Chamber and committees

I thank you all for your answers and for raising valid points. We move to questions from Murdo Fraser.

I ask Anthony Smith to answer the same question.

I think that Professor Hunter would like to come in.

To whom would you like to direct that question?

Brilliant. Thank you very much for your answers. We will move to questions from Murdo Fraser.

Dr Shackles wanted to respond to your previous question.

Dr Miles wants to come in on Jim Fairlie’s question.

I am sorry—we have run out of time for this part of the agenda. That concludes our consideration of item 1, and I thank the Deputy First Minister and his officials for their evidence today.

We move to item 3, which is consideration of the motion to approve the draft Health Protection (Coronavirus) Requirements (Scotland) Amendment No 4 Regulations 2022. As members will be aware, we will take the motions on the other two instruments that are listed under agenda item 2 at a future meeting, once the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has reported on them.

Deputy First Minister, would you like to make any further remarks on this Scottish statutory instrument before we consider the motion?

I will ask the first question. First, I thank the Scottish Government for the revised strategic framework that was announced this week. The lifting of restrictions later next month is welcome news for many.

There is currently uncertainty regarding the future of testing, but as our framework identifies three broad threat levels—low, medium and high—if testing is reduced in capacity considerably, how will it be possible to monitor outbreaks of new variants to determine what threat level we should be at?

Sorry, Jim—I am conscious of time, so I have to move on to questions from Brian Whittle.