Chamber and committees

Mr Mundell will be familiar with the basis of the decision making that has to be undertaken in relation to any Covid restrictions, whether that is mask wearing by pupils in schools or any other measure. The Government has to be able to demonstrate that the decisions that it is taking are proportionate to the scale of the pandemic. We are facing a situation in which case rates in Scotland are averaging around 2,000 to 2,500 per day, which is a very high level compared with the levels in Scotland in the past, when we did not have restrictions such as face coverings in schools.

The Government will take proportionate decisions based on the prevalence of the pandemic, and the pandemic remains a serious threat to the health and wellbeing of all people in Scotland, particularly young people.

The Scottish Government has worked with our partners in local government to agree the shared vision and outcomes of Covid recovery and to recognise the critical role of local government in our national endeavour. We will support delivery of joint programmes of work with a recovery oversight board, allowing a strong focus on monitoring and performance towards outcomes. As I set out in my answer to Mr Mason, the Government has allocated an additional £1.5 billion in direct support through the local government finance settlement and councils have been granted additional financial flexibilities to address the financial pressures that they face.

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.

Our Covid recovery strategy, which was published earlier this month, sets out the next steps in Scotland’s recovery, recognising that although the pandemic has affected every area of life, those who were already struggling have been hit hardest.

Building on lessons learned during the pandemic, the strategy addresses the systemic inequalities made worse by Covid, and aims to improve people’s wellbeing and remobilise public services to be more focused on people’s needs. Actions include upskilling and retraining opportunities, help for low-income families who are most at risk of poverty, and locally based mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people.

Although the strategy is focused on the next 18 months, it also includes actions over this parliamentary session to deliver substantial improvements on child poverty, make significant progress towards net zero and secure an economic recovery that is fair and green.

The Government has made resources available to local authorities to improve ventilation in schools. As the First Minister confirmed in her statement to Parliament yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills is writing to the Education, Children and Young People Committee. I am not sure whether that letter has been issued yet, but it will set out the progress that has been made in the ventilation assessment.

Mr Marra asks me to set out what the Government’s preferred method of ventilation is. He will forgive me if I do not dictate from Parliament the ventilation arrangements for 2,500 school settings around the country, but the prevalence of CO₂ monitors and the monitoring information that they provide are essential parts of the arrangements that the Government has taken forward in partnership with local authorities.

For the record, I should state that the issue is a matter for local authority decision making as, by statute, responsibility for running the school estate rests entirely with local authorities.

I am aware that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy met representatives from Dundee City Council on 21 September, and I am happy to meet Mr FitzPatrick and Councillor Alexander to discuss the issue further. I recognise the challenges that local authorities face, but part of my intention, in creating the joint approach with local government, is to ensure that we collaborate and use all the available resources to address the practical issues that Mr FitzPatrick puts to me.

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.