Chamber and committees

I agree entirely with that latter point. Over the course of the vaccination programme, the Scottish Government has supported practically, and through the application of pressure, the achievement of the objective that Sarah Boyack set out.

As I indicated in my initial answer, the change to testing policy was included in the modelling of the pandemic. We continue to monitor levels of Covid in our society through the various modelling exercises that are undertaken. The modelling that we do around waste water shows declining prevalence of the virus. We also monitor hospital admissions and case numbers.

We will continue to engage with the international clinical community on the research that is emerging on new strains and new variants, and we will reflect that in the choices and decisions that we make.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving data gathering and management to produce high-quality and impactful research supporting our recovery from the pandemic. That includes the data and intelligence network—a community of data experts promoting best practice on sharing and use of data, in response to the pandemic. The network has produced a range of resources including a data catalogue, and has worked to improve data set quality.

Research Data Scotland provides a way of systematically organising Scotland’s data and offers researchers quicker and clearer access to data. It developed the Covid-19 database for quick data set linkage. It now holds 36 data sets and supports 68 Covid-19-related studies.

The business support partnership programme data and analytics workstream seeks to improve data set linkage abilities in order to gain a more holistic view of the business support that was offered during the pandemic.

Data management is central to every aspect of Government policy and action. It helps us to identify the most effective targeting of support to assist individuals who face difficulties during the cost of living crisis, for example. It also helps us to manage effectively the implications of Covid in the national health service and a wide variety of other environments.

The programmes that are being done through the data and intelligence network are designed to ensure that we constantly review the approach to data management and data handling, so that we achieve all our objectives in this respect and so that we can effectively deliver Government policy.

We have learned from the Covid pandemic that we need systems that can readily deal with distribution of resources to a wide range of recipients, whether they are individuals or businesses. Such systems had to be developed at pace during the pandemic, but we are looking to entrench those approaches in order to ensure that we are equipped for any eventuality in the future. That is material to the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill, with which Mr Whittle is familiar.

As Covid-19 infection prevention and control guidance is confined to healthcare settings, there are limited cross-Government discussions outside of health directorates regarding Covid-19 mitigations. Scotland’s hospital Covid-19 guidance is developed in conjunction with NHS National Services Scotland’s antimicrobial resistance and infection prevention and control staff, supported by the independent expert Covid-19 nosocomial review group.

The Scottish Government continues to work in partnership with NSS and with relevant policy teams on reviewing and updating Covid-19 hospital guidance in the light of emerging scientific and World Health Organization advice.

Dialogue is on-going with local authorities and health boards about the delivery of the vaccination programme, particularly in relation to convenience and locality for individual areas. It is obviously a very complex exercise, and the vaccination programme has led to the distribution of in excess of 10 million vaccines in a relatively short space of time. When the programme operates at population scale, it opens up different opportunities around locations than if it is a more limited vaccination programme for older people and for the clinically vulnerable. Of course, if the programme is targeted at those groups, access and locality will be ever more significant. I assure Mr McLennan that those questions will be considered very carefully with local authorities and health boards as we apply the advice from the JCVI.

If Mr Sweeney will give me a moment, I will give way to him after I address this point.

We have to work with power companies to make sure that there is better knowledge and resilience available to individuals. One event that I saw in my constituency the other week was in the town of Alyth, where SSE used a community awareness day to bring along some of the resilience kits that it was making available. The kits included—this goes back to the point that Gillian Martin raised—battery radios. My household no longer had a battery radio, but we have now, after I went to that information event, and I am grateful to SSE for that. There will be precious few households that have battery radios nowadays. With our dependence on digital technology, having access to a means of communication of that type is important for people, so that they are be able to hear the information that is available.

All those are legitimate points, and I am sorry that Jackie Baillie’s constituent has had that experience.

Jackie Baillie will be familiar with the fact that the Government follows, and has followed to date, as have other Administrations in the United Kingdom, the advice of the JCVI. We have made clear to the JCVI at different stages our enthusiasm for elements of the vaccination programme to be undertaken, and for it to be undertaken more quickly than might ordinarily be the case.

I will certainly discuss with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, who leads on dialogue with the JCVI in that respect, the issues that Jackie Baillie has raised but, fundamentally, as Jackie Baillie will understand, the JCVI operates independently of Government and provides high-quality clinical advice to Government.

I welcome the opportunity to open the debate on the general principles of the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill, and I thank committees of Parliament for their careful consideration of the bill’s provisions.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think that we can all agree that our statute book was not sufficient to deal with the circumstances that we faced in March 2020. Members will recall that we required two pieces of emergency legislation in a matter of days, to provide the legislative ability to handle the pandemic.

If it is passed, the bill will put in place legislation that we consider to be necessary, proportionate and appropriate to ensure that we can respond in the future, when the circumstances require it.

The measures in the bill fall into three broad categories: powers to counter future public health threats; the embedding of practical public service reforms that have demonstrated their value, irrespective of the public health position; and extended temporary measures to help to manage the impact of Covid, specifically on the Scottish justice system. The latter two categories have largely been endorsed in the scrutiny to date, but the first has generated significant difference of opinion, and my speech will focus mostly on that issue.

For the most part, the measures in the bill across all categories already exist in temporary legislation, but they will expire in September. The bill updates and equips the statute book in sensible and appropriate ways, based on lessons that have been learned from the pandemic. The measures were consulted on as a coherent package in a full 12-week public consultation that took place between August and November last year, and the measures in the bill collectively support the Government’s Covid recovery strategy and the recently updated Covid strategic framework.

I am pleased that the lead committee, having had regard to the other scrutiny committees’ reports, has endorsed the general principles of the bill and has recognised that it is appropriate to equip the statute book with powers to counter future public health threats.

It is my view that they do exist but that they require to be put in place with the necessary safeguards, which is what I am addressing today. If Mr Fraser thinks that I have already given ground, I encourage him to wait patiently for what is to come.

I will take some time to address a proposal that was developed in stage 1 scrutiny: that some key powers should be taken out of the bill and held in reserve or kept on the shelf for emergency enactment at a future point. I acknowledge the concerns behind that proposal and accept that the provisions in the bill as introduced did not strike the right balance between the legislative framework that we need and the necessary level of parliamentary oversight. There are three points to consider in that respect.

The first is that there remains a clear and compelling argument for ministers to have the public health protection and educational continuity powers that are in parts 1 and 2 of the bill. The statute book is currently not complete, and legislative action is required now. The public health protection powers would allow ministers not only to make regulations in a time of emergency, such as—in the most extreme circumstances—to impose a national lockdown, as we had to do to combat Covid, but to make regulations in what we might call “peacetime”, to prepare for future threats. That was my point to Mr Cole-Hamilton. I am thinking here of standing preparedness measures such as those that have been in place in England and Wales since 2010.

I am grateful to Mr Fraser for giving way. Does he not accept the argument that I have made to the committee that there are deficiencies in the legislation on the statute book in Scotland, and that the way to solve that is to legislate in order to address some of the issues that have been addressed in England and Wales, where the authorities are able to better prepare for pandemics in the future? Surely we need to consider that important issue with open minds in the legislative process.