Chamber and committees

I will write to Katy Clark and place the letter in the Scottish Parliament information centre so that all members can have access to the information.

During the legislative process, I committed to a review of the waiver being undertaken; indeed, it is part of the legislation. Over the first 18 months, we will gather information and evidence to support the review. We will learn from individuals’ experience about the effect of the waiver and will be keen to ensure that we understand and apply it in the review. I will be happy to update Parliament about the progress of that review in due course.

A number of vaccination clinics in the north-east of Scotland took a decision to close early on Friday, 26 November, for safety reasons, due to concern about the severe weather from storm Arwen. Some clinics remained closed over that weekend up to Monday 29 November. We understand that all vaccination clinics that were affected by storm Arwen have now reopened and are operational.

Where vaccination appointments were impacted, people were immediately redirected to unaffected vaccination centres, so that they would not have to wait to book their appointments on another day. Health boards have implemented processes to ensure that appointments that were missed due to the storm were rescheduled, including by contacting those for whom they hold details and issuing public communications.

We have fully engaged with the United Kingdom Government’s free port agenda. We want to make sure that it is compatible with the democratic decisions of the Scottish Parliament. I think that this Parliament, by an overwhelming majority, wants the approach to the free port concept in Scotland to have at its heart the concept of fair work—and by “fair work”, I mean the payment of the real living wage.

If Mr Lumsden happened to see the exchange on Monday between the Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr Alister Jack, and the member of Parliament for Edinburgh North and Leith, Deirdre Brock, he would have seen Mr Jack confirm that the issue that is at stake—which the secretary of state has decided to put a flag in the ground for and make the absolute obstacle to agreeing the model that we have put forward—is payment of the real living wage.

There we have it. The Conservatives want to support a low-wage economy.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency operates a system of alerts that take into account all the aspects of different forms of flooding. The worry of coastal flooding was particularly acute in relation to storm Barra, but in the south of Scotland, in the Annan area, the issue is river-based flooding. Mr Golden represents a region that has a number of different and challenging circumstances that are relevant to the issue.

The issue of flood defences will be reviewed by the relevant authorities, and the Government will engage in that exercise. SEPA undertakes a lot of work to survey the flood risk across the country, and ministers expect to be updated on any lessons to be learned from that work.

Earlier today, the First Minister chaired a ministerial meeting of the Scottish Government’s resilience room, which I and others attended, to ensure that appropriate power restoration measures are in place. There has been no pause in activities by either the power companies or the Scottish Government between storms Arwen and Barra.

Scottish Government officials remain in constant contact with power companies, and ministers are being briefed. Scottish Power Electricity Networks announced this morning that all power outages in its area had been reconnected, predominantly in the south of Scotland. It was confirmed that welfare support such as food vans had been deployed by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, and resilience partnerships continue to work on a range of welfare issues.

The power companies have also restated and published the range of support measures and compensation that are available to customers.

I thank Mr Marra for his comments. He is right to characterise the matter in that way and express the hope that survivors will feel listened to at this stage. As I placed on the record in answer to an urgent question on this point some weeks ago from Pauline McNeill, if my memory serves me correctly, the paragraph that I quoted from the report by Lady Smith is one of the most uncomfortable paragraphs written about Government that I have had to respond to. I hope that survivors feel that we are now properly addressing the issues that they raised.

On publicity, an awareness campaign will be rolled out as part of the scheme’s launch in order to maximise awareness and understanding of its existence. I am heartened that we had 700 applications to the advance payment scheme, as that suggests that word was able to get out. The advance payment scheme was available to only a limited proportion of the survivor community, and the fact that there were 700 successful applications gives me hope that we can get the message out. Nevertheless, we will put in a great deal of effort to ensure that that happens. I invite members of Parliament to support us in that endeavour, because it is vital that individuals are aware of the scheme so that they can make applications as appropriate.

I accept Katy Clark’s point that the surrounding support will be just as important for many individuals, and in some circumstances more important, than the available financial support. I hope that this move is viewed by survivors as another means of helping to address their suffering, but I do not for a moment believe that financial compensation does that; if the wider support can do that, we will have helped people in a meaningful way.

The services need to be supported financially on an on-going basis. I do not have the sum of money to hand, but I will confirm it to Katy Clark in writing. The Government financially supports a range of schemes through which individuals are able to access support and assistance in coming to terms with their suffering, and the Government has given a long-term commitment to those endeavours.

Public Health Scotland is working rigorously to assess how many cases of omicron there are likely to be in Scotland. Together with local test and protect teams, it will work to identify how the virus might have been transmitted and to break further chains of transmission. Our response to the new variant will develop as we learn more about the risk that it poses and as we find out more about its spread within Scotland. We will continue to closely monitor the situation and be guided by the latest science and clinical advice.

We will continue to do all that we can to ensure that people in Scotland are offered the greatest possible protection through vaccination, as quickly as we can. That, in turn, will help our continuing progress on recovery. Indeed, Scotland already has the highest vaccination rate of all the United Kingdom nations for the first, second and third doses.

I absolutely acknowledge the significance of the work of care sector employees. They have done a magnificent job in trying circumstances. I thank them and admire them for their contribution.

As Mr O’Kane will know, the Government has already taken steps to support and increase the pay that is available for social care staff. The finance secretary will make announcements and set out her position to Parliament tomorrow. Mr O’Kane will realise that it is not for me to make statements and comments about those issues today. However, it must be acknowledged that the Government has already taken substantial steps to enhance the remuneration of social care workers and support the efforts to improve recruitment in the sector, which are beginning to show some signs of success.

Obviously, the JCVI advice required us to move at pace to ensure that individuals could have access to the booster vaccination. In the context of the overwhelming scale and success of the vaccination programme, I am aware of a small number of cases where individuals were inconvenienced because of the change in approach. The necessary advice has been issued to health boards and communicated widely in the healthcare system, and the guidance has been updated on the NHS inform website. We apologise to anyone who was unable to get their booster vaccination, but I am satisfied that the measures are now in place to ensure that that approach is in operational practice at a local level and that all the clinical and legal requirements have been met.