Chamber and committees

Last week, we learned that, in a single year, nearly 1,400 people had their lives cut short and their potential extinguished—many of them decades before their time. Apologies are hard to accept, because pleas were dismissed for years, and I will never understand why ministers surrendered services and expertise by cutting ADP budgets by so much in 2015-16 and 2016-17.

The drugs deaths crisis will be ended through compassion and treatment, but people who are gripped by drugs misuse are still regularly directed into the criminal justice system. Two hundred people a year are being imprisoned for possession. That situation has not changed in a decade, and the police say, rightly, that is pointless and damaging to lives.

In March, at the second time of our asking, the Scottish Government finally agreed to the principles of diversion and of stopping the imprisonment of vulnerable people. Now that decriminalisation is under consideration by the task force, how will ministers take that forward?

To return the favour that Graham Simpson did me yesterday, I support amendment 1 for the same reason that I moved my amendment 13 yesterday. It was on public scrutiny, which matters, particularly as the change will come just months before local authority elections. People want to know how decisions, particularly about things that are important to them, are made. I am happy to support Graham Simpson’s amendment 1.

The news that we have heard will be deeply alarming to many women, and it is a tragic reminder of the importance of robust screening programmes. If, as the minister says, there are regular audits, how was that issue missed for so long? If it was first detected in December 2020, why are women hearing about it only now? Are all the 1,500 women aware that their records are currently under review?

I start by offering the condolences of the Liberal Democrats to everyone who knew Andrew Welsh, who was a fine man.

I thank the legislation and clerking teams for the work that they have put into the bill, which has been no small feat.

I rise on behalf of the Liberal Democrats to explain why, after careful consideration, we will not support the bill at decision time tonight. That is not because we think that we do not need some kind of legislation—we do—but we want to see a better, more considered bill that does not extend power to such an extent or for such a length of time.

As liberals, we have been instinctively uncomfortable with the coronavirus acts, despite the security that they have offered some groups in our society and the protections that they have sought to give the most vulnerable. The bill offers the Government powers for far longer than we believe it will require. It also gives the Government unprecedented rights to introduce legislation without the level of scrutiny that we should expect in any healthy democracy—and, thanks to the vaccines, this nation is far healthier than it was when those acts were passed.

As I said yesterday, the fundamental principle of the bill is that it creates emergency powers that should exist in the context of an emergency. We in my party are not persuaded that the emergency in which we find ourselves will last for the length of time for which the legislation might empower ministers. Simply put, the Liberal Democrats do not believe that it was necessary to introduce in such short order a bill whose provisions last so long.

The Government’s answer to concerns voiced by my party, the Conservatives and others about the duration of the extension of the powers in the bill is the threat of new variants. That threat, however, might never expire; the threat that the variants might evade the vaccine is just as real for the next decade as it is for next week. Throughout the pandemic, ministers have shown that they are willing and able to legislate quickly. If the Government can find time to push through a bill as important as this one in just three days, it can introduce legislation that we can pass just as quickly should the vaccines fail us.

The Government has stretched and at times broken with the tolerance and good faith of members when it comes to making announcements to Parliament. Therefore, I am grateful for the agreement that Jackie Baillie and the Deputy First Minister’s office reached on the future conduct of such announcements.

The decision not to support the bill was difficult for the Liberal Democrats. We do not have a cavalier attitude to the virus or our route out of the pandemic, but we value the importance of scrutiny in parliamentary democracy. The bill as it stands is an overreach of ministerial power that we just could not countenance. It is not a considered piece of legislation; we have had barely more than two hours to look at amendments to a bill that has so much potential to give the Government so much power for so long.

We do not suggest that there should be nothing, and that the powers and protections of the original acts should just fall away. Instead, we appeal to the Government to use the summer to introduce a better bill to Parliament after our return—one that is informed by the landscape of the pandemic in late summer, safeguards the supremacy of the chamber and shortens to the bare minimum the amount of time that ministers have to exercise those powers.

We need something. The Liberal Democrats support the protections from eviction and the other rights that the bill affords tenants. We want to continue those protections, which should form the central precept of any future bill. A new bill would also need to disapply the extension to time limits on criminal proceedings, which, as I have said before, delay criminal justice and lead to an increase in the remand population.

The legislation is important, but it is because of its importance that we ask the Government to think again.

All too often, nurses have had to bear the brunt of the pandemic, and many have had absolutely no respite, between cancelled leave and overtime. The sustained high-intensity workload has resulted, and will result, in significant mental health repercussions. There can be no NHS recovery without a committed and motivated nursing workforce. Nurses are pivotal, and the Government must make it clear that they are valued and will be listened to and supported at all times, not just in the run-up to an election. When it comes to the mental wellbeing of our nurses, what package of support will be offered to them alongside a much-needed pay uplift?

I have said before that when the history of Scotland’s pandemic is written, there will be no more tragic a story than what occurred in our care homes. They were missed out of pandemic exercise planning and then received more than 3,000 untested patients from hospital. Many families did not learn for months and months what really happened in the homes of their loved ones. They deserved to have all the facts all along. The repercussions of the failure to protect care homes and their residents will continue to be sorely felt, which is why we need a public inquiry to start without delay.

I am very grateful to Jackie Baillie for lodging amendment 18. Scottish Liberal Democrats also considered whether there is a need to retain the additional care home reporting on inspections and deaths that was introduced at the start of the pandemic. The policy memorandum discusses that in some detail. Before the powers are expired, I would like to hear further assurances from the Deputy First Minister and his Government that that will not have an impact on the quality of reporting on care homes. The policy memorandum says:

“inspection reports are published usually within 10 days of the inspection.”

I want to know what proportion take longer than that and whether there is a hard time limit for the publication of the reports. How will the Government ensure that there is still timely access to care home inspection reports? Are there any parts of the weekly reporting of deaths under the emergency powers that are not now covered by National Records of Scotland? Before the powers are expired, I would like the Deputy First Minister to guarantee that that will not have a negative impact on the quality of reporting on our care homes, because it has been hard enough over the past 15 months for families to acquire that important information.

I rise briefly to support Pauline McNeill’s amendment. I think that it offers some hope to the sector and a signal that the Parliament finally has the wedding industry at the centre of its attention.

Thousands of couples across Scotland have had the best day of their lives deferred or cancelled—in some cases more than once, and often at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds—because of decisions by the Parliament and the Government. It is only fair to adopt a reporting duty, as Pauline McNeill’s amendment prescribes. If we do that, not only will we send a very important signal, but it will concentrate the minds of the ministers who are responsible for coming to those decisions. In that way, in situations such as we had last week, when much of Scotland expected to go down to level 1 but was kept in level 2 and, at a stroke, we had to halve the number of wedding guests at many weddings around the country, such things will be considered and there will be reporting to the Parliament.

Scottish Liberal Democrat members are therefore happy to support Pauline McNeill’s amendment.

I am grateful to Graham Simpson for his comments. I rise to speak to amendment 13 and I offer support to Graham Simpson’s amendment 12.

Paragraph 13 of schedule 6 to the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 has modified section 50A of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 to read:

“The public are to be excluded from a meeting of a local authority whenever it is likely that, if members of the public were present, there would be a real and substantial risk to public health due to infection or contamination with coronavirus.”

There has remained a requirement on authorities to publish an agenda and minutes of all meetings, but that was the extent of the reach of the requirements of publication.

When we passed the first coronavirus act in spring last year, we were in the first wave of the pandemic. Those weeks of high infection required that Parliament second guess the causes and mitigation of community transmission. As it stood then, paragraph 13 made absolute sense; we had banned all public gatherings, closed all hospitality, prevented people from being together in enclosed spaces and asked them to stay at home. It was self-evident that should people attend in-person meetings of a local authority, they would pose a substantial risk to public health and could spread infection. Paragraph 13 gave local authorities the option to exclude the public from in-person meetings based on a subjective assessment. It was the best that we could do at the time, but those times have changed.

By the end of September, cinemas and theatres will, likely, be operating almost normally. We might even have dispensed with any form of social distancing and face coverings, because our citizens no longer represent the real and substantial risk to public health that they did in March last year.

It is crucial to remember that the end of September would come just six months before the start of the local authority election campaign. To allow the provision to continue could allow local authorities to proceed with unpopular decisions away from the scrutiny of the electorate, by whom they will be held accountable in just a few months’ time.

I understand that we are not clear of the pandemic and that new surges and variants might once again create a heightened risk to health, but the bill will continue ministers’ powers to take measures that are sufficient to mitigate the risk of any activity, up to and including a stay-at-home order.

In short, paragraph 13 of schedule 6 of the first 2020 coronavirus act is no longer needed, and its use in such close proximity to a local authority election would undermine the democratic accountability of our councils and councillors. Removing it would not compel local authorities that are still meeting virtually to broadcast their proceedings if they do not have the technology or resources to do so, but it is our hope and expectation that, when the first two coronavirus acts expire and fall away, our local authorities will be able to meet in person once again.

Some of the biggest decisions that affect my constituents and those of other members take place in our local councils—on planning, on education or even on the local recovery from the pandemic. People at the business end of those decisions need a line of sight to how they came about. Paragraph 13—well intentioned though it was at the time—no longer has a place in the pages of the legislation or, indeed, in our democracy.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Unsurprisingly, as this is an urgent question, there is a lot of interest in the answers from the Government. Given the connection issues with which the cabinet secretary is struggling, I wonder whether another member of the Government might be prepared to answer the question.

Scottish Liberal Democrats campaigned for years to convince the SNP of the value of offering funded childcare for two-year-olds from deprived backgrounds. Supporting children in their early years is one of the most effective ways of driving down the attainment gap. It also helps parents to return to work by easing the burden of childcare costs and, by extension, it drives down in-work poverty.

Statistics that were released this week show there are still more than 8,000 two-year-olds missing out on that entitlement. What will the Scottish Government do to improve that terrible take-up rate and deliver flexible childcare to those who need it most?