New travel rules are introduced. They say the idea is to discourage international travel.
Fines are quite high for trying to bypass the rules.
But fines generally affect the poorest in society more than the richest.
It’s interesting how this has been done. Every international trip to Scotland and every one to England from high risk countries will now come with a £1750 add-on cost. It will be interesting seeing if the same rules will apply in the other direction.
For the average person in the UK this will stop them travelling. But not so for the rich, they can afford the costs. And for the very rich – well just pay the fines and ignore the rules.
The same is true for all fixed price government services, like TV licence for example.
Is it right to use cost as a means of discouraging international travel? Or should we have a different way to discourage travel that applies to the rich as much as it does to the poor?