Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Official Report 917KB pdf

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Parliamentary Bureau Motions

The next item of business is consideration of a Parliamentary Bureau motion. I ask George Adam, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, to move motion S6M-02048, on approval of a Scottish statutory instrument.

Motion moved,

That the Parliament agrees that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/349) be approved.—[George Adam]

I wish to oppose SSI 2021/349, on the introduction of vaccine passports. The issue is being considered by this Parliament nearly six weeks after the instrument became law. On this side of the chamber, we have consistently opposed compulsory vaccine passports and the manner in which they have been introduced by the Scottish Government, and nothing that has happened in the past six weeks has persuaded us that our position should change. It is a policy for which no evidence base has ever existed or been presented to us.

As we heard earlier, at the COVID-19 Recovery Committee last week, the Deputy First Minister had to accept that evidence that the policy was working does not exist, and yet the Scottish Government is today talking about extending it still further.

Does Mr Fraser accept that some of the Deputy First Minister’s words have been twisted somewhat? It is impossible to link any action, including hand washing, to an exact result.

If we are being asked to introduce a policy that puts substantial restrictions on the behaviour of individuals and is having a substantial negative impact on businesses, there should be an evidence base to support it. Such an evidence base has not been presented.

We have heard from the Scottish Government that one of the purposes of the policy is to try to drive up vaccination rates among unvaccinated groups, but there is no evidence that that has been successful. Indeed, the COVID-19 Recovery Committee has heard evidence from scientists that compulsory vaccine passports could actually increase opposition to vaccination uptake among the vaccine hesitant, which would have the opposite effect to that intended. There has been no response from the Scottish Government to that particular concern, which has been expressed by Professor Stephen Reicher and others.

I absolutely share the member’s opposition to the introduction of vaccine passports, which are Covid identification cards in all but name. Does he share my concern that the Deputy First Minister’s statement this afternoon represents the gradual mission creep of the policy, and that there is no evidential base that vaccine passports stop transmission? In fact, it is far to the contrary. Did the member see the article in The Lancet last week that said that, although vaccines are excellent at preventing harm from Covid, they are ineffective at preventing transmission?

I agree with Mr Cole-Hamilton’s concerns about the policy being introduced without any evidence base.

The COVID-19 Recovery Committee also heard from the Scottish Human Rights Commission and other organisations involved in the human rights space about the very serious concerns that they have about the human rights implications of the policy. Again, there has been no response from the Scottish Government to those concerns.

We have heard from those involved in hospitality about a loss in trade of up to 40 per cent following the introduction of the policy, and about growing levels of abuse of door staff, some of whom have had to walk off the job as a result. We have even seen nightclubs putting chairs on their dance floors to get around the rules, so disastrous has the policy been for their business. We have seen an app being launched that did not work and, even now, will not allow for the status of boosters to be added. There are also major issues over security and reliability.

Scotland is the only country in Europe that does not allow a negative Covid test as an alternative to vaccination certification as the price of entry to certain premises.

Mr Fraser, I must ask you to wind up now, please.

Even Wales, the only other part of the United Kingdom that has introduced such a policy, allows that alternative, but the Scottish Government is standing firm. We are alone on the issue and not handling it well. The policy is failing and is increasingly shambolic. There is no evidence to support it and the Parliament should dismiss it.

17:05  

In all honesty, Mr Fraser does neither himself nor his arguments any credit with the overblown hyperbole that he brings to the Parliament about the question.

Mr Fraser said that we had provided no evidence that the application of the scheme had driven up vaccination rates. I put on the record at committee, in response to a question from him, the fact that, on 1 September, 53 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds had been vaccinated; by 1 October, that was 64 per cent and, by 1 November, it was 68 per cent. That is a sizeable increase in the vaccination rates in the target population in which we were interested.

The Scottish Government has proposed a mandatory domestic certification scheme that is proportionate and appropriate at this point in the pandemic. Recent data is a stark reminder of the challenges that the nation continues to face. We have a strategic intent in relation to the management of Covid to suppress the virus to a level that is consistent with alleviating its harms while we recover and rebuild for a better future.

The scheme is limited. It continues to contribute to meeting the aims of reducing the risk of transmission, reducing the risk of serious illness and death and, in doing so, alleviating pressure on the healthcare system. It also continues to contribute to allowing high-risk settings to operate as an alternative to closure or more restrictive measures and to increasing vaccine uptake.

Earlier today, members of the Parliament pressed me about the pressure on our national health service. That is a real pressure and we have to take measures, however uncomfortable, and however reluctant we are to take them, to ensure that we do all we can to suppress the increase in pressure on our national health service.

The Deputy First Minister talked about the pressure on our NHS as if the Covid ID cards are somehow the answer, whereas, as The Lancet told us, they do not stop transmission of the virus. If the transmission of the virus is principally responsible for a lot of the pressure on our NHS, the scheme is not the answer.

As Mr Cole-Hamilton knows, the scheme is one of a number of measures that the Government is taking to try to suppress transmission of the virus and increase vaccine uptake rates. Of course, if we have higher vaccine uptake rates, it means that people who are double vaccinated are at less risk of becoming seriously ill, which reduces the potential pressure on the national health service.

The scheme is a proportionate measure, applied to a limited number of premises, that the Government is taking to address the serious situation that we face. Alongside other baseline measures, we keep it under review. Covid vaccination certification could be extended to other sectors, as I set out to Parliament earlier, or could have no role to play in our measures. That will be dependent on our judgment about proportionality, which is the legal duty that we must fulfil.

The COVID-19 Recovery Committee agreed by four votes to two to recommend approval of the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment (No 2) Regulations 2021 to provide for the Covid vaccination certification scheme. I invite Parliament to support the motion to ensure that the regulations can come into law so that we have the necessary protections in place. Under the difficult circumstances that we still face, I ask members to approve the regulations. I offer my assurance that the measure will continue to be under review and will remain in place only for as long as is necessary, but it is necessary today to give us an effective means of suppressing the virus and to protect the public.

I invite Parliament to support the regulations.

The question on the motion will be put at decision time.

The next item of business is consideration of three Parliamentary Bureau motions. I ask George Adam, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, to move motions S6M-02049 to S6M-02051, on approval of Scottish statutory instruments.

Motions moved,

That the Parliament agrees that the Scottish Local Government Elections Amendment Order 2021 [draft] be approved.

That the Parliament agrees that the Representation of the People (Postal Voting for Local Government Elections) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021 [draft] be approved.

That the Parliament agrees that the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Chambers) Amendment Regulations 2021 [draft] be approved.—[George Adam]

The questions on the motions will be put at decision time.