Skip to main content

Language: English / Gàidhlig

Loading…

Seòmar agus comataidhean

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

Criathragan Hide all filters

Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 20 December 2024
Select which types of business to include


Select level of detail in results

Displaying 2232 contributions

|

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Vaccination Certification

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

John Mason

We have a situation now in which our hospitals are struggling and the Scottish Ambulance Service is swamped. We must take action. From listening to your answers so far, I wonder whether it would be cleaner and neater from a human rights and equalities point of view just to close all the nightclubs, stop all the football matches with attendance over 10,000 and stop all the concerts. That would prevent any human rights issues, would it not? It would just be cleaner. Would that be your preference?

09:30  

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Vaccination Certification

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

John Mason

Perhaps Professor Montgomery will come in. I have been looking at the Ada Lovelace Institute paper from May, in which there was an emphasis on things such as testing behavioural impacts. That is all very well if we have time but, surely, we do not have time to do all that kind of stuff when we have to act quickly.

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Vaccination Certification

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

John Mason

But we have already opened up all those things. It is not a question of opening them with the passports in place; we have opened them up already, and now the hospitals and ambulances are struggling. It might not be fair to ask you this question, but is there some other action that we should take instead of introducing vaccination passports?

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Vaccination Certification

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

John Mason

I want to touch on one other area. The Scottish Human Rights Commission and Ada Lovelace submissions raise questions with regard to permitting the use of certificates. The plan is to insist on them for nightclubs, football and concerts, but some employers such as care homes are looking at insisting that employees have a vaccination certificate. Can the Government do anything about that, or is it entirely up to employers, venue operators or indeed anyone? For example, if a shop wants to insist on someone having a certificate, is that just up to the shop? Can we do something about it? The question is for Ms Robertson.

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Vaccination Certification

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

John Mason

Ms Robertson, should we just close everything?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

National Performance Framework

Meeting date: 21 September 2021

John Mason

So the national performance framework sits in the background, even if it is not always specifically mentioned.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

National Performance Framework

Meeting date: 21 September 2021

John Mason

You talked about whether we are making enough progress on, for example, climate change or child poverty. That brings us back to the question of whether there should be time-limited targets among all this. The convener mentioned that we do not have those so much now, because it is more about continuous improvement, although in relation to climate change, we have a lot of time-limited targets. Are you happy that the switch from time-limited targets to continuous improvement has been the right one, or do we need to shift the approach?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

National Performance Framework

Meeting date: 21 September 2021

John Mason

Covid has been mentioned, and I take all the points that have been made on how that has made it more difficult to get the data. However, if something worsens—and my guess is that quite a few indicators will worsen because of Covid—will it be possible to clearly separate how much of that is because of Covid and how much is for other reasons? For example, an indicator might be improving for various reasons, but Covid has dragged it down.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

National Performance Framework

Meeting date: 21 September 2021

John Mason

We have covered a lot of ground already. I think that it was Daniel Johnson who made the point that ministers do not often come to Parliament to talk about the national performance framework. It can also be argued that the rest of us in Parliament—back benchers and Opposition members—do not often ask questions about the national performance framework.

Should we all be concerned that it does not have the high profile that numbers of nurses, police officers or ambulances have? We all get excited about those numbers. Should we do more to promote the national performance framework, or is it not a problem?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

National Performance Framework

Meeting date: 21 September 2021

John Mason

The result of that is that a lot of the public do not know what it is.