Chamber and committees

Let me begin with some points that I think we can all agree on. As Alex Rowley said, we all want vaccination rates to increase. As Gillian Martin said, we want to find safe ways of doing the things that we did before the pandemic. As the Deputy First Minister said, we have to ensure that we suppress the virus and consider what will work.

However, we have to question the approach that the Government has taken. We have to question why it has created the imperative now. We have to question the process by which the Government has brought that imperative about and the fundamental rationale that lies behind the measures that it has put before us in the motion this afternoon.

Why now? Last December, we knew that the roll-out would conclude roughly at the end of this summer. At that point, when we knew the timeline, the questions were always going to come up whether we would need to enforce vaccination and whether we would ask people to prove that they had been vaccinated.

Earlier this year, discussion of vaccine passports took place throughout the world. In July, we knew that Scotland was a global hotspot for the virus. Throughout, there has been the opportunity to discuss and explore the possibility of a vaccine passport, to look at the practicalities and to look at what would happen.

Quite simply, it is not good enough for the First Minister to say that she did not reject the idea, and to claim that her Government was developing it, because it was not. If ministers had wanted to develop the idea, they should have been examining it in detail and preparing it. Even the UK Government did a consultation, back in March.

This is a false imperative. As Willie Rennie said, the Government has been captured by the idea that “Something must be done: this is apparently ‘something’, therefore we must do it.” That is the sum total of the Government’s argument, this evening.

The cabinet secretary can cite some studies, but would he recognise that the evidence is still equivocal, which is why the WHO has not moved its position? More importantly, why were those studies not included in the Government paper that was published? Right now, the paper has nothing, which is why we have been googling for evidence during the debate.

I hear what the minister says, and I do not doubt that he has those meetings, but is he listening? The reality is that, in a few short weeks, 150,000 people who have been on furlough will find themselves having to go back into employment. Surely, there needs to be at least a contingency in case those people’s jobs are no longer there for them. Where is that contingency in the programme for government?

The pandemic is not over—it is peaking. Recovery is not under way—it has barely begun. The project of recovery will demand our full attention for the duration of this parliamentary session and beyond. The success or failure of that project will shape a generation. That is the challenge that the programme for government needed to rise to. My fear is that it barely engages with the requirements of the recovery, let alone its challenges or how to address them.

The word “recovery” appears, but the announcements on it are either retreads or so inconsequential that they barely scratch the surface. A word that is mentioned, however, is “independence”. Independence would not be quick. There would be 20 years of economic uncertainty and cost and capital flight—“Brexit times 10”. That is not my analysis but that of Professor Mark Blyth, who is one of the First Minister’s leading economic advisers.

Recovery demands urgency and prolonged action—it will not be done by 2023 and it is clear from the First Minister’s statement yesterday that she is more comfortable with a constitutional circus than the seriousness that is demanded by economic recovery.

Ministers should talk to businesses; they do not think that the recovery is done and they are worried. They have debts—even those that have never traded with debt. Small business owners have cashed in their pensions and remortgaged their houses to keep going. Customer volumes are down on what they should be. Businesses have no clarity on what measures may be coming next and they know that some habits have been changed for ever by lockdowns. It is not just small retailers or shops that have been affected. Online has risen by 50 per cent, with the majority of that going to the large online retailers. Footfall is 30 per cent down and chains are shutting 30 stores a week. Retail is 10 per cent of private sector employment, and we have to ask whether it will continue to be.

However, it is not just retail that has been affected. Right across consumer-facing sectors, the patterns and stories are the same. The recovery plan needs to deal with these things: debt, changed behaviours, resilience and, most important, jobs. Businesses whose balance sheets are loaded with debt need practical and financial help. Figures from the FSB show that small firms have taken on £4.1 billion-worth of debt over the past 18 months.

On changed behaviours, businesses need help to transition, because their customers are not coming back if they are working from home and shopping online. On resilience, we need clarity and advice so that businesses have systems in place to continue to trade as and when new measures are imposed to control the virus. The most important point is jobs; the jobs that we did before the pandemic may not be the ones that we do post-recovery. We must help people to reskill and retrain and businesses to adapt; if we do not, the consequences will be counted in those jobs being lost.

That analysis or something similar to it is completely absent from the programme for government. More important, a sense of urgency is absent. We have the promise of an ill-defined 10-year economic transformation plan to be delivered some months in the future, but economic recovery cannot wait 10 years; we need a 10-month plan to help reskill people and businesses to transition. We need a 10-week plan to ensure that businesses survive and people keep their jobs when furlough ends. We do not need more expert groups taking months to produce another report to be ignored by Government; we need ministers to get a grip, take responsibility and take action now.

I would be grateful if Mr McKee would enlighten me on that.

It strikes me that the Government is more interested in green posture than in green delivery. The announcement regarding the wind turbines simply underlines that fact.

Not only has the Government brought forward little to address the economic recovery, there is no detail or explanation about how existing policies and Government machinery will be used to sustain the recovery. There is no mention of a role for Scottish Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise or Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The announcement on the Scottish National Investment Bank is not new, and it is a cut. There is no plan for how those agencies should work or co-ordinate to enable or deliver recovery.

The stark fact is that, despite enterprise support being needed now more than ever, the Scottish National Party Government is spending 40 per cent less in real terms than was spent in the final year of the Labour Administration. The figure now is £500 million, compared to £800 million in real terms in 2007. Despite the fact that we have one additional agency, a new investment bank and a new apparently integrated board, 40 per cent less is being spent during a global pandemic than was spent at a time of economic growth.

The lack of vision, strategy or clear plan from the Government should come as no surprise. The Government’s economic record is marked by failure and calamity, from dodgy ferries to empty airports to empty and unused turbine yards. When it comes to the economy, the Government’s position seems to be, “Pandemic? What pandemic?” The effects of the coronavirus will be with us long after the disease and illness subside. This is a time for serious politics and serious politicians. I am afraid that the PFG demonstrates that, on those measures, the Government and ministers are seriously deficient.

Every one of those numbers needs to be divided by five. In the coming year, only £150 million will be spent on reskilling or transition and training. Given that 150,000 people were still on furlough through the summer, that is a drop in the ocean and Mr McKee should recognise that.

Without bold action, Scotland faces an unemployment crisis that will become a national emergency. I will mention some more numbers. Between April and June this year, there were 119,000 people unemployed in Scotland, but the national training fund, which was just referenced by Mr McKee, targeted only 17 per cent of that population. That is shamefully inadequate.

We have to ensure that small businesses can access specialist digital support, but the funds that are being offered are not nearly enough and one is a reannouncement of a scheme that is already oversubscribed. Further to that, there are only two Covid-related business support schemes; both are reannouncements and will come to an end in this financial year.

I come to green jobs. The Scottish Government has been very keen to lace green words and credentials through the programme for government, but most if not all of the green measures are recycled. What impact have the Greens had on the programme for government? We got the answer today, because it was confirmed in the press that the Scottish Government has scrapped its plans for a publicly owned energy company. It is clear that any influence the Greens might have had has been sold out for ministerial job titles without any ministerial influence.

[Inaudible.]—does he not acknowledge that there should be a role for the Scottish Government to pre-emptively support industry and reinvest? Perhaps investment could be made in biscuits that young people do want to eat.

What is the First Minister’s reaction to the outcome of the case that was taken to the Court of Session by survivors of abuse at the hands of the Sailors Society? The case failed because the court determined that a defence could not be mounted because those who had allegedly perpetrated the abuse have since died. The decision seems to set a new and, frankly, impossible threshold for many survivors of child abuse.

What impact will that have on the Government’s considerations as it sets up redress Scotland, given that it might increase the number of people who will have to seek compensation through the scheme? Does the First Minister agree that organisations should understand that the moral threshold might be considerably lower than the legal threshold in order for them to meet survivors and to agree compensation for those who suffered abuse by the organisations, which should have cared for them?

A number of constituents have been in touch with me who are concerned that, although they are looking forward to starting their university careers this autumn, they will not be eligible for their first vaccination until after September because they will not turn 18 until then. I understand the importance of JCVI guidance, but does that situation not require flexibility at the margins of the guidance? Will the First Minister look at finding a way for people who have not yet turned 18 to receive their vaccinations before they start university in the autumn?

I thank the minister for early sight of his statement, and I welcome him to his position.

A £449 million underspend while so many businesses are struggling to keep their head above water will seem to many people to be a cruel irony. I understand that the timing of some UK Government funds might have made an underspend unavoidable, but the lack of clarity about what that substantial figure is being used for is not so understandable.

Especially given the extension of restrictions, the deepening cash-flow crisis might prove to be terminal for businesses including taxi drivers, wedding planners and hospitality and tourism businesses. Will the minister provide more detail on how the funds have, apparently, been allocated? Will he confirm that the funds are being spent to support businesses that have been impacted by the extension of restrictions? Can he also set out plans to improve transparency around Covid funds, which the Auditor General for Scotland called for in February?

I come back to health spending. How can the Scottish Government manage to have an underspend in the health budget in the middle of a health crisis?