Coronavirus: Students may have had human rights breached by new restrictions, says Scottish Labour leader

Students in Scotland may have had their human rights breached by strict new coronavirus restrictions banning them from going home and to the pub, the leader of the Scottish Labour Party has said.

Richard Leonard called for the measures, which were announced by Holyrood this week, to be investigated by the Scottish Human Rights Commission.

In a letter to the body, he asked it to examine seven areas of concern, including ambiguity in enforcement, visits to hospitality, the suitability of student halls for self-isolation, and differences between rules for students and the rest of the public.

Mr Leonard also raised the ban on students socialising outside their household, the requirement to download the Test and Protect tracing app, and a lack of acknowledgement that some students are just 17 years old.

"In asking the public to make further sacrifices, the Scottish government also has a reciprocal duty to do what it can to protect against the virus,” he wrote. “This means ensuring that the same mistakes made at the start of the pandemic are not repeated.

"Recently, concerns related specifically to the freedom of students studying in Scotland have been reported.

"Given the severity of the matter, I encourage the Scottish Human Rights Commission to conduct an urgent examination into whether the announcements made by the Scottish government regarding students contravenes human rights law."

He said he accepted that the pandemic has forced Scots to change how they live but said better planning by the SNP-led government would have prevented the problems that young people are now facing.

The strict measures for students were introduced this week amid growing concerns about the sheer number of coronavirus outbreaks associated with educational institutions since the beginning of the new academic year.

Among those have been a cluster of 120 cases identified at Edinburgh Napier University on Thursday and another one of about 170 in Glasgow earlier in the week.

Mr Leonard wrote: “While the situation within universities is still developing, I am concerned that it may continue for some time, especially due to the nature of the communal living arrangements in much student accommodation.”

Students have already spoken out about the issues they have found themselves dealing with.

Speaking to The Independent, one called the actions of the government “inhumane”.

Eve Simpson, a third-year politics undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh, said students were “being physically cut off from what, for most, will be their main or only support system, their family, at one of the hardest times in their lives … This is not a mental health crisis in waiting; it is one happening right now."

A Scottish government spokesperson said: "There are no legal restrictions which apply solely to students.

"Measures which restrict social gatherings between households treat students equally with the rest of the population, and are in place for clear public health reasons as part of our response to a global pandemic.

"However we recognise that student households are not always the same as those of other adults, and so we are considering what additional guidance can be given to students.

"These regulations are reviewed every three weeks and will not be in place a moment longer than they have to be.

"Additional advice and guidance from Universities Scotland for this weekend only is in response to evidence of the spread of the virus within the student community.

"As we have already said, in the fullness of time we expect all aspects of Covid-19 handling to be subject to an inquiry."

Speaking on Friday, when it was revealed that the country had recorded 558 new positive cases – the highest daily total since the beginning of the pandemic – Nicola Sturgeon said she was “sorry” for what students were going through but refused to U-turn over the restrictions.