Chamber and committees

There are.

I appreciate the committee’s desire for clarity on that point, but I do not think that I can add much to what I said to Mr Fraser. The Government is considering a range of options. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy is giving the matter her attention at the moment. Beyond the decisions that have been announced already, it would be inappropriate for me to start defining which areas should or should not be looked at.

I hear the points that Mr Mason makes. I know that the finance secretary will be receiving representations from a broad range of sectors that have been affected. I reiterate the point that I made to Mr Fraser: it will be impossible for us to support every sector that is affected by the latest changes. That is why we have asked the United Kingdom Government to engage substantively in putting in place a set of measures that will be sufficient to support those sectors. I reiterate that call today.

I will bring in Professor Leitch on some of the details of the question. I encourage Mr Mason to continue to give the advice that prevention is better than cure. That is absolutely solid advice. Prevention, by getting the vaccine, is much better than someone hoping that they can be rescued by a cure.

We know that vaccination is very effective at reducing the severity of the virus. That has been true up until now with delta, and the booster is crucial in that process in relation to omicron, because some of the earlier vaccinations are now not as robust as they were. Prevention is absolutely central to the advice that we should be issuing, and Mr Mason is absolutely correct to maintain that position.

There are two drug treatments available. If my memory serves me right, one of them is at the test pilot stage—Professor Leitch will give us the proper terminology for that. Coming back to the prevention versus cure point, it is important to stress that prevention is available to a large proportion of our population—as we speak, to varying degrees, all over-12s have access to a vaccination programme. In the short term, a drug will be available to only a very small proportion of the population, particularly if that is part of a pilot exercise. I would not have people holding out hope at an early stage for a drug intervention—taking part in the vaccination programme is a much more effective intervention for individuals to make. However, I invite Professor Leitch to add to my comments.

There is a mixed picture. I recognise John Mason’s earlier point about some of the check-in procedures not being followed as assiduously as they were. I hear and see anecdotal evidence of people not wearing face coverings where they should be doing so. I spend none of my time in the retail environment—I do not get near the shops very often—but I hear anecdotal reports about the challenges for staff in ensuring that those are applied.

That said, since the First Minister asked people a week past Tuesday to reduce their social interactions because of omicron, people have generally done that. There is pretty tangible evidence of that being the case. That has manifested itself in significant implications for the hospitality sector because lots of people have decided not to go out for the Christmas lunch that they thought they would be going out for or not to go out for an event. I acknowledge that that has had implications for others and for businesses, but people have taken those decisions. The evidence about the increase in the utilisation of lateral flow tests is also very encouraging.

There is a mixed picture. We should be optimistic that members of the public recognise the seriousness of the situation that we face and are responding accordingly.

That is a very difficult question to answer, because there is a huge number of variables. The first is a question of sustainability and survivability. The purpose of our interventions so far has, in essence, been to help businesses to get through to the other side of Covid. Therefore, at the various stages of the pandemic, there have been periods in which businesses have been closed, periods in which they have been restricted and periods in which they have been able to trade fully. During those different periods, different financial support has been in place, to the extent that, when businesses have been able to operate fully, no financial support has been available because they have been able to trade in the marketplace as we would expect. The question of survivability will vary from business to business, depending on the trading environment.

The second point is that some businesses will still be able to operate to some extent during this period, and they have been able to do so over recent weeks, albeit that they might not have been able to realise the revenues that they might have hoped for in this period. There is a difference between what one might have hoped for and what one needs to get to the other side of this period. For those reasons, it is difficult for the Government to come to a definitive conclusion on that estimate.

However, I assure Mr Fairlie that the Scottish Government has gone through an exercise of looking in a very challenging way at the amount of money that we can make available to help people in this context. That exercise has involved us considering the remaining public expenditure between now and the end of the financial year. Members of the committee will be familiar with the point that a large proportion of the Government’s expenditure, once it is set in a budget, is very firmly committed. We have a health service to run, which is the largest single element of the Scottish Government’s budget—it is of the order of 40 per cent of the budget. A large part of the budget is locked into the running of the health service, and a large part of the budget is locked into the running of other public services—schools, care facilities and a variety of other items.

The degree of manoeuvrability and flexibility that exists within a fixed budget is very limited. Therefore, the £200 million for business support and the £100 million for self-isolation support that the Government has found will cause us discomfort. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy has considered that and she is managing that at the present moment.

That would be an option, but the Government is trying to be as pragmatic as we can be about the implications of our decisions. Nobody wants to take such decisions—I take no pleasure at all in taking them—but we are trying to strike a balance that enables people, to some extent, to continue to enjoy particular events, albeit with very limited crowds in attendance, while at the same time taking the effective action that is necessary to suppress circulation of the virus. The Government is trying to arrive at that balanced judgment.

Yes. Thank you, convener. Good morning. I am grateful to the committee for the opportunity to discuss a number of matters, including updates to Parliament on Covid-19.

As the First Minister set out on Tuesday, omicron continues to spread rapidly across the country. We are now seeing the impacts of rising cases in staff absences across the economy. We do not yet know, conclusively, whether the proportion of omicron cases needing hospital care is lower, higher or the same as with delta, although there are early signs from the analysis that the University of Edinburgh has undertaken that lower levels of hospitalisation may be likely.

However, even if the proportion of cases needing hospital care is lower, a smaller proportion of a much larger number of infections will place a significant burden on the national health service. It is therefore critical that we continue to respond effectively and proportionately to mitigate the impacts of omicron.

Our vaccination programme is central to our response, and there has been a significant acceleration of the programme in the past week. I encourage everyone to book their booster appointment as soon as possible.

In addition to vaccination, other protective measures that it is necessary we undertake will help us to reduce the impact of omicron on our society and economy in the immediate term. We should all now be reducing our contacts with people in other households. If people are gathering with loved ones this weekend to celebrate Christmas, it is essential that we do all that we can to be as safe as possible. That includes keeping gatherings as small as family circumstances allow, ensuring that everyone takes a test before meeting, maintaining good hygiene and ventilating indoor spaces.

The First Minister set out on Tuesday that, after this weekend, we should all stay at home as much as possible and continue to limit our contacts. That includes minimising socialising over Hogmanay and new year. Staying at home and minimising contact outside our own households is critical in the period ahead. If we all follow that advice, we will help to limit the spread of infections.

In addition, the Scottish Government is introducing further proportionate protections that will primarily affect public events and hospitality. Those are necessary to help stem the increase in cases, safeguard health and protect the NHS, the emergency services and the economy while we complete and get the full effect of the booster programme.

First, from 26 December inclusive, for a period of three weeks, we intend to place limits on the size of the public events that can take place. That does not apply to private life events such as weddings. However, it will make sports matches, including football, effectively spectator free over the three-week period. It will also mean that large-scale Hogmanay celebrations will not proceed. The measures will reduce the risk of widespread transmission and will impact on emergency services needing to attend those events.

Secondly, during the same period, non-professional indoor contact sports for adults should not take place. Guidance will reflect that.

Finally, from 27 December inclusive, for a period of three weeks, we intend to introduce some further protections in hospitality settings and other indoor public places to reduce transmission risks. Those include table service in venues serving alcohol for consumption on the premises and 1m distancing between groups.

I want to highlight one further change to the proposals that were announced on Tuesday. Having engaged with the sector, we now propose to require that nightclubs should not operate as such for this three-week period. Although it would be open to them to operate with distancing and table service—that option will remain—we consider that closure in regulations, combined with financial support, may reduce losses and help those businesses weather what we hope will be a short period until they are able to operate normally again. The change will be effected by a separate Scottish statutory instrument coming into force at the same time as the other measures, which my officials have shared with the committee this morning.

The Scottish Government is acutely aware of the financial implications for many businesses. The First Minister detailed additional support totalling £375 million that will be made available, including £100 million that was announced last week to support businesses that are directly impacted by omicron. An update will be provided on the breakdown and allocation of funding as soon as possible. Eligibility and guidance for the £66 million hospitality fund was published on the Scottish Government’s website on Tuesday, and we expect further guidance for the remaining funds to be published shortly.

I look forward to answering any questions that the committee might have this morning.

I think that the sequence of data over the past two to three weeks has substantiated the rapid acceleration of cases, which has been driven by the omicron variant. There are problems with yesterday’s data as a consequence of a data processing issue that Public Health Scotland is aware of and is handling. I have not seen the data for today, but I would expect it to take account of the fact that the data yesterday understated the number of positive cases in the system.

If you look at the sequence of data, you will see that there is not a precise relationship between the number of positive cases and the positivity proportion that is reported daily. It is not precise, because Public Health Scotland extracts people who have previously tested positive from the positive cases. The positive cases number is, in essence, new positive cases. If somebody has already tested positive, that will be extracted from the system. The relationship between new cases and the positivity rate is not precise, but it is pretty close. In the data yesterday, those two numbers have no relationship.

There was a problem with data processing yesterday, which I think will be rectified today and probably tomorrow. We will see the pattern of significant growth being reflected in the data. Perhaps my officials want to add to what I have said.

The steps that you have taken today will help enormously in that respect. I hope that Angela is regaining her strength, although it is obvious that she has suffered severe health impacts as a consequence of contracting Covid. It is important that real-life examples are shared widely with the public. In our communication, we deploy a mixture of approaches, including highlighting the strength of clinical opinion. The chief medical officer, Professor Leitch, who is our national clinical director, and other clinicians strongly articulate the issues and the rationale for individuals seeking vaccination. However, there is also a place for the testimony of individuals who have had the absolutely horrendous experience that the convener has recounted on behalf of her constituent. It is important that those messages are shared.

It is clear that the logistics in accessing the vaccination programme have been well thought through. The programme has been an enormous undertaking and has delivered very significant results. One of the reasons for those results is that the programme has been delivered in local communities, maximising local access. However, as Derek Grieve and his team are doing, we must constantly revisit the practicalities and logistics of making it possible and plausible for people to access the programme.

At the heart of the example that the convener cited was the fact that Angela was unable to take up her appointment because a work commitment intervened. No individual in the country should feel that they will get anything other than a warm welcome from vaccination centres if they turn up even to get a first dose. People are turning up to get first doses as we speak, so we are constantly eroding the number of people who have not yet started their vaccination journey. I hope that the example that the convener has cited will help in that respect.

There is a wider question with regard to business support. The global total that is available to us is £375 million, £200 million of which has come from Scottish Government funds and £175 million from the United Kingdom Government. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy has approved some initial allocations that have been made to hospitality; she is currently considering these questions and early announcements will be made as soon as possible. A great deal of dialogue is going on with individual sectors to ensure that judgments are as best informed as they can be.

In short, dialogue is under way, and decisions will be announced at the earliest opportunity. I cannot be specific about a timescale at this stage, but the finance secretary will update the Parliament accordingly.