Chamber and committees

We expect to receive JCVI guidance on that point over the next few weeks, but I do not know when exactly that is likely to be. I very much hope that it will be sooner within those few weeks rather than later. I know that all UK Governments are in that position.

In a small number of cases, those who were vaccinated at the earliest stage of the vaccination programme got their first dose of the vaccine in December and January, so a booster campaign might well be needed through the autumn. We are making sure that we are planning for that right now so that, whatever the advice may be on whether to do booster vaccinations in the autumn, we are ready to get going with that as soon as possible. We hope to get the advice within the next few weeks.

In the event of an outbreak, a broad range of testing interventions are available to local authorities and health boards to deploy quickly, as many are doing. Businesses that have been identified as being high risk or that have been nominated by local health board leads are also considered for inclusion in workplace testing. At the start of June, we wrote to local health boards to invite them to nominate businesses that could be considered for targeted tested. Such nominations are at the discretion of health boards; they need to use local judgment and their engagement with local authorities to decide which businesses they think will most benefit from such testing.

In addition, lateral flow tests are universally accessible. People can collect test kits from test sites or pharmacies, or they can order online for home delivery. We will keep all aspects of the testing policy under review. There is no need for businesses or individuals not to have access to lateral flow tests, because they are widely accessible on a universal basis.

I do not underestimate the significant impact that the pandemic has had on soft play centres. In recognition of that, the finance secretary announced additional funding for the 14 local authority areas, which include East Dunbartonshire, that remain in level 2. That funding includes £100,000 for soft play centres that remain closed, which receive funding each week.

We keep plans under review and, as I have said today, we will accelerate the lifting of restrictions if possible. I hope that what we have set out today regarding the move to level 0 for the whole country will also be positive for the soft play sector.

The funding that I have spoken about is in addition to rates relief, funding through the contingency fund and closure grants. We will continue to do everything that we can to get as quickly as possible to a position where soft play centres are able to open again.

I was not in the chamber earlier, but I understand that the Parliament had a vote on that matter and that members of the Conservative Party, rightly, had the opportunity to make their views known. Such things are always a difficult balance. I do not want to have to take emergency legislation through the Parliament if that can be avoided, and I do not want to have emergency powers in place. In fact, the legislation will allow some emergency powers to expire because we do not think that they are necessary any more.

Given that the Parliament is about to go into recess for two months and that, although we face a much more hopeful prospectus on Covid because of the vaccines, we still face an uncertain period ahead, I think that it is prudent that, with the debate and deliberation that will take place today, tomorrow and Thursday in the Parliament, we have those contingent powers, should they be necessary. However, they are used only if they are absolutely necessary, and Parliament has the opportunity to scrutinise them over the next three days.

As I said in my statement, the JCVI priority list represents 99 per cent of preventable mortality from Covid. Those who are clinically extremely vulnerable were prioritised for vaccination, and around 95 per cent of those in the shielding list have now received both doses. The JCVI considered emerging advice that suggested that people who are severely immunosuppressed might not always get the same protection from vaccination as others. However, households with adults who are severely immunocompromised should now be vaccinated, alongside JCVI priority group 6, in order to gain additional protection. Of course, there are on-going studies—I am sure that there will be for some time—into the efficacy of the vaccines, both generally and in relation to particular groups.

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.

Intensive work continues on all those things. Local public health teams will continue to take action in relation to hotspot initiatives as appropriate—for example, at the moment we are doing a much higher rate of polymerase chain reaction testing than other parts of the UK. That partly reflects some of the surge testing that is being done in local areas; it is for local public health teams to decide what is appropriate while following the protocols that are in place.

We are vaccinating as fast as supplies allow. Yes, if supplies allow it, we will accelerate that further, but there is one important caveat to that that has to be understood, particularly as we go on to second doses, which is that there is a recommended eight-week gap between the first and second dose. Clinically, we cannot accelerate that, which will to some extent limit the pace that we are able to go at with second doses. That is clinical advice that it would be not be appropriate for us to change, but we will use supplies as quickly as possible within the clinical advice that is available to us.

Health boards are using drop-in clinics where they think that that is appropriate; obviously that is more important, and is being used in other places, for younger people. All four UK nations are much of a muchness in terms of vaccination uptake, but we are clearly ahead of England and Northern Ireland on first-dose vaccinations, which suggests that we are doing all the things that everybody else is doing and getting through the population quickly.

We will work with health boards to make sure that they have the support that they need. The finance secretary will continue to work with businesses to make sure that the financial support that is available is understood and, more important, that it is accessed by businesses as we continue the journey back to, I hope, significant normality.

The latter does not automatically follow from the former. The change in the strategic intent recognises the way in which, and the extent to which, vaccination is changing the reality of the impact of the virus. When there was no vaccine, it was essential, in my view, to suppress cases of the virus to the lowest possible level because there was no other way of reducing the harm. Although the restrictions that were necessary to achieve that did other harm, the harm that would have been done by the virus outweighed that.

The balance changes when there is a vaccine that helps to mitigate the harm of the virus. Therefore, to continue seeking to suppress cases of the virus to the lowest possible level becomes potentially disproportionate, because the harm that has been done by the restrictions that were necessary to achieve that outweighs the harm of the virus. That is the reason for the shift in strategic intent. Both approaches are about reducing harm from the virus, but, with a vaccine, there are different ways of doing that than was the case previously.

We want to see testing and vaccines progressively reduce restrictions domestically and, in time, on travel in and out of the country. We must consider that carefully, because we must be satisfied that there is a degree of effectiveness in those substitutes that will allow us to move forward. As I said in my statement, we will consider whether testing coupled with vaccination can, in the future, lead to a different approach to self-isolation, particularly for contacts with positive cases even if not for positive cases themselves. We are not yet at the stage at which we can make that decision, but it is under active consideration.

We all want to look to a point—hopefully in the not-too-distant future—at which vaccines can open up travel. We know, however, that the biggest risk that we face is a variant of the virus undermining the vaccine’s effectiveness at some point, which means that we need to continue to take care and look at all the issues carefully before we come to final decisions. All of those things are, and will continue to be, under active consideration.

I know that singing, particularly congregational singing, is important to faith communities. The guidance for the safe use of places of worship advises that congregational singing can take place from level 1 and that small groups, such as a choir or a band, can sing and play from level 2. At all other levels—3 and 4, which no part of the country is in at the moment—singing should be avoided because of the heightened risk of transmission.

From 19 July, we will be in a position to reduce physical distancing in all indoor spaces, including places of worship, to 1m, assuming that that is supported by the data. We will continue to engage with and support faith and belief communities as we move forward. I know that they are very keen to get all aspects of worship back to normal.

As I have done before—and no doubt will again—I thank the signers who have worked so hard and so well to help people to access the Scottish Government’s health messages during the pandemic. There has been justified criticism that the same provision has not been made for number 10 press conferences—perhaps that is something that Jackson Carlaw might want to champion on behalf of the deaf community. It is the deaf community, among others, who have made that criticism.

The comments on the difficulties that many in the deaf community face in accessing services, particularly through the pandemic, are legitimate. As we get services back to normal, that should be alleviated. However, right now, services should be catering for those needs.

I responded to a question last week on the subject. GPs should already be offering face-to-face appointments where that is appropriate. As we go down the path that I have set out today and as physical distancing is reduced—and then, hopefully, removed altogether—and more restrictions are eased, we will see a much greater return to face-to-face services. The Scottish Government will certainly be championing that.