Chamber and committees

I have three questions. The convener suggested that the number 1 threat to the health of the nation would be if the data-gathering and digital cybersecurity issue became serious. On the back of that, I want to look ahead in relation to Covid recovery, and probably further ahead than we have been talking about. I am interested in the impact on the Covid death rate of other health conditions. We are aware that conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have a significant impact on the Covid death rate. I wonder whether it is time to rationalise that fact. Perhaps this is the time to draw a line in the sand and take a significant step forward on the preventative health agenda by tackling conditions such as obesity and diabetes, which will have the biggest impact on future death rates when there are pandemics, whether they are caused by Covid or something similar to it. What work is the Scottish Government doing or considering on that issue?

The cabinet secretary talks about the acute response to Covid that is currently required. We cannot overstate how important that is, but I want to consider where we will move to after that.

I go back to data gathering. Data is important to the longer-term study of the impact of Covid. I am interested in the impact on the black, Asian and minority ethnic community, the fact that we have a smaller BAME community here than there is down south, and whether that has had an impact on the numbers. We have a fairly poor health record in Scotland. I am interested in what impact that has had on the Covid data. We have talked about ethnicity in relation to the uptake of the vaccine and the variation in uptake in Scottish index of multiple deprivation areas.

If we consider the reactions of Governments at the start of the pandemic as the virus made its way across the world, we would agree that Governments did not react as quickly as they could have. All that data needs to be gathered.

Where are we on data gathering and pulling together all those issues to look at how we will come out of the other side of the pandemic and how we will prevent, as much as we possibly can, something similar happening again?

I am trying to establish where the evidence base is for not just the introduction of vaccination passports but the way in which the Scottish Government has introduced them. I am concerned that we seem to be comparing Scotland with what is happening in other countries and trying to take lessons from them when, of course, there is a huge variation in vaccine uptake across other countries, so there is variation in the need to encourage uptake. Is comparing the Scottish vaccination passport scheme with schemes in other countries an accurate way to assess whether we should adopt vaccination passports in Scotland?

The Scottish Government has said that the main driver for introducing the vaccination passport scheme is to encourage those who have not been vaccinated to get vaccinated. As we heard in last week’s evidence and as Professor Reicher’s evidence has highlighted, one of the key issues is the reluctance of certain groups to get the vaccine. In that regard, a big driver is ethnicity—I am thinking especially of our Polish and African communities—and another is living in areas of deprivation. If we are saying that people need to be vaccinated to get into nightclubs or football matches, I would suggest that the people in those groups are unlikely to be participants in those activities. Will the way in which the vaccination passport is being introduced help those groups do what the Scottish Government wants them to do, which is to get vaccinated? I will ask Professor Drury to respond first, given that he has not spoken to me yet.

Given that, as has been highlighted, there are specific pockets of our population that are less likely to be vaccinated, what should we do to encourage vaccination uptake?

This morning, we have heard that one of the key successes of vaccination passports will be community engagement, but we heard from the Deputy First Minister three weeks ago that there was no public or business consultation prior to declaring the intention to implement the vaccination passport, because you did not want it to become public knowledge that you were considering it. How did the Scottish Government gather the evidence on the potential effectiveness of the vaccination passport?

I would love to take this to appeal but, unfortunately, we do not have time, so I will step back.

This morning, we heard that France, for example, does not just use vaccination passports; evidence of previous infection is also taken. It was suggested that, when making comparisons with schemes in other countries, we have to be careful how we utilise the data because it will be specific to the country. Even the Government’s evidence paper says that the impact in Israel is unclear.

The committee has heard evidence, which was alluded to by Jim Fairlie, that one of the main barriers to increasing vaccine uptake, which is what vaccination passports are being introduced to do, relates to ethnic minorities, especially our Polish and African communities, and areas of deprivation. Where is the evidence that suggests that the introduction of vaccination passports will have a positive impact on those communities, which are the hardest to reach?

The point that I am trying to make is that the Government uses the percentage of the population that is vaccinated. However, when we drill down into the figures, we find that there are high levels of vaccination among the indigenous population of Scotland—perhaps higher than we would have expected at the start—but that there are pockets in our communities in which vaccination levels are not high. My problem is that I am not convinced that you have the evidence to suggest that using vaccination passports for nightclubs or football matches will impact the people who require our attention the most. I agree that community engagement is really important, but vaccination passports will not impact those communities to the extent that you want.

To be fair, cabinet secretary, you probably will not find over-70s from the African community in nightclubs, either, but their vaccination rate is 20 per cent lower than the average. We are not going to have a meeting of minds. I do not believe that you had the evidence that you suggested you had three weeks ago. You are backfilling that evidence now to establish the need for vaccination passports. That is the point that I am making.