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SNP ministers book 300 quarantine hotel rooms at airport with no international flights

Michael Matheson, the SNP transport minister, previously boasted about securing 1,300 hotel rooms - Fraser Bremner/PA
Michael Matheson, the SNP transport minister, previously boasted about securing 1,300 hotel rooms - Fraser Bremner/PA

Hundreds of quarantine hotel rooms paid for by taxpayers are lying empty after they were booked at an airport where there are no international flights.

SNP ministers have been accused of wasting public funds, after they block booked two entire hotels at Glasgow Airport, despite no flights from overseas currently being due into the city.

The hotels in Glasgow are among six booked up in anticipation of an influx of travellers they thought would be caught by Scotland’s stricter rules.

However, while all direct arrivals from outside the British Isles into Scotland are supposed to pay £1,750 to quarantine in a hotel, the requirement is easy to get around.

Edinburgh airport on the first day that travellers flying directly into Scotland on international flights have to self-isolate for 10 days in a quarantine hotel room -  Andrew Milligan/PA
Edinburgh airport on the first day that travellers flying directly into Scotland on international flights have to self-isolate for 10 days in a quarantine hotel room - Andrew Milligan/PA

Flights on the few international routes still arriving into Scotland have been almost deserted.

No international flights have arrived into Glasgow since Emirates axed the last remaining international route, from Dubai, last month and none are currently scheduled.

Last week, Michael Matheson, the SNP transport secretary, boasted that 1,300 hotel rooms had been secured. However, on the first two days of the new system coming into force, just 14 people were put into quarantine.

“This is a prime example of how the SNP’s own restrictions have turned into a shambles,” Graham Simpson, transport spokesman for the Scottish Tories, said.

“If they had consulted airports and airlines properly this blunder could have been avoided. Taxpayers’ money has been chucked away because the SNP can’t do the basic detail.

“Michael Matheson should apologise for the cack-handed way he has handled this matter.”

While all people arriving directly into Scotland from outside the British Isles have to quarantine in hotels, the requirement does not apply to those who catch connecting flights in England or Ireland first.

The only reason a Glasgow quarantine hotel would currently be needed is if a passenger who had recently been to one of 33 high-risk "red list" countries flew to Glasgow via Dublin. Three flights a week from Dublin, treated as a domestic journey for the purposes of quarantine rules, to Glasgow are still operating.

However, the number of passengers from red list countries arriving through Dublin to Glasgow is likely to be tiny.There are already quarantine hotels at Edinburgh Airport, less than an hour away, which any arrivals could have been taken to.

The Holiday Inn Express and the Normandy Hotel at Glasgow Airport have both been block booked, it is understood, meaning 284 rooms have been paid for with public funds.

There are 822 rooms in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh currently being paid for by taxpayers. Travellers are required to pay £1,750 for a 10 night stay in one of the rooms, but if a room is unoccupied, the taxpayer is left to cover the cost.

Securing the 284 rooms in Glasgow up to the end of March is likely to have cost at least £500,000, according to leaked tender documents which suggested a rate per room of at least £50.

The UK Government pays for the cost of the rooms up front, up to 80 per cent of hotel capacity. The Scottish Government is expected to have to reimburse the Treasury for Scottish rooms that are not needed.

Scottish Labour transport spokesperson Colin Smyth said: “The SNP’s Covid policy on international travel has been calamitous from the start. Having dithered for months, they only agreed to introduce airport testing and managed quarantine after passenger numbers had plummeted, which makes such astonishing overbooking all the more incompetent.

“The Scottish Government needs to urgently rethink the haphazard way they are implementing managed quarantine before the hard-pressed taxpayer has to cough up more to pay for this loophole-ridden policy.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “As part of managed isolation – which is in place to help protect against the importation of Covid-19 variants – arrivals from Dublin who have been in a red list country in the previous 10 days must book a managed quarantine hotel.

“To minimise the risk of transmission during the transfer from airport to hotel, it’s essential hotel rooms are near to the point of arrival.”