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That is very helpful, cabinet secretary. I decided to take that line of questioning because the Christie commission report has been out for some time. Quite frankly, it is a failure of all of us in this place that it has not been implemented in the way that it should have been.

In evidence to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee on health inequalities, it was noted that the Covid pandemic had exacerbated health inequalities that were already on a rising trajectory, and concern was expressed that we would just go back to business as usual. At a health inequalities reception that I hosted a couple of days ago, one of the deep-end doctors described the delivery of our health services in a way that I had never heard before—they said that they are designed on demand, not on need. I am warmed by the thought that we might have an opportunity here to grasp a hold of the way in which we deliver health services in order to tackle this kind of health inequality, but is the Government really committed to taking it? You will know of the inverse care law, which is that the 20 per cent of our population who do not access health care are the ones who are most in need. How is the Government going to tackle that?

On that point, you have said that this is the direction of travel that you would like to go in, and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care has said exactly the same, but the truth of the matter is that we are an unhealthy nation. In the health secretary’s own words, we are getting sicker, and that is compounding the problems at A and E. What action is the Government going to take to tackle that sort of health inequality? After all, we have talked about this issue a lot, and the Christie commission report has been around for a long time, too.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I am sure that we will continue to learn about the impacts of Covid, and we already know that its effects are disproportionate on the older population and those who have conditions such as obesity and diabetes, as well as those who live in poverty. We have on-going learning in relation to that.

I have had this conversation with you and with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care before. It is about the potential, out of the back of Covid and the learnings from Covid, to look at the way that we deliver services and how we tackle health inequalities. That is a good target to have on many levels, not least for those experiencing inequalities, but there is also a positive cost to tackling health inequalities. I wonder whether the Government is considering exactly that? We have had positive conversations about that. What is the Government doing on the back of Covid to look at the way in which we deliver health and other services in order to tackle health inequalities?

Finally, I want to ask about another of my pet likes: the application and deployment of technology, and the ways in which technology helped us with tackling Covid. Where are we with that? I am on record as saying that we are way behind the curve in our ability to deploy healthcare tech, but is the Government considering the deployment of technology as part of pandemic preparedness?

Same.

Cabinet secretary, I fancy putting a question to you that I put to Professor Morris. You alluded to this. A global pandemic is continually—and it has been—in the high-risk category. My analogy was that we know that an asteroid will hit the earth at some time, but we really hope that that does not happen during our tenure.

Governments across the world have shown that they were not as prepared as they could have been for a pandemic. As we watched the pandemic move across the world towards us, we started to learn that age, obesity, diabetes and other conditions made people more vulnerable and meant that they were more affected by Covid. In hindsight—hindsight is 20:20, and we have to use it as we plan—I wonder whether we can use that information and be more focused on how we can prepare for a pandemic in the future, given that we recognise that vulnerability had such a huge impact on Covid outcomes. Can we slim down our approach?

Good morning. Professor Morris, in your introduction, you mentioned that a global pandemic is one of the highest risks that we continually face. I think that we always knew that a global pandemic would happen at some point. It is kind of like an asteroid strike—you just hope that it does not happen during your tenure. It is fair to say that most, if not all, Governments were not properly prepared for it. As we watched the pandemic move around the globe, we recognised that age, obesity, diabetes and other conditions made people more vulnerable. Therefore, in recognising that we need to prepare better, are you considering a more focused approach to dealing with the pandemic and where behavioural science fits in to that, both from a Government perspective and with regard to what we can expect to ask our population to do?

It came from Belfast harbour. As part of my investigation into the issue, I travelled to Belfast to meet businesses across there and meet Belfast harbour. I looked at how the south-west infrastructure is impacting on Belfast and the goods over there. At that time, Belfast harbour said that the figure was 6 per cent. I cannot accurately tell the committee where it is now, but that percentage will certainly not be declining. I would think that it would be increasing.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak again on these long-running petitions, which were was lodged while I was on the Public Petitions Committee during the previous session of Parliament. The saga has been running for longer than that—it goes all the way back to 2010 and before. In 2010, when the then First Minister Alex Salmond opened the Cairnryan ports, he committed to improving the connectivity of the A77 and A75.

There is a huge volume of traffic, especially big 44-tonne lorries, because 44 per cent of all goods going in and out of Northern Ireland go through that port. A lot of those goods are just-in-time products, such as food. The port is hugely important to the prosperity of south-west of Scotland and the whole of Scotland. The A77 connects Cairnryan to the central belt and the A75 connects Scotland to the south and allows goods from Ireland to move on to the south.

That route is under threat because there is another route, between Dublin and Holyhead, where there has been an investment in connectivity. Vehicles coming off at Holyhead go straight on to a dual carriageway, and it is now possible to go by motorway from Belfast down to Dublin. The actual time that it takes for goods to travel between Dublin and Holyhead and between Belfast and Cairnryan is becoming closer. There is evidence that about 6 or 7 per cent of goods are now moving to the Dublin to Holyhead route. The Cairnryan route is therefore under threat.

I have, in fact, undertaken the route from Glasgow to Cairnryan in a 44-tonne lorry. I would advise that you do that sometime, convener. It is very interesting when you are going through places such as Girvan and very narrow streets, and you can see out of the cab people having their dinner about three yards away from you. Anybody who has travelled that route knows that it is a dangerous route. It is a route where, if something happens on the A77—which happens frequently—the diversion takes you on to a B road, which is extremely dangerous for 44-tonne lorries.

It is an on-going saga. It is taking too long. We need investment in the south-west. Only 0.04 per cent of the transport budget in the past decade has been spent in the south-west. I used to say that it was the forgotten part of Scotland; now, the feeling is that it is the ignored part of Scotland. We need this to move along much more quickly than is the case.

That is correct.