Chamber and committees

The contact points that I mentioned in my statement will be available for individuals. However, I will write to all members to provide the necessary information that Sarah Boyack requests. It fits in with Mr Marra’s point about the importance of there being wide awareness of the scheme. I will write to all members shortly with all those details so that they can share the information widely in their local interactions.

I need share no information on the matter with Dr Allan, given his assiduous representation of his constituency, but the island communities are heavily dependent on the ferry connections that provide essential services in bulk to the islands. Over the course of the pandemic, there have been instances in which staff have had to isolate for Covid purposes, which has disrupted the availability of the ferry network.

I assure Dr Allan that a very pragmatic approach is taken to ensure that island communities are properly and fully serviced by ferry vessels. I noticed that, as a consequence of today’s disruption due to weather issues, CalMac Ferries has put in place additional sailings to, I think, Castlebay. That is an indication that, where possible, we will use flexibility and pragmatism to ensure that island communities are properly serviced at a time when there can be unavoidable disruption due to self-isolation and other impacts of the Covid pandemic.

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.

I am delighted to give that commitment. As Mr Carson might recall, a few weeks ago, in the aftermath of a previous storm incident, I visited Annan. One of the issues was the loss of two significant footbridges, and I agreed to engage constructively with the local community once it had had an opportunity to consider its next steps.

With regard to the circumstances at Drummore, the involvement of a community group is a welcome endeavour, and we will happily engage with it to see what we can put in place to practically support its efforts.