Chamber and committees

I might come back to you on the issue of process, but I ask the other witnesses on the panel for a view.

Thank you. That is very helpful.

Good morning to our witnesses. I suppose the key issue that the committee has to consider in relation to the bill is whether the measures that are before us are necessary and proportionate, or whether they represent ministerial overreach.

We have been presented with a lot of evidence from interested parties and from members of the public. A strong theme has come through regarding the issue of civil liberties, which I want to ask you about. The bill will allow the Scottish ministers to impose quite substantial restrictions on people’s activities, as we have seen over the past two years but on a permanent basis. There will be particular impacts in the area of health, where individuals can be required to

“submit to medical examination ... be detained in a hospital or other suitable establishment”,

or be forced to

“be kept in quarantine”.

What is your view on that? Does the bill strike an appropriate balance between the protection of public health and respect for civil liberties? How will the question of proportionality work through in practice?

Perhaps Professor de Londras can start.

Good morning. My first question is a neat follow-on from the question that the convener has just asked. We have now seen a move from the Scottish Government, announced by the First Minister on Tuesday, away from legal restrictions towards a situation where we are increasingly relying on personal responsibility and individuals complying with public health guidance. That is very much in tune with what has happened elsewhere in the United Kingdom. First, the Welsh Government announced that, then the Northern Irish Government, and the Prime Minister announced the same for England on Monday, albeit on slightly different timescales.

Is it now the assessment of the Scottish Government that the public are in a place where they will, in the main, comply with public health guidance without it being required to be set in law that they behave in a particular way?

I have time for one more question. This morning, I was looking at statistics from the Office for National Statistics that suggest that, although there is a downward trend for infections across the rest of the UK, that is not the case in Scotland. The latest figures seem to show that we have an infection rate in Scotland of one in 20, whereas it is one in 25 in England and one in 30 in Wales. That would seem to suggest that, despite the fact that we have had more legal restrictions in Scotland over the past few months in comparison with other parts of the UK, in particular England, that has not had a beneficial impact on the case rate.

As I am sure that you have seen, there was a study in the Financial Times two weeks ago that analysed the figures for the past six months. It suggested that, again, despite the fact that there were more restrictions in place in Scotland, including a requirement to wear face masks in certain settings, there was in fact no beneficial outcome. In fact, the Financial Times suggested that the rate of death in Scotland from coronavirus was higher than in the rest of the UK. Does that not suggest that the Scottish Government’s approach of having more restrictions has not delivered better outcomes than elsewhere?

I would love to pursue those issues further but I fear that we are out of time.

I will comment briefly, given the time and given that we have already rehearsed these arguments in the committee.

The draft regulations before us seek to extend the extraordinary and emergency powers for a period of six months. As I outlined earlier, I think that we are now in a place—as I think the Scottish Government has more or less conceded at this point—where, in future, we will increasingly rely on the good sense of people to follow public health guidance, rather than being required to act in particular ways by the law. I believe that the experience that we have had over the past two years shows that people respond very well to public health guidance. I suggest that it is not appropriate for the powers to be extended. I believe that we should test the good judgment of the Scottish people, who have thus far demonstrated in spades their willingness to comply with public health guidance. For those reasons, I oppose the motion that is before us.

I suspect that we may have to agree to disagree on that particular point.

Thank you for that response. We have seen from the discussion around the rules on self-isolation this week that the Scottish public have complied very well with the public health guidance. When the Prime Minister announced that the self-isolation rules for England would be dropped, a lot of criticism was made of him in some quarters, and some people seemed oblivious of the fact that, in Scotland, there has never been a legal requirement to self-isolate following a positive test, except in the very limited circumstances of international travellers. I think that we are in a good place in terms of the public.

The reason why I ask the question, as you can imagine, is that we have an instrument to consider shortly on extending the extraordinary powers that the Scottish Government currently has for a further six months. Given that we know that the Scottish public responds very well to public health advice, why can we not just trust people to follow the advice because we know that they will do so, rather than having those legal powers continue?

Good morning. My first question is for Dr Thomson, in relation to the written submission that you have made on behalf of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

I was very struck by the comments that you made about the impact of delays in patients being admitted to emergency departments. You highlighted ambulance stacking. We know that there are delays with ambulances being able to attend and ambulances queueing up outside emergency departments. You go on to say that your estimate is that, in 2021, delays in admissions equated to more than 500 excess deaths in Scotland. That is an extraordinary and extremely worrying statistic. That means that 10 people a week are dying because they cannot get treatment in time. Can you tell us more about how you arrived at that figure and what its impact is?