 Before I move on to the next item of business, I wish to make a short statement. Concerns have been raised regarding the use of a Government-initiated question to announce the additions of Manchester and Salford to the list of areas where common travel restrictions apply. I understand that this mechanism has been used on earlier occasions to make such announcements. Notably, in this case, the announcement was made by GIQ on Thursday 17 June, a sitting day, when there may have been an opportunity for members to scrutinise the decision in the chamber. I therefore ask the Minister for Parliamentary Business to reflect on whether GIQs are an appropriate method to use for these announcements on days when Parliament is sitting. In the meantime, I have selected a topical question on the issue to allow members to ask questions on the decision in the chamber at the earliest opportunity. We will now move to topical questions. I welcome the statement that you have just made in relation to the respect that this Parliament is due from the Scottish Government. It was on Tuesday, June 8, that I raised a point of order with you in which I sought confirmation that it is in order for the First Minister to come to this chamber to make Government statements, but it is not in order for her to ignore Parliament and instead make statements in front of TV cameras. At that time, I sought your help to make further representations to the Scottish Government, in particular to the First Minister, to the effect that Government statements should first be made in Parliament to allow for proper scrutiny and to show respect for our Parliament. I was heartened by the answer that you gave on that occasion, and I am further heartened by the statement that you have made this afternoon. The reality is that, last Thursday, at 11.39, 20 minutes before the First Minister's questions, SNP ministers used special powers to ban Scots from going to Manchester and Salford at 12 noon last Thursday. The First Minister said nothing to Parliament about those new restrictions. The Deputy First Minister, whose name was on the amendment, sat a few feet away from the First Minister. The next day, at approximately 12.15, the First Minister appeared on television in a staged event to announce the travel ban. Will you, Presiding Officer, take this opportunity to underline again to make clear to Parliament and to all members of this Parliament, especially members of the Government, that those acts of discurtycy bordering on contempt by the First Minister must stop and that the actions of Scottish ministers must be properly held up to scrutiny by the Scottish Parliament? I thank Mr Kerr for his point of order. I have asked the Scottish Government to reflect on the use of a GIQ when Parliament is sitting, and, as I have said previously and in accordance with guidance on ministerial statements, all significant and substantive announcements should be made to this Parliament wherever that is possible. We now move to topical questions, and I call Graeme Simpson for question number one. Thank you, Presiding Officer, to ask the Scottish Government on what basis it has introduced a ban on non-essential travel between Scotland and Manchester and Salford. Cabinet Secretary John Swinney. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The common travel area restrictions were introduced in November 2020. Decisions on which areas are subject to those restrictions are made on the basis of incidence and test positivity rates, other epidemiological factors such as hospitalisations, intensive care admissions and deaths and presence of variants of concern. Restrictions on travel tuned from Blackburn with Darwin and Bolton in north-west England and Bedford in the east of England were introduced on 24 May. We removed the restrictions on Bedford, as well as restrictions on travel to and from the Republic of Ireland on Friday 18 June, because we judged the relative risk of travel to and from those areas had reduced. Additional restrictions were introduced on travel to and from Manchester and Salford from 21 June because we judged that the risk had increased. Those additions were all linked to severely elevated case rates associated with the delta variant. All those recent changes were notified to Parliament in a written statement through a Government-initiated question and announced to the public in the First Minister's media briefing with an accompanying press notice and guidance on the Scottish Government website. Graham Simpson. Can I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer? I noticed he gave absolutely no figures in the answer whatsoever, so the public will be quite bemused by it. The legislation, in fact, is completely incoherent. It says that you have to leave Scotland with the intention of going to Manchester in order to be in breach of this law. I do not know how you can prove that. I could set off from my home in East Kilbride, go down to visit my mother in Carlyle, suddenly decide that I am going to pop down to see a mate in Manchester and not be in breach of this law. How can this possibly be enforced? Are we going to have police at the border asking people where they're going? Of course we aren't. The law is unworkable and unenforceable. With respect to the cabinet secretary's answer, how does he answer the very fair point that infection rates in parts of Greater Manchester, such as Bolton, are lower than Dundee? Bolton has a Covid rate of 269 per 100,000. How is that consistent or fair? When Bolton was added, the Bolton was added on the 24th of May. That was announced to Parliament by Government-initiated question, just exactly the same way as the announcement was made about Manchester and Salford. I completely accept and respect the words that the Presiding Officer has expressed today, and the Government will reflect very carefully on the points that the Presiding Officer has made. We felt that we were notifying Parliament properly because, on the Bolton example, we had used that mechanism before. If that mechanism is no longer judged to be appropriate, the Government will reflect on that, but we were simply using the same mechanism that we had used back in May when we announced the decision on Bolton. The Government will take away what the Presiding Officer has said, because we respect Parliament, because we notified Parliament on Thursday afternoon. If Members of the Conservative Party could not be bothered to look at their emails on Thursday afternoon at 2.39pm, you could take the horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. When Bolton was added, case rates were at 283. At that moment, there were nearly three times that of Glasgow on 24 May. That was the reason for the variation in elevated case rates. Mr Simpson asked me for more data. In relation to Manchester and Salford, Manchester was sitting at 348, Salford at 337, in excess of any case rates in Scotland and well above the Scottish average. We took those decisions based on trying to minimise the contact that we know enables the spread of the virus. That is what the whole restrictions have been about, and that was the basis of our decision to protect people in Scotland from the spread of the virus. If the cabinet secretary thinks that an email is showing respect to this Parliament, then he is looking at it completely the wrong way, because it does not. The fact is that the case rates in Manchester were very similar to those of Dundee. He has not addressed that point. If I can move on to another point, some people, because of this edict from the First Minister, have lost hundreds of pounds, but it is not just individuals who have lost out. The travel sector, which has been hollowed out, is also the loser here. Will the Scottish Government compensate individuals and businesses who have lost money because of this decision? First of all, I would say to Mr Simpson that the Government answered a Government-inspired question on Thursday, which has been viewed—I have gone through this detail before—nobody raised any issues about us using a Government-initiated question to set out the restrictions on Bolton on 24 May and Bedford and other places. If the view is now that that is not acceptable away, the Government will of course reflect on that and address any issues that Parliament wishes to raise. On the case numbers, Mr Simpson raises the issue of Manchester and Salford again. The case numbers in that area, where over 337 is the lowest compared to a seven-day incidence rate above Scotland at that particular time. The case numbers and the epidemiological advice are what drives those decisions. In relation to the question of any compensation, the Government does not believe that that would be appropriate. Travel to the north west of England has previously been prohibited last year before local levels regulations were introduced. I know that compensation was offered. We are all responsible for putting in place in our respective parts of the United Kingdom the financial support to arrangements for business, and that is exactly what the Government will continue to do here in Scotland. Thank you. There is a great deal of interest in the subject, and I would be very grateful for short questions and succinct responses. I call Jackie Baillie to be followed by Brian Whittle. The cabinet secretary will be aware that the mayor of Manchester is seeking compensation for those people who had booked holidays in Scotland, which have now been cancelled as a result. The tourism industry has had a really difficult time, and losing bookings will come as a bitter blow, whether it is from Manchester or indeed anywhere else. Can the cabinet secretary commit to putting an additional support scheme in place so that tourism businesses do not have to bear the brunt of decisions about travel bans? As Jackie Baillie knows, the Government continues to keep under review business support. The First Minister is going to make a statement in a few moments, which will set out some further developments in relation to the wider context and the strategic framework for the handling of coronavirus. Some of the issues that Jackie Baillie raises will be addressed in the statement that the First Minister will make, so I will not pre-empt that. However, I would say that the Government has put in place a range of different supports for tourism businesses, as with many other businesses, to take people through these difficult times, and we will continue to ensure that we address any issues that are raised by individual sectors to the greatest ability of the financial scope that we have at our disposal. I call Brian Whittle to be followed by Douglas Ross. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Mrs Swinney was here on the media discussing the decisions made by the Scottish Government are now based on vaccination levels and hospitalisation levels, which is contrary to what Nicola Sturgeon suggested, that ban and travel to markets will increase to 100,000. The question is, are the Scottish Government forming the science? What is it? Or are we now just making it up as many of us now think? I am not sure to what extent the cabinet secretary was able to understand that question. All I would say to Mr Whittle's question is that the Government has set out very clearly over many weeks and months the focus that we have had on applying restrictions where it is appropriate based on the development of the pandemic. Increasingly, in the past few weeks, we have begun to focus on the, as vaccination rates have increased, on the relative balance between case numbers, levels of hospitalisation, levels of ICU presence and admittance and the level of cases around the country. As we see the effect of the vaccination programme, that will continue to be the basis upon which we make our decisions, and that has informed the decision-making that the Government has undertaken in this particular case as well. Douglas Ross Deputy First Minister has used on a number of occasions an example of the 24th of May being a reason for a Government-initiated question, and no issues were raised then. Does he know and understand that the 24th of May was a Monday, therefore not a parliamentary sitting day, and last Thursday's decision to use a Government-initiated question was a sitting day, when ministers such as himself could have announced it to Parliament and be questioned by MSPs? All I would say to Mr Ross is that I hear what he's saying. The Presiding Officer has made her remarks. We will, of course, reflect very carefully on the points that the Presiding Officer has raised, because we were in using a Government-initiated question, which are lodged on sitting days very frequently, on many issues in relation to Covid. Many Government-initiated questions on Covid are lodged on sitting days, so we will reflect on what the Presiding Officer has said to make sure that we properly advise Parliament of changes. What I would say to Mr Ross again is that Government-initiated questions are an acceptable means, accepted by the Presiding Officer, of the Government-notifying Parliament of particular developments. We have followed that route, but we will reflect on the points that the Presiding Officer has raised this afternoon. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce the number of female prisoners on remand following reports that one in four women in custody are awaiting trial. Decisions on bail, remand and sentence in individual cases are, of course, a matter for the independent courts based on the circumstances that are before them. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government has made clear that we believe that the numbers on remand in our prisons, especially for women, are too high. I recognise that an ambition to reduce the use of remand is shared by other parties in this chamber, and I welcome your support and ideas. The single biggest factor in the increase in the proportion of prisoners held on remand is the backlog of cases created by the pandemic, and we are committed to helping the justice services recover. That includes providing an additional £50 million in this financial year so that cases involving all accused, including those on remand, can be progressed and justice can be carried out in each case. A number of actions are under way to help to reduce the use of remand, and at the end of last year, the Scottish Government introduced regulations to Parliament as the first step in introducing electronically monitored bail. Once all of our partners have confirmed their operationally ready, this measure will provide the judiciary with another tool to utilise when considering bail and remand. We also plan to explore how the overarching legal framework within which decisions of remand are made could be adjusted, and in line with the findings of the report by the Commission on Women Offenders by the former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini, we recognise the disruption periods of remand cause individuals, their families and also their communities, and that is why we are continuing to strengthen the provision of credible alternatives to remand supported by an investment of £550,000 in bail supervision each year. That is in addition to the £107 million invested in community justice services annually, which includes a ring-fenced allocation of £1.5 million of bail support for women. Finally, as part of my new remand, I welcome the opportunity to work across parties and also with key stakeholders and others representing women in the justice system to identify further actions that can help to ensure that remand is used only when necessary to protect public safety and where no appropriate alternative is available. We will require shorter responses as we have a great deal of business to get through this afternoon. I call Pauline McNeill. I thank the minister for what was quite a lengthy response. Time spent in prison can have a catastrophic effect on women's lives, causing them to lose their homes to custody of their children and their job. The Amnesty International reminds us that the detention of individuals for a waiting trial is a matter of special concern because they have yet to be found guilty of any offence and, therefore, innocent in the eyes of the law. Warringly, Scottish prisons have a greater proportion of women in remand in the rest of the UK, and of those women in remand, three quarters will not get a custodial sentence. I hope that the minister would agree that something is not right here. He mentioned that the Scottish Government is about to drop the Angelini report, but that came about nine years ago and there was a proposition that the provision of bail supervision should be consistently available across Scotland. I ask the minister why has it taken nine years to bring this forward. We have been working on going on issues across this area. I would say to the member and also to the chamber that we absolutely recognise how disruptive individuals, families and communities that are periods on remand, should only be used when it is absolutely necessary to protect public safety and where no appropriate alternative exists. I am determined to make progress on this issue, and I hope that the member would accept that we have made progress in this issue and on the wider peace for women and justice. For instance, our work on the presumption against short sentences, our work on the new women's prison estate, our work on electronically monitored bail and our investment into community justice. All of those things are part of a picture, a step forward, if you like. I will look at what more we can do, and I invite the member to work with me in this as well. On bail supervision, as the member requested an update on that, we have invested on bail supervision services. It is, of course, an important alternative to remand. It is run, obviously, by the local authorities, justice social work services, and since April 2019, additional funding of £550,000 has been provided to increase capacity for bail supervision, and the latest statistics show encouraging evidence of impact with the highest level of use of bail supervision in seven years. That is a total of 470 bail supervision cases were commenced, and in 2019-20, that is a 40 per cent increase on 2018-19. It is going to be difficult, atopical questions, if a member, like me, asks a question about remand and I get a whole policy issue that I did not ask about, but what I am asking about is the issue of remand. By the end of April, close to one in four prisons in Scotland were on remand, and that is in the 42.6 per cent of young people aged between the age of 16 and 20 in prison were on remand. 57 per cent of people held on remand do not go on to receive a prison sentence, and they are found either not guilty or receive a community sentence. I am not confident that the Scottish Government really takes on the importance and the human rights consideration. I ask what is the Scottish Government's approach to this in terms of human rights. In January last year, the Scottish Government commissioned research into the reasons behind decisions on bail and remand in order to try and reduce the number of people, but it was put on hold to acknowledge that that was due to the pandemic. Can the minister tell me when this research will be recommenced? I am not sure if I will be able to cover all of my replies, so I follow up with a member if I miss any points out there. We absolutely take that issue very seriously, but I remind the member that decisions on bail are made by the independent courts, and in all circumstances of the case, according to the statutory framework, which explicitly sets out public safety and substantial risks of the person committing further offences. In Scots law, there is generally a presumption in favour of bail, and that is a requirement of the European Convention of Human Rights. I was setting out to the member a wider piece of work that we obviously have to invest in alternatives to remand, and that is what I was setting out to the member the pieces of work that we are taking forward. That is on electronically monitored bail, and that will be implemented shortly. The investment that the Scottish Government is making on bail supervision with money specifically ring-fenced to support women in that, and also our additional funding that we have put into community justice. The Scottish Government, what discussions it has had with the Home Office regarding the reported backlog in processing applications for the EU settlement scheme? It is unacceptable that, with eight days to go to the EU settlement scheme deadline, there is a backlog now of over 300,000 unresolved cases. The Scottish Government has consistently been clear that the deadline should be extended. The Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development wrote to Lord Frost on 16 June, requesting a discussion on the issue at EU Exit Committee meetings. We have yet to receive a response. I also requested an extension when I met with the UK Minister for Immigration Compliance, and we will continue to do everything that we can to support EU citizens, including seeking an extension. I thank the cabinet secretary for his response. The settled status deadline poses huge risks to EU nationals who have contributed so much to our society. It would simply be unacceptable for people to lose their rights overnight. It is of course wrong that EU nationals living here are being forced by the UK Government to apply to stay in Scotland, but given that they have to do so, what steps are the Scottish Government taking to encourage all EU nationals to apply before the deadline? I completely agree with the member that the upcoming deadline poses significant unfair risks to EU nationals. We have continuously requested, at the very least, an extension to the EU SS deadline. Let me be clear that any refusal to extend that deadline is a choice by the UK Government. This Government in Scotland is supporting EU citizens through our Stay in Scotland campaign. We spent more than £1 million helping people to apply to the EU SS scheme through this campaign. That includes media campaigns across radio, digital and social media platforms, toolkits providing information and signposting to be made available to EU citizens. The funding also offers advice and support through citizens advice Scotland, the citizens right project and just right Scotland guidance for the rights of EU citizens. Many key sectors in Scotland, and in particular here in the Highlands, such as hospitality and farming, are already struggling to recruit employees as a result of Brexit. There could not be a worse time to risk compounding that problem if people lose their right to work as a result of the deadline. Is the cabinet secretary concerned that this reckless Tory policy could risk damaging Scotland's recovery from the pandemic? Very concerned that this policy will harm our key sectors across Scotland. It is my view, and that of the Scottish Government that EU citizens living in the UK should not need to apply to retain the rights that they already have had to live, work and study in Scotland. The EU settlement scheme should be replaced with a declarative scheme that automatically allows EU citizens to retain their rights. At the very least, the UK Government should extend the deadline for applying to the EU settlement scheme. Thank you. That concludes topical questions. I regret that I have been unable to take more supplementaries. I would ask colleagues that as we progress through this afternoon's business that we remain courteous at all times to other members in the chamber and please keep responses, questions and responses succinct. The next item of business is a statement by