Chamber and committees

I hope that Sarah Boyack will forgive me, but I answered—rightly so—a lot of questions in the session last month, and I cannot remember exactly what the subject matter of her question was. There may be a good reason why we have not been able to respond to it yet, but I will ensure that that is looked into as soon as I get away from this session.

On the first point, we have looked at that—I have personally looked at it—over the past few days. I will be corrected if I am wrong in any point of the detail here, but I do not think that I am wrong. The Scottish Government is not able to unilaterally change the cost of the NHS test; that is decided through the UK Government. In many respects, changing that would be the simplest thing to do, but we are not able to do that unilaterally.

We have therefore been looking at whether we can open access to privately provided tests. The reasons why we have not done that so far have been concerns about the quality of the service, the turnaround times of the tests, and the reporting of the tests to allow proper analysis and reporting. Further work has been under way, including work that I know that the UK Government has been doing on looking at ensuring that performance standards are mandated for private providers. We are looking at that right now, to see whether that opens up the possibility of tests being accessible from other providers at lower costs.

I hope that everybody—particularly Sarah Boyack; I know where she comes from on such issues—recognises that ensuring that people have access to quality tests and that the service around that is of an acceptable standard, given what we are dealing with, is really important. That is why we have thus far mandated NHS tests.

That is an important question. I indicated in my previous parliamentary statement, and also before that, that the app was in development, although I give credit to Paul O’Kane for suggesting that it was his call for it at the weekend that led to my statement today. The app has been in development for quite some time.

I cannot give an exact date, but we anticipate that the app will be launched by the middle of next month at the latest. Obviously, we will try to accelerate that if at all possible. We are working with the other UK Governments to ensure that there is consistency in our approaches, although we are using different systems in Scotland.

Paul O’Kane mentioned the paper-based system for vaccine certification. We have been working on the wording and the branding of that, too.

Compatibility and consistency are important for use between the four nations. I refer back to what I said in previous statements and earlier answers about that. We have not yet decided whether we will seek to use vaccine certification for domestic purposes in Scotland. We are developing the functionality to make that possible, but we have not yet taken the decision that that functionality will be used.

That is a really important point. We have worked closely with the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland to understand the views and experiences of people who are living with long-term conditions, including those who are living with long Covid, as we remobilise services in the health service generally and as we consider our response to long Covid. Officials continue to engage with third sector organisations and patient groups to further inform the approach to long Covid to ensure that people receive the best possible care in the right settings and that that is supported by the right specialist approach.

As I indicated earlier, a focus on ventilation and better ventilation in places such as schools but across the public and private sectors is really important as we return to greater normality. We need a much greater focus on that, as I have set out today in relation to schools. We have issued guidance emphasising the need to ensure good ventilation across all indoor settings. That guidance includes reference to the possibility of using air-cleaning or air-filtration devices. We are considering what further steps we can take to support good practice on ventilation across all settings, regardless of location, and I can confirm that that includes consideration of the role of air-cleaning and air-filtration technology.

In point of fact, that is not what our “First Steps” document said. It said that we would take steps and do the initial work with a view to setting up a public inquiry. It did not say that the public inquiry would be established within the first 100 days. It remains my commitment to have a public inquiry up and running within this calendar year, and we are considering the steps that we need to take to do that. We will fulfil the terms of our 100 days commitment, and we will set out as soon as possible exactly how we intend to take forward the commitment to holding a public inquiry.

We are, of course, talking to the UK Government—I have been completely open about that and I would be criticised if I were not doing that—about the potential remit of the public inquiry that it has committed to holding, so that we understand what issues it will look at and, therefore, what issues a separate Scottish public inquiry would look at and how all that would interact. We will set out more of our considerations on that shortly.

Engagement with the UK Government on all those issues is, as the member would expect, on-going. I will ensure that further information about the detail of that and when we last engaged on particular issues to do with tourism and aviation is provided to Jackie Dunbar. We have always been frank that the impact on aviation and by extension on tourism, certainly international tourism into Scotland, will be the longest-lasting impact. It is therefore important that we continue to do what we can to support those sectors and encourage the UK Government to do likewise.

I am sure that the cabinet secretary will be happy to meet anyone who wants to discuss those issues. I understand that he has recently met one of our Conservative MSP colleagues to discuss those issues.

We are committing significant sums of money to understanding long Covid, so that we can ensure, as quickly as possible, that the right resources are in place. I will come on to specialist clinics in a moment, but we should not lose sight of the fact that many people suffering from long Covid will first want to have access to generalist services—general practices and other services. We want people to be treated for any health conditions as accessibly and as close to home as possible.

Jackie Baillie said that the UK Government has dedicated £34 million to long Covid specialist clinics. I do not knock any money that is spent on these things, and the Scottish Government will certainly dedicate resource to appropriate specialist clinics in the coming period. I simply ask people to take a step back and analyse that. I point out that £34 million in an English context is about £3 million for Scotland. We will not get many clinics for that amount of money.

I would question the extent to which some of the headlines that we hear are matched by the reality of provision. It is important to ensure that we have the right specialist provision in place, and that we build it on the basis of the best understanding. Our understanding will obviously develop as our research develops, but we should build from an evidential base, and we should do it properly, rather than me saying, “Here’s £3 million,” knowing that it will not deliver many specialist clinics. We need proper investment and proper development of understanding to ensure that specialist provision does what we require it to do.

I think it is right that my health secretary takes the time to consult not only officials in the Scottish Government health department, but people across the health service, to make sure that we get our NHS recovery plan right—it will not be for the next weeks or months, but probably for the duration of this parliamentary session—and that we do the proper work to ensure that it is the solid, deliverable and ambitious plan that the health service needs. It will be published within 100 days, as we committed to do, and the Parliament can scrutinise it when that happens.

Of course, we continue to give additional support to the NHS now. The NHS is not simply doing nothing while waiting for the plan; it is already in a process of recovery, supported by additional resource and other support from the Scottish Government, which will continue to be the case. Although I wish that that could be more, because the NHS deserves as much as we could ever give it, we have also given our hardworking NHS staff the best pay rise anywhere in the UK, because we recognise that, without our staff, the NHS cannot do what it does.

We will continue to support the NHS in the best way that we possibly can as it continues to cater for those with Covid—there are still many Covid patients in our hospitals—and, increasingly, gets the health service back to being the service that deals with people regardless of their conditions, as quickly as possible, and to the high standards that all of us know that we can expect from our national health service.

As I think I said in my statement, guidance has been published for further and higher education, although further work is continuing, to make sure that the arrangements that are in place for the start of the new academic term are appropriate.

It will be the case that all over-18-year-olds will have been offered a first dose—they have been offered a first dose already—and, by mid-September, all over-18-year-olds who have been vaccinated will have been offered their second dose, eight weeks on from that. We continue to encourage uptake. As I have said, we hope to move vaccination into slightly younger age groups as well, although that is dependent on JCVI advice.

There are issues that I have set out today around our expectations on costing for students. I know that colleges and universities will be looking closely not just at the position on the move beyond level 0 and what that means in terms of legal requirements, but at what is a sensible and safe approach to a mix of on-site and remote learning. As well as guidance being published, I would expect learning institutions to be liaising with their staff and students well in advance of the new term.

As I said earlier, we are retaining the requirement to wear face coverings in indoor settings where that is required just now—so, in pubs and restaurants except when people are sitting down to eat and drink; when they are moving around, they are required to wear face coverings.

Nightclubs have not been open. It is important that we have similar mitigations in all indoor settings, but, as nightclubs are able to reopen from Monday, we will be engaging with the night-time industry sector about exactly how we will ensure that the right mitigations are in place and what will be expected of nightclubs, as well as what we would encourage them to do. I have to say that it is a long, long time since I was in a nightclub. Maybe I should go back to one sometime—I do not know.

Although it is a long time since I was a regular frequenter of nightclubs, I have had discussions in the past few days about allowing nightclubs to open again, which everybody wants to happen, and what restrictions might be necessary. It is clear that some restrictions would make no sense and would, even if a nightclub was technically allowed to open, make that really impractical. I say that simply to reassure Pauline McNeill that, as we finalise guidance for the reopening, while not stinting on appropriate safety measures, we will make sure that we are mindful of the practical realities in settings such as nightclubs.

On nightclubs, I have something to say to any young people who might be listening—those young people who were listening probably switched off when I said that it was a long time since I had been in a nightclub. If you intend to go back to a nightclub over the next few weeks—who could blame you for that?—and you are over 18, please make sure that you have had your vaccine before you do, because that will help to protect you. We want people to be able to responsibly enjoy things again, but we want you to protect yourself as you do. By doing that, you will be reducing the risk of becoming ill and helping to protect others. For all the detail around the return of nightclubs, that is an important issue that none of us should overlook.