Chamber and committees

I totally agree; we did not realise how much we relied on lip reading when listening to people before we all had to wear masks. I will move on to Larry Flanagan.

I am conscious that we have run well over our time.

I thank the witnesses for their evidence and for giving us their time this morning. If you would like to raise any further evidence with the committee, you can do so in writing. The clerks will be happy to liaise with you about how to do that.

That concludes the public part of our meeting. Once the witnesses have left, we will move into private for the next agenda item.

Thank you for all your comments on that. Gary Greenhorn, what are your concerns about maintaining appropriate ventilation and temperatures in schools over the winter months?

Thank you. I will bring in Kirsty Cumming from Community Leisure UK.

That concludes our consideration of this agenda item. I thank the Deputy First Minister and his officials for their evidence.

The third agenda item is consideration of the motions on the made affirmative instruments and the draft affirmative instrument that we considered during the previous agenda item. Deputy First Minister, would you like to make any further remarks on the SSIs before we take the motion?

Professor Irene Petersen would like to respond to that point.

Have you had the chance to consider the evidence that we heard last week about the role of ventilation in high-risk medical settings such as dentistry? We heard about the significant backlog of 4 million appointments that were lost due to the pandemic, and it is clear that ventilation has a big role to play in recovering those lost appointments. The British Dental Association told us that dentists need to use fallow time between patients to make their settings safe. The fallow time needed between appointments can be as short as 10 minutes with good high-speed suction equipment, but it can sometimes be as long as 50 minutes, for which there is not time available. The BDA estimated that the current funding to improve the ventilation works out at around £1,500 per surgery but, in its experience, upgrading ventilation can sometimes cost between £15,000 and £20,000. Will the Scottish Government give further consideration to that?

Thank you. I thank all the witnesses for their evidence and for giving us their time. If witnesses would like to raise any further evidence with the committee, they can do so in writing. The clerks will be happy to liaise with you about how to do that.

I am sorry, but we do not have time. We might come back to you.

I am sorry, but we have to move on.