Chamber and committees

I thank Pauline McNeill for the question, the way in which she asked it and the offer of support, because we should all come together to tackle this issue.

I say clearly—and I know that everyone across the chamber will support this—that I take the view that, for anybody who chooses to live in Scotland, whether they and their families have been here for generations or whether they have come to Scotland very recently, it is home. This is their home and we should not allow anybody ever to say—[Interruption.]

It will be Parliament, next week, that decides whether to introduce vaccine certification. I set out the reasons for the Scottish Government’s view on that yesterday. Of course, all ministers—all 29 hard-working, dedicated ministers—are bound by collective responsibility under the ministerial code.

This is a question of how we best continue to control Covid in the least restrictive, most proportionate way. I think that vaccine certification, in the limited way that I set out yesterday, has a role to play in doing that.

I say very clearly that there is never any excuse or justification for hatred or bigotry and I unequivocally condemn anti-Irish racism and anti-Catholic prejudice. It should be called what it is and it should be called out.

Scotland is a diverse, multicultural society. That diversity strengthens us as a nation and that is why it is so important that we tackle all forms of prejudice and discrimination. Police Scotland is committed to protecting our communities and will act on all incidents of bigoted violence, disorder and vandalism, including follow-up investigations based on evidence that has been gathered. Those who commit criminal acts that are motivated by prejudice can expect to feel the full force of justice, and I know that, just this morning, the police have issued a comment about the progress of a particular investigation.

We have a recovery plan. The NHS, supported by Government, starts planning for winter much earlier in the year. Those plans are there. There is enormous pressure on our national health service right now. That is partly because of rising Covid cases, which, because of the delta variant, many countries are grappling with right now.

I would say in passing that, had it been down to Douglas Ross, we would not even have in place some of the mitigations against Covid that we do have in place, because he wanted us to remove all of them and have no protections against the transmission of Covid.

As a responsible Government, we will do what requires to be done to protect the public against Covid, and we will do that for as long as is necessary. We will support our NHS with £1 billion of additional targeted resource to aid recovery. When I saw one of the Tory spokespersons commenting on the matter last week—on the day that the recovery plan was published, I think—she seemed to be saying that it was bad that we committed £1 billion, because the Tories had wanted us to commit £600 million. I was not entirely sure that I followed that logic.

On long Covid, we have invested £2.5 million in research projects and money in support services through Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, which is making a number of legitimate points today about the further work that we need to do to ensure support for those who suffer from long Covid. We will continue to do what needs to be done and to take the decisions to support the NHS and the country to get through the Covid crisis, which is the responsible action that people expect from their Government.

I welcome all contributions from across the chamber to that discussion. Perhaps Douglas Ross can raise his game a little bit from screaming about U-turns and so on and actually be part of finding the solutions that the country needs now.

I answered that in my first answer, but since the member said that she did not quite catch it, I will go through some of the detail again. She is right: there are challenges on our Ambulance Service because of the pressures on our national health service caused by Covid. We have not just produced a 28-page plan, important though that is; we have invested an additional £20 million—additional to the £1 billion over the past four years, which I spoke about—to support the on-going review of the Scottish Ambulance Service.

As I said, in the north of Scotland that has already resulted in 67 extra front-line staff: a mixture of experienced and newly qualified paramedics and technicians, and nine patient transport service staff. As I said, that is more than 250 across Scotland. That is what we are doing immediately.

On the performance of the Ambulance Service, again, the service is under pressure and I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to paramedics, technicians and everybody working in the service. However, in the most recent week the Ambulance Service advises that it responded to around 10,500—10,401—emergency incidents, which was up 1.2 per cent from the previous week; for the most urgent calls, the median national response time was 8 minutes 55 seconds. I recognise that there will be people waiting longer than that and there will be some people who have waited completely unacceptable lengths of time—that is why we are investing in this way. However, we are taking the action, making the investment and supporting the Ambulance Service in the excellent work what it does.

Yes. That is an important question. We have been engaging actively with the Commission to ensure that our app meets the required standards. The Scottish Government is part of the UK Government’s application to join the EU’s e-health gateway scheme, along with the other devolved nations. We have already successfully tested our QR codes with Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Ireland and Northern Ireland, and we continue to expand the list of countries that we have tested ahead of the release of the QR code on Friday.

More generally, it is the role of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to liaise with international countries on behalf of the UK. The Scottish Government has been working closely with the FCDO and Border Force to ensure that its Covid status solutions are recognised and accepted world wide.

Work is on-going, and I absolutely recognise the importance of making sure that all of that is done to a satisfactory standard.

I will come to that point directly in a moment. On the point about some people finding it difficult to get to vaccinated—I mean this quite generally; I am not making a political point—there are some people who cannot get vaccinated because of a health condition or age, and it is important that any vaccine certification scheme takes account of that, but I would seriously question whether anyone who is eligible has difficulty in getting vaccinated that prevents them from doing it right now. There may be some, in which case we will work to overcome that, but there are drop-in centres in every part of mainland Scotland and people have been offered appointments. I would say to people that, if you are eligible to get vaccinated, there is no reason not to do so. If there is some reason that I am not aware of, get in touch with NHS Inform or your local health board, and I am sure that a way will be found to overcome that.

It is really important that all of us get that message across. If you are eligible, there is no reason why you cannot or should not be getting the vaccine right now.

My segue into the next part of the question is that I do not think that we should say that we will allow a negative Covid test to effectively let people off the hook of getting vaccinated, if they are eligible. Vaccination is really important to keep the country safe. We are not proposing that we would do this initially, but in the longer term there is an argument for considering whether we would add a negative test to the certification. If someone was unable to get vaccinated, instead of a straightforward exemption, a negative test might be an alternative. We are not proposing to introduce that initially, but it is one of the things that we will keep under consideration.

Pregnant women should come forward for vaccination. I recognise that there have been concerns, but many people working in midwifery and obstetrics, for example, have also said that pregnant women should come forward. It is safe to do so; in fact, the risks from not being vaccinated outweigh any risks from vaccination.

Vaccination uptake levels are high, which is obviously a good thing, but we know that anyone who is not vaccinated right now poses a greater risk to themselves and creates vulnerability in the population as a whole, so we want everybody who is not yet vaccinated to come forward. We will be making particular efforts with the under-40s group in the days to come. Again, I appeal to all members to ensure that they communicate the message clearly to the people in their constituencies whom they serve.

I am tempted to say that, assuming that the evidence is that it is safe to do it, I want to get that done as quickly as possible—that is certainly true in relation to vaccinations for 12 to 15-year-olds; as soon as we get a recommendation, which I hope will be soon, we want to get on with that. I am tempted to say the same for a booster campaign. However, one of the issues that the JCVI is looking at is the optimal interval between someone’s first dose and a booster dose, so although the temptation for people like me is to get on with a campaign as soon as possible, if we would reduce a booster’s effectiveness by doing that now, as opposed to in a month’s time, that is a material consideration. That is why we need to wait on the final recommendation.

The important thing for us right now is that we are ready to go as soon as the JCVI says that that is appropriate. Some other countries are starting to schedule booster vaccines—I think that Israel is the earliest country to do that; it was also quite early with the original vaccination programme. As soon as the evidence tells us that it is right to do, we are ready to get on with it.

On the latter point, we will continue to argue for the extension of the furlough scheme. I thought that we had reached an agreement earlier in the pandemic that financial support that must come through the UK Government because we do not have borrowing powers would flex, depending on the public health situation in each of the four nations. I hope that that agreement will be respected. That said, I should underline the point that I made earlier: I do not want to be in the position of imposing any restrictions if we can at all avoid it. Therefore, I hope that that is a hypothetical point but, nevertheless, it is an important one that we should understand.

The points about vaccine certification are well made. I have made some of them myself as we develop the proposals further before bringing them to Parliament. For example, I have indicated today that we are already envisaging exemptions for some people who cannot get vaccinated. There are issues with people who have been vaccinated in other countries and how we recognise that here. Of course, some of the work that is being done on international travel and recognition of vaccination will have a part to play in that.

We will set out more detail when we bring those proposals to Parliament for debate next week, but I encourage any member who has practical or detailed questions right now to send those to us and we will try to make sure that we address them all as we develop the proposals.