Chamber and committees

I welcome Ms Burgess to Parliament, as she asks her first question.

The Government has made clear from the outset that taking eviction action against a tenant because they have suffered financial hardship due to the coronavirus should be an absolute last resort. We have made it clear that we expect that, during the pandemic, landlords will be flexible and will work with their tenants to prevent evictions from taking place where that is possible.

However, in recognition of the unprecedented circumstances that we face because of the pandemic, we also took swift action to introduce emergency legislation to protect those who are renting. It gives those who are facing eviction extra time—up to six months, in many cases—to apply for the financial support that is available or to find alternative, more suitable accommodation. Tribunals now have the discretion to take all factors into account when they hear eviction cases and they could decide not to grant an eviction order.

We also took action to further protect those who are renting in areas with the highest prevalence of the virus, by banning the service and enforcement of eviction orders where level 3 or 4 restrictions apply. All those protections will be in place until at least September of this year.

Where an eviction is unavoidable, we have strong homelessness legislation in place to support households in those circumstances. We will continue to keep the area under close consideration as we look at our continued navigation of and recovery from Covid.

I welcome Dr Gulhane to Parliament on the occasion of his first question to ministers.

In her statement to Parliament on Friday 14 May, the First Minister outlined the latest status of the outbreaks in Moray and Glasgow city, highlighting the public health response and plans to engage with local leaders, including around a package of support for the communities and those affected.

During the past few days, there has been a significant expansion of the testing programme and its capacity in the communities that are most directly affected by the increase in cases. That has also been supported by an expansion of the vaccination programme.

The First Minister has committed to reviewing the situation again at the end of this week. That will include a review of any further areas where concerns emerge and the formulation of an appropriate response to any such developments.

Dr Gulhane raises a significant issue. I assure him that the approaches that are being taken in relation to the deployment and delivery of the vaccination programme have been designed to address the very issue that he raises by ensuring that the communication of messages about the advantages of the programme is delivered in the communities affected, by identifying and encouraging members of those communities to exercise a role in communicating the advantages of taking forward the programme, and by ensuring that all individuals who have been and will be eligible for the vaccine are supported by particular messaging to encourage them to take up vaccination. Obviously, there are challenges in reaching some of the affected communities, but I assure Dr Gulhane that specific communication measures have been taken to make sure that we do, and we will sustain those during the critical period ahead.

There is obviously a necessity for us, in these circumstances, to take action that none of us would ordinarily want to take, which essentially restricts movement because of the need to address the public health challenge that is before us. We would prefer not to have to put in place the conditions that are being applied in the city of Glasgow, but we have to do so because of the public health imperative.

The financial support that is being made available is regularly reviewed to determine its effectiveness and appropriateness. It is consistent with the approaches that we have taken in other parts of the country and in other, similar circumstances. We hope that the restrictions will have to last only for the shortest period possible, but during that period we will continue to review and engage with the business community on the detail and the substance of the financial support that is available.

I welcome Pam Gosal to Parliament and wish her well in representing her constituents.

I covered a number of those points in my earlier responses to Sandesh Gulhane. As members of Parliament, we all have a role to encourage members of different communities to take up the offer of vaccination. It is clear from all the available data that vaccination provides a substantial level of protection from the virus to any individual. On early evidence so far—I stress that it is early evidence—the existing vaccines are providing a very robust protection against the so-called Indian variant.

The Government’s communication and public health work reinforces my message on the advantages of vaccination for every member of our community, as it offers a higher degree of protection in all circumstances. We have taken steps over the past few days to reinforce that uptake message, particularly given the intensity of the outbreak in the south side of Glasgow, and we will continue to do so in the coming weeks.

In addition to the written correspondence to which Mr Cole-Hamilton refers, a number of steps have been taken to deploy various aspects of testing capacity into the heart of those communities. Lateral flow devices for self-testing are available from the Glasgow Central mosque and seven other sites at mosques and Islamic education centres in Glasgow. As of Friday, more than 3,000 boxes of seven-pack test kits had been distributed through those channels.

Eleven local test sites in Glasgow have been adapted to operate as dual polymerase chain reaction and lateral flow device sites all day—from 8 in the morning to 8 at night—from Saturday, and mobile testing units have been deployed in a number of locations. We are also working with Glasgow City Council and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to deliver lateral flow devices to more than 30,000 households early this week and we will have 40,000 packs in Glasgow in the course of this week.

A number of steps have been taken to directly distribute lateral flow tests to households and we will continue to review all possible steps to ensure that we maximise testing capability, and therefore uptake, in individual households to minimise the spread of the virus.

I welcome Mr O’Kane to Parliament and wish him well in representing his constituents. He raises a number of very significant issues. I assure him that we are carefully monitoring on a daily basis the progress of virus levels in every part of the country to ensure that we are able to signal where we may have to take action in due course. I am sure that Mr O’Kane will accept, as I am sure that Parliament will accept, that some of these circumstances can change quite dramatically over a relatively short period of time, so we are reviewing that information and, where we need to take action, we will do so.

Having said that, I also accept the very clear view, which I have heard from the business community, that it wishes to avoid a situation where there is volatility in level setting. I think that we all agree that that is an undesirable situation to be in. We were keen to move as a whole country down the levels last week. That had been our intention, but, for understandable reasons, we were unable to make the change from level 3 to level 2 in Moray and Glasgow. However, we will try to minimise the degree of volatility in the judgments that are made at any stage.

There will be a need for on-going dialogue with the business community around the measures that are necessary to support recovery during these uncertain times. I give Mr O’Kane and Parliament the assurance that ministers will engage in that dialogue on an on-going basis to make sure that we support Covid recovery in every respect in our communities and that we try to manage our way through these challenging times.

Obviously, the more public compliance there is with the measures that are in place, the quicker we can get these outbreaks under control, and I would encourage such an approach to be taken in due course.

On Mr Marra’s general point, I will quote from the circular that was issued on 13 April by the national qualifications 2021 group. It said:

“There is no requirement to replicate full formal exams or prelims this year.”

That is a pretty clear piece of guidance to the system that there is no requirement for exam halls that resemble—if I may say so, Presiding Officer—the arrangement that we had in our main hall for voting purposes yesterday and today. There is no need for that to be the case. A world of flexibility is offered to schools to enable the picture to be built up.

Mr Marra raised two specific points. On the first, the SQA consulted on the appeals process. That issue has been discussed by the national qualifications 2021 group and I expect material on it to be published shortly.

On the figures on deprivation, I am not sure what more information Mr Marra is looking for in addition to what is normally published on exam results day. However, if I have not given him all the clarity that he is looking for, he can write to me and I will happily answer that particular point. That said, I think that sufficient information is published on results day to address the point that he is making, but I am happy to consider that and respond in writing.

First, I welcome Gillian Mackay to Parliament—I hope that Mr Marra will forgive me for omitting to do so in his case earlier, but I do so now, generously. He is, of course, someone with whom I have engaged in electoral contest in the past, so it is nice to see him here.

On Gillian Mackay’s point, the status of the assessments that young people are undertaking just now is not equivalent to the status of examinations, and those assessments are undertaken in a different way from examinations, because examinations would take place in all the centres on the same day at the same time. The material for assessments has been made available to centres on the basis that they can use all of it, adapt it or use parts of it if they consider that appropriate. However, fundamentally, they must handle that information securely because it will be used at different times in different ways in different schools around the country. It is for that reason that the SQA is asking the system to respect the fact that materials are being used in a different fashion from the normal way in which any examination papers or assessment papers are used in the normal exam diet.

The re-election of the Government with an increased mandate from the people of Scotland does not seem to have done anything to change Mr Greene’s narrative from all that he said in the previous parliamentary session. With the greatest of respect, these are incredibly difficult decisions, because of the disruption of the pandemic. For that reason, as suggested by Professor Priestley, I assembled the national qualifications group, which includes local authorities, teaching unions, pupils, parents, colleges and the Scottish Government, to agree the model that is now being used.

Therefore, it is not some model that has been cooked up by the SQA. As Professor Priestley asked us to do, the model has been agreed and designed by the whole education system to ensure that we properly record the achievements of young people. We do young people no service whatsoever if we translate every discussion in the Parliament about education into the type of pejorative conversation that Mr Greene has just put on the record.

If I am trying to move forward the debate on education into a different place, having been returned to office after all the things that Mr Greene and his colleagues said about me and the Government before the election, I think that the least that the people of Scotland will expect is for Mr Greene to change the record.