Our man in Holyrood: 'Offshore workers should not be treated like tourists' in the Highlands
While the parliament is in recess, the work as a constituency MSP continues for myself and my team, writes Fergus Ewing MSP.
An issue I am working to highlight is the plight that many seafarer and offshore community workers across Scotland face regarding the current legislation for those individuals working within “red listed” countries.
Currently, seafarers of any nationality are exempted from quarantine on arrival in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, even when they have been in a red list country in the 10 days prior to their arrival.
The difference in Scotland is that seafarers coming from red list countries still under contract from their companies and returning for rostered leave are required to enter managed quarantine.
They are being subject to the same quarantine rules that tourists entering the country would face as opposed to the key workers who they are.
These individuals are routinely subject to shift patterns spent on and off shore. There are, of course, already very strict measures of isolation and testing measures in place as they travel to their deployment offshore.
The impact of the current Covid-19 rules means isolation measures are impacting their time off spent at home with family. It does seem that their time onshore is being regarded in line with tourists who visit Scotland on holiday, when the reality for these workers is that this is the work pattern they undertake.
I know we all appreciate entirely that during the Covid-19 crisis, many people have made enormous sacrifices in terms of their family life. Whether that be the physical separation of partners or parents from their children, this was the sad reality that many faced.
Now that we are emerging from the crisis, with a better understanding of the virus, the former serious personal losses are, one hopes, now mostly in the past.
This is a predicament shared by thousands of workers in Scotland and must be considered a very serious issue indeed.
I have been working closely with those affected across the constituency
and have made contact with the Scottish Government and the Chamber of Shipping to highlight these constraints and press for progress to bring the rest of Scotland in line with the current travel regiments that the rest of the UK have deployed.
I would encourage anyone being affected by this issue to get in touch with my office.
