that end date in law.’

Mr Cameron also pointed out there has been a ban in Glasgow, East Renfewshire and West Dunbartonshire on household mixing since September 1.

Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie fought back tears as he paid tribute to those, including his own mother, who had volunteered for vaccine trials, whom he said had put themselves on the ‘biological front line’ to the applause of fellow MSPs.

He added: ‘We should pay immense respect to those many people, because if we as a parliament can show the same selflessness in the way that we do our work to keep our country safe as they have shown, we’ll be not doing too badly.’

The Transport Secretary thanked Mr Harvie’s mother in his closing speech.

Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie looked back to the summer, where Scotland saw several weeks without a single death of someone confirmed to have coronavirus, claiming that the work was not done during this time, including the testing of people without symptoms, to ensure these restrictions would not be necessary.

He said: ‘The Government opposed – and I use that word wisely – mass asymptomatic testing, they believed that a negative test would make people relax and ignore the rules.’

Mr Rennie said that the Scottish Government did not increase testing capacity as a result of this, but praised that ministers now agree asymptomatic testing is necessary, adding that they are now ‘rushing to catch up’.