Chamber and committees

Charities and community groups can remain open over the festive period if they wish, in order to provide the range of services that they offer in line with the protective measures that are advised for everyone now. Those groups provide a range of really valuable support to service users, and the Scottish Government is committed to supporting them as much as possible.

For example, we recently invested £1 million to support organisations that tackle social isolation and loneliness, and we established the £15 million communities mental health and wellbeing fund.

I take this opportunity to express my appreciation and gratitude to all organisations, staff and volunteers that support so many people across the country, and to send my very best wishes to them for Christmas and the year ahead.

There are two points there. I recognise that experience—it is one that is often recounted to me by community organisations in my constituency.

We must first ensure, as far as we can within our financial constraints, that the overall quantum of support for organisations is good and rising. I have talked about some of the additional sources of support that we have put in place.

It is then important—I know that local authorities work hard at this, and the decisions about which organisations are funded are taken not exclusively but often, by local authorities, not by central Government—to ensure that as much funding as possible gets to the organisations that are closest to the communities that they serve. In my experience, it is those organisations that deliver the best services, because they are the most responsive to the people who they are trying to help.

I recognise Brian Whittle’s points, and it is incumbent on all decision makers to ensure that they are reflected in the decisions that are taken.

I think it would be a great gain if we had economic management that avoided the need for such things. Nobody should think that they are good things, because the situations that make them necessary are not good things.

That is the kind of question that I would expect from the other side of the chamber. However, I think that, over the past few years—and particularly now—it would have been so much better for Scotland if we had not been in the position of having austerity imposed on us, given its impact on individuals and communities. I think that it would be so much better if, right now, we were in a position—with financial arrangements to support that position—where our public health response to a global pandemic was not being constrained by the decisions of a Conservative Government that is in a complete mess. Labour may wish to reflect on that and leave that kind of question to the Tories.

Cabinet is next scheduled to meet on Tuesday 11 January, following the parliamentary recess. However, I would be utterly astonished if Cabinet did not meet before that, during the recess.

First, I acknowledge the dedication of teachers across the country. In particular, I acknowledge their exceptional efforts in helping to ensure that young people and children have been supported through this challenging time.

We take the health and wellbeing of teachers very seriously. Although local authorities have a key role to play in supporting staff—teachers are employed by local authorities—the Scottish Government has invested more than £2 million in teacher wellbeing in the past year, with a package of support having been developed with the education recovery group. The Government has also committed to reducing class contact time by 90 minutes per week to give teachers more time to plan and to ease their overall workload.

Of course, we continue to make good progress on recruitment, with teacher numbers increasing this year for the sixth year in a row. I am pleased to say that the ratio of pupils to teachers is now at its lowest level since 2009.

I will give an update on Covid generally, as well as the latest data on omicron; I will report on progress with booster vaccinations; I will again appeal to everyone across the country to reduce contacts and to stay at home as much as possible in the run-up to Christmas day, and then again after this Christmas weekend; I will reiterate the steps that we can all take to make family celebrations this weekend as safe as possible; and I will confirm the Cabinet’s decision to propose some additional protections in relation to large-scale live events and indoor public places. We judge those to be necessary to further slow the spread of the virus, so that we can protect health, the national health service and the economy as we work to complete booster vaccinations. I will also set out further support for the many businesses that are affected by the advice that we feel duty-bound to give in the interests of protecting public health.

First, I will give today’s statistics. A total of 5,242 positive cases were reported yesterday, which is 14.9 per cent of the tests carried out; 515 people are in hospital with Covid, which is one fewer than yesterday; and 37 people are in intensive care, which is also one fewer than yesterday. Sadly, a further nine deaths have been reported, taking the total number of deaths under the daily definition to 9,790. I again send my condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one.

In last week’s statement, I reported that cases had increased by 25 per cent in the preceding seven days and that we would, in all likelihood, see a further increase in infections as omicron became the dominant strain circulating in Scotland. Omicron has now firmly established itself as the dominant strain. We know from the S-gene dropout indicator that it now accounts for 62.9 per cent of all cases. That compares with 27.5 per cent this time last week.

Omicron is significantly more transmissible than previous variants, and we estimate that its R number is well above 3. It is currently spreading rapidly across Scotland, so the steep increase in infections that was predicted last week has now started to materialise. Cases have increased by more than 50 per cent in the past week, from more than 3,500 a day on average to almost 5,500 a day. There have been increases across all age groups, but the biggest—an increase of 161 per cent—has been in the 20 to 24-year-old age group. The rate of acceleration in an age cohort with, to date, lower levels of booster protection, relatively speaking, underlines the vital importance of everyone getting booster jags as quickly as possible. I will return to that later.

As the booster roll-out is completed, and bearing in mind that it takes around a week for immune protection to take effect in individuals, we must also act to slow down the spread of cases. I want to explain why that is so vital.

First, the toll that a rising wave of infections will have on health and social care is considerable. We do not yet know whether the proportion of omicron cases needing hospital care will be lower, higher or the same as with delta, but there is still no compelling evidence that omicron is intrinsically milder than previous strains. However, even if the proportion of cases needing hospital care is lower, as we all hope that it will be, a smaller proportion of a much larger number of infections will still have a deeply damaging impact. As well as the suffering caused to individuals and families, the additional pressure on our already stretched national health service will be extremely difficult to manage.

In addition, if large numbers of people become infected—even mildly—the impact on the economy and critical services through sickness and isolation absences will be crippling. Indeed, we are already starting to see that impact. One hundred ScotRail services were cancelled yesterday due to staff absence. Theatres are already being forced to cancel shows due to Covid cases among casts and crews and, even more seriously, staffing shortages are already being felt across the supply chain. They are exacerbating the intense pressures that the NHS and emergency services are working under. That is why we must act.

Let me be clear again: this is not a choice between protecting health and protecting the economy. If we do not stem the spread of the virus, both health and the economy will suffer.

Before I set out the action that we must take, let me address one further point. Some ask why we cannot wait until we have more data and we know exactly the impact that omicron will have on the NHS. I totally understand the temptation to delay and to hope, after two long years of the virus, that further steps might not be necessary. However, as I said a moment ago, we are already seeing a significant impact from staff absences across the economy and public services. We must do what we can to stem that. We also know from experience that, if we wait until the data tells us conclusively that we have a problem—for example, with hospital admissions—it will already be too late to act to avoid that problem. We must act quickly in so far as we are able, given our financial constraints, and we must get ahead of the data if we can.

The obligation of Government is to take difficult decisions to keep the country as safe as possible, no matter how unpopular those decisions might be. Let me now set out the steps that we all need to take.

First, let me stress that we are not changing the advice for Christmas that I set out last week. It is important that, with just a few days to go, there is certainty about family gatherings on Christmas day and boxing day. I am not asking anyone to change those. However—I cannot stress this enough—please follow advice to keep family celebrations as safe as possible. Keep gatherings as small as your family circumstances allow. Make sure that everyone does a test shortly before getting together. Anyone who tests positive should not mix with others. Given how infectious omicron is, you should assume that, if one member of a household is positive, the others are likely to be so, too. Follow hygiene advice and keep windows open.

Crucially, between now and Christmas day, cut your contacts with people in other households as much as possible. Minimise socialising with others, either at home or in indoor public places—indeed, stay at home as much as is feasible. That is the best way of avoiding getting Covid and having to isolate over Christmas, or inadvertently spreading infection when you meet up with others.

I am grateful to everyone who has followed that advice over the past week. It will be making a difference. I want to stress that point. The steep increase in cases over the past week would have been steeper still but for people complying with that advice. I therefore hope that we may already be collectively slowing the spread.

However, it is important that we stick with it, so my first new request of everyone is that, from 27 December, as we come out of the Christmas weekend, until at least the end of the first week in January, when we will review the advice again, please go back to limiting your contacts as much as possible; please stay at home as much as is feasible; and, when you go out, please maintain physical distancing from people who are not in your group. Difficult though it is, please follow that advice over new year. Minimise Hogmanay socialising as much as you can.

If we all follow the advice to minimise the contact that we have outside of our own households, we will help to limit the spread of infections. That is the bedrock of our plan for the immediate period ahead.

However, although our core advice is to reduce socialising and stay at home as much as is feasible, the Cabinet’s judgment is that we must also take some further steps to make as safe as possible the places where people might still gather. That is why we are proposing some additional protections. None of those is being proposed lightly, but we consider them necessary to help to stem the increase in cases, safeguard health and protect the NHS, the emergency services and the economy, while we complete the booster programme and get its full effect.

First, from 26 December inclusive, for a period of three weeks, we intend to place limits on the size of live public events. I stress that that does not apply to private life events such as weddings. For indoor standing events, the limit will be 100; for indoor seated events it will be 200; and for outdoor events it will be 500, whether seated or standing. Physical distancing of 1m will be required at events that go ahead within those limits.

That will, of course, in effect make sports matches, including football, spectator free over that three-week period. That is similar to the situation in Wales from boxing day. Unfortunately, it will also mean that large-scale Hogmanay celebrations will not proceed—including the one that is planned here in our capital city.

I know how disappointing that will be for those who are looking forward to such events, and for their organisers. I will underline why we think that that difficult decision is necessary. First, we know that the much higher transmissibility of omicron means that large gatherings have the potential to become very rapid super-spreader events, putting large numbers at risk of getting infected very quickly. Limiting such events helps to reduce the risk of widespread transmission. It also cuts the transmission risks that are associated with travel to and from such events. Secondly, and not insignificantly, such large events put an additional burden on emergency services, especially on the police and ambulance services. Given that those services are already under severe pressure and are dealing with high levels of staff absence, limiting large-scale events will help them to focus on delivering essential services to the public. Despite the disappointment that I know the decision will generate, I ask the public please to understand the reasons for it.

Secondly, we intend to issue guidance to the effect that non-professional indoor contact sports for adults should not take place during the three-week period from 26 December, because such activities, in which physical distancing is not possible, also create a heightened risk of transmission.

Finally, from 27 December, again for up to three weeks, we intend to introduce some further protections in hospitality settings and other indoor public places, to reduce transmission risks in what are, through no fault of those who run such venues, higher-risk environments. I can confirm that a requirement for table service only will be reintroduced for venues that serve alcohol for consumption on the premises. We will also ask indoor hospitality and leisure venues to ensure 1m distance not within but between groups of people who are attending together. As I set out last week, we will continue to advise people that, if they attend indoor hospitality or leisure venues—and people should remember that our core advice remains to minimise that—no more than three households should be represented in any group.

I know how unwelcome this will be for everyone, but we believe that those precautionary steps will help us to navigate a difficult period more safely.

I am also acutely aware that those decisions and the advice that we are giving the public have significant financial implications for many businesses. Last week, I announced £100 million of support from within our existing resources for affected sectors. I also confirm that eligibility criteria and guidance for the hospitality sector will be published on the Scottish Government website today. Since that announcement, the Treasury has given approval for money that would have come to us later to be allocated now. As I have said, we had already budgeted for most of that money and, therefore, cannot allocate it now without causing significant shortfalls elsewhere, including in the health budget. Money simply cannot be spent twice. However, we estimate that the Treasury announcements give us additional spending power now of £175 million. I confirm that we will allocate all of that to business support.

The Treasury has also, in the past hour or so, announced additional funding for business. Unfortunately, it appears that that announcement generates no further funding for Scotland and that any consequentials are already contained in previous announcements by the Treasury. However, the Scottish Government will allocate a further £100 million from elsewhere in our budget between now and the end of the financial year. That will involve difficult decisions, but the impact of the current crisis on business is such that we consider it essential.

Taken together, that adds up to a fund of £375 million that will help to support business for the unavoidable impacts of our decisions over the next three weeks. That is proportionally significantly more than the Chancellor of the Exchequer has just announced for businesses elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

Although that is significant funding, I understand that it will not fully compensate business. As I said last week, my view is that the scale and urgency of the omicron challenge requires financial support for business on a scale similar to that at the start of the pandemic. However, current UK funding arrangements mean that only the Treasury has the borrowing powers to provide support on such a scale and that financial support at scale is triggered only when the UK Government takes decisions for England. All that means that our ability to act to protect public health, and to compensate individuals and businesses affected, is curtailed. That cannot be right in a public health emergency.

Although today’s Treasury announcement may be a welcome acknowledgement of the crisis that businesses face, it does not go far enough. Therefore, we will continue to press the UK Government to take the threat of omicron more seriously and to act accordingly. In the meantime, we will—indeed, we must—do what we can to protect health, lives and livelihoods here in Scotland.

Before I conclude with an update on vaccination, I will cover two further points.

First, it remains our priority—and, I hope, the Parliament’s priority—to reopen schools as normal after the Christmas holidays. Indeed, one reason for asking adults to make sacrifices for a further period after Christmas is to help to minimise any impact on children’s education. However, to ensure that schools are safe environments for young people and staff, updated guidance based on recommendations from the education advisory sub-group was published at the end of last week. Colleges and universities are also assessing any steps that they need to take for the new term and some are returning to a default model of online learning for the start of that term.

For everyone who is involved in education—staff, children, students and parents—the past term has been another exceptionally difficult one. I say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has helped to ensure that children are well supported and, indeed, I thank children and young people themselves for continuing to endure the tough times that they face at such an important stage of their lives.

The second point that I will cover briefly relates to test and protect. The current surge in cases is putting significant pressure on that service and I am grateful to all its teams for working so hard to break chains of transmission. From this week, test and protect will flex its approach as necessary to ensure that priority is given to higher-risk settings, such as hospitals and care homes, where outbreaks can cause the most harm.

For many of us, that means that, if we test positive, our contact from test and protect teams is more likely to be by text or email rather than a phone call. I ask people to respond to those messages and complete the online form that is sent. That helps their contacts to get the right advice as quickly as possible. I also ask the contacts of someone who tests positive to follow test and protect’s advice. That will help to slow the spread of the virus.

Finally, I turn to booster jags, which are our best line of defence against omicron and which will, I believe, get us through, and out of, this difficult phase. In the past week, there has been a significant acceleration of the programme, and I thank everyone who has been involved. This week, a further two large-scale vaccination centres have opened, at Hampden in Glasgow and the Edinburgh international conference centre. Yesterday, 69,135 boosters or third doses were administered, which means that well over half the adult population has now had a third dose or a booster.

Last week, I said that our target was to have 80 per cent of the eligible population vaccinated with boosters by the time the bells strike on Hogmanay. Today, I can confirm that we are now confident that we have the capacity to meet that target. However, in order to reach it, or to get as close to it as possible, we need everyone who is eligible to come forward. If you have an appointment booked for January, please now reschedule it for December. Appointments will be available right through Christmas eve and then next week, up to and including Hogmanay, so please book an appointment now. Alternatively, you can check out the location of drop-in clinics and go there instead. Getting fully vaccinated is the best thing that any of us can do to protect ourselves, our loved ones and the country, so please get boosted before the bells.

In some ways, this statement feels distressingly similar to the one that I gave this time last year. Just a few days before Christmas, I am again urging people to stay at home as much as possible in order to slow down a highly infectious new variant of Covid. However, although it may not feel like it, we are in a much stronger position than we were last year. We have had far fewer restrictions in place for much of this year than was the case in the previous year, and Christmas day will be more normal than it was last year. Most importantly, a rapidly increasing number of adults are now protected by three doses of vaccine. We all, as individuals, know what to do to protect ourselves and each other.

Please make sure that you do all the following things. First, please get fully vaccinated as soon as possible. Secondly, please test regularly. Our advice is to stay at home as much as possible, but if you are meeting other people, please test before you go, every time, and test as close to when you go as possible. That is very important for family gatherings on Christmas day or boxing day.

Finally, please take all the other precautions that can help to make a difference. Please work from home when possible, and stay at home as much as you can. If you visit indoor public places, please limit the number of households in your group to a maximum of three. Please wear a face covering on public transport, in shops and when moving about in hospitality, and make sure that the covering fully covers your mouth and nose. Please keep windows open if you are meeting indoors, even at this time of year, and follow all advice on hygiene. Sticking to all that is hard, but there is no doubt that it will help to keep all of us safer.

I end my final statement before Christmas with a heartfelt thank you to everyone for everything that you have done to help us through another exceptionally tough year. I wish everyone the happiest and safest Christmas possible, and a much better and brighter new year ahead.

I agree about the importance of the Scottish and UK Governments working together. In many respects, we have been working well together and continue to work well together. In the past week and a half, I have taken part in three COBR meetings, and we have regular four-nations discussions over and above those meetings.

We have an issue with financing that we cannot unilaterally resolve. Anas Sarwar has narrated much of it today, and the points that I make in this chamber are almost identical to those that Anas Sarwar’s Labour colleague Mark Drakeford is making in Wales. We cannot unilaterally resolve that issue, but I hope that we will get movement to find a better way forward on it.

After the announcements that I have made today, we will have further consultation with businesses on what additional support can be made available from the additional funding and the best way to make that support available. We have already given commitments to hospitality and other sectors, and the additional money that I am announcing today will allow us to go further.

However, I agree—indeed, I said this in my statement—that that will not fully compensate businesses. At this stage, at the least, a targeted furlough scheme should be introduced to help the most affected sectors. We will do everything that we can within our own resources, and we will work with colleagues in Wales and Northern Ireland to try to get more support from the UK Government.

I will take away the member’s points about the self-isolation support grant. I accept the premise of his question, but I again come back to the fact that we have a limited pot of money. We have decisions to make about whether we focus that money on those most in need or spread it more thinly over a wider range of people by extending eligibility criteria. That is not an easy balance to strike. We have put an extra £100 million into the self-isolation grant and we will consider that again.

We have already started work on longer-term health resilience, which is not just about the entry into and exit from restrictions. I very much hope, although I have said this before, that this will be the last time that we have to impose restrictions. More fundamentally, as we come out of the acute phase of the Covid pandemic and it becomes endemic in our society, that work will be about how we build resilience into the economy and health services to deal with the situation.

The work is at an early stage. We are looking at whether and how our overall Covid strategic framework can be adapted. We may publish a more updated version, with a greater focus on health resilience, in the early part of next year. If members from all parties have thoughts that they want to feed into that, I am sure that they would be gratefully received.

I have made my views on that very clear. I want schools to reopen on schedule and I want children to be back in school as normal. Everybody has suffered through these past two years, but children and young people have suffered disproportionately, particularly given the very important stage of life and education that they are at. My views on that are clear.

I will say two further things. First, when teachers hear me say that, they might think that I am dismissing concerns about their safety, but I am not—I want to be clear about that. We must ensure that schools are safe environments for young people and staff, which is why the guidance that was published last week is so important.

Secondly—this is a message to all us adults—the best way of keeping schools safe and getting them to open normally and on time is to suppress community transmission of the virus. For a period, we, as adults, need to accept some further sacrifices, although none of us will enjoy it and it will not be easy for individuals or businesses but, if it helps us to ensure normality in our schools, that is one good reason why we should accept it and work together to get the transmission rate down.

I know that Gillian Mackay takes a close interest in this and that she will be aware that we made additional funding available to local authorities some months ago for carbon dioxide monitors that would allow them to assess ventilation. We continue to discuss with local authorities what further support we can provide them to ensure that ventilation is given due priority. Ventilation is not the only thing that needs to be done, but it is an important protection, particularly in the school environment. We are looking carefully, and will continue to look, at what further steps we can take.

I keep coming back to a point that I know that Gillian Mackay absolutely understands. We should not accept the inevitability of soaring cases and soaring staff absences as we go into January and February. If we do not do the right things now, there is a real danger of that. That is why we are setting out the decisions that we are taking now to try to change the future.

On that point, I was listening to a discussion on the radio this morning in which someone said that models from the scientific advisory group for emergencies always turn out to be wrong. Modelling is an imprecise science, I grant you that, but the reason that the worst predictions of SAGE have not come true on past occasions is that we have acted to stop them coming to pass. That is the key point. We must act to influence what happens in the next few weeks to avoid some of the worst impacts that will otherwise confront us.

I am not sure that I am able to answer that question. I might pass on it.

I spoke to the Prime Minister on the telephone late on Friday. I think that he appreciated the seriousness of the situation; that is definitely the impression that he gave me. We had a good conversation on Friday. However, appreciating the seriousness and acting in such a way as to try to change that seriousness are two different things.

My Government and I take responsibility for public health decisions here in Scotland. I cannot and should not second guess the decisions that the UK Government takes for England, although there are many voices pointing out that, just as in Scotland, action needs to be taken to get Covid under control.

The interest for my Government and me is that it is only when the UK Government acts for England that funding at scale is triggered. That is the unsustainable asymmetrical bit that is constraining our ability to act. I hope that the Prime Minister, the chancellor and the entirety of the UK Government treat this challenge with the seriousness that it merits because, frankly, all of us need them to do that.