Chamber and committees

I will provide detail in writing about the impact assessments that were undertaken and the process that we went through. We have to go through various four-harms processes before we publish any strategic updates. As I said, I will provide detail in writing, because the matter is important.

The issue is one of the most important things in terms of where we are in dealing with the virus. The letter that Pam Duncan-Glancy referred to has had a material impact on my decisions, because it would be unconscionable to take an approach to the virus that, in effect, abandoned the people who are at most risk and who are most vulnerable to getting the virus, either because of their conditions or because of the treatments that they are on. Some people in those categories will not even be able to get vaccinated.

That is one of the reasons why we need to be cautious and not simply to lift all restrictions—much as the rest of us, with our double dose of vaccine, might think that that would be appropriate. If I have to wear a mask, distance myself from people and do other things for a bit longer to help people with disability to have the same return to normality as I want, I am prepared to do those things. That will be the position of the vast majority of people in the country.

I know that there are concerns, which we will carry on trying to address piece by piece as we go through the process, but the message that I have tried hard to convey today is that nobody with a disability, suppressed immune system or clinical vulnerability to the virus will be abandoned for the sake of getting the country overall back to a greater degree of normality. I cannot be more serious about our determination to ensure that that is not the case.

First, I will never find words that adequately express my gratitude to people across the country, but I hope that everybody knows that I feel that sense of gratitude for the sacrifices that they have made and continue to make.

Secondly, thanks to those sacrifices and the power of vaccination, we are moving forward but—and it is a critically important point—we are choosing to do that at a responsible pace, not an irresponsible pace, because, in the face of a pandemic of an infectious and dangerous virus, the price of irresponsibility would be more people becoming seriously, acutely ill, more people suffering the impacts of long Covid, more people dying and more damage to our economy and society in the longer term. Therefore, a gradual, steady, careful, cautious path forward is the right one and I am absolutely prepared to defend that.

On the specific questions, test and protect is always going to be under pressure when cases are rising. We are making additional resources available as appropriate, and additional staff are being employed to support the test and protect operation. We believe that, because of that approach, some of the pressure that we have seen in the past week or so is abating. As we go through the pandemic, just as we are changing the approach to self-isolation, changes are being made to ensure that the approach to contact tracing is effective, proportionate and notifies people as quickly as possible. That is the work that test and protect has been doing and will continue to do, because it remains a vital part of our protection. Again, I thank all those who are working so hard in that system across the country.

On vaccine roll-out, I will be blunt: anyone who suggests that a slowing down of the vaccine roll-out is associated with anything other than perfectly understandable reasons is either deliberately or inadvertently displaying a lack of understanding of the issues behind the vaccination programme. There are two constraining factors on the pace of roll-out: one that has always been there, and one that has kicked in as we have gone into second doses.

The first factor is the volumes of supply, which tend to ebb and flow, although they are healthy at the moment and not causing us concern. The second factor, as we have gone into second doses, is the clinically advised gap of eight weeks between the first and second doses. Once someone has had their first dose, we cannot give them the second dose until eight weeks have passed, so if we did a certain number of vaccinations on this day eight weeks ago, that limits the number of vaccinations that we can do today. We are vaccinating as quickly as possible within those constraints, and any look at our vaccination rates relative to England’s would show that we are all achieving the same performance in that respect. We continue to do everything that we can to make sure that the roll-out continues.

Hospitals are under pressure because of the reasons that I set out. Last week or the week before, we announced significant additional resources to help health boards cope, but the way that we reduce pressure on our hospitals is to reduce the impact of Covid, which is another reason for the cautious path that I set out today. There is no logic or consistency in, on the one hand, asking us to go faster in easing restrictions and, on the other, complaining about pressures on our hospitals, because the latter would be exacerbated by the former. A bit of consistency in that regard would go a long way.

With regard to long Covid, we will take the necessary steps. We have invested heavily in research so that we understand the required specialist and greater generalist provision, but people suffering from long Covid should consult their general practitioner, who will point them to the proper services, which we will continue to develop as our knowledge develops.

Lastly—I apologise if I have missed any points of detail; I am happy to come back to them later—it is right that we consider the points about schools properly. We must consider in the round a number of interrelated issues, including self-isolation from school and other mitigations such as the wearing of face coverings and the use of bubbles in parts of our education system. The decision that will, I hope, come soon from the JCVI on vaccinating younger people will have a bearing on that. We are rightly taking the time to try to get this right. As I have said, we will set out our conclusions well ahead of the start of the new term, and I hope to have advice from the education expert advisory group soon.

We are on track to meet the vaccination milestone by 9 August. There is nothing to suggest that we will not meet that. However, the Government and I will have to take a rounded view, as we have done today, ahead of 9 August on what is safe, responsible and sensible to do. That is what we will do. My job right now is not to take easy decisions for the benefit of good headlines, although I am not sure that it would be wise of me to do that for a range of other reasons. My job is to take the decisions that I think are best to keep the country as safe as possible.

I hope that 9 August will see the further lifting of all the major remaining legal restrictions. However, I will take that decision not to make my life easier or to generate good headlines, but in the interests of the country overall. I will be prepared to accept any of the flak and criticism from those who disagree with my decisions. That is my job—that is my responsibility.

Sorry, Presiding Officer—I jumped in a bit too quickly there.

Lorna Slater’s questions are all perfectly sensible and legitimate. We will always face—and have done from day 1—two extremes in relation to criticism of our approach, which is perfectly understandable. There have always been people who want us to go faster in lifting restrictions and people who want us to go slower in lifting restrictions. Our job, which is not always easy—and we have not always got the balance right—is to try to take the best and safest path through the pandemic.

If I am to err, I will always try to err on the side of going more cautiously rather than too quickly, because the consequences of going more cautiously will not be felt in the same loss of life as the consequences of going too quickly and being irresponsible about it. We will always seek to get that balance right.

That applies to the specific question about young people. We are vaccinating over-18s as quickly as possible and, as I set out in my statement, we are making good progress on that. All over-18s now have at least their first dose appointment scheduled and will have their first dose shortly and their second dose eight weeks after that. That is the key priority. We then need to make sure that, in lifting restrictions, we are taking account of the fact that younger people will take longer to be fully vaccinated. Although we are lifting some of the attendance limits around events and stadia attendances, we are not taking an upper limit off; we are still being cautious about that and any event organiser who wants to have a bigger event, such as we have seen in the Euros recently, will have to go through a process of application so that all the mitigations can properly be assessed.

Everything that we are doing is about trying to get us back to normal in a way that is proportionate, precautionary and takes account of the fact that often those who are most exposed to the virus are those who have the least protection. I am not prepared to shrug my shoulders and say that it does not matter if young people get infected with the virus, because we do not yet understand the long-term implications of it. That necessitates the cautious path that we are taking, which no doubt some will criticise us for, because I am not standing here crying that we will have “freedom day” any time soon.

Declaring premature victory against the virus is a fool’s paradise and we should not do that, because other people will pay the price for it. I will continue to be cautious and responsible. I do not claim to always get it right; I have never claimed that and I never will, but we will try to do the right things at every step while taking account of the best clinical advice.

Again, that is an important issue. I would be grateful if the details of that case could be shared with me. The hotel quarantine contract is overseen and managed by the UK Government. If I get the details, I will pass them on, to make sure that the concerns are taken seriously. We in the Scottish Government will of course do everything that we can to ensure that the standard in hotels that are being used for that purpose is not just acceptable but as high as we would expect it to be.

Test and protect is operating effectively—it is not cutting corners—and we will not need a wake-up call because we have already taken action to make sure that test and protect can perform at the level that people expect.

The WHO standard is important, which is why I have talked about it. Last week, test and protect did not meet that standard. We will see the latest figures later this week; I hope to see an improvement. We will continue to make sure that we are supporting the system to perform in the way that it needs to perform.

I not an expert on the detail of test and trace in England but, as I understand it—I can be corrected if I am wrong—some of the changes that we have introduced to make contact tracing more effective, for example more use of text messaging, are methods that have been in place and in use in England for a long time under the test and trace system that Annie Wells’s party oversees. Some changes would not be appropriate, but it is important that we do not close our minds to changes that are about making the system more efficient and more productive, so that it gets to more people more quickly.

The vast majority of care homes now offer indoor visits, as the “Open with Care” guidance recommends. Care homes are being supported to adopt the guidance by local oversight teams, which include the Care Inspectorate. In June, a review of progress with implementing the guidance identified areas in which care homes and partners can improve and embed good-quality meaningful contact as the norm. The focus is on care homes improving, maximising and embedding meaningful contact, on local-system support, and on monitoring and strengthening awareness and adoption of “Open with Care”.

From the latest information, we know that 90 per cent of reporting homes support indoor visiting, and that increased numbers are supporting daily visits and multiple visitors. However, we will continue to monitor the situation and to work with the sector to ensure that we get back as much normality as possible in the vital relationships and contact between people in care homes and their families and loved ones.

So far, we have—rightly—made significant financial assistance available to businesses. I think that the total of the business support that we have provided to date is around £3.7 billion, but I will not go through all the different strands of support that are available, because members are aware of them. We will continue to consider what more we can do to help businesses, particularly in the now relatively small sectors of the economy that are still under significant restrictions. The reality is that, in much of the economy, many businesses are—at least in theory—operating almost, if not exactly, normally.

For some businesses, the continuing constraint on their trade will relate to whether people feel confident to use their businesses by going to pubs and restaurants and shopping as normal. That is another reason for the cautious path that we are taking. I could lift all restrictions tomorrow—I will not because doing so would be foolhardy—but that would not recover a business’s custom if people do not feel safe going shopping or doing other things that they would normally do.

We need to get the virus under control and continue the progress of the vaccination programme. We need to build people’s confidence to go back to their normal lives, as well as lift the restrictions to enable them to do so.

My job and that of the Scottish Government is to ensure that people understand and, as far as is possible, comply with the restrictions, laws, advice and guidance that are in place in Scotland. That has been the case since day 1, and we will continue to take that very seriously. I will defend the right of different Governments to introduce rules as they see fit. I will not always agree with the actions of other Governments, but I defend their right to do what they think is right and my right to do likewise. We must manage any potential for confusion that arises, and we will continue to do that.

Across the UK, we are all in a challenging position at the moment. We are really hopeful because of the vaccination programme, but we are challenged, again, because of the delta variant. Scotland has been at the leading edge of that in the past few weeks, having, for the first two waves of the pandemic, been behind and below the UK curve. In this wave, we have been above and ahead of that, principally because of the early seeding of the delta variant in Glasgow. We are starting to see an improvement in that position in Scotland. Ten days ago, of the 10 hotspot local authorities in the UK—to use the shorthand language—five were in Scotland; as of today, I think that only one is in Scotland. That indicates the improving position in Scotland, but that position will continue to improve only if people continue to comply with all the guidance and restrictions that are being set out. Therefore, it is really important that people in Scotland are helped to understand what the restrictions are and that we deal directly with any potential for confusion that arises.

That action is under way. All over-18-year-olds have received an appointment and will be getting access to a first dose of the vaccine in the coming days and by the mid-July target date that we have indicated, which is an acceleration of the original target of the end of July.

We also need to make sure that uptake of the opportunities for vaccination is as high as possible, which is the reason for drop-in clinics, the vaccination buses in Glasgow and Edinburgh and the other efforts that we are exploring to get vaccines to young people as quickly as possible.

As Lorna Slater raised with me in a party leaders’ call yesterday, there are issues with the return to university, because, as Michael Marra rightly says, some 18-year-olds might not have full protection by the time they go.

More significantly, there will be some 17-year-olds who are going to university and, as of now, we are not vaccinating 17-year-olds. We might or might not start to vaccinate them in the future, depending on the JCVI advice. Therefore, we will consider providing guidance to that group in particular to help them feel safe and assured as they start university, even though they might not have the full protection of the vaccine that their older peers have.

Some important issues are involved. We have talked about the work that we are doing to prepare for the start of the school academic term—similarly, we need to properly prepare for the start of the university and college terms. I know that the education secretary will seek to engage more with members on all those issues.

I am sure that Christine Grahame is underestimating the power and pull of the Scottish Government website—or maybe not.

Christine Grahame has made a good suggestion. I am not sure that we do not have such signage already—I have certainly seen signs on the overhead gantries on other motorways that state which level the area is in and ask people to comply with the guidance. We will look at whether there is more scope to have such signs, particularly at critical junctures. At the moment, such a juncture would be one where people come into Scotland from England, but that equally applies to travel between different parts of Scotland when they are in different levels. We will certainly look at that helpful suggestion.