Chamber and committees

I would like to make a comment. Mr Rowley almost seemed to suggest that quite a lot of care homes are not fit for purpose. I have worked in the sector and my mother was in a care home that is run by the third sector. We had excellent care. The Care Inspectorate gave the home a poor mark, but our family strongly disagreed with that and complained to the Care Inspectorate.

To go back to the issue of boosters, how is the programme for people to get their second booster going at the moment? Where will that programme go in the future? Will the boosters be extended to the whole population, or will we wait until next winter? What is happening with that?

I take the point that we are still learning and do not fully understand it. If somebody has only one symptom, it absolutely makes sense that they go to a respiratory specialist or whoever it might be. However, the concern that I am picking up is that, if people have three or four symptoms, they might have to go to three or four hospitals or specialists. Would it be possible for them to go to a one-stop shop?

I would like to follow up on Liz Smith’s question about the permanent secretary. You made the point that civil servants speak for ministers, which was also my understanding. However, on top of that, we had advice that, under section 14 of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000, the permanent secretary is also answerable to Parliament specifically on the issue of resources being used economically, efficiently and effectively.

I will leave it at that just now.

Another of the new sections is section 86G, which is about the review of regulations. We have had some evidence that that section is a bit vague. It says that

“Scottish Ministers must review the regulations”,

and then goes into more detail about a period of 21 days, and so on. However, it does not say what the review would entail. Do we need to be more specific? For example, do we need something about the review being published or whether a committee should look at it? How do you see the review working?

I will move on to some of the other specifics in the bill. As you said, Deputy First Minister, a lot of the amendments that the bill makes are to the 2008 act. A couple of those are proposed new sections 86B and 86C of that act. The first talks about

“directly imposing restrictions or requirements”

and the second about

“indirectly imposing restrictions or requirements”.

I am toiling a bit to understand the difference. Will you explain why there is a difference between those two sections?

I do not know about other members, but I am still struggling, I am afraid. I wondered whether the indirect provision could be geographical. Although there was a national restriction for everyone to stay at home, we found during the pandemic that different parts of the country were affected differently. To an extent, individual health boards or local authority education departments could then have a bit of freedom on restrictions. Would that be covered by an indirect provision?

That leads me on to the final area that I would like to consider, which is remote registration of births and deaths. We did not have remote registration of births in the temporary legislation, but that is now being brought in, and you could perhaps say something about that.

We had some evidence that, for registrars and local authority folk, seeing people face to face can make a real difference. For instance, a mother registering the birth of a baby might be unsure whether to have the father’s name there. With vulnerable people who need help and guidance, that might be done better face to face. How will the balance be struck between continuing in-person services and encouraging or allowing remote registration?

Are there enough safeguards in the bill to ensure that, if a local authority began to withdraw an in-person service, it would still have to provide it to some extent?

Sticking with bankruptcy, there is a question around electronic communications. We have all moved on in that respect during the pandemic. The point was made, however, by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland—of which I am a member—that creditors are perhaps more ready, able and willing to operate in the electronic environment, whereas debtors might not be so much. The suggestion is that we should perhaps consider creditors and debtors differently from that point of view. Even debtors who had been able to communicate electronically might not be able to do so as their financial situation gets worse.

Moving on to the subject of bankruptcy, we had a fair bit of discussion on the threshold for when someone becomes bankrupt. There was quite a lot of support for the level of £5,000. However, if inflation is 10 per cent, that £5,000 is effectively worth £4,500 after a year, and it is worth £4,000 after another year. I do not know whether the cost of living challenges make any difference to the Government’s thinking. Do you think that £5,000 is the best level?