Chamber and committees

The cabinet secretary is aware of the concerns of the taxi trade. Representatives of the trade have spoken highly of a meeting that they had with her the other day, in which they felt that she acknowledged their concerns. However, will the cabinet secretary clarify what financial support will be available? There is some confusion about that.

I welcome that, but I hope that the cabinet secretary takes the point that Stuart Patrick made—that 90 per cent of businesses do not receive £750, because they are open, albeit that no one can travel to them. I highlight the importance of Glasgow as a metropolitan city, because so many people come to it.

Obviously, the music sector will be the last to open up. On behalf of musicians, I have asked for a meeting with Government advisers Gregor Smith and Jason Leitch in order to clarify the evidence on the ban on singing. I was outed earlier as having an interest in that by my colleague Paul Sweeney in his tremendous speech. However, in all seriousness, I think that most of us know many struggling musicians who have been trying to manage some of the most severe hardship of their lives. It was embarrassing that Scotland was the only country to ban background music. I make no apology for interrogating the science on the topic. If singing is to continue to be banned for the reasons that it was banned nine months ago, I want to be sure that we have got that right.

Last month, two venues—Barrowlands and Saint Luke’s—lit up their premises with signs warning that 39,000 jobs could soon be lost due to the restriction on Scotland’s music, night-time and cultural sectors. Night-time economy businesses have said:

“As a direct result of ending all financial support without ending the restrictions that make businesses in our sector unviable, the Scottish Government is in effect betraying Scotland’s young workers and Scotland’s cultural sector and condemning thousands of businesses to bankruptcy”.

Backing that up, a poll conducted by the Night Time Industries Association of its members in April this year showed that the average debt amassed by venues due to the coronavirus pandemic had reached £150,000, which is equivalent to several years of profit in normal times.

I will finish by pointing out that many other sectors also require inclusion to achieve recovery. Glasgow airport is a key hub of connectivity for business, the movement of freight, and city breaks, and we need to make sure that, when it is safe to travel, Scotland’s connectivity is protected. As members have heard, airport chief executives Gordon Dewar and Derek Provan have been pleading for more engagement with the Government.

On behalf of the taxi trade, I thank the cabinet secretary for today’s clarification of grants and support. However, I think that more discussion will be required about the transition to net zero and low-emission zones because, obviously, buying new vehicles is going to be a huge burden.

As a Glasgow MSP, I unashamedly make calls for Glasgow. However, a special recovery plan is required because that will be good not just for Glasgow but for Scotland’s recovery.

Does the First Minister agree that it is time for a specific recovery plan for Glasgow, a city that has been in lockdown for nine months? Glasgow serves people beyond its boundary and has metropolitan status, and the economic damage has been deep. The vaccine roll-out has not matched the density of our population, which has high levels of the virus.

I plead with the First Minister to recognise that Glasgow will continue to be in trouble. It is such an important city for the west of Scotland, and 90 per cent of its businesses did not qualify for additional support. I did not get the impression that that issue registered with the Government when it was raised last week.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that consent to sex can never be a defence to murder or serious sexual assault? The We Can’t Consent to This campaign notes that there were 60 cases across the United Kingdom in which the so-called rough sex defence was used, and that 40 per cent of women under 40 have reported being violently assaulted during sex.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that it is time to remove the partial defence of provocation by sexual infidelity from our law books, to show that our law seeks to keep women safe?

Around half of people in Glasgow who were due get a Covid jab over the weekend failed to turn up. Reports on Monday said that there was a staggering 83 per cent non-attendance at the Hydro in Glasgow. We know that the venue can administer a minimum of 4,000 vaccinations a day and has the capacity to scale up to 10,000. Does the Government understand the reasons for that high level of non-attendance among people in their 30s and 40s at mass vaccination centres such as the Hydro? Is it time to look at having an online registration system for people of all ages? We cannot continue to have that level of non-attendance—it is inefficient.

I thank the cabinet secretary for recognising the cross-party work on protecting renters, but does he recognise the danger of mass evictions if the protections come to a sudden cliff edge? Does he agree that we need to extend the provisions to level 2 as well as levels 3 and 4? Will the Government set up a grant fund, which I have called for, to help tenants who are facing eviction because of a loss of income due to the pandemic, in order to ensure that we can protect more people from evictions? Unfortunately, the problem is going to get a lot bigger.

Glasgow witnessed disorder and violence by some Rangers supporters in George Square only a few months previously, so why did we not learn from that? On the obscene anti-Catholic bigotry and anti-Irish racism—I am pleased that the First Minister and the justice secretary have rightly called those out—does the cabinet secretary acknowledge that the Catholic community is sick and tired of it and that we need everyone to work together, including the football organisations, which need to take a much tougher stance than they have done, with zero tolerance of bigotry wherever it is found in football and beyond?

took the oath.