Scotland will relax its testing rules for international travel next month and align with the blueprint set out by the UK government late last week.
Michael Matheson, Scotland’s transport secretary, confirmed the decision on Friday (24 September), which he said was made with “logistical, health and economic” implications in mind.
Pre-departure testing for fully vaccinated travellers arriving in Scotland from non-red list countries will be scrapped, although they will need to show proof of vaccination.
Scotland will also align with the UK on post-arrival testing; this will likely involve lowering the Day 2 testing standard from PCR to lateral flow, although the Scottish government said it would await final UK government proposals.
In England, pre-departure testing will end from 4 October, while transport secretary Grant Shapps has repeatedly stressed this week he hopes to transition from Day 2 PCR tests to lateral flow by half-term.
Scotland, though, will introduce additional mitigations to guard against the import of new variants of Covid-19, which it said would come at no additional cost to travellers.
“Separately, in consultation with Public Health Scotland, the Scottish government will consider how additional safeguards and surveillance of inward travel can be implemented to guard against the importation of new variants,” said the Scottish government in a statement. “This will be at no cost to travellers. Details will be set out in due course.”
Scotland will also adopt the same, simplified traffic light regime set to come into effect in England from 4 October; this will see the green and amber lists merged to effectively create a “rest of the world” green list, and the red list retained as the only standalone separate category.
“We have concerns the UK government’s proposals to remove the requirement for a pre-departure test for some travellers could weaken our ability to protect the public health of Scotland’s communities,” said Matheson.
“However, we also recognise not having UK wide alignment causes significant practical problems and creates disadvantages for Scottish businesses. Also, if non alignment led to travellers to Scotland choosing to route through airports elsewhere in the UK, the public health benefits of testing would be undermined in any event.
“We have urgently considered all these implications, weighing any possible impact on the public health and the logistical realities. After liaising at length with stakeholders from the aviation sector to understand the impact of adopting a different approach in Scotland, we have reluctantly concluded that, for practical reasons, alignment with the UK is the best option.”
Matheson added details of the new-look testing regime, once finalised, would be announced for Scotland at the same time as it is for England, and said the additional mitigations under consideration could include some form of “public health surveillance around international travel”.
Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer said: “Testing requirements have been a huge barrier to foreign travel for many people, stalling the travel industry’s recovery, so it is really welcome news that Scotland plans to relax testing requirements, in line with those in England, from October.
“A consistent approach across all four nations is crucial to ensure consumers understand the rules and feel confident to travel again, which will enable the travel industry to get back on its feet, and we made this clear in a letter to the devolved administrations this week.
“While it is encouraging the Northern Ireland Executive will also drop pre-departure tests, we urge them to go further and remove the requirement for day two PCR tests as well and want the Welsh government to take the same approach.”
