Andy Burnham has renewed his calls for the Scottish government to compensate people in Manchester for the travel ban imposed by Nicola Sturgeon.
In what is becoming a tit-for-tat row over covid travel restrictions the Greater Manchester mayor said the “high-handed” way Sturgeon imposed a ban on Scots travelling to the north of England city was having an unfair economic effect.
In megaphone diplomacy Sturgeon took to the airwaves on Monday to accuse Burnham of posturing for place in a future Labour leadership contest by picking a fight with her over the travel ban announced on Friday.
But Burnham also found a TV camera on Monday morning and said the onus should be on Sturgeon to “pick up the phone” and have a “grown-up conversation” as she had suggested.
He said: “A conversation would be nice if the Scottish Government picked up the phone because they’ve changed the policy and that has impacted on people here.”
“I’m more than happy to talk but shouldn’t they have picked up the phone before they before they did this? I want to hear from her how this can be fair.”
“For instance, Bolton has a significantly lower case rate than Dundee. Bolton’s under this travel ban Dundee is not.”
Burnham said he understood the need to protect public health but wanted consistency and fairness in the Scottish government’s policy announcements which, he said, had an effect far beyond Scotland.
“So, I need an explanation from the Scottish Government what are the criteria that are being used here to introduce these decisions and is there going to be any support for individuals affected?”
He added: “I think the government in Scotland owes it to people here to tell us what are the criteria. Why is a ban still in place when cases are lower in Bolton an how long will the ban been placed appear on city centre Manchester and Salford?”
“The First Minister takes the stage on Friday with no warning to anybody, and announces that the UK’s second City is going under a travel ban. That has an impact beyond just Scottish visitors coming. People around the world will think ‘what’s happening in Manchester?’"
The former Labour MP and one-time party leadership candidate dismissed the accusation from the SNP leader that he was engaging in political jockeying.
Burnham said: “It’s very discourteous, not to me, to the people of Greater Manchester for this to be done in a quite high-handed way without any notice.”
He added: “The SNP are always the first to say ‘oh the Westminster Government has just done something to us, it didn’t speak to us and it’s not fair’. Well, we’re a devolved administration here in Greater Manchester, I am elected by 2.8 million people, we have a measure of devolution from Westminster. You would expect there to be an understanding of that from the Scottish Government.”
“But it just feels to me that they are treating the north of England with the same contempt that the UK Government treats the north of England, I speak out about that if its the UK Government doing it, but I’m not going to not speak out about it if the Scottish government does the same.”
