Chamber and committees

The Parliament will discuss the unfolding situation in Ukraine later and will express its solidarity with a country whose very existence as an independent democracy is now under attack. However, at this first sitting since Russia’s full-scale invasion, I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the unprovoked imperialist aggression of Vladimir Putin.

There can be no doubt that he must now face the severest of consequences: sanctions on him and his network of oligarchs and agents, and their expulsion from countries across the world; sanctions on his banks and their ability to borrow and function; sanctions on his energy and mineral companies; and, here in the United Kingdom, an immediate clean-up of the swirl of dirty Russian money in the City of London.

Just as Putin must face and feel the wrath of the democratic world, the people of Ukraine must feel and not just hear our support and solidarity. The world must now help and equip Ukraine to defend itself and resist Russian aggression. We must ensure humanitarian aid and assistance and we must all stand ready to offer refuge and sanctuary, where necessary, for those who may be displaced.

This is a critical juncture in history, and perhaps the most dangerous and potentially defining moment since the second world war. We live in this moment, but it is true to say that historic precedents will be set in the hours and days to come. Those will determine the new norms of what is or is not acceptable in our international order.

Putin is an autocrat. His control of the apparatus of state and of the economy, the military and the media can make his power seem impregnable. However, as with most strongman leaders, underneath the veneer of power lie insecurity and fear. There is fear of democracy and of freedom, and fear of the kind of popular uprisings witnessed over recent years in Ukraine ever happening in Russia.

On that point, let us not assume that he is now acting in the name of the Russian people. We must ensure that anti-Putin forces within Russia also have our encouragement and moral support.

Future generations will judge the actions that the world takes in this moment. There are, of course, many complexities but, at its most fundamental, this is a clash between oppression and autocracy on one hand and freedom and democracy on the other. We must all ensure that freedom and democracy prevail. [Applause.]

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My system crashed. I would have voted yes.

Those are details that we continue to work through ourselves but also with the UK Government. There is no doubt at all that the testing system that we have in place right now is extremely expensive and resource intensive—I think that the UK-wide cost is about £15 billion a year. However, it is important that we recognise the cost of not delivering a testing system that is fit for purpose and helps us guard against these risks in future.

We want to be able to provide an appropriate testing system in Scotland—one that provides free access to testing for the people who need it, aligned with the purposes that I spoke about in my statement, allows us to have proper surveillance and respond to outbreaks and ensures that those who most need it get access to care and treatment. That is what we will be working on. We need the UK Government to provide clarity in order for us to set that out in detail, but it has not done so yet.

We know that the position that we expected to be in at the end of the year is not as good as we hoped it would be and that the consequentials from the measures that the chancellor set out to address the cost of living have not flowed through into a net increase in the Scottish Government’s budget. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy set that out when she presented the final stage of the budget just before the recess. She continues to discuss with the UK Government—the Treasury, in particular—those year-end issues, so that we can present a final position to Parliament as soon as possible.

Further to my previous answer, let me again give an assurance that we have considered, are considering and will continue to consider people who are at the highest clinical risk in every strand of the phased approach that we are taking to managing this pandemic.

There are a number of practical ways in which we give life to that. People at the highest risk continue to be prioritised for vaccination. Our testing programme continues, to support the effective management of Covid. People who are at higher clinical risk might also benefit from the new treatments that have been identified—I set out some of that in my statement. Also, as I said in my previous answer, we continue to encourage and recommend that everyone across the country adopts the safe behaviours and practices that help to keep the people who are most vulnerable as safe as possible.

This has been a collective endeavour from day 1. We have all had to look out for and look after each other. Even as we go into what are, I hope, calmer waters of this pandemic, that remains the case. I urge everybody, however frustrated they may be about wearing a face covering or having to isolate when they test positive, to continue to do those things, because they are about the protection of those who are most vulnerable in our society.

These are really important questions. Traditionally, we may debate such things through a constitutional prism, and we will differ in that. However, even if we do not approach the issue from a general point of view, this is about the best ways of dealing with an unpredictable public health challenge.

Right now, the fact is that, through the Barnett formula, the only way that money flows to Scotland, or to Wales or Northern Ireland, to allow us to discharge our public health functions is if the UK Government takes a decision that generates additional spending for England. If it does not take such a decision or it takes a decision but does not provide any new money to support it, no resource is made available to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I am not the only First Minister who is making these points. Mark Drakeford is making them, and the Executive in Northern Ireland—which, of course, is not functioning normally right now—makes them as well. It is a basic fact, and it is compounded by the fact that the devolved Administrations do not have borrowing powers. Anybody who wants this Parliament and this Government to be able to take public health decisions without being constrained by other Governments’ decisions on resources should support us in getting to a more sustainable way of dealing with these matters. I encourage people across the chamber to engage with those issues seriously.

We continue to take decisions in a proportionate way. If further future action was necessary, ministers would set out specific criteria for which prisoners could be released. That would exclude types of prisoners that raise particular concerns. Since that power was created in April 2020, it has been used only once.

The bill, which will undergo full scrutiny in this Parliament, only extends the temporary power; it does not make it permanent. As I understand it, the equivalent power in England is permanent. That is not the proposal here.

This is about ensuring, whether on this issue or on a range of other issues, that we have at our disposal the means to respond proportionately and flexibly in the face of public health challenges.

I recently heard Aileen McHarg, a professor of public law, say something that I think is worth quoting:

“There’s a difference between having access to emergency powers and using those powers … There is a better opportunity now to design an effective control framework than there would be if powers”

were

“to be acquired urgently again in the context of another health emergency.”

This is about making sure that our law is sensible and gives the Government, with appropriate scrutiny from Parliament, the ability to respond to such emergencies.

I do agree that the NHS is under significant pressure. We are working hard with the NHS to ensure that it can address that pressure, recover from Covid and get back on track in a range of ways.

I do not think that I could conclude from what I heard in the question that those pressures are responsible for the individual situation that was narrated, although it does of course sound unacceptable. I would be happy to ask the health secretary to look into that in more detail if Pam Duncan-Glancy wants to send me the details.

The arrangements for what should happen in the very small number of cases where errors are made in the administration of vaccine are clear and should be followed. If that has not happened in this case, we would want to ensure that the relevant health board reflects on that. If the details are sent to my office, I will ensure that that happens.

We have had significant engagement with stakeholders who represent people who are more at risk, and that will continue. It is because we recognise the issue—I recognise the issue—that, even as we lift legal restrictions, we continue to recommend basic protections and mitigations. It is why we think that access to testing continues to be important. It is why we think that any of us who tests positive should continue to be asked to isolate, to reduce the risk to those who are most vulnerable.

We all have to recognise that the desire to get back to normal, understandable though it is, has to be tempered by the understanding that, for those at greatest risk, the anxiety is very real, so that we can all behave in a way that reduces the risk that people face and, I hope, reduces that anxiety.

The Scottish Government will continue to take those considerations very much into account as we take decisions in the future about the handling of the pandemic overall.

Today’s statement coincides with the publication of the revised strategic framework for tackling Covid. I will set out the key elements of the new framework and explain what it means for our collective response to Covid, now and in the months ahead. At the heart of the framework is a desire for, and increasing confidence in, our ability to achieve a sustainable return to a normal way of life, even as we remain prepared for future threats that Covid might present.

I will start by describing our updated strategic intent and approach. The new approach will see us resorting much less—I hope, not at all—to legally imposed protective measures. Instead, we will rely predominantly on vaccines, treatments and sensible public health behaviours and adaptations.

However, much as we might wish it was not the case, Covid is still a public health risk, here and globally. It is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, so we must remain vigilant and prepared. I will outline how we will, to that end, categorise and respond to future risks—including those from new variants. I will explain why our decisions must be based on a combination of data, evidence and judgment. I will give our assessment of the current situation in Scotland in the light of recent data, and I will set out an indicative timescale for lifting or converting to guidance the small number of legally binding measures that remain in place.

Finally, I will set out our commitment to there being continued access to polymerase chain reaction and lateral flow testing free of charge, while we transition to a system of testing that is more targeted but which retains adequate capacity to support surveillance, rapid response to the emergence of new variants, effective outbreak management, and access to the best care and treatment for those who need it. I confirm our advice that people who test positive for Covid should continue to self-isolate for now.

On testing, I must express frustration at the United Kingdom Government’s position. It is, of course, for the Prime Minister to decide how best to tackle Covid in England. However, current funding arrangements mean that although taxpayers in all four UK nations contribute to the costs, decisions that are taken for England determine the resources that are available to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for testing and other Covid measures.

As of now, we have no clarity on how much of the Covid testing infrastructure the UK Government intends to retain, no clarity on how much investment will support it in the future, and no clarity on whether the Treasury will provide additional resources or demand instead that funding be taken from elsewhere in the health budget. I hope that we will get clarity soon, so that we can set out in more detail our longer-term approach to testing.

However, I give the assurance now—I will say more on this later—that the Scottish Government is determined to retain a robust testing system that is capable of providing Scotland with strong resilience against future Covid threats and is firmly aligned with public health advice and the principles that underpin our national health service.

I will turn to the key points in detail; I start with our revised strategic approach. In earlier phases of the pandemic, it was important to try to eliminate Covid—or to suppress it to the lowest possible level—because we did not have vaccines or treatments to protect against the serious illness and death that the virus can cause. That is why our objective initially was

“to suppress the virus to the lowest possible level”,

although we modified that somewhat last year. In today’s update, it is modified further, and is now expressed as being

“To manage COVID-19 effectively, primarily through adaptations and health measures that strengthen our resilience and recovery, as we rebuild for a better future.”

That change is possible because widespread vaccination coverage and better treatments have reduced the direct harms of the virus. As a result, using restrictions to suppress infection is no longer as necessary as it once was. Given the wider harms that are caused by protective measures, it is no longer as justifiable, either.

The strategic framework makes it clear, therefore, that in the future we will seek to rely much less on legally imposed measures and to rely more on vaccines, treatments, sensible adaptations and good public health behaviours. As a priority, we will continue to ensure the maximum possible availability and uptake of vaccination, in line with expert advice.

Although the success of the vaccination programme has exceeded our expectations, there are still more than 600,000 people over 18 who have had a second dose but have not yet had a third or booster dose, so there is more to do to maximise uptake. We will also continue to extend the scope of vaccinations. Last week, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommended that all 5 to 11-year-olds—not just those who are at the highest clinical risk—should be eligible for vaccination. I confirm that vaccination appointments for that age group will be issued from mid March. To allow parents and carers to attend with children, most appointments will be in the evening, at weekends or during the Easter school holidays.

Yesterday, we also accepted JCVI advice on protecting people who are at the highest risk. It is now our intention to offer care home residents, people over 75 and everyone over 12 who is immunosuppressed an additional booster six months after their last jag. That phase of the programme will also start in March, although the scheduling of appointments for individuals will depend on the timing of their initial booster or third dose.

In addition to vaccination, we will also use the best available treatments for people who need them. There are already effective treatments available that reduce the rates of serious illness and death among those who are admitted to hospital with Covid. Therapeutic medicines are also now being offered to patients who have not been hospitalised but are assessed as being at the greatest risk of needing hospital treatment. New oral antiviral treatments are also being evaluated through a UK-wide study. We will make the best use of those treatments, dependent on what the evidence and expert advice tell us about their efficacy.

Vaccination and treatment will play a major—perhaps the major—role in limiting the health harm that is caused by the virus in the months and years to come. However, it is also important to encourage and support people to adopt safe practices and to make basic adaptations that will help to keep us safe. The document that we are publishing today gives more detail on the kinds of behaviours and adaptations that will be encouraged in various circumstances. They include enhanced hygiene across the general population, improved ventilation in workplaces and other settings and—especially when levels of infection might be higher—increased hybrid and flexible working and use of face coverings in some indoor public places. It is now less likely that any of those measures will be legally imposed in the future, but we will advise their use for as long as they help to keep the virus under control and protect the people who are most vulnerable to it.

It is also, of course, vital that we remain vigilant for new developments. It is, unfortunately, highly likely that the virus will continue to mutate and confront us with new and potentially more harmful variants in the future. In order to identify and respond to such threats quickly, we will maintain a strong surveillance capability. We will set it out in more detail next month but, subject to the point that I made earlier about the overall resources that are available to us, our surveillance system will include extensive PCR sampling and processing capacity, waste-water sampling and genomic sequencing capability.

We also welcome confirmation that the UK-wide Covid infection survey, which is conducted by the Office for National Statistics, will continue. It is essential, however, that it continues at scale, so we will seek to work with the UK Government to ensure that that is the case.

That surveillance capacity will help us identify new threats rapidly. It will also help us assess the potential severity of any new threat and quickly determine the appropriate level of response.

The strategic update that we are publishing today sets out a clear framework for any decisions that we might, in the future, have to take in response to new developments. I want to stress that the framework is intended as a contingency; we hope, of course, that we never have to use it. However, it recognises the on-going challenge that Covid presents and sets out three broad levels of future potential threat: low, medium and high.

The framework also offers illustrative examples of the types of protective measures that could be deployed in response to the different threat levels. It might be helpful to illustrate that through some general examples. If a new variant were to emerge that was more transmissible and more severe, perhaps with the ability to evade vaccines or natural immunity, that threat would likely be classified as high. In those circumstances, we might advise people to limit social contact for a period and to work from home where possible, and we might introduce some temporary protections for high-risk settings.

If a new variant was either more transmissible or more severe, but not both—as is the case with omicron—the initial threat assessment would likely be medium. In those circumstances, there might be a legal requirement to wear face coverings in some settings, and we might issue guidance for businesses and service providers on reasonable measures to reduce the spread of Covid in their premises.

Lastly, in the absence of a new variant, or if a new variant was neither more transmissible nor more severe—and if vaccines continue to be effective—the threat classification would likely remain low. Obviously, that is the level that we hope to reach and to stay at on a sustainable basis. In those circumstances, there would be no legally imposed protective measures; instead, we would continue to advise individuals and organisations to adopt sensible public health behaviours. It is important to stress that any decision about the threat level and what the appropriate response should be will be guided by data and evidence.

However, that is not an exact science—it will also, by necessity, involve judgment. That is because the kind of developments that we might face in the future—principally, new variants—will not be uniform in their potential impacts. A new variant that is highly transmissible but less severe would obviously require a different response to one that was less transmissible but more severe, so we must guard against taking a one-size-fits-all approach. That is why the framework does not propose fixed thresholds for action—for example, by stating that we will take certain pre-determined steps if the number of cases rises above a specified level. Such thresholds might be superficially attractive because of the certainty that they appear to provide, but they pose a very significant risk of both underreaction and overreaction.

The framework that I have just described can be used to categorise our current threat level and to help to guide decisions in the coming period. I will return to that shortly.

First, I will summarise the latest data and trends. Today, we are reporting 6,427 new cases from lateral flow and PCR tests; 1,060 people are in hospital, which is 9 more than yesterday; and 25 people are in intensive care, which is the same as yesterday. Sadly, in the past 24 hours, 18 deaths have been registered of people with Covid under the daily definition. Once again, my condolences go to everyone who is mourning a loved one.

Over the past week, reported cases have fallen very slightly, by about 1 per cent. They have fallen in all age groups under 45, and have risen in all age groups over 45. The latest available data shows that hospital admissions have slightly increased again, from 619 in the week to 11 February to 654 in the most recent week. Total hospital occupancy has also increased again, so we will obviously continue to keep a close watch on that. The number of people who are in intensive care with Covid—25—continues to be relatively low.

In summary, we continue to face a highly transmissible variant that is causing a high level of community infection. However, although it is far from harmless, omicron’s overall impact is less severe than delta’s. Therefore, using the framework that I described earlier, we have assessed the current threat level to be medium. However, assuming that the level of infection and its associated impacts—for example, hospital admissions—fall or broadly stabilise, we expect the level to be reassessed as low in the period ahead. That has enabled the Cabinet to agree this morning to an indicative timescale for lifting, or converting to guidance, the small number of legally imposed protective measures that remain in place at this stage.

First, I confirm that the Covid certification scheme, which requires certain venues and events to check the vaccination or test status of attendees, will come to an end next Monday, 28 February. However, the app that supports the scheme will remain operational, so that any business that wishes to continue Covid certification on a voluntary basis in order to reassure customers will be able to do so.

Secondly, as of 21 March—assuming that there are no significant adverse developments in the course of the virus—we expect that the legal requirement to wear face coverings in certain indoor settings and on public transport will be converted to guidance. However, we will continue to strongly recommend wearing of face coverings in shops and other indoor public places, and on public transport.

In addition, on 21 March, we expect to lift the legal requirement for businesses, places of worship and service providers to have regard to guidance on Covid, and to take the reasonably practicable measures that are set out in the guidance. The legal requirement on businesses and service providers to retain customer contact details is also expected to end on 21 March.

Governments, obviously, must act lawfully. That means that we cannot impose legal restrictions when it is disproportionate to do so. As the situation improves and the severity of the impact from Covid reduces, we are duty bound to remove legally imposed restrictions. However, that should not be taken as a signal that Covid no longer presents any risk to health: it clearly does. Therefore, even though certain measures—wearing of face coverings, for example—might not be legal requirements in the future, we will still recommend voluntary compliance as part of the range of behaviours that will help to keep us safe, as we manage Covid in a more sustainable and less restrictive way.

I turn, finally, to testing. Testing has been, and will continue to be, a vital part of our management of Covid. However, as the nature of the threat and our approach to managing it evolves, so, too, will our approach to testing. It is reasonable, over time and barring adverse developments, to move away from mass population-wide asymptomatic testing towards a more targeted system that is focused on specific priorities. Those priorities will include surveillance, rapid detection of and response to new variants, effective outbreak management, particularly in high-risk settings such as care homes and hospitals, and ensuring access to care and treatment for those who need it.

However, it is vital that we make the transition in a careful and phased manner. In March—by which time we will, I hope, have more clarity from the UK Government on available resources—we will publish a detailed transition plan for test and protect, setting out our priorities in more detail and describing the scale of infrastructure that will remain in place for the longer term. The plan will also confirm the duration, beyond the end of March, of any transition period during which the system will operate—broadly—on the same basis as it operates now.

The public health reasons for ensuring a careful phased transition from the current arrangements to a more targeted testing system are obviously most important. However, we should also remember that hundreds of people in test and protect, at testing sites across the country and in our processing labs, including Glasgow Lighthouse, have worked tirelessly to keep us safe over the past two years, and these decisions affect their jobs and livelihoods, which is a point that was, seemingly, overlooked by the UK Government yesterday. I record our thanks to them today, and give an assurance that we will engage closely with them in the weeks ahead.

As we do that work in the coming weeks and for the transition period, access to testing will continue—subject to one change that I will set out shortly—on broadly the same basis as it exists now. We will be considering separately advice for schools and health and care workers, in line with expert advice. However, for the general public, I will set out clearly what that means from now until further notice.

First, if you have Covid symptoms, you should continue to go for a PCR test. Access to those tests will remain free of charge at testing sites across the country. Secondly, you should continue to make regular use of lateral flow tests even if you do not have symptoms.

The only immediate change that we are making to current arrangements on lateral flow tests for the general population is in our advice on frequency of testing. Instead of advising people to test before going anywhere to mix with others, we will, from next Monday, revert to the advice to test at least twice a week, in particular if you are going to a crowded place or mixing with people who are clinically vulnerable.

Lateral flow tests will remain free of charge in the transition phase. Indeed, we consider it to be important—in line with the principle of healthcare being free at the point of use—that they remain free of charge for any circumstances in which Government recommends testing. That is a principle that we will seek to uphold in our longer-term plan for testing.

I also want to emphasise that in Scotland we will, for now, continue to ask people who test positive for Covid to isolate for the recommended period, and we will continue to make self-isolation support payments available to those who are eligible.

We will, of course, keep the recommended period of isolation under review. However, it is worth stressing that isolating and staying at home when you test positive for the highly infectious virus, and the follow-up tracing that test and protect does, remain among the most fundamental public health protections that are available to us. That helps to limit transmission overall and, in helping to keep workplaces and other settings safer, it also provides protection for people who are most at risk of serious illness from Covid, thereby enabling them, too, to return to more normal lives.

Covid is, unfortunately, still with us, so we must therefore remain vigilant and prepared for the threats that it poses, but today’s new framework is an important moment in our recovery. It marks the point at which we move away—sustainably, we hope—from legal restrictions and rely instead on sensible behaviours, adaptations and mitigations.

Our return to normality must, though, go hand in hand with a continuing determination to look after one another. All of us have a part to play in ensuring a safe and sustainable recovery, so I will close by again urging everyone to follow advice on getting vaccinated, on testing as regularly as appropriate, on wearing face coverings when required or recommended, on keeping rooms ventilated and on following hygiene advice.

All that still matters, even as we lift the remaining legal requirements. It is how we will keep ourselves and one another safe as we recover from Covid and look forward together to brighter days ahead.