Chamber and committees

Dr Miles wants to come in on Jim Fairlie’s question.

I am sorry—we have run out of time for this part of the agenda. That concludes our consideration of item 1, and I thank the Deputy First Minister and his officials for their evidence today.

We move to item 3, which is consideration of the motion to approve the draft Health Protection (Coronavirus) Requirements (Scotland) Amendment No 4 Regulations 2022. As members will be aware, we will take the motions on the other two instruments that are listed under agenda item 2 at a future meeting, once the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has reported on them.

Deputy First Minister, would you like to make any further remarks on this Scottish statutory instrument before we consider the motion?

Brilliant. Thank you very much for your answers. We will move to questions from Murdo Fraser.

Dr Shackles wanted to respond to your previous question.

How are university students being supported in their learning and degree progress, in light of on-going strike action?

What steps is the Scottish Government taking to tackle health misinformation, especially in relation to Covid-19 vaccinations?

To ask the Scottish Government how it is building on Scotland’s relations with the European Union post-Brexit. (S6O-00746)

Some of my constituents—in particular, students—have been in touch because they are starting to feel acutely the effects of the UK’s hard approach to EU relations post-Brexit, including through the loss of the Erasmus+ student exchange programme. Can the cabinet secretary provide an update on the Scottish Government’s efforts to set up an alternative that will benefit students in Scotland and across Europe?

As convener of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee, I thank my fellow committee members and our highly professional clerking team for their work as we considered and scrutinised this bill through its different stages.

As we know, when the Public Health etc (Scotland) Act 2008 was introduced, the global Covid crisis, which we have been battling since March 2020, was not a consideration. The 2008 act simply put a duty on health boards to compensate any employee who was asked to isolate or quarantine. Given the magnitude of the pandemic and the need for so many to self-isolate at different stages, in response to different variants, it would not be reasonable to expect health boards to financially compensate workers throughout the crisis. The Coronavirus (Discretionary Compensation for Self-isolation) (Scotland) Bill allows payment to those who need it most, if they need to self-isolate. Workers should not experience financial hardship as a result of doing the right thing.

In the stage 1 debate, there was general broad support across the Parliament for the principles of the bill to be extended. The debate highlighted a number of key considerations, one of which was the level of scrutiny that is afforded when the made affirmative procedure is used. Other issues that were highlighted were awareness of the support that is available for self-isolation and the recognition of the importance of consulting health boards before implementing the measures that are set out in the bill.

The COVID-19 Recovery Committee made a recommendation in paragraph 68 of its stage 1 report that the Scottish Government should

“produce a statement of reasons”

when making emergency regulations.

The Scottish Government responded positively to that recommendation and, at stage 2, brought forward amendment 3, which improves the Scottish Government’s accountability under the bill. We thank the Scottish ministers for making that improvement to the bill—I note that the Law Society of Scotland also commended that amendment.

Our committee took evidence from the Scottish Women’s Convention, which sent out a consultation to more than 4,000 women. Only 100 women responded, and none of them had successfully accessed a self-isolation grant or local self-isolation assistance services. Those figures were from the very early days of the payment; I am aware that there has been an improvement in promoting the self-isolation grant, and most people who receive a positive test result on their mobile phone are quickly sent a link to apply for the self-isolation grant. I appreciate that not everybody has a mobile phone, and there will be groups that are difficult to access. The committee also urged the Government to consider how best to increase public awareness of the support that is available to people who are asked to self-isolate.

I am pleased that the Scottish Government’s response confirmed that those issues will be kept under regular review and that it will continue to review its public communications on self-isolation support. I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has listened and considered the issues that were raised at stage 1, and I welcome its amendments 1 to 3 at stage 2 last week.

I believe that, as we emerge from the pandemic, reform is needed to the 2008 act to ensure that permanent support is in place in the event of another pandemic. No country worldwide has had a solid, foolproof, mistake-free guidebook on how to get a country through a pandemic, so lessons must be learned and measures put in place, in order that we are never again in the position in which the world found itself in March 2020.

I will support the bill at stage 3, as the Scottish Government continues to put measures in place to support people who need to self-isolate but not financially burden our health boards, while we continue to navigate our way out of the pandemic.

Good morning, and welcome to the fourth meeting in 2022 of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee.

The first item on the agenda is consideration of the latest ministerial statement on Covid-19 and subordinate legislation. I welcome the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery, John Swinney, and his supporting official, Professor Jason Leitch, who is the national clinical director. I invite the Deputy First Minister to make some remarks before we move on to questions.