NICOLA Sturgeon has been urged to stick with a "four nations" approach to tackling coronavirus.
The Westminster Health Secretary said it was the "best way forward" to coming out of the lockdown during the daily press briefing this evening.
Matt Hancock also suggested the Scottish Government's 25-page exit strategy document was based on his own five-point plan, and said the two were "very similar".
When asked why his government had been unable to produce a plan of similar detail by the Herald, he said: “We have set out the five tests that are needed for us to make changes to the lockdown measures and the Scottish Government proposals are based on those tests.”
READ MORE: Coronavirus: Social distancing to continue in schools when they gradually reopen
The minister said that a united approach from Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland was “the best way to go” and said: “I think that having the four nations of the UK work together on this has been important thus far, not just on social distancing but on testing. The country has essentially moved together.
“It’s important that us having set out our tests, and now the Scottish government has set out its approach, which is very similar and based on the five tests we have set out, that a UK-wide approach is the best way to go.”
Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK Government's chief scientific officer, was asked about whether it could be possible to ease lockdown restrictions on different groups of the population, based on geography, demographic or profession as suggested in the Scottish Government plan.
He said: "We are working very closely with the chair of the Scottish science advice group who joins us as well for all our meetings, we share information and we look at all the same things.
"The modelling is shared so people don't have to repeat what others are doing and so this is very much a unified approach, looking at the different options and the impact that they could have in terms of social distancing, which is the key thing."
Also included in this evening's briefing was that the UK is on track to increase its testing capacity to carry out 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month and all key workers in England will be offered testing for Covid-19.
Family members of key workers will also be offered testing, with as many as 10 million workers across the UK potentially eligible for tests.
Mr Hancock said: "We can make it easier, faster and simpler for any essential worker in England who needs a test to get a test."
Employers of key workers, such as supermarket staff and transport workers, will be able to visit the government website and apply for a test directly.
A spokesman later clarified that the 10 million workers who could be tested is based on whether devolved administrations mirror the UK Government's expansion of who is eligible for tests.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel