Chamber and committees

If the Government does force this measure through today, I urge it to work closely with those clubs and not hang them out to dry.

The Night Time Industries Association has also written to MSPs and put forward some helpful suggestions on how the impact of the policy could be mitigated. It asks the Government to pause and reflect on where the numbers are going. As the First Minister suggested yesterday, the case numbers might have peaked and are now starting to fall again, so surely it is premature to bring the policy in quickly and without the necessary infrastructure in place.

The NTIA also raised with me another issue that is also touched on in the proposal, and that is the definition of a nightclub. The Government does not have a definition for them yet, so I suspect that many pubs will be in for a big nasty surprise.

6.

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its co-operation agreement with the Scottish Green Party, whether it will provide an update on its position on maintaining the monarch as the head of state in an independent Scotland. (S6O-00120)

I thank the member for that intervention, but she obviously has not read the notes that were released earlier today, which say that there is no definition of a nightclub and that it is still being worked on. How we can vote on the proposals when that definition is not in place is a strange one on me.

The proposals that the Government has presented to us have more holes than a Swiss cheese. They are meant for nightclubs, but we cannot define a nightclub. The medical exemption process is still being developed. Under-18s will be exempt, but that might be changed to under-16s, and young people going to a concert will now have to prove that they are under 18 and if they do not have a driving licence or a passport, I am not sure how they will do that.

We have no idea on costs to businesses. Guidance on “reasonable measures” will come later. We are being asked to approve so many unknowns today!

I am also extremely concerned by recent reports that events organisers are abstaining from coming to Scotland and moving existing events to England as the measures proposed by the devolved Government will prove too costly and too difficult for them to operate in Scotland.

The events industry in Scotland is worth around £1.5 billion a year. If that income were to be lost or substantially reduced, that would have a major economic impact on many regions, including the north-east. Of course, we have a major event coming to Scotland in just seven weeks’ time: the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26. We have no idea how that conference will be impacted by what is proposed today; we will just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best.

There is one final concern that I want to highlight, which is to do with the timing of the introduction of the proposed scheme. If its introduction forces someone to get vaccinated, the soonest they will be allowed into a venue will be 10 weeks after their first injection. If they got their first jab today, it would be 18 November before they were able to go to a football match or a concert, which does not seem fair.

This is an ill-thought-out policy from the coalition of chaos. The screeching U-turn by the SNP-Green devolved Government is a sight to behold. Where is the once-principled view of Patrick Harvie, who was so ardently against the policy but has now fallen into line just to protect his ministerial salary? There has been no planning, no discussion and no consultation. No thought has been given to the policy; it has been written on the back of an envelope without the information technology systems to support its being in place. Once again, the people and businesses of Scotland will be left to suffer and to try to cope as best they can.

Okay. Yes, the report is there, but it also mentions that the fund is now in a much stronger position because of that UK Government guarantee.

The conclusions of that report state that

“the Scheme has continued to produce strong returns despite the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.”

All parties agree that that is only due to the guarantee that the UK Government continues to provide for the scheme.

In 1996, a report by Binder Hamlyn concluded that no one expected future surpluses of that extent. The trustees and the Government agreed a 50-50 split in good faith, and all parties signed up to it and were content with it. The split was agreed on the understanding that the UK Government would guarantee the scheme, as has already been said, and it was that guarantee that meant that the trustees could invest in more high-risk investments, which has undoubtedly paid off. It is widely accepted that the bonuses would have been less, or non-existent, had the scheme not been guaranteed. One witness at the inquiry even suggested that the pension payout might have been smaller if the Government’s guarantee had not been in place.

I thank Christine Grahame for securing this important debate. I am pleased to see her focus on Westminster and the importance of the work that the UK Government has done on behalf of mining communities across the United Kingdom.

There is strength in that partnership, which has brought benefits to our miners through the pension scheme. It has been mentioned already that the select committee conducted an important inquiry and heard evidence from all sides. One thing on which all participants agreed was that the guarantee that the UK Government offered was essential to securing the benefits that the scheme has enjoyed.

Indeed, the report states that the pension scheme made gains of 6.2 per cent in 2020, far outperforming other schemes, and that

“the typical member’s pension”

is

“‘around 33% higher in real terms than it would have been had they received only their actual earned pension up to privatisation’.”

I want to go back to non-domestic rates and empty properties. I am from the north-east of Scotland and, over the past few years, I have been concerned about the number of commercial properties—I would not call them old properties—that are being knocked down just to save on non-domestic rates. Knocking down new premises has an impact on the environment as well as on the valuation roll. Do you agree and, if so, what can be done over the next couple of years to mitigate that situation?

I thank the witnesses for their submissions. In his submission, John Dickie says:

“Evidence from our Cost of the School Day project shows that charging for curriculum materials, lack of digital devices and connectivity, the cost of school trips, uniform policies, transport and school meal costs ... exclude young people from learning”.

To be honest, I thought that local government and the Scottish Government were doing quite well in that area. Should they be doing more, or is this a case of differences in different parts of the country?

My next question is for Adam Stachura. You mention older workers in your submission. There is a risk that many of these older workers might not come back to work once furlough ends. Do you think that the Government can do more to ensure that those workers are welcomed back into employment and given meaningful jobs for as long as they want them?

I have another question for Adam Stachura. I am contacted quite a lot about the difficulty that people have in getting a doctor’s appointment, and I often hear that, when they get one, it has to be online. Has that been a problem for elderly people, and could the Government do more about it?

The valuation roll has probably decreased now, given that buildings have been knocked down, and in town centres where they cannot be knocked down, because they might be listed, there is still a loss of income. Has there been any analysis of the impact on the Scottish Government’s budget of that kind of reduction in the roll?