Seòmar agus comataidhean

I completely understand why people want to move on from Covid. I am not sure whether I have made this point to the committee before—I might have done; it is difficult to remember not only what day of the week it is, but where you have said particular things—and I cannot remember the date, but it was on a Tuesday in late November that we generally came to the view that things were quite benign. We thought that we were looking forward to a fairly stable Christmas and that things were on the up.

On the Thursday afternoon, Michael Matheson was requested to join a call with UK Government ministers and colleagues in the other devolved Governments to consider placing restrictions on travel to southern African countries because of omicron, and we then received briefings on its spread and transmissibility. Within 48 hours, we had gone from viewing things as benign and thinking that we would have a stable approach to Christmas to having to contemplate measures necessary to prevent transmissibility of what I would say, in retrospect and looking in the rear-view mirror, was an outbreak of Covid that came the closest to overtopping our national health service. All the stuff up to November had been challenging, but it did not come as close to overtopping the NHS as omicron did, and the reason why it came so close was the degree of transmissibility, the volume of infection, the number of hospitalisations and the impact on staff availability. We had not faced that combination with previous variants.

I say that to the committee simply in the hope that we have six benign months ahead of us in relation to Covid. However, I cannot sit here and say that with certainty, and I am trying to put in place the statutory arrangements to ensure that the Government can act fast.

There will be a public inquiry into the handling of Covid, and one of the first issues that Lady Poole will consider is the preparations for the pandemic. I constantly have to make judgments on how prepared we are as, a Government and as a country, for certain eventualities. That is my ultimate responsibility with regard to resilience. As a result, the legislation that is brought to the committee and to the Parliament on this matter is about ensuring that we have the necessary preparations in place to deal with the situation that we might face. I hope that it will not happen, but the legislation will be there to be implemented.

No, I mean generally—in life. We have plenty of powers that we can use in emergency situations, but, when it came to the handling of a pandemic of this nature, we found out the hard way that the statute book was not equipped to handle such things. I am now trying to remedy that.

The Parliament will have the opportunity to accept or reject the regulations, and, under the legislation that I am introducing, the Parliament will also have the opportunity to consider whether it is proportionate and appropriate to ensure that our statute book contains these provisions. That is not to say that the powers are being exercised every day of the week, because they are not. There has to be particular justification for their use. The Parliament has to consider whether the powers should be there to be used if they are required.

Thank you, convener. I am grateful for the opportunity to meet the committee, and I will make a brief opening statement.

On Tuesday, the First Minister set out to the Parliament the revised strategic framework. The “Scotland’s Strategic Framework Update” document details the Scottish Government’s approach to achieving a sustainable return to a more normal way of life while remaining prepared for potential future threats from Covid. That approach will support us to manage Covid effectively through sensible adaptations and public health measures that will strengthen our resilience and support our recovery as we build a better future. In time, we will seek to rely much less on legally imposed measures and instead rely more on vaccines, treatments and good public health behaviours.

We will continue to ensure the maximum possible availability and uptake of vaccination, in line with expert advice. Indeed, from mid-March, we will start issuing vaccination appointments to all five to 11-year-olds. We will also begin providing an additional booster to care home residents, those aged over 75 and those aged over 12 who are immunosuppressed.

Testing has been, and will continue to be, a vital part of our management of Covid. Over time, and in a careful and phased manner, it is reasonable to move away from mass population-wide asymptomatic testing toward a more targeted system that is focused on specific priorities. We will publish a detailed transition plan for test and protect in March, by which time we will hopefully have much-needed clarity from the United Kingdom Government on testing infrastructure and funding.

From Monday 28 February, the guidance on how often to take a lateral flow test will change. We will revert to the advice to test at least twice a week, particularly if going to a crowded place or meeting anyone who is clinically vulnerable.

The updated strategic framework sets out a number of additional proposed changes to public health protections during the coming weeks. First, from Monday 28 February, the Covid certification scheme— which requires certain venues to check vaccine status—will end. Although the app that supports the scheme will remain operational for businesses that want to use it voluntarily to reassure customers.

Secondly, from Monday 21 March—assuming that there are no significant adverse developments—the legal requirement to wear face coverings in certain indoor settings and on public transport will end. From 21 March, we also expect to lift the legal requirement for businesses, places of worship and service providers to have regard to Scottish Government guidance on Covid and end the requirement to retain customer contact details.

The strategic framework details the kinds of behaviours and adaptations that will be encouraged in different circumstances, which include: enhanced hygiene, improved ventilation, increased hybrid and flexible working and face coverings in some indoor places. It is now less likely that those measures will be legally imposed in the future, but we will advise their use for as long as they help to control the virus and protect those who are most vulnerable.

The approach that is set out in the strategic framework will support us all to return to normality and ensure a safe and sustainable recovery.

I am happy to answer any questions that the committee might have.

It is because we may face a deteriorating situation and might have to take some more severe action. I hope that we do not have to, but we might.

As I have rehearsed with the committee previously, on one Tuesday morning in November, the Cabinet thought that the pandemic was pretty stable and that we could look forward to a pretty straightforward Christmas, but 48 hours later Michael Matheson was on a call with the United Kingdom Government about applying travel restrictions on South Africa and various other African countries because omicron had descended on us. To be blunt, omicron was the variant of the virus that came closest to tipping over Scotland’s national health service—it came very close.

That all happened in the space of 48 hours, so I cannot predict what lies ahead. However, I have sat in Parliaments for nearly 25 years, and I have listened to members of Parliament demand—rightly—that the statute book be capable of dealing with situations that we face. At this moment, given all the history of the past two years, I simply want to ensure that Scotland has a statute book that can be used, if it needs to be, to protect the public. I stress the word “can”—it can, not must or will, be used.

I suspect that I might be exposed to a good amount of criticism for not foreseeing this or that. In this particular situation, the Government has decided to try to foresee some of the difficulties that we might face and put in place a statute book that gives us the ability to respond in a way that we hope that we do not have to, but we may have to.

No. I am, obviously, aware of the ONS infection survey data from this morning. If my memory serves me right—I stand to be corrected on this—this is the first week of the survey, certainly since the onset of omicron, in which the incidence ratio in Scotland has been at a poorer level than elsewhere in the UK—that is certainly the case in comparison with England; the situation may well be different with regard to some parts of Wales, where there have been restrictions in place. This is the first occasion on which that has been the case.

The Financial Times assessment raises a lot of questions because, essentially, the death rate in Scotland—I hate to talk in this kind of language, but the question has been put to me, so I have to do so—has been comparatively lower than the death rate in England throughout the pandemic. I am not quite sure where the Financial Times gets its conclusions from.

It is important that we take measures that we consider to be proportionate and appropriate. The Scottish Government has done that throughout with the objective of protecting the public. If the position in Scotland had been any more serious than it was—and it has been serious—I am sure that many people would be queueing up to demand that the Scottish Government take even stronger action than it has done. Indeed, some people have demanded that.

People are free to make those arguments but we have to make balanced judgments. Protecting the public has been at the heart of those judgments.

I am grateful to hear that Mr Rowley has taken his usual rational and considered approach to the regulatory infrastructure. [Laughter.] I welcome that and look forward to its being shared universally across the committee.

I very much agree with Mr Rowley’s sentiment that there is a danger of people thinking that Covid is all over and done with. It is not. I know that I sound like a broken record with my omicron example, but these things can happen quickly. As international travel takes off again, we do not know how quickly Covid variants might be able to spread across the world. It is absolutely legitimate to make that point.

On the preparedness question, Mr Rowley is correct. We are undertaking further work on future pandemic preparation. That has to be an all-Scotland approach, although that is not to say that the work must be done only at national level. It must be an all-Scotland approach that involves our resilience partnerships in every part of the country. From his long experience in Fife, Mr Rowley will be familiar with the local authority’s role as a key member of the resilience partnership at local level, where it works with the health board, the police, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and various other players. We rely on them—as we have done during the pandemic—to deliver an appropriate response. Indeed, we have relied on them in relation to stormy weather, too.

Those local resilience arrangements must be effective, so we must engage with those partners. I regularly meet the Scottish resilience partnership, which brings together the local resilience partnerships. We reflect on the current threats and challenges that we face, how we should respond to them and what learning we can apply in every part of the country. We undertake that work, and it is all valid because we should be focused on pandemic preparation.

If I was to reflect on the past few years, when we have conducted an annual stocktake of the resilience threats that face Scotland, a pandemic has always been right up there, but we sit there waiting for it to happen. Stormy weather, on the other hand, comes along very frequently, as we know, as do flooding and various other things. It is important that we have that foresight capability.

Mr Rowley went on to raise a fundamental issue that is relevant to the debate about a national care service. He is absolutely correct. He and I will agree that there are variations in the quality of the delivery of care around the country. The question is what we do about that. I would contend that the arrangements that we have in place currently do not provide assurance that every member of the public in every part of the country who needs care services is able to get services of sufficient quality to a sufficient extent. Following the research that was undertaken as part of the Feeley review, the Government’s view is that that would be best addressed by the establishment of a national care service. Parliament will have extensive discussions on that within the foreseeable future.

I emphasise that I acknowledge the importance of every member of the public, regardless of where they live, being able to rely on the ability to get a quality experience from a quality care service.

I think that it would help if I put some comments on the record regarding the regulations. The committee has on its agenda three SSIs and a motion to approve the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Requirements (Scotland) Amendment No 4 Regulations 2022. Those three instruments all put back the date on which the key coronavirus provisions would otherwise expire by default, and thus act to protect our ability to have in place any measures that are considered necessary.

The draft Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment (No 4) Regulations 2022 amend the date on which the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 expire, from 28 February 2022 to 24 September 2022. If the expiry date is not changed, the baseline measures will automatically cease on 28 February.

Although we are starting to take steps to remove the baseline measures, regulations that were shared with the committee yesterday will remove the Covid certification scheme from the regulations. It is important that the other baseline measures can remain in place after 28 February to support our review of the baseline measures on the basis of the latest data. We expect that the other legal requirements will be converted to guidance on 21 March, but as the First Minister said on Tuesday, that is subject to there being

“no significant adverse developments in the course of the virus”.—[Official Report, 22 February 2022; c 18.]

The draft Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Directions by Local Authorities) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2022 amend the date on which the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Directions by Local Authorities) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 expire, from 25 March 2022 to 24 September 2022.

The directions regulations will continue to be reviewed every 42 days, as the regulations require. Keeping those regulations in place for a longer period of time will support local outbreak management of coronavirus. Local action to control or close premises or businesses at the centre of an outbreak can, in many cases, be the most effective and proportionate response.

The Coronavirus Act 2020 (Alteration of Expiry Date) (Scotland) Regulations 2022 extend the expiry date of five provisions within the UK Coronavirus Act 2020 for a further six months, until 24 September. Without the regulations, those provisions would otherwise expire automatically on 24 March, alongside the majority of the act’s provisions. The provisions that are being retained for a further six months relate to: the remote registration of deaths and stillbirths; removing the requirement for vaccinations and immunisations to be delivered by or under the direction of a medical practitioner; powers for Scottish ministers to give either boarding or student accommodation directions that restrict access or confine occupants; the power for ministers to give educational continuity directions and to enable education and childcare provision to continue; and powers for ministers to make health protection regulations such as the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Regulations 2021, which were mentioned earlier.

All those provisions are in the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill, which is undergoing scrutiny by this and other relevant committees. The Government thinks that those particular provisions should be legislated for permanently from September 2022, should the Parliament agree to the alteration of expiry date regulations—that is, of course, a matter for separate determination by the Parliament.

The alteration of expiry date regulations have been made under the made affirmative procedure. At the time of laying, our understanding was that that was the only procedure available to us for the regulations. It has since come to our attention, after discussion among lawyers, that we could have used the affirmative procedure. Even with that understanding, however, we are assured that Parliament would have 40 days for scrutiny prior to the regulations coming into force on 24 March 2022.

I move,

That the COVID-19 Recovery Committee recommends that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 4) Regulations 2022 [draft] be approved.

Yes, that is correct.

Those are the discussions that we are having as part of the formulation of the testing transition plan. It has to be accepted that we cannot sustain the level of testing infrastructure that we have had in place for most of the past two years but we cannot have none in place.

There is a really interesting global point on one of the lessons from the start of the outbreak. Many of the Asian countries have been able to withstand Covid to a greater extent because, due to their experience of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-related viruses in the past, they have always maintained a much greater testing capacity and capability than was ordinarily the case in western countries. We might not go to those levels, but we certainly have to go some way towards them to maintain surveillance, so we have to have a debate on sufficiency.

We believe that a sufficiently credible and capable ONS survey is vital to enabling us to be properly prepared. We must have a level of testing infrastructure that enables us to detect and identify any new strains and we must have capacity to identify any emerging issues within individual populations. For example, Dominic Munro made a point about waste water sampling. It is a good way of determining the parts of the country where there might be, comparatively speaking, more incidence of the virus. The Scottish Government will sustain such sampling on an on-going basis.

There is not a definitive answer to Mr Fairlie’s question today. It is an important and legitimate question. Over the next few months, we will have to find a satisfactory answer to the question of what level of capacity we should retain.

The characterisation that Mr Whittle puts to me is not my understanding of the situation, but I will go away and look at it again. There is accessibility for critical information, though perhaps not all information—I accept that—but I will certainly consider the issues that Mr Whittle raises and encourage the health secretary to do so.