Chamber and committees

The regulations and supporting evidence will be published over the coming days—next week—before the introduction of the scheme. This morning, we have published a paper that sets out further details.

We see from countries across Europe that vaccination certification schemes can play a part in helping to stem the transmission of Covid, and I believe that they will play a part here. No single measure is going to control the virus on its own, so we need a range of targeted measures to keep transmission under control while keeping our economy open, and that is what vaccination certification is intended to do. We have engaged extensively across business interests and, indeed, with other stakeholders, and we will continue to do so up to and beyond the introduction of the scheme.

Nobody wants to be in a position of having to impose any measures to deal with an infectious virus, but unfortunately that is the position that we are still in. I think that having proportionate and targeted measures is the right thing to do to keep people safe over the winter period.

Yes, I believe that having control over tax, welfare and all the levers that other countries have at their disposal would be better for Scotland. That would, of course, be possible only if Scotland became an independent country.

On the immediate term, Marie McNair is absolutely right when she talks about a perfect storm. There are significant worries about energy inflation and food inflation over the winter months, and those threaten to plunge more and more already low-income families into poverty.

Against that backdrop, for the United Kingdom Government to even consider the removal of £20 a week from some of the poorest families in our country is unthinkable; it lacks any basic morality. If the UK Government was not prepared to reconsider before, it should surely do so now. It would be indefensible to take that money literally out of the mouths of children and to plunge more families into poverty. Given what many people will face this winter, I argue that it is essential for the UK Government not just to keep that payment but to look at additional payments—as this Government has done through our pandemic payments—to help people to deal with, for example, rising energy costs. That is what we should be getting from a UK Government with any concern for the poorest in our society.

I am particularly concerned about the impact of rising costs on consumers who are already struggling with pressures on household finances. While the increased default tariff cap reflects underlying increases in prices and will provide some protection for consumers over the coming price-cap period, many households will be badly affected by price rises.

We engage frequently with the United Kingdom Government, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, energy suppliers and third sector bodies to discuss the energy system overall. The Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport has spoken with Ofgem’s chief executive to raise our concerns, which build on wider worries about the effect of high transmission charges in Scotland. He has also met a range of suppliers and consumer groups.

We have also written to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, highlighting our views and pressing for long-term solutions to maintain our energy resilience. In my view, it is vital—as I said a few moments ago—that the UK Government urgently considers financial support for low-income households in order to prevent fuel price increases from plunging more people into poverty this winter.

Yesterday afternoon, I convened a meeting of the Scottish Government’s resilience committee to discuss all those issues. We will continue to meet regularly to ensure that the Scottish Government—even though most of these matters are reserved to the UK Government—is doing everything possible to help those who are impacted.

We will continue to develop and set out our proposals on green ports.

The issue was not about the SNP not being prepared to see advantages and benefits; we were simply not prepared to compromise on fair work or the environment. If, as I am sure is the case for the member, the Tories want to see the free port model go ahead in Scotland, the question has to be: what objection could they possibly have to fair work and environmental conditions being built into it? Perhaps that gives the game away.

There is another aspect. It was crucial, obviously, that Scotland would have a fair allocation of funding to help to establish ports, but actually the UK Government’s recent offer failed even to provide an equivalent to what it is making available to free ports in England.

If the UK Government had been serious, all those issues could have been addressed, but that was up to the UK Government. We will continue to take forward our plans for green ports, with fair work and environmental progress absolutely at their heart.

I am happy to consider that. We are listening and have listened on the issue. We are the first country in the United Kingdom to publish a women’s health plan. The plan sets out more than 60 different actions to ensure that women get the best possible health response throughout their lives.

A recent report from the UK all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis made some recommendations that we will consider further—they are already being considered in the context of the women’s health plan.

The particular target for endometriosis diagnosis is very challenging. Right now, the average time for diagnosis is more than eight years. It is right that we set a target to bring that down to under a year. A range of things have to be done to achieve that. I referred to the work that the centre for sustainable delivery is doing around the pelvic pain pathway, which is an important part of getting the interventions right, as is doing more to understand some of the barriers to diagnosis in primary care.

We will report regularly on progress on all the actions in the women’s health plan, and on that point in particular.

I will happily look at what the situation is. Often, claims that perhaps do not bear all that much scrutiny are made by the Conservatives in the chamber about the views of SNP councillors or councils. However, I do not know exactly what the circumstances are in this case, and I am happy to look into that.

I have been an enthusiastic supporter of the Borderlands initiative, so I slightly regret some of the undertone of the member’s question. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is important that we take all opportunities, particularly in these circumstances, to support culture and cultural initiatives. I will be happy to have a discussion with the council, or to ask the relevant minister to do so, about what support might be available from the Scottish Government to support any bid.

There will sometimes be differences of opinion on such things, but let us try to get behind any reasonable bid and, for goodness’ sake, shy away from any claims about some of the motives behind why people might be taking a particular position.

I have two points to make about the pandemic. First, anybody who stands up in the chamber and tries to pretend that the pandemic has not had an extremely significant impact on all of this is insulting people’s intelligence and lacking any credibility.

Secondly, in the midst of a global pandemic, it is important that Governments respond to circumstances, that they adapt and that they are flexible. That is what this Government has done and will continue to do. I make no apologies for making sure that, when there is a need, we provide extra funding and take new initiatives to help the health service cope with an unprecedented set of circumstances.

Of course, it is true that our NHS was under pressure before the pandemic, but Douglas Ross does not want to look at the progress that was being made then in tackling exactly those problems. For example, if we look at the waiting times improvement plan, which was published in October 2018, we see that the number of out-patients who were waiting for their first appointment had reduced by 21 per cent in the 18 months up to March 2020, just before the pandemic struck. The numbers who were waiting for more than 12 weeks had fallen by more than 32 per cent. The number of patients who were waiting for more than six weeks for a key diagnostic test had reduced by more than 25 per cent. More in-patient treatments were being offered and more patients were being seen.

The point that I am making is that there were challenges and that those challenges were being addressed. Real progress was being made.

I suspect that the members concerned do not want to hear what I am saying because they do not want to hear what this Government has done to protect shipbuilding jobs in Scotland.

The focus of Ferguson’s is on completing the two ferries that are currently delayed. I hope that the work that is under way at Ferguson’s will equip the yard to compete for new orders and new contracts in the future, but let us not lose sight of the fact that, without the Government’s intervention, there would be no Ferguson’s shipyard and the hundreds of jobs that are currently dependent on it would not even exist.

Across the city of Glasgow, the vast majority of libraries are open and available to people. A small number of libraries are not open, and there are reasons for that, which I know the council has set out. We indicated the provision of some further financial support to councils to get and keep libraries open, given the strong recognition of their importance in communities.

On the wider issues around funding for local government, we are entering the budget process and the Scottish Government will set out the budget for the next financial year in early December, as was confirmed this week. We will have discussions across the chamber about the budget, as we always do, and we will have discussions with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about the local government settlement. We will, as we have done every year, in difficult financial circumstances, be as fair to local government as we can possibly be.

Of course, any member and, indeed, any party has the ability to come to the finance secretary and say where they want to see more money allocated. All that I would say is that, if they want to do that, they also have to say where they think that money should come from. That offer is open to parties across the Parliament.

I am very happy to consider any sensible proposal. Of course, sentencing is a matter for courts and judges. Judges retain, even in respect of short sentences, the discretion to pass the most appropriate sentence, based on the facts of the case, which includes a custodial sentence if they decide that the alternatives are not appropriate. Statistics show that the proportion of people who are given community sentences for convictions under the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 has actually remained very similar over the past 10 years. Nonetheless, we will consider any reasonable proposal.

This Government has supported the police throughout the pandemic, and we will continue to do so. Again, I express my deep gratitude to the police for everything that they have done in these really difficult circumstances. During our time in government, we have maintained the number of police officers above the level that we inherited, while we have seen numbers of police officers decline considerably in other parts of the United Kingdom. We will continue to support our police in all possible ways. I will end where I started, by thanking the police for what they do and condemning, in the strongest possible terms, anybody who chooses to abuse or attack our police officers.