Chamber and committees

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?

Thank you, convener.

I think that the cabinet secretary misses a huge point. As Pauline McNeill has alluded to, if you go into a court and watch court proceedings, you will find that it is normal for defence lawyers to walk into court and say that they need more time to prepare their case for their client. During Covid, they have been doing that multiple times and have been allowed to do so. All that I am asking for in my amendments is that we indicate to the court that the bar for extending the period has to be higher than that.

That would reduce the backlog that we so want to reduce. If we keep extending cases, as defence lawyers are allowed to do at the moment, the backlog will not be reduced. As I have said, victims of horrendous crimes are dropping out of proceedings, because of stress and mental health issues. My amendments are not about trying to reduce the capability of lawyers to defend or prosecute, but about making sure that there has to be a reason for extensions and that they are not just granted as a matter of course.

Good morning to the panel. It is good to see you in person.

I will start with Mr Humpherson. I have long talked about the need to create systems that are not just a collection of data. Our ability to collaborate, communicate and use the data in the most effective way is not where it should be, not just in Scotland but in the rest of the UK. The pandemic has highlighted to a great degree that we need to do better. Where are we with that? What lessons have we learned? What actions have been taken to increase our background information technology system, which allows a colossal amount of data to be gathered and collated?

It would be really interesting to get the two of you together, as two significant players in this area, to understand where the disconnect is.

I have one further small question, following on from my colleague John Mason’s question, about how television and radio put information across as the science evolves. Early in the pandemic, Jason Leitch and Nicola Sturgeon said that the evidence for masks was not there. Of course, as the science evolved, the evidence for masks was there. Early on, those working in the public health environment would be saying that we should be careful what we say to people, but things can completely change. Are you susceptible to a certain amount of criticism, especially around free speech, if you prevent people from saying something that becomes the reality a wee bit later on?

I will be very quick.

Dr Phin, what impact did SARS and avian flu have on our thinking? I think that it was suspected that there could be 50,000 deaths from avian flu in the UK, but it turned out to be something like 464. Did that stat influence the way in which we approached this particular pandemic?

I agree. My mantra has always been that we do not have an IT system that can collate and gather the data and give us the output that we need. Dr Holford wants to come in.

Briefly, Callum Hood has something to say.

Thank you. I could spend all day talking about data, its collection and how we utilise it.

For me, one of the difficulties with what happened, certainly within the UK, including in Scotland, was that we used the phrase “follow the science” a lot, without explaining what that means. Of course, the science changed and evolved as we began to understand more. How did Governments respond to that change, how were we able to communicate it, and did that compound the difficulty that we had in maintaining a line of communication?

Does anyone else want to come in on that question before I add a supplementary?

I want to follow that up with you, Dr Phin—it would be remiss of me not to, given that you represent Public Health Scotland, which was mentioned specifically in an evidence session that we held last week. We took evidence in private and one of the professors, who is a Government adviser, told us was that it was so hard—indeed, almost impossible—to get data from Public Health Scotland that they stopped asking for it.

I am not in attack mode, so I do not want you to be in defence mode. I am raising this because we need to look back and learn, and look forward to how we deliver better services and communications. Given what we were told, what is Public Health Scotland doing to improve access to data and find a better solution?