Chamber and committees

Those who have not yet had the vaccine who are either eligible for a first dose or have passed the eight-week interval for the second dose have all been written to. We continue to make efforts to encourage and persuade those who have not been vaccinated to come forward, but the vaccination programme is not mandatory. Anas Sarwar appears, again, to be getting himself into a position—I will come back to this point shortly—in which he is setting his face against Covid certification without, as far as I can tell, looking at any of the detail or considering any of the evidence elsewhere in the world, while also suggesting that we should have mandatory vaccination. The programme is voluntary, and we continue to encourage people to come forward.

Uptake rates of the vaccine programme are incredibly high, but we continue to try to get to anybody who has not come forward for vaccination, so that we can encourage then to come forward, and we will continue to do so.

With regard to the JCVI, the issue of who is included in a booster programme and the issue of 12 to 15-year-olds, I am a politician, not a clinician or public health expert, so it is important that all our policy decisions on vaccination are rooted in evidence, either from the JCVI or, in the case of 12 to 15-year-olds, possibly from our chief medical officer. If I were to second-guess or ignore any evidential base and say that we were going to vaccinate people without that, Anas Sarwar and others—with much legitimacy, I hasten to add—would criticise us for doing that. We stand ready to implement recommendations but, for the sake of overall confidence in the programme, it is important that decisions on who we vaccinate are rooted in that clinical and expert evidence. Anas Sarwar previously suggested that the Scottish Government should act unilaterally to reduce the interval between doses in spite of the fact that we see evidence, for example from Israel, that that is not and would not have been the right thing to do, because it would have reduced the effectiveness of the protection from vaccination.

Secondly, the test and protect system is working extremely well under significant pressure. To repeat the point that I made to Douglas Ross, I think that it was Anas Sarwar’s colleague Jackie Baillie who said last week that only 43 per cent of cases had been completed, knowing that she was citing provisional information. This week, the final figure for that week is 82 per cent. We can already see that, last week, Jackie Baillie was talking down the performance and achievements of test and predict. The provisional figures for this week will be finalised next week and we will see the comparison then. In terms of that WHO standard, last week the provisional figure was 85.5 per cent and this week it is 89 per cent. Again, test and protect is working exceptionally well and we have a duty to continue to support it.

For Anas Sarwar to say that test and protect is not working in our schools suggests a lack of understanding of what is going on in our schools. Contact tracing is being done appropriately and in a proportionate way in our schools, so that we do not have the situation that we had before the summer holidays, when lots of children were required to self-isolate when there was no need for them to do so. We now have a situation that helps to protect the population while minimising disruption to education.

Finally, on vaccine certification, I will not pre-empt tomorrow’s debate, but Anas Sarwar says that he is not taking a position of opposition for opposition’s sake. I am sorry, but anybody who, on the weekend four or five days before a debate in Parliament, decides—without considering the evidence or detail—that, come what may, they will vote against the motion is indulging in opposition for opposition’s sake.

Ferry operators continue to reinforce the messages on complying with current legislation regarding face coverings. They also have in place enhanced cleaning measures and are promoting the guidance on travelling safely on public transport. Transport Scotland continues to engage with all lifeline ferry operators on the efforts that they are making in that regard and also on the wider resilience of the network.

The recent spate of Covid-related incidents on some ferry routes and vessels is concerning, but we need to remember that, even though most restrictions have been lifted, the virus is circulating, and we all need to continue to take care, as I have set out again today, and think about our own behaviours, whether at work, at home or while travelling. If we all comply with the measures, whether on public transport or elsewhere, we will continue to bear down on the number of cases that we are seeing.

Face coverings play an important part in stopping the spread of Covid, even as vaccination is rolled out. Scientific evidence shows that fabric face coverings of two or, preferably, three layers, help to reduce transmission.

Face coverings are, of course, most effective when they are fitted correctly over someone’s mouth, nose and chin. The mandatory requirement to continue to wear face coverings is subject to regular review and will continue to take account of scientific, social and economic factors, as well as the latest clinical evidence.

Emma Harper mentioned FFP2 masks. In clinical settings, we continue to consider the most appropriate personal protective equipment to be used.

We will continue to keep all the requirements under review. We are legally required to ensure that any requirement is necessary and proportionate. Any changes to legal restrictions will, of course, always be scrutinised by the Parliament.

I am obviously unable to comment on that particular case. However, on Mr Greer’s first point, about contact tracing in schools, test and protect is taking a much more proportionate approach to identify the circumstances in which a young person is considered to be a close contact. We know that, prior to the summer holidays, many young people had quite lengthy periods of isolation and therefore disruption to their education, and that, on reflection, those periods of isolation were possibly unnecessary with regard to risk reduction.

It is important that we keep the matter under review. In the past couple of weeks, I have asked for a review of that process and for an update of the advice. The advice that I have is that it continues to be appropriate to have the guidance that is currently in place, but we will keep all the guidance under review as the situation changes.

On the issue of ventilation and CO2 monitors, work is on-going with local authorities to ensure that the funding that has been provided for CO2 monitors is being used and that those monitors are used in all school and education settings. That work crucially supports the process of assessment that we have set out previously, which we have asked to be completed before the October break, to decide whether any longer-term changes to the ventilation systems in schools are required. The work is under way with local authorities to ensure that the assessment is done, and we will report on it as regularly as possible.

First, I apologise to Stephanie Callaghan and take full responsibility for getting her mixed up with Evelyn Tweed and for getting the questions mixed up. It is my responsibility and I am not making excuses, but there is constant noise that sometimes makes it difficult for me to hear. However, it is my responsibility and I apologise to Stephanie Callaghan.

I will make sure that the answer that I gave about the work that is on-going around the city region deal, in particular, gets to Evelyn Tweed.

I apologise again to both members for that confusion, which was confusion on my part.

We continue to take steps to support staff. The staff in test and protect are working under extreme pressure. They have my gratitude, but it is more important that they have our on-going support through the recruitment of more staff and by our making sure that they have the resources that they need.

It is important that we all understand the point about provisional versus finalised figures. I have been making the point today that it is important to wait for the finalised figures. The member has quoted the figures that assess performance within the World Health Organization target, and what usually happens there is that the provisional figure is higher than the finalised figure. Last week’s provisional figure, which was over 80 per cent, has now, in the finalised figure, come down to the level that the member has cited today. However, today’s provisional figure—[Interruption.] No it is not—I will come back to the second point in a minute. Today’s provisional figure is higher than last week’s provisional figure. We will see the finalised figure next week, but that suggests an improvement in performance.

The other figure—the one that Jackie Baillie cited last week and that Douglas Ross cited today—is the figure for the overall number of cases being closed, and we find that that figure is much lower in the provisional data than it is in the finalised data. It was 43 per cent last week but became 82 per cent today.

I know that that is complex, but it reflects a system in which, when a snapshot of a date is reported, many cases are still in process and it takes a few days after that for the figure to be finalised.

I encourage all members who have not done so already to look in detail at those figures and to understand that difference between provisional and finalised data. That would perhaps prevent our using provisional figures in a way that is misleading and in a way that—inadvertently, I am sure—downplays and understates the performance of those who are working so hard in test and protect.

As I said a moment ago, a Scottish citizen who has received one or more of their vaccines outside Scotland but within the common travel area should contact the helpline. That is taken account of. We are continuing to work with NHS Digital to establish data-sharing arrangements within the common travel area and internationally, and those arrangements will be in place as soon as possible. If someone lives in Scotland but has been vaccinated outside Scotland or England, where there is already a data-sharing agreement, they should obtain proof of their vaccination from the country in which they were vaccinated.

We obviously continue to work with local partners. The area that Evelyn Tweed represents is hard hit, and we continue to work with the health board and the local authority there and more broadly to ensure that the situation with Covid cases is addressed appropriately and that broader recovery is taken into account. Covid has impacted the Stirling and Clackmannanshire city region deal, but work is on-going with regional partners to ensure that the deal is delivered. I am happy to ask the relevant minister to write to Evelyn Tweed with a full update.

The issue is important and Gillian Martin’s question gets to the heart of it. To be fair to the JCVI, it is constituted with expertise to allow it to consider the health benefits and health risks of vaccination. That is what the JCVI has done, and such consideration is the basis for its recommendation.

It is worth reiterating that the JCVI concluded that the benefits of vaccinating 12 to 15-year-olds outweighed the risks, but, overall, it did not think that that was sufficient to recommend vaccination for all. However, crucially, the JCVI recognised that there are wider considerations—not considerations that it could properly take into account, but ones that Governments could appropriately and properly take into account. The four Governments have asked their chief medical officers to do exactly that and look at the wider benefits of possible vaccination. That will include the possible minimisation of disruption to education. It is important that the CMOs are allowed to do the work that they are undertaking independently, taking account of all the advice and wider factors that they think are relevant.

As I said earlier, we expect to receive the advice quickly—I am hoping that that will be in a matter of days. As soon as we do, Parliament will be informed.

I will undertake to provide an update. Dental services, which the member referred to, continue to struggle, as many sectors do, with increased transmission, but they are operating much more normally. For podiatry services and a lot of other NHS services, the constraint on moving back to face-to-face appointments is the continued requirement for distancing, in order to reduce the risk of transmission. The health service is progressively getting more services back to normal, which includes providing more face-to-face consultations. I will ask the health secretary to give an update on podiatry, in particular, and follow up his previous correspondence with the member in June.

More generally, we have set out our commitment to NHS resourcing, and we will continue to keep that under review. We have record numbers of staff in the national health service, and we have committed to increasing the NHS’s staffing complement.

I must be frank: as is the case with many sectors of our economy, the health service and other public services are struggling with staff shortages, which are largely to do with Brexit impacts and the reduction in labour supplies. We need to grapple with such issues, which affect our health service as well as food supply and other parts of our economy.