Chamber and committees

Mr Rowley puts his finger on an important point. He highlights the Raploch centre, which is a perfect example of exactly the point that I tried to make to Mr Johnson. However, I acknowledge that Raploch-style centres do not exist in every part of the country. We have to ensure that best practice is shared around the country and that we encourage different institutions and community planning partnerships at a local level to adopt those techniques, because it is clear that the Raploch centre model can assist individuals to enter the labour market with the necessary support. I commend that initiative, and I give Mr Rowley an assurance that, as part of the wider Covid recovery strategy, we are trying to ensure that more of those interventions are available around the country to support individuals.

We cannot return to how things were before the pandemic, when some people, because of their income, health, disability, race or gender, were less secure and less able to protect themselves and their families from circumstances beyond their control. Our recovery from the pandemic must be focused on creating a fairer future for everyone. It is critical that we deliver the type of recovery that people want and need.

During the summer, the Government heard from people that they wanted a recovery that addresses the harms caused by the pandemic; supports health and wellbeing; supports economic development; and provides financial security. The Government has listened to the valuable messages that have been shared through the Citizens Assembly of Scotland and the social renewal advisory board. I am grateful to all who have shared their views and experiences so openly and honestly. The message is clear: the people of Scotland want a fairer future for all fellow members of our community. That message is central to the Covid recovery strategy, which has a clear vision that will bring about a fairer future. We will address the inequalities that have been made worse by Covid, make progress towards a wellbeing economy in which our success is based on more than gross domestic product, and accelerate inclusive, person-centred public services.

The strategy details three outcomes that are central to achieving that vision of a fairer future: to increase financial security for low-income households; to enhance the wellbeing of children and young people; and to create good, green jobs and fair work. Those three outcomes are supported by an overarching ambition to rebuild public services and ensure that they are person centred in design and delivery. That very much relates to the point that Mr Rowley made about the approach that is taken at the Raploch centre. There are already examples of public services being delivered in that way. The Government’s ambition is that every person in Scotland should be able to access and benefit from public services in a way that meets their individual needs.

Our renewed and enhanced collaboration and partnership with local government, business organisations and the third sector will be critical to achieving our vision. We must build on the spirit of collaboration, urgency and flexibility that characterised our collective response to the pandemic. The challenge that I have put to Government, which we are sharing with our colleagues in local government, business organisations, the third sector and our communities, is that, if we can move so fast collectively and collaboratively to tackle a pandemic that was a direct threat to the lives and livelihoods of all of us in March 2020, surely we can deploy the same collaborative energy and focus in tackling poverty in our society and in the delivery of a fairer future.

The Covid recovery strategy details how the Government will work with partners to prioritise, co-ordinate and target actions most effectively over the next 18 months to meet the needs of those most affected during the pandemic. To ensure financial security for low-income families, we will roll out the Scottish child payment to children under 16 by the end of next year and double the payment to £20 a week per child as soon as possible in this parliamentary session. We will also commence work to expand funded early learning and childcare to children aged 1 and 2, and we will design a system of wraparound childcare in which the least well-off families will pay nothing. That can perhaps address some of the issues that Mr Johnson raised about supporting people into the labour market.

To further reduce the costs of the school day, we will expand the provision of free breakfasts and lunches and increase the school clothing grant each year.

To enhance the wellbeing of our children and young people, we will invest at least £500 million over this parliamentary session to create a whole family wellbeing fund. That fund will provide universal and holistic support services that will be available in communities across Scotland and give families access to the help that they need where and when they need it.

We will also deliver our young persons guarantee by providing up to £70 million this year so that every person aged between 16 and 24 has the opportunity to study or take up an apprenticeship, employment or work experience. That will include targeted measures to support care-experienced young people, disabled young people and those from low socioeconomic groups. The Government will also provide £120 million of further funding through the mental health recovery and renewal fund, which includes increased support for child and adolescent mental health services.

To create good, green jobs and fair work, we will support the creation of more jobs through the green jobs fund and the green jobs workforce academy. The forthcoming 10-year national strategy for economic transformation will set out plans for strengthening Scotland’s economy, recognising that a strong and sustainable economy goes hand in hand with a fair and equal society.

The Covid recovery strategy has been informed by public engagement and will deliver the recovery that people want and need to see. On behalf of the Scottish Government, I held a series of four open-dialogue events with stakeholders during the summer to hear about those aspirations. We listened to views and we worked with local government, business organisations, the third sector and organisations such as the citizens assembly of Scotland and the social renewal advisory board to formulate our thinking. As part of the collective national endeavour for recovery and the focus on delivery of actions over the next 18 months, we will continue to work in close partnership with others, including those providing front-line support, in establishing a collaboration for recovery.

Delivering a strong recovery from Covid-19 is critical and will require collaboration and partnership working from all of us. To date, we have provided Scottish councils with an additional £1.5 billion in direct support through the local government finance settlement, which is over and above the regular grant payments. Furthermore, we published our Covid recovery strategy, which we will deliver in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. The strategy provides the overall principles that will guide our recovery over the next 18 months to meet the needs of people most disadvantaged by Covid-19.

The Scottish Government is absolutely focused not just on that but on the fact that about 21 per cent of our population are economically inactive. Some of those people will be able, with the proper support in place, to gain access to employment. The Scottish Government is absolutely focused, in all our employability interventions, on ensuring that that is achieved. I give Mr Fraser that assurance; immediately before coming into the chamber I had just got off a call that was focused on exactly that question.

I make the point to Mr Fraser that all the dispassionate information that is coming to us, from a range of sectors—he must be hearing this as much as I am hearing it from the business community—is that we simply do not have an adequate supply of individuals available in the economy. If unemployment rises in the fashion in which he suggests that it will, there might well be people who are currently active in the labour market who will be able to participate in other employment. However, we have historically low unemployment in Scotland today. That has been a feature of this SNP Government for many years and we are proud of the very low level of unemployment in Scotland under our stewardship.

We need to ensure that we have adequate numbers of people to contribute to Scotland’s economic base. That has been made more difficult by the removal of free movement of individuals.

The Government values social care workers and the contribution that they make, and I agree entirely with Jackie Baillie on how she positions the argument: the availability of social care workers is a material factor in reducing the pressure on our hospitals that is the result of delayed discharge. There is absolutely no dispute about that point.

Before the parliamentary recess in October, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care announced steps to increase remuneration for social care workers. The Government will work with our local authority partners to do as much as we can to support improvements in that direction. We will also work with local authorities and health boards to support recruitment of additional staff, to ensure that the care packages that Jackie Baillie wants in place for her constituents—the same packages that I want for my constituents—can be in place and can reduce some of the pressure on our hospitals and enable our health service to cope with the very challenging winter that lies ahead.

It is our desire that visitors to Scotland from outside the United Kingdom are able to access events and venues. However, there is significant variation around the globe on what those look like and how they work, and not all are acceptable. We have published guidance and a toolkit for businesses and event organisers and customers on our website to help to explain the issues that have to be wrestled with in addressing that point.

In a situation in which more than 7 million vaccinations have been undertaken, I think that the most reasonable person would accept that there are bound to be individual cases in which there are challenges and problems with the data. I would advise Mr Rennie’s constituents, if they have an issue, to phone the NHS Inform number that I gave; the staff there will be very happy to try to address the issues that he raises. Mr Rennie will know that, on occasion, members of Parliament have raised the fact that they had a particular problem, and they phoned the number and resolved it. The mechanism is there to address the issues that he talks about.

If Maggie Chapman will forgive me, I will not give her a definitive answer on that, because I wish to consider the specific proposal first. In general, the idea of looking ahead and preparing resilience planning to meet the challenges that we face—my goodness, we have faced challenges over the past 18 months—is very much at the heart of the Government’s intentions. The Government is currently undertaking resilience planning, which involves looking at a variety of concurrent risks around the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—Covid, the implications of Brexit, and preparedness for winter. I completely accept the premise of the question, and I will consider the specifics and advise Parliament and the Royal Society of Edinburgh accordingly.

Our Covid status app has been downloaded more than 1.1 million times and, separately, our vaccination status letter has been issued in either PDF or printed format more than 1.4 million times. As we go forward, we will ensure that those numbers are sustained. People can continue to either download or request a paper copy of their vaccination status from NHS Inform or by calling the freephone helpline on 0808 196 8565.

The Government engages in dialogue with a range of organisations, and we have engaged in dialogue with Glasgow Life on those questions. As I indicated in my original answer, we have provided local authorities with a significant amount of increased resources that are available to them to assist with the challenges. We will continue to have that dialogue but, fundamentally those decisions are for local authorities to take within the resources that are available to them. We will continue to have dialogue with Glasgow City Council and Glasgow Life on the issues that Mr Mason raised with me.