Chamber and committees

I have had discussions with Mark Carney and the Scottish Government has had discussions with Mark Carney. The high-level champions of the UN were also involved in that initiative, which is important. I welcome it and I am enthusiastic about it. However, it is really important to not mischaracterise that £100 trillion, which is not a funding pot but the combined assets of all the financial institutions that were part of the agreement. Although it is really important to celebrate such initiatives, we do not do anybody any favours if we try to suggest that it is something different from what it is.

There is a massive appetite in the capital market to find good investable projects around green innovation. That is why we have put the green investment portfolio into the market, to try to harness as much of that funding for Scotland as possible. That is a big priority for us. Over the course of the two weeks, I spoke to many different investors in the fields of wind and hydrogen who are looking very positively at Scotland as a location for investment. One of our priorities, coming out of COP, will be to ensure that we catch as much of that investment as possible.

Our recovery plan includes working with GPs to restore face-to-face consultations and surgeries. Public Health Scotland has published updated guidance for primary care settings that covers key issues such as physical distancing, which is now 1m not 2m, access for patients and wider infection prevention and control. That will be kept under review.

We aspire to return to a greater availability of face-to-face appointments, but a number of patients will wish to continue with phone or video consultations. Where clinically necessary, the option to have a face-to-face consultation should always be available. Our winter funding package, which includes funding for accelerated recruitment to aid general practice, will help to increase NHS and social care capacity over the winter.

I know that officials have been talking to Argyll and Bute in the past day or so to resolve some of the issues that have been experienced. I will ask the health secretary to write to the member with an update following those discussions.

The JCVI has already advised that children and young people aged 12 to 17 who are at an increased risk of severe Covid infection should receive a full course of vaccination. That means two doses. Eligibility covers severe neurodisabilities, including autism, and vaccination is already being offered to that cohort.

Yesterday, we launched the next phase of our marketing and communication programme to support compliance with the baseline measures that are still in place, including wearing face coverings, to reduce the harms that Covid causes. I say to everybody that, as we go into winter, it is important that all of us try to increase our compliance. All of us slip up from time to time on such things, and I understand how tiresome and inconvenient the measures are, particularly after so long. However, as we go into winter, wearing face coverings and reminding ourselves to do so is important. I will do that and I call on everybody to do likewise.

To be perfectly frank, I think that many people in the oil and gas sector are more worried about the UK Government’s failure to support the Scottish carbon capture and storage cluster and the Acorn project. Perhaps, if we want to talk about a just and sensible transition, Liam Kerr should be having some conversations with his colleagues as well.

Here we have it, Presiding Officer. Liam Kerr illustrates helpfully for me—I thank him for that—the point that I have been making. We all talk, rightly, in general terms about the need to do more. Everybody across the world is talking about the need to accelerate our progress away from fossil fuels, but, as soon as we start engaging with the detail of that, what we have from the Scottish Conservatives is opposition.

We have to make sure that the transition is just, and it is this Government that has already established a £500 million just transition fund for the north-east and Moray to help with that. We must build up the renewable alternatives and the low-carbon alternatives, which is why the failure to support carbon capture is inexplicable. We must do all of that, but we cannot escape the moral obligation to accelerate that progress, and that is what the Government will continue to do. If we can learn from others in alliances about how to do that, and if we can offer our expertise and experience in how to do it, I think that that is what any responsible Government, in the current situation that the world is facing, would do.

I am genuinely more than happy to look into that in a bit more detail. The advice for people doing LFD tests is for them to record the results of those tests through the UK website—I have been doing that myself every day for the past couple of weeks and I do it regularly. That is the advice, so I am not exactly clear what website is being referred to, but, if the details can be passed to me, I am happy to look into that and provide any further information and advice once I have had the opportunity to do so.

I certainly recognise the impact of the current situation in Aberdeenshire and other areas. We have made available to local authorities significant resources specifically for challenges such as those narrated by Gillian Martin. In schools, for example, we have provided local government with more than £200 million of additional funding over the past two years specifically for the recruitment of more school staff to support education recovery; Aberdeenshire received around £12 million of that funding. Our guidance for schools and early learning centres, including on at-home asymptomatic testing, is contributing to keeping transmission rates among staff low.

In all settings, adherence to mitigations makes a difference and everyone has a part to play in continuing to minimise transmission.

No, I do not agree. In fact, I think that that is an insult to all those who are working so hard in test and protect across our country.

I am happy to look at the individual case—it certainly sounds as though something has happened that should not have happened. If that is in any way indicative of a more systemic issue, we will take that on board and seek to address it. I ask the member to send me the details.

The people across test and protect are working really hard every single day. The contribution of test and protect in helping us to keep Covid under some control at this stage is enormous. I end my answer by placing on record again my grateful appreciation for all that test and protect is doing.

I absolutely agree that we need to move beyond oil and gas as quickly as we can; however, we need to do that justly—and I think that Mark Ruskell agrees with that. People who pay any attention to what I say on the issue will see that I have changed my position, and that of my party and of the Government, because I do not think that we can be credible on such things unless we accept the responsibility of moving away from fossil fuel. However, I am not going to abandon the 100,000 people who work in that sector, so the need to do that fairly and justly is really important.

We are assessing the membership of the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance. There are three categories of membership, and we are assessing which of them, in the initial stages, would be most likely. If we decide to join, that is likely, initially, to be as a “friend”, which would allow us to share our experience. However, underpinning all of that, for all the countries that are signed up—some of which do not really have much of an oil and gas sector; there are different considerations for different Governments—is the commitment to a just transition.

The oil and gas sector is, and has been for some time, important in Scotland when it comes to jobs, infrastructure, expertise and supply chain benefit, and we have to make that transition properly and carefully. However, there is no doubt in my mind that we need to do that as quickly as possible.