Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 December 2020
I recently highlighted the case of constituents of mine who live in East Ayrshire, on the boundary with South Ayrshire, both of which are on the same level of restrictions. Their kids can travel to the nearest school half a mile away in South Ayrshire, but cannot take part in their twice-weekly organised outdoor activity with kids from the same school, purely because it is in neighbouring South Ayrshire. Outdoor organised activities are rightly allowed, but the travel restrictions regulations have failed to allow travel to that activity to be a reasonable excuse, or even to allow the same five-mile discretion that exists in the regulations when it comes to travelling for leisure.
There are lots of other anomalies in the regulations. That is an inevitable consequence of trying to enforce in law a complex levels system and not allowing adequate scrutiny before it becomes law.
It is for those reasons—in particular, the Government’s failure to update its regulations to allow non-essential cross-border travel—that I, and Labour, cannot support the regulations.
The Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government are supposed to represent all of Scotland.