Health and Sport Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Official Report 584KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel) (Scotland) Amendment (No 10) Regulations 2020 (SSI 2020/252)

Agenda item 2 is consideration of a made affirmative instrument. As has been the case in previous weeks, the regulations relate to Coronavirus and international travel. They have been laid under section 94(1), which is on international travel, of the Public Health etc (Scotland) Act 2008.

Because this is a made affirmative instrument, the regulations are already in force, but must be approved by a resolution of Parliament within 28 days of the date on which they were made. It is for the Health and Sport Committee to consider the instruments and to report to Parliament accordingly.

In a moment, we will hear on the regulations from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. Once we have asked all our questions, we will have the formal debate on the motion, which he will move.

I welcome to the committee Humza Yousaf, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. He is accompanied from the Scottish Government by Rachel Sunderland, who is a deputy director in the population and migration division; Jamie MacDougall, who is a deputy director in the test and protect portfolio; and Anita Popplestone, who is the head of police complaints and scrutiny.

I will look to colleagues who might have questions. I draw colleagues’ attention to the letter of reply from Humza Yousaf, which we received on 3 September, following a previous appearance before the committee, in which he answered a number of questions.

Two weeks ago, Emma Harper asked questions about ferry travel and passengers arriving in Scotland. Would you like to follow up on those questions?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I have a comment on the detailed response regarding ferries, in the letter. I have checked the website of a ferry company that operates between Ireland and Cairnryan, which also has detailed information. I thank the cabinet secretary for his response.

Thank you. In relation to that, in his response, the cabinet secretary noted that passenger locator forms are completed by passengers who arrive in Scotland by ferry and, I presume, in ports elsewhere in the United Kingdom for travel onward to Scotland. Can the cabinet secretary also make available to the committee the detailed information from the ferry operators that Emma Harper referred to?

Good morning, convener and committee members. Forgive me for any background noise that you hear; a bit of building work is going on.

Of course, I am more than happy to provide Emma Harper and the committee with the detailed information that we have about passengers arriving via ferry ports in Scotland. If the committee wishes it, we can get that information from Transport Scotland. We have information on entry into ports in Scotland and we can inquire about ports in other parts of the UK. For example, there might be an interest in the ports of Dover and Calais and the number of passengers who travel from there. When people arrive in Scotland, if their passenger locator form says that their destination is Scotland, regardless of the means or method—air or sea—that they chose, they end up in the cohort of data that can, and will, be accessed and sampled by Public Health Scotland.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. The instrument that is before us is on the addition of a country to the exemption list. A number of the regulations that you have brought before us have involved adding or removing countries from that list. When we spoke to you a couple of weeks ago, one of the questions that was asked was about how those additions are brought to the attention of Parliament. In your response, you noted that,

“Wherever possible”

you are

“trying to align with the other UK nations”,

in relation, for example, to implementation dates and to countries that are on the exemption list.

However, it is fair comment to say that there remains, at least on a short-term basis, misalignment between the countries in the United Kingdom. What on-going work are you doing on achieving a position in which the messages to travellers and the travel industry from the four nations of the UK are, as far as possible, the same message, with regard to quarantine requirements?

That is a fair comment. There is alignment, where possible, but clearly there are areas where there is not alignment.

I saw a good piece by the journalist Peter Smith on ITN about why there should not be too much confusion for travellers. As you know only too well, convener, we have had more than 20 years of devolution, and the reasons why one nation in the United Kingdom might take one decision while another one takes another are understandable.

An example is the decision to remove Greece from the list of exemptions, which we took last week. I see that other parts of the UK have now removed some of the Greek islands. When we took that decision, it was based on the circumstances in Scotland. You will be aware of the rise in positive cases; the number of cases in that rise that were linked to international travel from Greece gave us concerns, in the Scottish context. It might be the case that there is not that concern in Northern Ireland, Wales or England, so it is completely understandable that one nation in the United Kingdom—in this case Scotland—would take a different position from the others.

I will answer your question more directly, if I may. You will have seen yesterday’s announcement by Grant Shapps, who is the UK Secretary of State for Transport. Shortly before he made his statement, he called me to say that the joint biosecurity centre will consider whether it can take a more regional approach to data. I know that the committee has asked me previously whether we can have a more regional approach to data. I have only seen the data for Greece that came in yesterday, but my understanding is that the JBC will provide data on a number of islands, so we can consider the issue on a regional basis. Again, that might help with alignment.

We will try to ensure four-nations alignment as far as possible, although, for understandable reasons, there might be occasions when that alignment is just not possible.

In response to our letter, you said that you were continuing to discuss with the UK nations the adoption of a regional approach. Wales has been taking a regional approach for some time and, as you said, the UK Government made an announcement on the matter yesterday. Do you anticipate a similar announcement in relation to Scotland in the near future?

I cannot say, until I have seen the data. Wales took a regional approach last week; it is for the Welsh health minister to explain why that decision was taken. Even if we have data about regional transmission of the virus, we must have real assurance about travel between the mainland of Greece and the islands, because we know that that is where a lot of the danger lies.

I will certainly look at the data. We will seek to take an effective regional approach where we can. However, given the rise in cases in Scotland in the past few weeks, my approach will still be cautious.

I have one more question before we move to the next item on the agenda, which is the debate on the motion.

In our previous discussions, and in correspondence, you have said that you were considering the possibility of publishing weekly Public Health Scotland’s statistics on people who have recently arrived from abroad and have developed symptoms or have tested positive. Have you come to a conclusion on that?

My conclusion is that we should publish those statistics. We are seeking to find a way to do that that will protect people’s privacy. A number of the cases that are linked to international travel involve only one person travelling from a country, so given that there are only a small number of flights to certain countries in any week—sometimes only one—there could be issues about identification of individuals.

Those issues are not insurmountable and we can absolutely work through them. I have already been considering them, but will speed up the process. My instinct and desire is to ensure that the data is published, so we should overcome all obstacles in order to do so.

I look forward to hearing more on that in the weeks ahead.

There are no further questions from colleagues, so we move to agenda item 3, which is the formal debate on the affirmative Scottish statutory instrument on which we have just taken evidence.

I remind colleagues that we are no longer in question-and-answer mode, but in formal debate mode. Officials may not participate, at this stage. I invite the cabinet secretary to speak to and move motion S5M-22521 in his name.

I am happy to wait, if anybody wishes to speak to the motion. Colleagues have the detail of it.

I move,

That the Health and Sport Committee recommends that The Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 10) Regulations 2020 (SSI 2020/252) be approved.

Motion agreed to.

11:46 Meeting continued in private until 12:02.