Chamber and committees

If the member is asking me whether I think that any of this is acceptable, the answer is no, I do not. I do not think that it is acceptable that any of us have to live through a global pandemic. Every single impact of this is horrendously difficult for the people who are having to bear it, so I will not stand here and try to defend the horrible situations that people find themselves in.

However, I will say that nobody is doing that to people deliberately or for any reason other than to try to keep the country as safe as possible in a really difficult situation, and we listen as we go. We have a much greater degree of normality now—for example, shops on the Royal Mile were completely closed a matter of weeks ago and are now open. Of course, trading is not completely normal, because, apart from anything else, people still have a degree of nervousness. We have to encourage the whole country back to normality and give them a sense of safety as that happens.

It is important to talk about the economics of the wedding sector, but, for many couples who have had to postpone and repostpone weddings, that has been one of the most difficult impacts. We listen—for example, a request was made yesterday by the representative body of the wedding sector, which asked that, if we can go to level 0 on 19 July, we bring that forward to 16 July so that the weddings that are booked for that weekend can go ahead. We are actively considering such requests, and we are trying to be flexible. On the other hand, we know that some outbreaks have originated, understandably, in life event-type settings, when families have come together and were hugging and those kinds of things. That is the painful thing about Covid—it is those kinds of things that pose the greatest risk.

Like everybody else does, I hate every aspect of this. I hate every decision that we have to make that restricts people’s ability to live their lives, and no part of me wants to do that for a second longer than is necessary. I know that these decisions are not easy, and I do not pretend that we get every single one of them right. I know that we do not, because of the nature of what we are trying to do. However, we try to get them right, we listen and we rectify things when we are clear that we have got something wrong. That is what we will continue to do, and, if we all continue to pull together, the day when we can lift all restrictions will be within sight. But getting from here to there still involves us being cautious and careful. I know how difficult that is, but I also know how necessary it is.

Addressing the twin challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change is a central priority for the Government. Although the index of abundance for Scottish terrestrial breeding birds shows that the long-term trend is for numbers of woodland birds in Scotland to increase, and it is likely that that will continue as we deliver our targets to expand forest cover and create new native woodland, population numbers for some woodland bird species continue to be a concern. We have been taking action to address that, for example by providing specific support for capercaillie from the forestry grant scheme between 2016 and 2025, as well as funding through the previous rural priority scheme’s capercaillie package.

That unfortunate decision to roll out a programme of post office closures until February next year is a commercial one that was made by CJ Lang & Son. As postal services are a reserved matter, the Scottish Government was not involved in that decision-making process, but the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth recently met Post Office Ltd to seek assurances about continuity of services to any community that is affected by closure. He also met representatives from CJ Lang & Son to seek assurances about the remaining post office branches in the company’s Spar stores and to confirm that no job losses will be suffered as a result of those closures.

I think that everyone will agree that one case of domestic abuse is one too many. We should have, and the Scottish Government does take, a zero-tolerance approach.

It is important that we all understand a point of context. The figures for 2019-20, which were reported last month, show that half the rise in the number of convictions was accounted for by the new offences under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018. The numbers are going up because we have legislated to make more domestic abuse behaviours criminal offences. No one should ever celebrate a rise in the number of domestic abuse cases, but what underlies the statistics is a sign that, as a country and as a Parliament, we have taken the issue even more seriously. Marsha Scott, from Scottish Women’s Aid, has said:

“Although it is very early data, our new domestic abuse law shows signs of living up to its global ‘gold standard’ label.”

On punishments, as Jamie Greene knows, we have had debates in other contexts over the past few months about whether the provisions on separation of powers between Parliament and the judiciary and criminal justice system are as robust as they should be. I think that they are. Every member should know that I do not decide what punishment a person gets when they are convicted of an offence, although we set the statutory framework for that. As Jamie Greene said in the question that he posed to me, there is a presumption against short sentences. The decision on whether a perpetrator goes to jail is not for me or for any member of the Government; it is a decision for the judge who presides over the case. That is how it should always be.

As Lorna Slater knows, and as many members across the chamber have rightly called for, we increasingly attach fair work conditions to all the grant support that Scottish Enterprise, or any other enterprise agency, gives. I do not have the figures in front of me, but I am happy to look into the details of the particular support that Lorna Slater has referenced to see exactly what it was for and what conditions were attached to it. We will continue to make sure that any taxpayer money that is going to businesses is about creating not just jobs but fair jobs and that companies are being challenged as well as supported.

On the broader point, clearly I am not responsible for the practices of Amazon, but we had a report just yesterday from Zero Waste Scotland about consumption and the need to become much more sustainable as a country and a society. We all have a duty to do that, but companies certainly do, and there are real questions about the acceptability of destroying things as has been reported this week.

I am happy to agree to do that. I certainly agree that the proposed closures will have a big impact on the local communities and I urge all parties that are involved, including the UK Government, to look at the matter again. As I mentioned in my previous answer, there has already been ministerial contact with senior representatives from CJ Lang and the Post Office, but we will make sure that those contacts continue and bring people together to explore what is possible. Scottish Government officials also continue to have regular dialogue with officials in the UK Government and Post Office Ltd around that issue more generally, and I have asked to be kept updated on that.

I am sure that Willie Rennie was paying close attention, so he will have heard something today that might make the biggest practical difference.

First, however, I could not have been clearer that I advised against football fans travelling to London—as I advise against football fans gathering in groups outwith the limits. I have spent the past 15 months trying to persuade people to stick to the rules that are there to keep them and their loved ones safe, and the majority of people have complied with them. I get frustrated when people do not do that, but we all have personal responsibility and we are moving into a phase in which that personal responsibility will become more important as we ease the legal restrictions. Every day, I will continue to seek to persuade people to behave in a way that is within the spirit and the letter of the rules, to keep us safe and as firmly on the right track as possible.

As I said last week, it is not the case that services for adults with learning disabilities cannot open. Local authorities must consider how they can open safely. At the moment, the biggest restriction is the 2m physical distancing rule, and we are keen to reduce—to the point of completely eliminating—the need for a legal requirement for physical distancing. If we go to level 0 on 19 July, and if that allows us to reduce indoor physical distancing to 1m, that will significantly increase capacity in services for adults and in many other settings. That does not mean that such services are closed between now and then. It does mean, however, that local authorities or the providers of such services can continue to plan for increasing capacity further.

No matter how frustrated we might get when people, whoever they are—football fans or anyone else—are not complying with the advice, the response to that is not to reduce protection for other people, including, and in particular, vulnerable people. I understand that the situation is really difficult for people who are in that category, but getting everybody through as safely as possible continues to be most important.

We are working with universities and I will ask the education secretary to write to Liz Smith on that specific point. Of course, universities also have an obligation to make sure that they have in place the services and support that international students, who are fee paying, need. We are also giving access to the vaccination programme to international students who arrive here having not already been vaccinated in their country.

We will take such issues very seriously. We learned a great deal—not all of it good—from the experience of university return last year, and a lot of work has gone on to make sure that the right arrangements are in place this year.

All administrative glitches in the system are quickly identified and rectified. We do not want them to happen, and lessons are learned from them all. It is important to put the issue in context, not least for those who are working round the clock to deliver the vaccination programme. This is the biggest ever population vaccination programme that the country has delivered, and it is going exceptionally well. In that context, the administrative glitches that have been mentioned are tiny. They are not unimportant, but let us not take away from how well the vaccination programme is going. It is running smoothly, and it is accessible. We will learn all lessons as we, potentially, go into a booster period in the autumn and a further round of vaccination next year or the year after.

I pay tribute to everyone who is running the vaccination programme. Yesterday, I got my second dose at the NHS Louisa Jordan, which was running like clockwork. All the people who are delivering the programme deserve our grateful thanks.

I will try to address those points as briefly as possible.

The evidence is strong and increasing that vaccination is reducing the harm of the virus, in terms of reducing the number of people who are going to hospital and the length of time that they are in hospital. That is partly reflective of the fact that, as vaccination pushes down the impact of the virus, the age range of people who go into hospital will be younger than was the case earlier in the pandemic.

That is really good news, but I want to reiterate a point that I made in my statement, because it is important that the Parliament is aware of this. Back at the start of the pandemic, we dedicated almost the entirety of the health service capacity, apart from that of urgent healthcare, to potentially dealing with Covid cases. We are not able to do that again, because we are trying to catch up on a backlog and to ensure that people get non-Covid treatment. Our margins in terms of what will and will not put pressure on the NHS are narrower than they were before, which means that even if the ratio of hospitalisation is falling—we think that it has probably halved or perhaps reduced even more than that—the going to hospital of 5 per cent of a big number of cases is still going to put significant pressure on our health service. The link is weakening, which is good news, but it does not mean that we can be completely complacent about case numbers. That is why continued caution is required over the next three weeks.

On weddings, I hope that I was not misunderstood—if I was, I apologise. I was not trying to suggest that the changes were not important. When I called them minor, I meant relative to the changes that I think that people really want to see for weddings, which is a significant increase to the current cap on numbers. If, as I hope, we go to level 0 on 19 July, that number will be increased to 200. What I am announcing today will slightly ease up the numbers, because certain people will not be included in the cap, but I am not announcing an immediate increase in the cap. If I had described it as a major change, people would have suggested, more justifiably, that I was overstating it. It is an important change, but the major change will come when the cap increases on—I hope—19 July. Over the past two weeks, as Douglas Ross has been asking me these questions, case numbers have been rising, which I am sure that he concedes, so there is a need to continue to balance these things carefully.

On basic mitigations, what I set out in my statement and what we hope will be the case—remember that this is all caveated, because we must assess the data nearer the time—is that as we go to level 0 on, I hope, 19 July, the legal indoor physical distancing requirement will reduce from 2m to 1m. In hospitality, it is already 1m. We hope to remove the legal outdoor physical distancing requirement at that point. If we go beyond level 0 on 9 August, we hope that the legal requirement to physically distance will be removed indoors as well as outdoors, although we will have to assess the data.

If all goes according to plan, there will be no legal requirement for physical distancing when we go beyond level 0. Our advice to people might still be that, if they are with someone who is not fully vaccinated or who is more vulnerable, or if they are in a place where the ventilation is not particularly good, it would make sense to continue to pay attention to safe distancing with people who are not in their close contact group. However, that would be advice and not law or regulation. Further, although no final decision has been taken on this yet, it may be that, in some settings, which might include schools, for example, we ask people to continue to wear face coverings for a period longer.

Those are the kind of basic mitigations that we might require once we lift the major legal restrictions that are currently in place. However, when compared with what we have lived with over the past 15 months, many of us will think that basic mitigations such as washing our hands regularly, ventilating a room and cleaning surfaces are, although not insignificant, a relatively small price to pay to keep the virus under control.