Chamber and committees

To continue with the convener’s theme of public engagement, members of the public have also raised the issue of COP26, which will happen next week and the week after. Up to 100,000 people will converge on Glasgow. Some of those who are travelling internationally to attend the main conference may not be double vaccinated. There is therefore a risk of further spread of Covid.

The public would like to know what mitigations have been put in place to avoid further spread of Covid at COP26 events. Has the Scottish Government carried out any modelling of the possible increase in case numbers as a consequence of COP26?

Basically, you are saying that there is a risk.

Thanks for that comprehensive answer. The one issue on which you did not touch is whether there is any difference in those figures in any other parts of the UK. I am interested in whether you have any data on that. Are you aware of any difference?

If you get some more data, that would be interesting.

We have had many conversations about vaccination passports. Last week, the committee took evidence from Professor Stephen Reicher and two of his colleagues. They all raised concerns about a backfire effect from making vaccination passports compulsory in certain circumstances and said that it could have the unintended consequence of making it less likely that some vaccine hesitant people who start from being distrustful of authority would take up the vaccine.

Those witnesses all made the point that Scotland is the only country in Europe that now requires vaccination passports as the price of entry to certain events without giving the alternative of providing a negative Covid test. Their view was that allowing that alternative would deal with the backfire effect. Has the Scottish Government given serious thought to that, given that those experts are saying that it is a real worry?

Thank you.

My question follows on neatly from the convener’s last question, as it is about vaccine hesitancy. The committee has taken evidence from experts around that issue. There is a difference between anti-vaxxers and the vaccine hesitant, as you will know. Anti-vaxxers are people who are ideologically opposed to vaccination and nothing will persuade them otherwise—they just do not trust the authorities.

The vaccine hesitant are a different group. They are people who perhaps have hesitation about vaccines but are not intrinsically opposed to them. I am interested in what more is being done to try to encourage the vaccine hesitant to take up vaccination. From the data that we have been provided with, we see that some of the vaccine hesitant are young people, but the most stark differences are by ethnicity. For example, according to the latest figures, just under 80 per cent of the white population has had two doses of the vaccine, but that figure is 52 per cent among people of Black origin and 64 per cent among people of Asian origin. That is quite a substantial gap.

What is being done by the Scottish Government to understand the reason for vaccine hesitancy among those ethnic groups? Can we learn anything from other countries or other parts of the UK? Are their figures different, and are they better than ours? What more is being done to tackle hesitancy in those groups?

Thank you, convener, and apologies for my late arrival, which was due to a train being cancelled.

Picking up on Professor Drury’s interesting comments about backfire effects, I think that one would have expected the introduction of vaccination passports to encourage take-up of vaccinations, but your argument is that, according to some evidence, it might be having the opposite effect on some groups. That seems counterintuitive, and it would be worth exploring that further with Professor Drury and the other panellists.

I have two questions that might help to form the discussion. First, would it assist with the groups that you mentioned if the vaccination passport had an end date? Would that make any difference? Secondly, as an alternative exclusively to vaccination passports, would it make a difference if, as has happened in other countries, there were an alternative to testing at venues? For example, people could either be double vaccinated or produce negative test results.

Perhaps we could start with Professor Drury.

Good morning. I have a large number of questions that I would like to ask, but time constraints will allow me to ask only a fraction of them. However, we will see how we get on. My questions relate to the draft regulations and evidence paper that we got yesterday afternoon.

On the issue of allowing negative polymerase chain reaction tests as an alternative to proof of double vaccination, at paragraph 5.1 of your evidence paper, you say:

“Scotland will be the only European country that will adopt a vaccine only certification scheme with no option to provide a negative PCR or antigen test result or proof of recovery from a previous COVID-19 infection within a predetermined time period.”

In evidence this morning, we heard from experts, including Professor Drury, who talked about the backfire effects of requiring vaccination certification, and how it might depress vaccine take-up among those who are already vaccine hesitant. On that basis, and given that every other European country allows testing as an alternative, why was that not considered by the Scottish Government?

Do I have time for one more quick question, convener?

Thank you for that.

In evidence this morning, we heard from Professor Dye and others that the backfire effects might be minimised if the vaccination certification provisions were time limited. If people could see an end point, that could remove the potential distrust among vaccine-hesitant groups. Is that something that the Scottish Government has considered?