Chamber and committees

I will finish this point and then give way to Mr Kerr and Mr Cole-Hamilton. We have to make it practical and possible for those services to operate in the disrupted circumstances, which will not have disappeared by 30 September.

There may well be an argument for a specific point of that nature. However, on what we cannot be certain about, the First Minister made a statement today that was, I accept, more optimistic than the statements have been for a while, but there were still caveats in it about what the circumstances might be in August. If we are trying to provide clarity for the delivery of public services, we have to put in place a framework in which everybody understands where they stand. The powers can, of course, be readily expired, because they can be expired by subordinate legislation without recourse to primary legislation, and a number of the powers have already expired, of course.

That is the argument for proceeding just now. The Conservatives have spoken with some fairly exaggerated language in the debate. The Law Society of Scotland has stated:

“Although short in terms of parliamentary time the provisions are relatively straightforward. The principle of extension has been considered by the Parliament over the past year in the context of the motions to extend to the present day and the regular reports by Scottish Ministers.”

I have given an assurance that that regular reporting will continue. The bill provides for the expiry of the provisions. Clare Adamson made the point that, if the bill is passed, the provisions will expire six months after 30 September without anybody lifting a finger. There is provision for there to be a further six-month extension, but if that is not enacted, the powers will disappear six months after 30 September.

There will not be.

Bolton was added on 24 May. That was announced to Parliament through a Government-initiated question in exactly the same way that the announcement was made about Manchester and Salford.

I completely accept and respect what the Presiding Officer has said today, and the Government will reflect carefully on the points that she has made. We felt that we were notifying Parliament properly because we had used the mechanism before for the Bolton example. If that mechanism is no longer judged to be appropriate, the Government will of course reflect on that, but we were simply using the same mechanism that we used back in May when we announced the decision on Bolton.

The Government will take away what the Presiding Officer has said, because we respect Parliament. We notified Parliament on Thursday afternoon. If members of the Conservative Party could not be bothered to look at their emails at 2.39 on Thursday afternoon then, as the saying goes, you can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.

When Bolton was added, case rates were at 283 per 100,000 people, which was nearly three times the rate in Glasgow at that moment on 24 May. That was the reason: the variation in elevated case rates. Mr Simpson asked me for more data. Manchester was sitting at 348 cases per 100,000, and Salford at 337. Those figures were in excess of any case rates in Scotland and well above the Scottish average.

We took those decisions to try to minimise the contact that we know enables the spread of the virus. That is what all the restrictions have been about and that was the basis of our decision: to protect people in Scotland from the spread of the virus.

The common travel area restrictions were introduced in November 2020. Decisions on which areas are subject to the restrictions are made on the basis of incidence and test positivity rates; other epidemiological factors such as the number of hospitalisations, intensive care admissions and deaths; and the presence of variants of concern.

Restrictions on travel to and from Blackburn with Darwen and Bolton, in north-west England, and Bedford, in the east of England, were introduced on 24 May. We removed the Bedford restrictions, as well as restrictions on travel to and from the Republic of Ireland, on Friday 18 June because we judged that the relative risk of travel to and from those areas had reduced.

Additional restrictions were introduced on travel to and from Manchester and Salford from 21 June, because we judged that the risk had increased. Those additions were all linked to severely elevated case rates associated with the delta variant. All the recent changes were notified to Parliament in a written statement through a Government-initiated question and were announced to the public in the First Minister’s media briefing, with an accompanying press notice and guidance being placed on the Scottish Government website.

The Government answered a Government-initiated question on Thursday. I have already gone through the details. Nobody raised an issue about our using a Government-initiated question to set out the restrictions for Bolton, Bedford and other places on 24 May. If the view now is that that is not an acceptable way, the Government will of course reflect on that and address any issues that Parliament wishes to raise.

Mr Simpson raised the issue of Manchester and Salford again. On the case numbers in that area, 337 was the lowest number, which can be compared with the seven-day incidence rate in Scotland at that time. The case numbers and the epidemiological advice are what drives these decisions.

In relation to the question of any compensation, the Government does not believe that that would be appropriate. Travel to the north-west of England was previously prohibited last year, before the local levels regulations were introduced, and no compensation was offered. We are all responsible for putting in place in our respective parts of the United Kingdom the financial support arrangements for business, which is exactly what the Government will continue to do here in Scotland.

I certainly give the assurance that the bill will not be introduced as an emergency bill. I anticipate that the consultation period will be of the order of eight weeks. I know that ordinarily there would be a consultation period of 12 weeks, but that eight-week period will be to enable us to move on to a permanent footing before the temporary legislation—if I can use that terminology—expires. The clock ticks too fast to allow us to do that and allow for proper time for parliamentary scrutiny in the normal fashion. I confirm what Mr Fraser has asked about, with the exception that I expect the consultation period to last for eight weeks, not 12, in the first instance.

I reassure Jackie Baillie that the legitimate issues that she raises do not all require legislation. They require policy action and leadership from Government. The Government is focusing on that and is actively engaging with members from across the Parliament to ensure that we have a Covid recovery strategy that addresses the substantial issues that Jackie Baillie raises.

No.

Presiding Officer, I turn to what the bill seeks to achieve.

Coronavirus continues to pose a significant threat to public health in Scotland, and the continued response to that threat requires the parties in Parliament to come together to agree necessary actions to ensure that our public services can continue to operate, in that context.

I want to caution Mr Fraser about his assessment of the pressure on the NHS. In her statement today, the First Minister made it clear that the NHS is resuming a great deal of operational activity, which is creating congestion, so there is not the spare capacity that there was when all that activity was paused. Mr Fraser is a public figure, and people need to be properly informed about the pressures that the NHS could face because of the resumption of routine health service activity should there be an upsurge in the number of Covid hospitalisations.