Chamber and committees

It depends on how you look at the questions. Do we look at the experience of the pandemic and think that there are no lessons to be learned and that we should be quite happy to put through significant primary legislation in a matter of days? On other occasions, members of Parliament would rail against making significant changes to primary legislation in that timescale. Generally, in my experience in Parliament, that is not viewed as a desirable approach.

Nobody saw the pandemic coming. We were aware that there was a likelihood of us experiencing some kind of pandemic, but that did not prompt us to review our statute book. Now we have had the pandemic—actually, we are still going through it; believe you me, some of us certainly are—and we are trying to adapt the statute book to learn the lessons from it so that we can put in place proportionate powers that can be scrutinised by Parliament through the normal legislative process, which is what we are going through just now, and Parliament can decide whether it wants to change the statute book to enable the provisions.

That is the type of thinking that has gone into the legislation to ensure that we do not have to rush significant primary legislation through Parliament in a matter of days. We take stock, learn the lessons from the pandemic and put in place powers—with sufficient parliamentary scrutiny—that enable us to act accordingly when a situation arises.

There is a lot in this area that we need to look at further. I welcome the report from the DPLR Committee. I had a thoughtful discussion with that committee when I appeared before it a few weeks ago. It was quite pragmatic in understanding the challenge for the Government, which is that the made affirmative procedure generally takes about 40 days. That procedure can be utilised with greater urgency, subject to parliamentary consent at a later stage. The DPLR Committee was exploring whether there was some other approach that we could take, which might be a halfway house or a partway house within all that. I am happy to explore that. I think that the point that Mr Fraser made—I did not quite catch the academic’s name—

We have to be careful here. Mr Mason will recognise the benefits of digital interaction, which we can see in all walks of life. We are trying, through the provisions in the bill, to make a set of pragmatic moves that will enable us to reform our public services in the light of the experience of the pandemic, where the technology allows us to do so.

We must always be mindful of whether everyone can participate using such platforms. If not, there is a need to have alternative arrangements in place to ensure that all parties can participate effectively in the administrative process that is involved. Although the digital approach suits many people, we must ensure that all individuals can access services accordingly.

As I said in my answer to the convener, they are broadly comparable. The provisions in England and Wales have been in place for in excess of 10 years, as I think I said earlier. Situations of this type were envisaged in the legislation that was considered by the United Kingdom Parliament, and the United Kingdom Government has been able to operate under many of its provisions, supplementing them under the emergency legislation that it has introduced.

Either I will have to defer to my officials to give me further guidance on whether it has been used or we can write to you, convener, to clarify that. Unless my officials can add detail now, I propose to write to you.

The powers are being included to address potential situations in which regulations are needed to respond to a public health threat that might conflict with existing legislation. That is the justification. As with all regulations that are made under the legislation that was put in place, the powers could be used only where it was necessary to respond to a significant risk to public health as a result of the pandemic. There are significant regulatory constraints and limits around what the Government would be able to do but, fundamentally, there would have to be a significant risk to public health to justify the use of any of those powers.

That is the rationale behind those powers being in place. The threat to public health is the trigger, and there is the possibility that there might be a conflict with existing legislation that needs to be resolved.

We have to do both. We could do nothing to update the statute book but, if we have another pandemic, we will find ourselves having to rush through parliamentary legislation and, heaven forfend, but Mr Whittle might be one of the people who say that it is ridiculous to rush it all through in a few days. I do not rule out that possibility.

Then there are the logistical preparations for pandemics. Those are all elements that Lady Poole will look at during the public inquiry, and the Government is reviewing the preparations that we have in place for a whole range of emergencies. We regularly review the potential threats that we face and consider the degree to which we are equipped to deal with those threats. We will continue to do that for the foreseeable future.

The Covid virus emerged from China in the latter days of 2019 and it started to take effect in Scotland in late February to early March. There was therefore a limited window for us to put in place the arrangements that Mr Whittle envisages.

Looking back, one of the most critical elements that should be the foundation of our response is the testing infrastructure. It is absolutely critical to all that we are doing. I subscribe to the argument that we should have in place effective testing arrangements to enable us to ratchet that up to a much greater level than was the case back in the early part of 2020.

Yes, there are practical preparations that we can and should be making, but we were able to handle the pandemic only because we were able to exercise legislative control through the measures that we put in place. That was the Government recognising the scale of the threat and putting measures in place as quickly as possible.

I cannot honestly say what was in the minds of ministers at that particular time. I would have to go and look at past papers to consider whether those issues had been looked at and what the purpose of that public health legislation was. I suspect that the 2008 act was reviewed to update specific issues relating to localised incidents and that it did not have the scope to look at the population-wide challenge of the nature that we have faced. That would be my first response, but I will consider the matter further and, if there is any more information that I can share with the committee, I will write to the convener accordingly.

It may be that the direct and indirect comparison could relate to different levels of intensity of restrictions, for example. However, the best way to look at that is to take the view that we are trying to cover all bases as part of the exercise, rather than to look at specific measures within each category.