Chamber and committees

Those are all significant issues. I will talk through some of the points on vaccine uptake and the headline direction and I will perhaps rely on Professor Leitch to add specific details. I will go on to address some of the points that Mr Rowley has legitimately raised about particular groups and the efforts that are taken to try to increase uptake.

Uptake of the vaccine has been very high. The uptake level in a routine flu vaccine programme pre-Covid, for example, would be of the order of perhaps 65 to 70 per cent. In the over-40s cohort, the level of double vaccination is significantly in excess of 65 per cent; indeed, it is over 80 per cent now.

Compared with the uptakes in normal vaccination programmes, that is a really high uptake for the over-40s. The figures for the 30-to-39 and 18-to-29 cohorts have been at lower levels. Professor Leitch can give the specifics on where those figures are now.

Thank you, convener. I would like to make a brief opening statement in advance of the committee’s questions.

I welcome this opportunity to update the committee on the measures that are being taken to ensure the necessary parliamentary oversight of the on-going response to the pandemic with regard to the updates that the First Minister recently gave to Parliament and the report that I highlighted to the committee on my previous appearance.

As the First Minister set out in her statement to Parliament on Tuesday, we have not made any change to the current Covid regulations, although work is continuing on preparing legislation for Covid certification. The figures that the First Minister set out clearly indicate that the surge in cases that we saw in the summer has caused a sharp rise in the number of people in hospital and is also leading to a significant number of deaths.

However, there are signs that the surge has been levelling off and that the number of cases may even be falling slightly. Although the number of cases in older age groups—that is, people above the age of 45—is still rising slightly, the rate at which cases have grown in all those age groups has slowed during the past week. That context helps to explain why the Cabinet decided not to impose any further restrictions. I am grateful to everyone—all organisations, businesses and individuals—who has taken extra care in recent weeks to try to stop the current spike in infection. Cabinet secretaries are continuing to engage with representatives from business, the public sector and wider civic society to reinforce those messages.

As the university and college term begins, we have been working closely with universities, colleges and the wider sector to make the return as safe as possible, and we continue to work with local authorities to make schools, childcare centres and early learning premises as safe as possible, too. We will continue to require secondary school pupils to wear face coverings as well as maintaining other current mitigations in schools at least until the October holidays. As was set out earlier in the week by the Government, we will amend some of our guidance on contact tracing in schools to ensure that everyone has a clear understanding of the process.

On vaccinations for young people, the First Minister announced that the chief medical officers have taken a broad view of the benefits and risks of vaccination and have recommended that 12 to 15-year-olds be offered one dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Their advice has since been broadly endorsed by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. The Government will implement that recommendation as soon as possible and will shortly provide further information to health boards as well as, of course, to parents, carers and young people.

The First Minister also set out our approach to booster vaccinations, which will be offered to all adults over 50, to front-line health and care workers, to younger adults with certain health conditions or with health conditions that put them at higher risk and to adult household contacts of people with suppressed immune systems.

The final point about vaccination that I want to highlight—I know that members have heard from stakeholders on this point this morning—relates to Covid certification. Last week, Parliament voted in favour of the proposal to require eligible people to show proof of vaccination before they enter certain specified venues such as nightclubs or attend certain large-scale events. We are now working with businesses, events organisers and sports governing bodies to finalise the detail of that proposal and to publish sector-specific guidance. We believe that this is a proportionate measure that can reduce transmission in some settings, can encourage take-up of the vaccine and might help certain events and venues to continue to operate even when Covid rates are high.

I will move on to matters of legislation. I explained at my previous appearance before the committee that the Scottish Government’s report on the Coronavirus (Extension and Expiry) (Scotland) Act 2021 was to be laid before Parliament on Friday 3 September. That report fulfils our requirement in sections 5 and 7 of the 2021 act to lay a one-off report before the Scottish Parliament one month after the act received royal assent. It gives effect to duties in the act for Scottish ministers to report on the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, including measures relating to the holding of marriage ceremonies and civil partnerships, support for businesses and a range of other policy areas including social security support available to carers, support available to persons who are required to self-isolate for a reason relating to coronavirus, social care services and fiscal fines.

There is also a statutory instrument to discuss, but we will come to that later in the agenda. I am happy to answer the committee’s questions.

I accept that it is possible for somebody to change names and text in a PDF document. However, if one was to change one’s QR code, one would not get into the football match, because the QR code would not work—it would not scan or be valid. Somebody might want to play around with the shading or detail of the QR code but it would be pointless, as it would not get them into the game because it would not work. That question therefore mystifies me a little bit. The QR code—which is the element that has to be absolutely robust—cannot be tampered with to give it a different effect.

We have learned that vaccination certification can fuel vaccination uptake. In the short period since we announced that the introduction of vaccination certificates was likely, there has been an increase in uptake in certain groups, so we have learned from that. There is obviously a debate to be had about how extensively vaccination certificates should be applied. The Government is crystal clear in its view that we will never use them for eligibility for public services. That will just not be considered.

However, there is a legitimate argument, which we are not pursuing at this stage, for extending vaccination certificates across a wider range of facilities. We want to avoid that, but my response to that flows from my response to Mr Rowley a moment ago, which was that we must take all reasonable steps to suppress the virus, to protect the national health service and, ideally, to enable us to avoid further restrictions that could have a greater impact on society as a whole. We want to avoid that if possible.

I will continue to consider that, but the necessity of having the regulations on the statute book by 1 October and having time for discussions and dialogue with stakeholders, and the required time for drafting and processing, suggest to me that it will be most likely that we will use the made affirmative procedure. However, as I have said, I will continue to consider the matter.

I do not think that we would, for the reasons that Mr Rowley suggested in his question about the challenges that we face over winter. In that scenario, we might be coming back round to the issue in three weeks’ time. To reinforce that point, I draw on the contents of the United Kingdom Government’s plan B, which includes vaccination certification; I think that it has an eye on the winter problems and the challenges that it will face.

I agree very much with the point that you made about the technology, Mr Mason. It is routine technology that is widely available through free downloadable apps for individuals and for those who undertake checking. It has been designed to be within the firmament of the technology that we are all accustomed to using nowadays.

The winter preparations started some time ago in order to ensure that we are ready for the pressures that are inevitably put on the health service during autumn and winter. Frankly, that is why the Government is taking some of the steps that we are taking. I accept that they are not the most popular measures that we have ever taken, but they have to be taken in order to try to suppress the prevalence of the virus.

I do not have today’s numbers in front of me, but on Tuesday we had 1,064 people in hospital with Covid, which is a very high number of admissions to hospital because of Covid. The Cabinet regularly sees modelling of what might happen if we do not suppress levels of the virus. Those levels translate into levels of hospitalisation.

There might now be a different ratio. Back in the early part of the pandemic, about 13 per cent of people who had positive tests for Covid were hospitalised; now, it is about 2 per cent to 3 per cent. The difference is that the level of positive tests is much higher today than it was 12 months ago, which translates into more people, which puts more pressure on the national health service.

In addition to that, the national health service is undertaking two other aspects of work. It is providing the normal emergency care that is necessary—Mr Rowley mentioned news articles about very alarming and totally unacceptable circumstances—and it is dealing with routine elective work, which had been slowed up or paused entirely because of Covid. Therefore, the national health service is under phenomenal pressure. What we can do in advance of the winter is suppress levels of Covid in order to reduce the number of hospitalisations and to relieve some of the pressure. That will work across all aspects of the health service, whether it is ambulance services, acute admissions or elective care.

There are huge pressures on the national health service. Winter preparations have been and continue to be made—we have more people available to work in our national health service—but there will be challenges resulting from the level of Covid in our society.

The general picture on vaccination is therefore encouraging. The numbers relating to 16 and 17-year-olds, which Professor Leitch has shared, are an indication of real enthusiasm to come forward. I pay tribute to the school community, which has done tremendous work to encourage young people, and to young people themselves, who have exercised tremendous leadership. For example, I saw senior pupils from all the Perth city schools, who were involved in a venture in my constituency at the Dewars ice rink vaccination centre, promoting that to their peers. That was very successful. That is probably the best communication that there can be to encourage uptake.

The general position is encouraging but, comparatively speaking, we have weaknesses among younger people—the under-30s—and we have challenges in some areas of the country that suffer from socioeconomic deprivation, and in black and minority ethnic communities. The Government has looked carefully with health boards at the practical deployment of services and vaccination opportunities in order to ensure that we try to counter those. Mr Rowley will be familiar with the situation in his locality. His health board will have been offering various drop-in opportunities at different places to try to address that.

A lot of the approach is focused on localities in which we know that there are weaknesses. However, we cannot oblige people to take up the opportunities in a voluntary vaccination programme. We can maximise the possibilities and availability, but we cannot oblige people.

I assure the committee of two things. The first is that we should be pleased by how much progress has been made. It is a tribute to the vaccinators around the country, who have worked incredibly hard. The second is that we are taking focused measures to boost uptake where we possibly can.