Chamber and committees

Live music performers should follow the performing arts guidance, available here . This was developed with a wide range of performing arts practitioners and looked ahead to outline details for the eventual resumption of live public performances. This guidance was last updated on 19 July. This update confirmed the move from 2 metre physical distancing to 1 metre in all indoor settings including in performing arts venues.

Separate guidance is available for live music performances which take place in hospitality settings. This reflects the different considerations that need to make in hospitality settings. The guidance for live entertainment in hospitality was updated on 16 July. The main purpose of the update was to indicate that live entertainment would be possible in general hospitality from 19 July.

With regards to live performances in events and stadia settings, the First Minister’s statement on 13 July confirmed maximum attendances as 2,000 in seated outdoor settings and 1,000 in standing outdoor settings, and indoors to 400. Organisers can apply to local authorities for higher attendance capacities.

To assist event organisers the Scottish Government has developed guidance for the sector, last update on 20 July: Coronavirus (COVID-19): events sector guidance - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The next review of restrictions will be in the week before 9 August when we hope to be able to move beyond Level 0 with baseline mitigations in place. We have consulted with the live performance sector widely on these mitigations to ensure we understand the impact they will have on businesses and their likely effectiveness.

This Scottish Government is committed to concluding the Local Governance Review within this parliament. During the first phase of the Review, the Scottish Government, COSLA and the community sector undertook a highly inclusive engagement process called Democracy Matters. People from diverse backgrounds overwhelmingly wanted to see bold changes to how power is shared. Further extensive engagement with communities - of place and interest - will be an important part of understanding how best to respond to people’s aspirations for genuine control over those decisions which affect them the most.

This Scottish Government is committed to concluding the Local Governance Review within this parliament.

I chair the Construction Leadership Forum (CLF) that meets monthly with trade union, construction industry and government representatives collaborating on driving progress on the Construction Recovery Plan, which contains a range of practical actions to support the sector. The trade union representative is a positive, and active, member of the group. The CLF and I am committed to supporting the sector as best I can.

We are focused on delivering the maximum support for businesses and the economy as possible. Since the start of the pandemic, businesses have directly benefitted from more than £3.7bn in support – more than a third of total COVID-19 funding – £2.8bn in grants and £965m in COVID-19 non-domestic rates reliefs.

The Scottish Government supports measures to ensure that individuals and businesses pay a fair amount of tax. However, IR35 and VAT are both areas of policy fully reserved to the UK Government.

The bowel, breast and cervical screening programmes were paused in March last year, and restarted last summer with the initial focus on higher-risk screening participants and those whose appointments were affected by the pause.

The bowel screening programme is currently sending home test kits at the same rate as before the pandemic, and no one is waiting for an invitation.

The breast screening programme is recovering, although infection control measures, including physical distancing and personal protective equipment, mean there are considerable capacity challenges. At this time, we do not have data on the number of people affected by the pause; however, we do know that slippage varies across health boards. The National Screening Oversight, the Scottish Screening Committee and the Breast Screening Programme Board continue to work with health boards to increase the number of breast screening appointments available.

Covid-19 also continues to present challenges in the cervical screening programme. However, prompts and reminders are being issued at pre-Covid rates. Estimates suggest that 5,786 invitations have not yet issued to people affected by the pause, but it should be stressed that this will be for a range of reasons, including participants being excluded from the programme after it restarted, or taking the opportunity to be screened at their GP ahead of their scheduled prompt to make an appointment.

The Breast Screening Programme invites women between the ages of 50 and 70 for routine breast screening every three years. This is in line with the recommendation provided by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC).

When the programme resumed on 3 August 2020 following a pause due to the impacts of COVID-19, the difficult decision was taken to maintain a pause on the option for those over the age of 70 to self-refer into the programme. This decision was taken on the basis that the risks and benefits of screening women over the age of 70 are not yet clear. Available capacity is therefore being used to prioritise women eligible for screening and for whom the benefits are already clearly established.

The option for women aged 71 and over to self-refer for a breast screening appointment will resume once capacity in all screening centres returns to pre-Covid or close to pre-Covid levels. This is based on the recommendation of the Scottish Screening Committee, the National Screening Oversight and the Breast Screening Programme Board, all three of whom are keeping the situation under regular review. They are also working closely with Health Boards to increase appointments and meet this criteria as soon as possible.

We continue to emphasise that everyone should remain symptom aware and report any symptoms to their GP immediately for these to be investigated.

The contact tracing system has not changed its approach regarding the time frame used to identify close contacts.

Those testing positive who have attended a complex or high-risk setting during their infectious period, or who have travelled in the last 14 days, are contact traced and then referred to their local Health Board, who will make a risk-based decision on whether ‘backwards’ contact tracing is appropriate to enable Test and Protect to identify where the index case might have contracted the virus. This ‘pre-infectious period’ covers the 5 days prior to the infectious period.

Separately, the timeframe of 48 hours before symptom onset or a positive test, plus the 10 days after, relates to the infectious period of a positive person. This is based on clinical advice and has been the position since Test and Protect was launched in May 2020. Close contacts identified during this timeframe are offered public health advice by Test and Protect to prevent potential onward spread of the virus.

The evidence on symptoms in relation to COVID-19 is currently under active consideration. However, there has been no change at this time to the NHS Inform guidance on the main symptoms to look out for – a new, continuous cough, a high temperature or fever and a change in sense of smell or taste.

Around one in three people with COVID-19 do not show any symptoms and rapid lateral flow testing is already helping to identify new cases. Regular, rapid testing is already available to people in a wide range of settings, and everyone should access testing regularly.

As I said in my reply to S6W-01546 on 29 July 2021, I chair the Construction Leadership Forum (CLF) that meets monthly and is driving progress on the Construction Recovery Plan. Actions implemented so far include: introduced new ways of working for managing infection control health and safety; work to retain the current and future apprentice pipeline and the Construction Pipeline Forecast Tool.

Policy on corporate insolvency is largely reserved to the UK Government. The temporary suspension on statutory demands and restrictions on petitions to wind up companies is scheduled to expire at the end of September. The Scottish Government would support action by the UK Government to enable further transitional provisions and to extend these protections.

We remain focused on delivering the maximum support for businesses and the economy as possible. Since the start of the pandemic, businesses have directly benefitted from more than £3.7bn in support – more than a third of total COVID-19 funding – £2.8bn in grants and £965m in COVID-19 non-domestic rates reliefs.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Data on turnaround times is management information and is not currently published.

It is vital that test results are communicated in a timely manner to allow the appropriate public health action to be taken. PCR testing in Scotland is split between NHS Scotland testing, which focuses on health and social care testing, and the UK-wide National Testing Programme operated on a 4 nations basis, which primarily focuses on public-facing, symptomatic testing. We receive a population-based share of the capacity of the UK National Testing Programme Laboratory Network. We continue to work very closely with DHSC to improve and maintain strong testing turnaround times which may be affected by any testing fluctuations across the UK-wide network. Additional laboratory capacity is being brought online to respond to recent the rising demand for PCR tests.