Chamber and committees

I honestly do not think that Mr Marra is serving the people whom he represents well by expressing the issue in that fashion.

After February, a new consultant was appointed in NHS Tayside to provide that service. There is on-going recruitment for a further post, and on-going clinical support is provided by NHS Grampian. I hope that that provides the reassurance to members of the public in the Tayside area that Mr Marra’s unfortunate expression of his question certainly did not.

The vaccination programme in general has been rolled out very effectively, and the booster programme is being rolled out across the country very successfully. Scotland is the highest-performing part of the United Kingdom in relation to the rolling out of the booster programme. However, there have been a number of issues in connection with the appointments system in NHS Lothian, with which we are familiar.

We are in discussion with NHS Lothian. Earlier this week, our officials met its chief executive to discuss the very practical issues that Mr Hoy has raised. If he wishes to provide me with specific details, I will look into that case and try to resolve it. I am sorry for the inconvenience that his constituent has experienced—they should not have experienced that.

In general, the programme is being rolled out well, but there are some challenges with the appointments system in NHS Lothian. We expect those to be resolved very shortly. However, if there are particular details that Mr Hoy wishes to share with us, we will act to resolve them.

The problem in this exchange is that Mr Sarwar is absolutely in denial about the impact of Covid on our national health service. He seems to think that the challenges that we face in our NHS today are somehow unique to Scotland, but every single healthcare system in the western world faces the same problems. However, according to Mr Sarwar, the impact of Covid is apparently irrelevant in that. I am not going to accept that skating past the impact that Covid has had on the situation that we face.

The Government has made the investment and we continue to engage in discussion with trade unions, employees, health boards and the Scottish Ambulance Service to make sure that we have all the capacity in place to deliver services.

However, what we have to recognise is that that is why the Government is taking the cautious steps that we are taking on Covid—some of which members of this Parliament have told us not to take. Although some members are not prepared to support us when we take those steps, we take them in order to protect the people of this country, and will make no apology for that.

This is an important issue—the transition has to be made and made effectively. In the UK, Scotland has the second-highest number of public charge points for electric vehicles per 100,000 people, which is second only to London. Of course, those charge points have to be operational and, if Mr Kerr furnishes me with information about the particular examples that he is concerned about, I will ensure that they are addressed.

In relation to our dialogue with ChargePlace Scotland, we will ensure that the issues that have been raised today will be raised with it to ensure that we have an effective network.

In terms of the investment, the Government is making sustained investment, which has put us in a position in which Scotland has the highest number of public charge points for electric vehicles in any part of the UK other than London.

I am happy to give Claire Baker the assurance that the Government is taking forward active discussions to establish an acceptable route to enable the appropriate use of drug consumption rooms, as part of a public health strategy to tackle the drugs problems that we face in Scottish society. That involves a great deal of dialogue with a range of organisations, including Police Scotland, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and the Crown Office, to ensure that we establish and propose an appropriate and sustainable route. That work is under way. If Claire Baker will forgive me, I cannot give a definitive timescale today, but I assure her that that work is being actively pursued as a consequence of the Lord Advocate’s remarks.

The research that Mr Ross cites is based on data and experience within the ambulance service and experience within England. We are engaging with Mr Thomson to establish the comparability issues that will arise out of that information.

I say to Mr Ross that, first of all, I do not want it to be suggested in any way that I do not recognise the pressures on the health service generally and the Scottish Ambulance Service in particular. I acknowledged that at the outset of my answers, and that is why the Government has put in place increased investment of £20 million. Over the past two months, we have already seen 179 new staff join the Scottish Ambulance Service, and that will rise to 356 by the spring.

Under this Government, the Scottish Ambulance Service budget has risen—it has received sustained investment over our period in office—but we must take forward a series of measures at every stage of the national health service to reduce the immediate burden on it. That means that we must have whole-systems solutions in place to boost social care capacity so that people are better supported in their homes and, therefore, have less need to use the Scottish Ambulance Service; to ensure that there are improvements in the level of delayed discharges, which are the focus of great attention from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, so that our hospitals are less congested; and, crucially, to ensure that people have a swift journey through accident and emergency departments, when they require to be there.

Those issues are all the subject of on-going attention from the health secretary and ministers. The health secretary met the Scottish Ambulance Service yesterday to discuss these questions, and that dialogue will continue.

The evidence that has been gathered demonstrates that vaccination is of benefit to the overwhelming majority of the population, but vaccination does not operate compatibly with some individuals. Local vaccination centres can answer questions about vaccines and advise about the arrangements that can be put in place to enable safe vaccination.

In the rare cases in which an individual cannot be vaccinated, they will be identified as being able to safely receive a vaccine but having decided not to do so or as clinically unable to safely receive a vaccine, in which case they will receive a secure paper exemption certificate by post. That certificate will provide them with the ability to access venues on the clear understanding that there is an appropriate justification for their not being double vaccinated.

The issues that Jim Fairlie raises are connected to the points that I discussed with Rachael Hamilton a moment ago. We are facing acute challenges in availability of skills in a number of sectors. It is an issue not only in health and social care, but in hospitality, transportation, distribution and some parts of the rural economy, with which Jim Fairlie is familiar.

Through the retraining offer that we have in place, the Scottish Government is taking measures to ensure that we support individuals who have lost employment in one sector to gain access to employment in other sectors. We have measures including the young persons guarantee, which is designed to ensure that young people have access to employment, training or a college place when they require it, and we have the national transition training fund, which is designed to support individuals to make the transition from one sector to another.

Lastly, we are working with partners to try to ensure that people who are economically inactive are given all possible support to access the labour market where they might be able to contribute to the current skills requirements in the economy.

Mr Balfour’s question relates to the point that I have just discussed with Pam Duncan-Glancy about measures that we would rather not take, but often have to take, in trying to protect the wider population.

Mr Balfour’s suggestion would involve a vast number of individuals entering school premises, when schools have worked hard to keep the environment as focused as possible on delivery of learning. That is the right thing for schools to do to ensure that young people have uninterrupted access to their learning.

The issue that Mr Balfour raises is the subject of local dialogue and discussion and will, I am sure, continue to be so. The Government will ensure that the issues are properly aired in the education recovery group in order to address the concerns that have been raised today.

At the heart of the Government’s Covid recovery strategy is the determination to do all that we can to eradicate child poverty and address the inequalities that existed before the pandemic and that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The point that Clare Adamson puts to me is an important point about how we deliver recovery from Covid for the population.

I made it clear to Parliament in my statement on 5 October that the tackling of inequality that has worsened under Covid would be at the centre of the Government’s Covid recovery strategy. If the chancellor maintained the uplift to universal credit, as Clare Adamson suggests, that would assist us in our efforts to reduce child poverty and support families that are experiencing the difficulties that come with living on low incomes.