Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government how its policies and actions across Government will support South Ayrshire to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. (S6O-00898)

In my constituency, I was proud to see communities and the third sector organisations coming together to support South Ayrshire Lifeline when the pandemic began. That allowed the organisation to expand services such as its helpline and its prescription collection and distribution network, but that would not have been possible without people going above and beyond for their communities. Will the Deputy First Minister outline how the Scottish Government will continue to fund the third sector and retain people in local organisations?

Sorry—I wanted to come in on question 5.

Not at the moment.

Tourism has a vital role to play in Scotland’s recovery—that is without doubt. Scotland was on a roll prior to the pandemic, with a 33 per cent increase in visits between 2018 and 2019 and a 37 per cent increase in spend by tourists. Much of that tourism was domestic. In fact, 37 per cent of all overnight stays were undertaken by visitors from Scotland. The United Kingdom market still greatly outweighs the overseas market, with more than a third of visits to Scotland coming from English, Welsh and Northern Irish visitors. Those figures will only have risen during the years of the staycation. A key priority now should be to retain those visitors, ensuring that Scotland remains competitive against cheap flights abroad and winter sun.

Investments such as that in the mountain biking centre in Innerleithen, which was announced recently, are an encouraging development. With hill walking, mountain biking and kayaking, active tourism is a major market upon which Scotland has an infinite capacity to capitalise. That is down to both Scotland’s Governments. After all, visitors often tie in a visit to Scotland with visits to other UK nations. As we go forward, it is really important to retain the active tourism market and to encourage repeat visits. That is why it is reassuring to see the UK Government and the Scottish Government working together through the Borderlands deal. The £19 million that has just been invested in Caerlee mill is a great example of how Westminster and Holyrood can work together to deliver world-class facilities. The new centre will not only bring together companies and athletes from around the world, but build upon the success of the world mountain biking championship in Fort William and create a great local facility for the people of Peeblesshire.

Scotland’s festivals are returning, which is a welcome boost for the tourism sector. Having met many of their representatives over the past months, I have seen how hard things have been for them, and it is great to see how excited they are about their festivals returning. Not only are those festivals important parts of the regional economy; they have a major role to play in bringing culture to parts of Scotland beyond the traditional heartlands of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Events such as the Boswell book festival, the Spectra festival of light in Aberdeen and the Doune the Rabbit Hole festival in Cardross, as well as culinary celebrations such as Taste of Shetland, all attract visitors and fuel rural economies.

Local authorities have a big job to do here. Many of them do excellent work with tight budgets, but that is precisely the problem. Arts and culture fuel a huge chunk of Scottish tourism, yet those budgets are being cut by nearly every council in every corner of Scotland. The issue lies with local government funding. Councils simply need more support from central Government. Without a serious intervention, many more events and festivals may suffer.

Once again, I urge all members to get behind their local events and tourism businesses as much as they can.

I thank Evelyn Tweed for bringing the motion to the chamber for debate.

I note the immense efforts made by Scotland’s tourism sector over the past two years. Many businesses have struggled. They have had to cope with an ever-shifting landscape of restrictions and some have gone under, sadly, over the course of the pandemic. The sector is a backbone of the Scottish economy, and it requires our support. Accordingly, I urge every MSP to learn about their local attractions this week, to give them some support and to encourage people to visit. After all, if our representatives are not enthusiastic about visiting, why would anybody else be?

On workforce issues, which you mentioned earlier, paragraph 20 of the report refers to the 2021 Royal College of Nursing employment survey, which

“found that 40 per cent of staff are working beyond their contracted hours on most shifts ... 67 per cent ... were too busy to provide the level of care they would like and 72 per cent ... were under too much pressure at work.”

What steps is the Scottish Government taking to address those issues?

I apologise for not being there in person.

According to the third bullet point in paragraph 6 of the report, the Scottish Government has committed to supplying personal protective equipment free of charge to the NHS and social care services

“until at least March 2022”,

but it is not clear what the arrangements will be after that. Do you have any update on that?

Measures to reduce delayed discharges in the first wave of the pandemic from December 2019 to April 2020 were effective in the short term. Can you outline what those measures were? Given that delayed discharge continues to be a huge problem, what do you believe needs to be done now to achieve a longer-term solution to it?

Paragraph 14 of the Auditor General’s report states that a

“SEPA staff member received a system alert at midnight on the morning of the 24 December 2020”

and that they

“were unable to reach the key senior management contact to escalate the issue at this point.”

The Auditor General has told us that SEPA reviewed its immediate response protocols following the cyberattack. Are you able to give us a brief outline of the changes that have been made as a result of the review?

Good morning. We know that the cyberattack is subject to an on-going police investigation, but are you able to confirm whether investigations are on-going to establish, as the report says,

“the exact route source of where the cyber-attack breached SEPA’s systems”?

Once those investigations are complete, will that information be shared with us or will it remain confidential?