Chamber and committees

Where the judgement and assessment of people who are qualified to make the assessments is that HEPA filters or other filtration systems are required, they should be installed. That is why we have provided funding to local authorities to facilitate and enable that. It is not the case that filters will be required in every learning space: in some, mechanical ventilation systems are important. Through additional funding, we have enabled local authorities to take the decisions that they consider to be appropriate, while taking health and safety advice along the way. That is the right and proper way to support schools to be as safe as possible.

A range of measures—face coverings being one—have been necessary and will continue to be necessary in the future. We do not want any of the measures to be in place for longer than is necessary, but the safety of young people is the Government’s overriding priority in making decisions.

That question is utterly ridiculous, and I think that it will be treated by people as ridiculous to describe anything in that way. The bill is not an emergency bill; it will go through the full process of scrutiny by the Parliament. In some respects, the Conservatives are at risk of misrepresenting some of the contents of the bill. Every provision in it will be subject to full and proper scrutiny and to a decision through votes of this Parliament.

The challenge is to get the right balance between having the powers and levers that any Government needs to respond quickly to public health emergencies and not having any emergency powers on the statute book for longer than is necessary. I am sure that everyone across the Parliament will rise to the challenge of getting that balance right.

We are working with a range of organisations and businesses to promote the initiative among their staff and customers. There is a bespoke online awareness-raising toolkit, and posters have been sent to stakeholders across Scotland.

As I indicated in my opening remarks, early uptake has been good, which I think suggests that there are many people who want that added bit of reassurance to give them the confidence to get back to normal, whether that is in workplaces or while they are shopping or socialising. If it helps, that is a good thing, and we should all try to respect that when we see people wearing the badges or lanyards. It is totally voluntary and people are not required to do it, but anybody can request the materials if they think that it would help.

We are in a transition back to normality. I hope that it will be sustained and sustainable normality, but some people are more nervous about that than others, and some people, of course, remain at higher risk of Covid than others. If we all pull together, as we have done through the earlier stages of the pandemic, and we support each other in that way, it will make the transition all the easier, but it is likely to make it more sustainable as well.

An appropriately flexible approach should be taken to that. I undertake to discuss that point with clinical advisers and to write to Gillian Mackay—and to make the answer more widely available.

The position that we take should reflect the lived reality of the children who may be more vulnerable through their own health conditions or through contact with people who have compromised immune systems, rather than any overly rigid definitions.

That said, the advice on such matters comes from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, and it is important that we honour and respect that advice. I will discuss the point with clinical advisers and revert to Gillian Mackay as soon as possible.

As I reported to the Parliament, we took the decision to pause flu vaccinations in order to allow the prioritisation of the immediate challenge of delivering Covid booster vaccinations. However, local health boards are now offering flu vaccines again to the following high-risk groups that had not already received it—although uptake was high when we took the decision to pause it. Those who can now access the flu vaccination again are people aged over 65, people with an eligible health condition, pregnant women, front-line health and social care workers, adult unpaid carers, and the household contacts aged over 16 of someone who is severely immunosuppressed.

The flu season runs until the end of March, so it is essential that people get vaccinated, to get the protection that they need. There is still time to do so. Further information on how to go about arranging a flu vaccination is available through NHS Inform.

I will come to the specific issue of a levy on oil and gas in a second. First, I recognise the point that today’s Ofgem decision on the energy price cap means that the increase in energy costs will be just under £700. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was still on his feet when I came into the chamber, so I have not heard all the detail of what he said, but he has just announced what sounded like welcome steps to help to mitigate the increase. However, in my view, those steps do not go far enough. They seem to offer about £350 of help against energy bill increases of around £700.

I also do not yet know what the position on consequentials will be, but I give the commitment, assuming that there are the consequentials that I expect, that every single penny will go towards helping people in Scotland to deal with the cost of living crisis.

There is one issue that we will have to deal with in Scotland, because part of the chancellor’s announcement today was about council tax rebates. Of course, average council tax bills in Scotland are already significantly lower that they are in England. In band C council tax, people pay on average £525 less in Scotland than they would pay in England.

Another difference is that, because of decisions that were made by the SNP Government, approximately 400,000 people in Scotland do not pay any council tax because we have, unlike the situation in England, a council tax reduction scheme than can deliver up to 100 per cent relief. We will have to consider how to help people who also have rising energy bills; we are determined that that help will be delivered.

On the oil and gas levy, the SNP believes in fair and progressive taxation. Those who have the broadest shoulders should pay the most, which certainly includes companies, including oil and gas companies, that have rising profits. During the pandemic other companies fell into that category; Amazon’s profits are rising and supermarkets have had rising profits. We need to make sure that we take a fair approach.

The Scottish Government does not have the power to do that; it is a decision for the UK Government. My only caveat is that we need to ensure that the burden of rightly providing households the length and breadth of the UK with as much help as possible does not fall only on people, jobs and investment in the north-east of Scotland, at a time when we are trying to make the transition from oil and gas to renewable energy in order to meet our net zero targets.

For decades now, Westminster Governments have seen the north-east of Scotland as a cash cow, so let us make sure that, however the UK Government chooses to fund it, the help that I agree with Anas Sarwar must be provided is provided fairly, so that all the companies that have the broadest shoulders get the chance to contribute to it.

I will come on to what the Scottish Government can do, is doing, and will do, in a moment.

On the question about a levy, Anas Sarwar has asked me about something that I have no power to do, but I have no ideological objection to companies whose profits are rising—whether because of the global increase in gas prices or the effects of the pandemic—being asked to contribute. That includes oil and gas companies. I am simply saying that, if the UK Government is going to do that, it should do it fairly so that all companies that can make a contribution do so, and so that we do not just have another Westminster Government seeking to use only the north-east of Scotland and its people, jobs and investment for benefit. That, rightly, should be shared across the UK. If that is what the UK Government decides to do, I am certainly open to having companies that can do so making that contribution.

On what the Scottish Government can do, let me talk about what we are already doing. As I said earlier, council tax bills in Scotland are already significantly lower: band C council tax is, on average, £525 lower than it is in England, and is £376 lower on average than it is in Wales. We have a council tax reduction scheme that gives 100 per cent relief to approximately 400,000 people in Scotland. That is not available in most parts of England.

On payments during the pandemic, towards the end of last year approximately 500,000 households got a £130 support payment because of the pandemic. More recently, of course—which is more relevant to the issue we are talking about now—we have established the £41 million winter support fund, which is helping people to heat their homes—

There is a key point here, Presiding Officer, because independence is about aspiration; it is about empowerment; it is about taking our destiny into our own hands so that we can build a better future. I think that it is because they fear the power of that positive argument that the Tories, Labour and the Liberal Democrats want to deny Scotland the choice.

Of course, what is the alternative right now? To be governed—[Interruption.]

I think that the member should pay more attention to the UK Government’s position on this. He might find that it gives him a bit of a shock. Let me set out the position—[Interruption.]

The Tories are really, really nervous about this argument. You can feel the discomfort coming from them because they know that, when the people of Scotland get the chance to escape Westminster Governments and take our future into our own hands, they are going to say yes to independence.

When Scotland votes for independence, as was the case in 2014, the distribution of existing UK liabilities and assets, including those related to pensions, will be subject to negotiation, and Scotland will fully pay its way in that. However, the key point for those who are in receipt of pensions is what the UK Government minister for pensions at the time, Steve Webb, confirmed: that people with accumulated rights would continue to receive the current levels of state pension in an independent Scotland. People will notice no difference—or perhaps the difference that they might notice is that an independent Scotland might be able to improve the level of pensions, rather than having, as the UK has, one of the lowest pension levels in the whole of the developed world.

I absolutely agree with Jenni Minto that it is unhelpful for anybody to erroneously speculate about the future of our ferry services. That does a disservice not only to island communities but to the crews and staff at CalMac, who have strived to deliver lifeline services throughout the pandemic in challenging circumstances. I take the opportunity to thank them for all their efforts.

As I said in my previous answer, we fully recognise the need to invest properly to support the lifeline ferry network, and that is underlined by the commitment, to which I have already referred, of £580 million as part of the infrastructure investment plan. As has just been noted, that includes the purchase of the MV Loch Frisa. It will also support two new vessels for Islay, infrastructure on the Skye triangle and many other important projects.