Chamber and committees

I am happy to look at that, but I think that we are in a strong position with the data that we have at our disposal. With regard to some of the data that we have through our health records, many people—internationally—have commented to me about the advantage that the Scottish data holds and how it can be used. The sequencing information that can be applied is quite remarkable and provides us with intelligence about how to position various early intervention measures. That point has been reflected on by the Standing Committee on Pandemic Preparedness, which is led by Professor Morris. We will continue to look at those questions, to make sure that we are using data as effectively as we can.

I am not sure that I would express it in that way. I understand that Mr Fraser is looking at it from an 18-month perspective, but if we look at the themes of the budget that I set out in December and those of the Covid recovery strategy, a dispassionate observer would see a very strong link between the two.

I think that the best way for me to express it is to say that the Covid recovery strategy is being mainstreamed within the Government’s budget and policy programme. For example, the emphasis that we place on the shift to person-centred public services is absolutely central to the budget programme, and the emphasis on eradicating child poverty, which is implicit in the Covid recovery strategy, is central to the budget priorities that I set out in December. The focus of the strategy and the indicators of performance is part of the performance framework of the Government.

With the deepest respect, Mr Whittle is not challenging me; Mr Whittle is asking me to spend money without showing me where it is going to come from. Unless he wants me to take money out of the health budget and allocate it to local government, he has to come up with an answer.

I am going to challenge the Conservatives on this all the way through the budget process, because the money has to come from somewhere. We have an ageing population that has a large number of frail people within it, and that will increase demand on the health service, which is why we are putting more resources into the health service and why I increased tax to ensure that I could put more money into the health service to address those issues.

Mr Whittle will not disagree with me about the extra money that I have put into the courts to ensure that we deal with the backlog so that victims get their cases addressed, and he will not disagree with me about putting £550 million extra into local government, so, somehow, I have to magic up some more money.

Those are the hard realities. I have confronted them, and others must confront them, too.

Jackie Baillie is saying that it was much higher—I do not think that it was. I will go away and check the data set.

It is not an unusual experience in our conversations, Mr Fairlie.

I will invite Christine McLaughlin to provide some information about that. I make the point that we now have significant health protection for the population as a consequence of the effectiveness of the vaccination programme, so there is no longer a necessity for the scale of arrangements that we had at the height of the pandemic. Even if there is a new Covid variant, the level of population protection is very high because of the vaccination programme.

Having said that, it is still important to have effective surveillance and monitoring arrangements in place to ensure that we can accurately gauge whether we have a wider problem that needs to be arrested. Some of the information that I placed on the record in my opening statement set out the type of societal assessment that we routinely undertake to ensure that we have those preparatory arrangements in place.

I invite Christine McLaughlin to say something about the ONS survey.

I think that I can confidently say that it will do that.

We are making provisions in the budget for what I describe as a baseline level of preparedness for further challenges from Covid. However, I make a distinction in my response to Mr Fraser’s question between a new variant and a new pandemic, because those are two fundamentally different propositions.

On the basis of what we know and the variants that are around, we are fairly confident that the level of population-wide vaccination protection would enable us to withstand the effects of a new variant, given the level of protection that is inherent in the vaccination and the nature of the variants that are emerging. A completely different pandemic would be a different matter altogether. That could conceivably require us to put in place the type of arrangements that we have experienced over the past three years.

Obviously, we hope that it will not happen but, to enable us to respond to all those scenarios, we have certain provisions in the budget for the surveillance activity that Christine McLaughlin talked about. We have provisions for a level of testing, the delivery of a further vaccination programme and a level of workforce considerations, personal protective equipment issues, equipment considerations and some wider factors. Those are built into the budget. That is funded from the overall budget that is available for the health and social care portfolio, which is in excess of £19 billion.

A certain amount of consequential funding from the United Kingdom Government comes generally for health and social care priorities as a consequence of decisions that are made in the autumn statement and announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, the Scottish Government is putting more than those Barnett consequentials into the health service. It was an explicit part of the statement that I gave to Parliament in December that I was making tax changes and applying tax increases to enable me to be in a position to better fund the national health service, which we have been able to do.

I agree about the importance of long Covid and supporting the recovery of individuals who experience it. However, I challenge Jackie Baillie on the point about a significant increase in economic inactivity, because that is not what the data says. Data that was published on Tuesday shows that economic inactivity in Scotland has reduced by 0.8 per cent over the year. The fall was larger in Scotland than in the rest of the United Kingdom. I appreciate that there will be ebbs and flows within that, and that some people will become economically inactive because of long Covid, but for the accuracy of the data that the committee has before it, I note that that is the position on economic inactivity.

There has been a significant amount of discussion about the appropriate means of addressing individuals’ experiences of long Covid. Fundamentally, there will be a need for health interventions to support individuals. It is difficult to disaggregate what is spent in the health service on supporting people with long Covid, because that will be felt in a variety of areas, such as services in community settings—for example, the work of general practitioners—and more specialist clinics, where people will be provided with support that addresses their experiences.

As I said, the health budget has been increased by more than £1 billion during the year to provide the capacity to meet the health needs of the population. That will of course include people who have experience of long Covid, and it is important that individuals who have that experience are supported in the appropriate way.

We will have to work carefully with trade unions and staff associations over the course of the four-year spending period to reduce staff numbers. The profile of the four-year spending envelope that is available to us could generally be characterised as less challenging in the first two years but extremely challenging in the last two years.

Those are the provisions of the current United Kingdom Government, and the Opposition in the United Kingdom Parliament has made it clear that it would sustain those numbers, should the election result in a change of Government, so we have to prepare on the basis that, in dialogue and partnership with trade unions and staff associations, we will have to carefully reduce head count over the next four years.