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Good morning. I have a couple of questions about data, the first of which is about the collection of data on non-Covid-related issues.

A constituent—a friend of mine, in fact—who, unfortunately, has been diagnosed with stage 3 pancreatic cancer with complications waited six months to get the test. Are we collecting the right data about the stage at which people are being diagnosed with conditions such as cancer, compared with pre-Covid times? Are we collecting data on how many people are being diagnosed with such conditions?

I presume that Professor Leitch would be the best person to answer that question.

It is totally understandable that we have a capacity issue. There are only so many people who can work in our health service, and Covid has a significant impact on that. My point was about the collection of the data. I point to the potential issues that are coming down the line. I mention that because, in our most recent private session, when we heard from an expert clinician, it was suggested, in relation to our investigation into non-Covid-related conditions, that adequate data is not being collected to make the decisions that need to be made. It is crucial that such data is collected, given the potential future issues that we might face. Who would like to address that?

Thank you. I have one final question—I hope that you will forgive me for going here. A lot of data, especially initially, pointed to the fact that the morbidity from Covid came in tandem with high levels of obesity, diabetes and other comorbidity issues, including some of the cancers. That highlights to me that, if we want to treat Covid, we must look at health in a much more holistic way. Does that data not point to the fact that, in the long term, post-Covid, we need to look at our healthcare service in a different and more preventative manner, and do more to tackle the poor health of the nation?

I appreciate what you say Mr Swinney, but I am more concerned about the squeeze on global finances. What happens if another omicron comes along? That could squeeze us to a point where the global response would be limited. That is what I was trying to get at.

This committee is called the Covid-19 Recovery Committee, but week after week, as events overtake us, we struggle to get to the idea of recovery. I am going to try again to look ahead and ask what recovery looks like. We seem to be in a loop: at the very start, we were in lockdown, then along came vaccination and then along came the booster and now we are back into restrictions again. Are we now considering that this might be an indefinite cycle?

I remember asking Professor Leitch a couple of months ago when he thought that we would get back to some kind of normality and, back then—this is no criticism of him—he thought that it would happen in the spring for the United Kingdom and that it would take up to five years for the world. We now know that that is not the case. What does recovery from the virus look like? Are we just going to have to live with it indefinitely?

That is really helpful. Given that I am a cup-half-full kind of guy, I am very hopeful that we will go through the next few months and get to a much better place. However, as you both have highlighted, this variant is of a different character, and there is nothing to guarantee that this will not happen again in the future. A couple of questions pop out from that.

The first one is around finance. There has been debate around finance, Mr Swinney, and I do not want to get into that. My concern here is that, if we continue on this cycle, if I can call it that, it is an inevitability that finance is going to become more and more restricted, which will give us fewer and fewer options for how we respond to another variant as we go on. How are we modelling that? How is the Scottish Government working with others to model globally how we are going to deal with that?

The second part of my question is about what happens if the current cycle continues. We are all weary of dealing with the pandemic. We have already mentioned the behavioural response to restrictions. One of my colleagues talked about the use of check-in apps for track and trace. There are reports that those are being used less. I do not know whether you are aware of it, but there are reports of fans at a football match before the event restrictions were put in place chanting about refusing to have a booster.

We are concerned about disaffection and non-compliance, especially among the young. Do you recognise that? How do we combat that and ensure that a high level of compliance is maintained as we become more weary?

I raised a point about consistency of messaging during the pre-meeting briefing. Driving in this morning, I and a couple of colleagues were listening to a radio programme on which legitimate—[Inaudible.]—were putting forward their thoughts on the omicron variant coming from South Africa and whether it is particularly virulent. One was saying that we need a circuit breaker. The experts were clashing and bumping heads with one another.

We can tell from our postbags and our constituents’ phone calls that there is a lack of understanding about where we are going and what the omicron variant means, which might have an impact on compliance. I have raised the issue that people are angry about being unable to access NHS services. How do we get a consistent message across to the general public so that there is the maximum level of compliance?

My final question is for Professor Leitch. There has been a lot of discussion about the pressure that will be put on the NHS. However, that is not necessarily to do with hospitalisation; it is to do with public services being affected by absenteeism due to Covid. We are seeing that happen increasingly. Are you concerned that the rise of the omicron variant and the speed of that rise will put more pressure—unnecessary pressure—on our NHS than it can cope with?

Earlier, you said that you are having to act on a fast-moving and changing picture. That is exactly the same for every other Government across the world, which suggests that the Westminster Government and the devolved Governments should work ever closer together and have a consistent approach. Where are we with that? Is that happening? I was pleased to hear Chris Whitty’s messaging. Are we working together across the UK on having the same approach?