WESTMINSTER’S Transport Secretary has claimed Scotland and Wales “jumped the gun” by announcing new quarantine rules for Greece and Portugal.
England and Northern Ireland have not changed their rules, while those entering Scotland and Wales from the countries must now self-isolate for two weeks upon arrival.
Speaking to Radio 4 this morning, the Tory minister said: "The Scots decided, without using the joint biosecurity centre data for this particular decision, that the people from Greece would be excluded and sort of jumped the gun on that. It is their right to do it but it doesn’t make the overall message any clearer.”
"It doesn't make the overall message any clearer."
READ MORE: Coronavirus LIVE: Scots holidaymakers race home to beat Portugal quarantine rules
Earlier this week the Scottish Government announced it would be putting Greece on the quarantine list due to a “significant rise” in cases of coronavirus being brought to Scotland from the country.
Meanwhile, the prevalence of coronavirus in Portugal hit 23 cases per 100,000 yesterday, exceeding the benchmark of 20 which has triggered other countries to be added to the quarantine list.
But Shapps claimed the devolved nations’ decisions to quarantine arrivals from Greece and Portugal was made using dodgy data.
He told the programme: “The Welsh had not perhaps noticed or see, because we did not end up in the same meeting, a second figure, within that which is the number of cases which test positive - which is really important."
He claimed Wales and Scotland are “punishing” countries which are “doing the right thing and carrying out a lot of tests”.
The Welsh health minister said the decision was necessary to “stop a rising tide of infections” after one flight to Cardiff included 20 cases.
He said: "Seeing a rising tide of infections coming in from that list of islands, having that direct experience in Wales and very clear advice about the higher risk to UK public health from the JBC, I did not feel that there was any course of action other than taking some form of action.
"It's not for me to explain why others haven't done that, but I'm very clear that we're following that advice and keeping Wales safe."
The National has contacted the Scottish Government for comment.
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