Chamber and committees

I am happy to consider what material we can helpfully publish to demonstrate the response and the reaction to the measures. We publish a huge amount of data on a regular basis but, if the committee wishes to specify and stipulate areas where it believes that the publication of data would be of assistance, I will be happy to consider what could be published in that context.

I will invite Dr Smith, the chief medical officer, to comment on that. First, I would be happy to consider the letter that has come from the member of the public and to try and address the issues that have been raised. It is important that individual cases are looked at properly.

Secondly, we have written to those who have been involved in vaccine trials to provide them with assurance that they will be exempt from the Covid certification arrangements. If a particular issue has arisen as part of that process that we have not taken account of, I would be very happy to do that.

Perhaps Dr Smith can give more detail.

Yes, I would, thank you, convener.

I am grateful to the committee for the opportunity to appear before you once again. On Tuesday, the First Minister set out a number of Covid-related updates on the rules on international travel, and on promoting better ventilation, including the immediate step to make up to £25 million of additional funding available to support business to enhance ventilation.

The focus of the First Minister’s comments on Tuesday was the Covid certification scheme. The Scottish Government takes the position that the implementation of a mandatory domestic certification scheme is proportionate and appropriate at this point in the pandemic.

Recent data has been a stark reminder of the challenges that we continue to face as a nation. Getting vaccinated remains the single most important thing that any of us can do to help cases to remain under control.

We have seen considerable efforts from businesses and individuals to step up compliance with the mitigation measures that remain in place. That remains crucial to how we emerge from the pandemic.

In line with our strategic intent

“to suppress the virus to a level consistent with alleviating its harms while we recover and rebuild for a better future”,

the Covid-19 vaccination certification scheme will allow us to meet the following aims: to reduce the risks of transmission; to reduce the risks of serious illness and death, and, in doing so, alleviate pressure on the healthcare system; to allow high-risk settings to continue to operate as an alternative to closure or more restrictive measures; and to increase vaccine uptake.

Last week, we set out details on how a domestic certification scheme would operate, and, on Tuesday, we published detailed guidance on how we expect that to be implemented in the small range of sectors that are within the scheme’s scope.

We have listened to a range of stakeholders and very much appreciate the challenges that the implementation of the scheme presents. That is why we are ensuring that the enforcement measures will not take effect until 18 October.

To be absolutely clear, the expectation is that businesses adopt the scheme from 1 October, so we will be monitoring that closely to ensure that the requirements are being met.

The interim period will allow businesses to familiarise themselves with the guidance, to develop measures for enforcing Covid certification and to test those in collaboration with local authority representatives and, indeed, with Government ministers.

The Government’s view is that certification can play a useful role in helping to keep case numbers low as we move into winter. We have come a long way in recent months, our economy is open and we are seeing a relative return to normality. Partnership has been key to that, and I ask that businesses and individuals continue with that endeavour in the coming weeks, to ensure that we are all doing all that we can to recover collectively from the ill effects of the pandemic.

This afternoon, the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment (No 2) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/349) will be laid and will come into force from 5 o’clock tomorrow morning. I understand that, in line with the usual agreed procedure for made affirmative Covid Scottish statutory instruments, my officials shared draft regulations with committee clerks yesterday.

The regulations that are amended by the instrument require Scottish ministers to review the requirements at least once every 21 days and revoke any requirement as soon as it is no longer necessary.

I look forward to responding to your questions.

We intend to monitor the pattern of the pandemic, as we have done on a consistent basis up until now. The key indicators that we examine relate to the daily cases, the age breakdown within those, the levels of hospitalisation and the demand on intensive care units, and we apply that information to the wider modelling of the pandemic to determine the effect that all the measures are having within the handling of the pandemic and the scale of the challenge that we face.

That enables the Government to formulate a view about what measures remain proportionate, as that is the key test that the Government must continue to fulfil to ensure that there is legal foundation to the approach and, fundamentally, to enable us to make a judgment about the course of the pandemic and the measures that are required for us to take the necessary intervention.

No, I do not. I am happy to put on the parliamentary record that we will take the habitual approach that is taken in all such settings. I had a helpful discussion with local authorities on the issue the other day. Our approach will involve engaging, explaining and encouraging before we get to enforcing. The four Es approach, with which many institutions will be familiar in relation to the work of local authority regulators, will be the one that is taken.

We want to work with businesses to make sure that they understand the obligations on them, and to support them in putting in place the practical measures that they can take. That will be the cultural approach that is taken. Local authorities are keen to make sure that that approach, which is commonplace in local authorities in Scotland, is maintained.

I am delighted that the convener’s knowledge of nightclubs has come to my assistance. Mr Simpson raises a serious point, and I will reflect on whether there is a way in which members of Parliament can be briefed about the approach in order to provide some reassurance about those issues. I totally understand the sensitivity of the question.

Therefore, on a weekly basis, we publicly express what we think to be the scale of the challenge and provide the evidence base for why we need to take action. We are taking other actions. We maintain a position that face coverings have to be worn in indoor settings in public places, such as on public transport, in shops and all the rest of it. We encourage physical distancing. We are taking a variety of interventions based on the evidence that we have marshalled and communicated publicly.

I fear that we are not going to have a meeting of minds on that issue. Let me make a sweeping generalisation and say that people below the age of 39 are more likely to be in nightclubs than people of my vintage—I am sorry to break the solemn news to Mr Whittle that he will not bump into me in a nightclub. Vaccination levels for people below the age of 39 are lower than they are for people above that age. Part of the approach to Covid certification is to further incentivise those people to get vaccinated so that they can participate in those activities.

Obviously, a large number of people of different ages go to some of the other settings; I accept that there is a much broader age demographic at football matches, for example. However, I encourage colleagues to think of Covid certification as one part of a two-part strategy.

I do not dispute Mr Whittle’s point about making sure that we have targeted and focused interventions for people living in deprivation, the black and minority ethnic community and other social groups that have low take-up. We accept that we need to concentrate our efforts on that. I pay tribute to the vaccinators for their efforts in that regard. In that way, we will reach the point, as Mr Mason said, of having such high vaccination levels that they provide the population with as much protection as possible.

The provision seeks to provide the appropriate opportunity for us to designate individual events that might be of a particularly noteworthy nature. For example, Her Majesty the Queen is coming to the Parliament on Saturday and I would describe that as a flagship event. There is no necessity for us to consider the issues in question, because the numbers of people involved will not be appropriate, but I can envisage flagship events to which we might all wish to give appropriate recognition. I invite Ms Sadler to come in.

Forgive me: I do not have the number in front of me, but my recollection is that delayed discharges came down to about 700, compared with 1,581 yesterday. That created space in our hospitals to deal with the upsurge in Covid patients.

I accept that our hospitals are congested just now; there are 1,581 delayed discharge patients within that congestion. A proportion of them could go to home settings, if the appropriate care packages were available to them. I am of the view—I am pretty satisfied that this is the case—that the problem in availability of care home packages is not availability of money to provide for the packages but availability of personnel to deliver them. That is to do with the shortage of people in our country who can be employed in care. We have lost from the workforce people who, because of Brexit, returned to their countries. As a consequence, we have fewer people available. I also point out that unemployment is sitting at 4 per cent. Furlough ends today; we will see the effect of that on unemployment, but we do not expect its impact to be significant.

What that means is that we have to do one or both of the following. First, we should maximise the number of people who can be activated to enter the labour market and deliver the care services that Mr Rowley highlighted. Secondly, we could take a different position on free movement of individuals; abolition of free movement has, as was predicted, been a disaster for Scotland’s labour market.

Those are not new issues. When he was First Minister in the early part of this century, Lord McConnell highlighted—rightly, in my view—the dangers of Scotland’s population falling below 5 million and the population profile being weighted more towards the older population and economically inactive people. In 2004, those issues in the labour market in Scotland were addressed by free movement; now that has been taken away, which is creating real difficulty. The matters that Mr Rowley has highlighted represent a significant threat to our ability to manage our way through the winter. Because there are not enough people, the care packages that could get people out of hospital and into their homes cannot be supported.

Forgive me for giving such a long answer, but Mr Rowley raised some big questions. He also asked whether a task force is necessary. We are probably straying into the portfolios of my colleagues Mr Yousaf and Ms Robison, but I can say that we are focusing on the issues every day in our dialogue with local government and health boards. I assure Mr Rowley that the issues are being addressed. I can make no criticism of the level of engagement of public bodies in the process, but if we need to think about using some other means, channel, mechanism or device such as a task force, I am very open to considering that.