 That concludes topical questions. The next item of business is a statement by Nicholas Sturgeon on Covid's 19 update. The First Minister will take questions at the end of her statement, and so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on Nicholas Sturgeon, First Minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Before turning to Covid today and with your permission, I'd like to give a very brief update on our efforts to welcome refugees from Ukraine. The response of the public across the UK in offering support has been truly outstanding, and I want to thank everyone who has volunteered. Under the UK scheme, though, with the exception of people who already know someone seeking refuge, it may be some time before most of those offering help will be able to actually welcome someone from Ukraine. The Scottish Government's super-sponsor proposal is intended to short-circuit this and allow Ukrainians to get here and be safeguarded and supported more quickly. I'm therefore pleased to advise that the UK Government has now indicated support for this proposal in principle and has committed to working with us towards its immediate launch alongside the wider UK scheme. This is a positive development, and I hope, assuming that we can agree the details, that, as a start, it will allow Scotland to welcome 3,000 Ukrainians to Scotland very soon. I will update Parliament more fully on those matters tomorrow. Turning now to Covid, I will confirm Cabinet's decisions on lifting the limited measures that remain in law and set out our intentions for the testing programme. First, though, a brief overview of the state of the pandemic. Public Health Scotland has had server problems over the past 24 hours, so no daily figures were published yesterday, and figures are no longer published at weekends. The case number being reported today, therefore, 38,770, is a cumulative total for the past four days. For context, the total for the equivalent four-day period last week was 36,051. Those figures reflect the recent increase in cases. The ONS survey suggests that, in the week 2, 6 March, one in 18 people in Scotland had Covid. Three weeks ago, an average of 6,900 new cases a day were being reported. The average now is just over 12,000 a day. There has also been a rise in the number of people who are in hospital with Covid. Three weeks ago, that stood at 1,060 today. It is 1,996. The increase in cases over the past three weeks has been driven by the BA2 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant, which is estimated to be significantly more transmissible, with a growth rate since mid-Febru, perhaps 80 per cent greater than original Omicron. BA2 is now in Scotland our dominant strain, accounting for more than 80 per cent of all reported cases. BA2 has become dominant in Scotland earlier than in England and Wales, hence the more rapid increase in cases here than south of the border in recent weeks, although cases in hospital admissions are now rising sharply again in England 2. Encouragingly, there is no evidence that BA2 causes more severe illness than BA1 or that it is more effective at evading natural or vaccine immunity. Indeed, immune protection means that the recent rising cases and hospital admissions has not translated into a commensurate increase in cases of severe illness requiring intensive care. In other words, even though the weight of numbers of infections is putting significant pressure on hospital capacity, which is a real concern, we continue to observe strong evidence that the link between infection and serious health harm has weakened considerably. However, it is likely that this is due to immune protection, not least from vaccines, more than it is to Omicron being inherently milder. That is borne out by current experience in Hong Kong, where relatively low rates of vaccination, particularly in the older population, mean that Omicron is causing very significant levels of severe illness and death there. That therefore underlines the continued vital importance of vaccination, so if you have not yet had dosies that you are eligible for, please do get them now. Extension of the programme is on-going in line with JCVI advice. Letters inviting 5 to 11-year-olds, not in higher risk groups for vaccination, started arriving at the end of last week, and first vaccinations are scheduled for Saturday. Additional booster jags for older adults in care homes started last week and appointments will start next week for everyone aged 75 and over. Additional boosters for those who are immunosuppressed will start from mid-April. I know people who are immunosuppressed and others on the highest risk list are concerned about high case rates at a time when regulations are being eased. It is important to stress therefore that very significant protection is provided by vaccination. The higher transmissibility of Omicron poses challenges. However, protection from vaccines and the increasing availability of effective Covid treatments are also important factors. Using the approach that is set out in our revised strategic framework and based on clinical advice, our assessment is that the virus continues to present a medium threat, however, we remain optimistic that it will move from medium to low over spring. As a result, we consider that the overall transition signalled in the strategic framework remains appropriate. We should and will continue the transition away from legal requirements to advice and guidance instead. Therefore, I can confirm firstly that, from Friday and in line with other UK nations, all remaining Covid-related travel restrictions will be lifted. While we have some concerns about this, UK travel patterns mean that diverging from the rest of the UK would cause economic disadvantage without delivering any meaningful public health benefit. We do, of course, retain the ability to reintroduce measures if, for example, a new variant emerges. Secondly, from next Monday, 21 March, with one temporary precautionary exception, the remaining domestic legal measures will be lifted and replaced with appropriate guidance. That means that, on Monday, the requirement on businesses and service providers to retain customer contact details will end, and so, too, will the requirement for businesses, places of worship and service providers to have regard to Scottish Government guidance on Covid and to take reasonably practical measures set out in the guidance. The exception relates to the requirement to wear face coverings on public transport and in certain indoor settings. Given the current spike in case numbers, we consider it prudent to retain this requirement in regulation for a further short period. I know that that will be disappointing for businesses and service providers such as daycare services. However, ensuring maximum continued use of face coverings will provide some additional protection particularly for the most vulnerable at a time when the risk of infection is very high, and it may help us to get over the spike more quickly. We will review it again in two weeks before the Easter recess, and our expectation now is that this regulation will convert to guidance in early April. The other issue that I want to cover today is testing. Regrettably, our freedom of manoeuvre here is severely limited by the fact that our funding is determined by UK Government decisions taken for England. However, we have sought as far as we can to reach the right decisions for Scotland. It is important to note that we are aiming for the same long-term position as England on testing, however we consider that the transition should be longer. In England, testing for people without symptoms ended in mid-February, and we will do so at the end of this month for those with symptoms. We intend the transition to last until the end of April. This is as far as we can go within funding constraints, but that does allow us to take account of current case numbers and better support the shift in our management of the virus overall. A paper has been published on the Scottish Government website, setting out the detail. However, in summary, for the next month until Easter, there will be no change to our testing advice. If you do not have symptoms, you should continue for now to use a lateral flow test twice weekly, daily for seven days if you are close contact of a positive case and before visiting someone who is vulnerable. If you have symptoms, you should continue to get a PCR test either at a testing site or by post. However, following the Easter weekend from 18 April, we will no longer advise people without symptoms to test twice weekly. With the exception of health and care settings, the advice to test regularly will also end from 18 April for workplaces and for early learning and childcare settings, mainstream and special schools and universities and colleges. Until the end of April, we will continue to advise using LFTs daily for seven days if a close contact and on each occasion when visiting a hospital or a care home. Until the end of April, we will continue to advise those with symptoms to get a PCR test. Contact tracing of positive cases will also continue until the end of April. PCR test sites will remain open during this period, though opening hours and locations may change during the transition. As with all measures, we will keep it under review. Our intention is that, from the end of April, all routine population-wide testing will end, including for those who have symptoms. Contact tracing will end at this point too, although people with symptoms of respiratory illness will be advised to stay at home. Physical test sites will close at the end of April, although mobile testing units and lab capacity will be retained for our longer-term testing purposes. We will do everything we can to support those who have worked on the testing programme during the transition, and I want to thank all of them for their invaluable contribution over the past two years. From 1 May, in place of population-wide approach, we will use testing on a targeted basis to support clinical care and treatment and protect high-risk settings and also for surveillance, outbreak management and responding to significant developments such as a new variant. Let me stress, though, that for any purpose for which we continue to advise testing, access to test will in Scotland remain free of charge. Today marks steady progress back to normal life and a more sustainable way of managing the virus. However, while cases are spiking, there is still considerable pressure on the NHS, and there is concern among the most vulnerable in particular. I ask everyone to be patient for a little while longer on face coverings and to continue following all advice on hygiene, ventilation, testing and, of course, vaccination. Let me take the opportunity and conclude to thank everyone again for all their continued efforts. Thank you. The First Minister will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions after which we will move on to the next item of business. I would be grateful if members who wish to ask a question were to press their request-to-speak buttons now. I call Douglas Ross. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Can I start by pleasing the great British public for its welcoming attitude and compassion? We now know that, as of this afternoon, more than 100,000 applications have already been lodged to be part of the UK Government's Home for Ukraine initiative. We all agreed in this chamber that more needed to be done in recent days to support those displaced because of this war, and I am pleased that progress is being made. Now is the time for a collaboration, and it is encouraging to see that the Scottish Government is positively engaging with the UK Government over its proposals. Turning to the Covid statement, over two years ago, our lives were turned upside down by Covid. The pandemic has had a dramatic effect on all of us. We have all had to make sacrifices. We have all lost loved ones to this virus. We have all changed a way of life. Covid has not gone away, but we have learned to live with it. The UK's world-leading vaccination scheme has been a game changer, allowing us to move on and get back to normality. It is true that case rates are higher at the moment than any of us would like, but Covid cases were always going to rise as restrictions were eased. We cannot get complacent with Covid, but we have to move forward. We cannot stay stuck with Covid rules forever. That is why it will be a blow for households and businesses that the First Minister has decided to keep the face mask rules in place. The Government said last month that they would be removed on 21 March, but now that is being delayed. Why won't the First Minister trust the Scottish public to take the steps that they think are right to protect themselves and their families? Why are we back to this wait-and-see approach again, with no firm date, to allow businesses and the public to plan ahead? The First Minister said that she will report to Parliament again before the Easter recess, but there is no guarantee that a positive announcement will be made then. Tell us what criteria her Government is basing this decision on, and what will need to change for this face mask restriction to be removed at the next review. Finally, the First Minister is proposing continuing to provide testing kits for the whole population well into April. That does not come without significant costs. Funding that could be used to support our front-line NHS workers to tackle the backlog in routine treatments. Can the First Minister tell us exactly how much this extension of free testing will cost here in Scotland? Scotland is not stuck. Let me remind the chamber and indeed all of Scotland that, as of Monday, every single legal measure to help us control Covid will have been lifted with a limited temporary exception for a continued requirement to wear face coverings. Given the spike that we are seeing in cases right now and the very high risk of infection, that helps us to protect each other. In particular, during the spike, it helps us to protect the most vulnerable in our communities. It will help us to get the spike under control more quickly than might otherwise be the case. That is very much in the spirit of solidarity and mutual concern for each other that has characterised the public response to this pandemic over the past two years. Many people in Scotland will, in light of very high cases right now, welcome the precautionary move. Even those who may not welcome it—there will be those I understand in that category—will nevertheless be accepting of that and understand the reasons for it. I will update Parliament again in two weeks. That is before the Easter recess. I would hope then, in the expectation that we would convert that regulation to guidance in the early part of April. The fourth of April has been the first Monday, and that would be the expectation. I think that it is right to take this approach. How we will make that decision is set out in the strategic framework that we published three weeks ago. In short, we will want to see that increase in cases stabilised. We will want to see that risk of infection at 1 in 18 according to the ONS in the most recent week start to reduce, so that particularly the most vulnerable in our society are not at the risk that they are right now. However, let me remind everybody that this will be the only legal measure that remains in place, and it will be in place for a short two-week period of time. On testing, I have news for Douglas Ross that we will have to fund all of our continued testing requirements, including the more proportionate targeted testing system that will be in place for longer term, because the consequentials are not continuing. Those decisions are driven by the situation that the UK Government arrives at for England. We will continue to assess the overall cost of testing over the next period if the Conservatives want to listen to my answer. Colleagues, can I just ask for quiet across the chamber so that we can hear questions and answers? The overall cost will depend on factors such as outbreaks and whether or not we see any new variants emerging. We will have to flex that cost based on the reality of the situation. The cost of extending prudently for a period access to LFTs—unlike the situation south of the border—making sure that, where we are advising testing, it is free of charge for people who need to test will be a relatively small part of that overall annual cost. We will continue to judge that cost based on the circumstances that prevail with the pandemic at any given time. The number of Covid cases is rising. Hospitalisations are at their highest point since February 2021. Health boards are raising concerns about capacity. I understand that the Queen Elizabeth University hospital was very close to declaring a code black last Thursday. All three NHS Lanarkshire hospitals are reportedly overwhelmed and staff absence is up. Can the First Minister give the chamber more information about testing for health and social care workers after May, particularly in terms of frequency and staff groups that will be targeted? Key to our ability to return to normal is the use of antiviral medication. I am pleased that testing remains for those who are immunosuppressed. However, there are reports that antivirals are not being administered currently in the five-day window for them to be effective, and some eligible patients are not being offered antivirals at all. One contacted their GP, but the GP had no supplies and no ability to prescribe. The five days passed without receiving the antiviral medication that would have lessened the impact of Covid on someone with a serious underlying health condition. Providing assurance to those with underlying health conditions becomes all the more important as restrictions are lifted. Can the First Minister advise what action is being taken to improve the administration of antiviral medication so that everyone is protected, how much is currently being administered in Scotland, whether there are sufficient supplies and finally whether it will now be done by GPs? It is our intention that health and care workers will be advised to continue testing after the end of April. That is likely to at least initially be on a twice weekly basis, although that will be kept under regular clinical review. However, as I said in my statement, one of the purposes for testing after the end of April will be protection of high-risk settings, and that will include hospitals and care homes. The NHS is working hard to ensure that those who are eligible for antiviral treatment get access to that. I cannot comment on individual cases, but if detail is sent to me, I am happy to have that looked at. The availability of antiviral treatment is continuing to develop and increase, and therefore the eligibility of people to be treated with antivirals will also increase. Again, that will be kept under very close review. The five-day window is important. Obviously, that is why we have been continuing to support testing, and it is why we will continue to support testing to help with access to care and treatment, and principally that will be to ensure that firm diagnosis can be given for those who may be eligible for antiviral treatment. However, that is not going to be a fixed group of people as time passes. It will be an increasing group of people as availability and effectiveness of those treatments continue to increase. We will continue to ensure that the health service is working in a way that best supports as that develops the quickest and most effective access to those treatments. I am sure that the health secretary would be happy to provide more information as access to the scheme and the scope of the scheme widens in the weeks and months to come. Thank you very much indeed, Presiding Officer. It will be disheartening to many Scots that, despite the extra sacrifices that we have made in Scotland, our infection rates are still so stubbornly high. The First Minister rightly mentioned the plight of Ukrainian refugees, and I echo my party's support for her Government's efforts in that regard. I would like to ask about them in particular as regards to Covid. Before the invasion, a vaccine roll-out in Ukraine had only reached 35 per cent of adults. They will be coming to a country with one of the highest infection rates in the whole of Europe. After everything that they have been through, the last thing that they need is a bad dose of Covid. To that end, I asked the Scottish Government what plans it has to offer arriving refugees access to immediate vaccination for any refugees wishing to take that up. As I indicated earlier on, I will set out more details in a statement tomorrow of the arrangements that we are working to put in place to welcome and support refugees to come here from Ukraine. I can say now that that includes intensive work with Public Health Scotland to look at exactly what we should offer in terms of testing when people arrive and vaccination if people are not already vaccinated. That work is under way as part of the wider preparations to welcome people here, and I will set out more detail of all that tomorrow. Two years out, give or take, a week from the first lockdown of 23 March 2020, thoughts inevitably turned to reflection on what we have all been through and to the heroic efforts of our NHS staff in getting us to this point, but we also look to the months ahead, including the potential for a further winter in the shadow of Covid. Is the First Minister therefore yet in a position to advise as to when a second Covid booster vaccination will be available to the population as a whole? That is an important question. I am not able to give that information right now, because, of course, we are dependent on JCVI advice and we follow JCVI advice. The advice that we have is what I have set out progress on in my statement today. Additional boosters for certain groups of the population where that has been recommended, and vaccination for all five to eleven-year-olds, or the offer of vaccination for all five to eleven-year-olds. I would encourage everybody in those groups to take up those offers as soon as they are available. We await further JCVI advice on what may be required as we go into next winter. My expectation and certainly the planning assumption of the Scottish Government is that this will be a regular vaccination programme, but exactly what the frequency of that will be, who exactly it will be targeted to and how many dosies may be involved still awaits final advice from the JCVI and, of course, will keep Parliament updated on that as soon as that advice becomes available. Sandesh Gilhane, to be called by Stuart McMillan. Shamefully, the SNP Green Government are still dragging their feet on establishing a network of long Covid clinics across Scotland. Up to 90 clinics are up and running across England, including the Hertfordshire clinic that I discussed with the Cabinet Secretary for Health. That is an exemplar model. Thousands of patients are suffering here in Scotland with long Covid. When will the First Minister finally listen, ask her health secretary to deliver solutions and not just announce money? That is not the case. We have published an action plan. We have devoted resources rightly to that action plan. There are a number of actions within it that health boards are taking forward. Clinics are a part of that, but not the only part. What health boards have to ensure is that they have support services in place holistically for people suffering from long Covid. They are provided as far as possible from routine healthcare up to and including specialist healthcare, and that work is under way. That work will need to continue alongside, of course, on-going efforts to make sure that we continue to understand the causes of and the impacts of long Covid on the health of individuals. That is all set out in the action plan, and we will continue to be updated as appropriate. Stuart McMillan, to be followed by Monica Lennon. Guardian recently reported that the UK Government is to end funding for free Covid testing in English special schools and children's care homes this month, a move greeted by sources in the UK health security agency, with an echoed shock and disgust. What assurances can the First Minister give that the Scottish Government's approach to testing will continue to be guided first and foremost by public health expertise and not by political pressure? I have set out the constraints that we operate within in terms of funding, but within that, of course, we seek to take these decisions based on public health advice and considerations. I have set out our approach to testing, ensuring that as we transition to the steady state, hopefully testing approach, we do that in a careful way and with an appropriate transition. I have set out the timescales in terms of ending routine testing with lateral flow devices in the population generally and within education settings. I have also said that for any purpose for which the Government continues to advise testing, and I have set out the broad categories of that right now, but that may change over time, depending on development of the pandemic. However, for any purpose for which the Government is recommending testing, we will ensure that access to testing, whether it is LFD devices or PCR tests, remains free of charge for those who are advised to use them. It has been more than 140 days since NHS Lanarkshire hit the panic button and declared a code black. None of his wantness to be the new normal for NHS patients and workers. Can the First Minister reassure my constituents and people across Scotland that the Test and Protect Transition Plan will not make achieving NHS recovery any harder, and can she indicate when NHS Lanarkshire is expected to de-escalate from code black? The point of having a lengthier transition plan than we are seeing south of the border is to ensure that we migrate smoothly and effectively to the end state. As we have seen in recent times, the pandemic will continue to throw up challenges for us, but it is intended to ensure a smooth transition. The timeline that we have set out is one that allows us to do that. In terms of wider pressures on the NHS, including in NHS Lanarkshire, but those are being experienced in many other health boards, we need to see hospital cases come down again. We are just under 2,000 patients as of today in hospital with Covid. They will not all be in hospital because of Covid, but they are in hospital with Covid, and that brings additional challenges. Part of the reason for being slightly cautious on face coverings today is, hopefully, to help us to get that spike under control. As we get the spiking cases driven by the sub-linear of Omicron under control, we will start to see hospital cases come down again, and that will then allow NHS Lanarkshire and other health boards to get back on track in restoring services to normal. I hope that we will see that happen very soon, but the steps that we have set out today are intended to help to support that process and to have that process happen as quickly as possible. Ruth Maguire, to be followed by Gillian Mackay. Many people in the communities that we represent will be worried about rising cases. I saw the chief medical officer mention vaccine effectiveness studies at the weekend. Can I ask the First Minister about that? What reassurance can he provide to the vaccinated and perhaps encouragement to those who are yet to get their jags? Obviously, this is something that clinical experts keep under very close review. The data on vaccine effectiveness is scrutinised closely. Emerging evidence demonstrates that boosters continue to provide very strong protection against serious illness. Recently published health security agency data indicates that initial vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation of older people increases to around 90 per cent two weeks after a booster and remains at around that level for over 10 weeks, although they will obviously continue to be strong protection after that. That is why we continue to encourage people to come forward for vaccination, even if they have not had boosters so far. It is not too late to do so. It gives significant protection. I mentioned Hong Kong in my statement, and it is worth people who are interested in going to look at that, because Omicron is causing very severe illness and spiralling death numbers because vaccination rates are relatively low. That does underline the importance of vaccination and the fact that it is immune protection, making Omicron less severe rather than any inherent mildness of the variant. That will be a worrying time for people who were previously shielding, who are still being cautious in reducing the transition away from routine asymptomatic, and then symptomatic testing will make it much harder for them to avoid coming into contact with people who are Covid-positive. Will the Scottish Government consider continuing access to testing for families and carers of people who are clinically extremely vulnerable and what other mitigations will be put in place to ensure that vulnerable people continue to be protected from Covid? We have set out our intended approach to testing after the end of April in the paper that we have published today, and I have set out the summary of that in my statement. Many people, of course, who are extremely clinical vulnerable—not everybody, but many of them—will be in the categories of people who may benefit from antiviral treatment if they get Covid, therefore they will be among people who are still advised to test even after the end of April. Of course, that group of people will remain under review as treatments develop and become more available. I recognise that this is an anxious time for people as we make this transition back to normal, but we do so with appropriate caution, with those who are most vulnerable, particularly in mind. We have tried to do that at every step, and we will try to continue to do that at every step yet to come. John Mason will be followed by Tess White. Many people, including myself, will be very concerned that we now have 1,996 people in hospital with Covid, and some of those people might be thinking that we should really be increasing measures and restrictions rather than reducing them. How would the First Minister respond to such comments? I do not take that view. If I did take that view out of the context, my statement would have been different today. We are on a justified journey back to normality, because, mainly thanks to vaccines but also to natural immunity, we have seen a considerable weakening in the link between cases and severe illness. If we did not have vaccines or some natural immunity, we would be in a very different position. We would find the need to have additional protections to avoid people becoming seriously ill and dying. Thankfully, that is not the position that we are in, so we can migrate back to normality with a different approach to managing the virus, but it is important that we do so with appropriate care and caution, which we have done at every stage, particularly when this BA2 spike is causing the challenges. We will continue to do that carefully and cautiously, but it is in everybody's interest, given the wider harms of Covid restrictions, that we get back to normality or continue to get back to normality as soon as we possibly can. First Minister, it is emerged that the vaccine passport scheme costs the taxpayer almost £7 million. That is more than 10 times the originally projected cost of £600,000. Can the First Minister account for how costs were allowed to balloon like this, and does the Scottish Government believe that that represents value for money for the taxpayer? I think that the decisions that we have taken to try to avoid Covid cases being even higher, the harm caused by Covid to be even greater than it has been, will show in time to have been worth that of the slayware about to have a public inquiry that will look at all of these issues and hold governments here to account, and that is right and proper. Every time somebody says that we should not have taken a particular step—in this case, vaccine passports—and avoided the cost of vaccine passports, it also has to consider what the implications of that would have been in terms of higher cases, in terms of more people in hospital potentially, and in terms of more people perhaps becoming seriously unwell. All of that has a cost as well, and that is not just a financial cost. I remind colleagues that we treat one another with courtesy and respect at all times in the chamber, and I call Siobhan Brown to be followed by Paul O'Kane. Can I ask the First Minister if she agrees with the evidence given by Public Health Scotland to the Covid-19 recovery committee that the economy is an important determinant of health and that the cuts to universal credit and other austerity policies have a profoundly negative impact on public health? Yes, I agree strongly with that, and I think that that is borne out by evidence that there will be many people across Scotland and indeed the UK right now who are suffering public health adverse implications because of the poverty that the removal of the universal credit uplift has plunged them into. We will see, unfortunately, those effects exacerbated by inflationary pressures and the increasing cost of living. As well as restoring that universal credit uplift, I would call on the UK Government and the Chancellor when he makes his spring statement next week to deliver significant support for people living in poverty right now because that will help their health as well as ensure that their quality of life is better as well. Paul O'Kane to be followed by Jamie Greene. At the most recent meeting of the cross-party group on learning disability, access to vaccination was once again raised by people who have a learning disability and their family carers. Will the First Minister ensure that people who have a learning disability and can be more vulnerable are called for the spring booster programme? Will she ensure that where reasonable adjustments are required, such as for people who have autism and find large vaccination sites difficult to be in, such adjustments will be made? The groups who will be called for the additional booster are determined on the advice of the JCVI, and we follow that advice. The points about accessibility and ensuring that those with particular conditions of autism are properly catered for is a point well made. Given the stage that we are at currently in the vaccination programme, there is less reliance on big, large-scale vaccination centres and much more on smaller-scale settings. We have tried all along to balance the need for speed and large-scale approaches to vaccination with accessibility, and that will continue. I think that our vaccination rates—although there are still people who could come forward for vaccination and we encourage them to do so—I think that our high vaccination rates speak for the success of that approach. However, those are important issues that we will continue to bear in mind. The Scottish Court Service told the Justice Committee that the removal of one-metre physical distancing will allow juries to get back into the courtroom and help to tackle the huge backlog of cases. Given that there are around 43,000 cases in that backlog, first of all, can the First Minister confirm that that physical restriction will also be removed on Monday along with others? Secondly, if it is removed, are courts now able to move to other businesses' usual operations, which will both increase the capacity of our courtrooms and the volume of cases that it can now hear? First Minister, it is for the court service to manage the business. Of course, we have provided additional funding to help with recovery, including an increase in the routine resource budget for the courts service. All legal restrictions with the short-term temporary exception of the face covering requirement will be lifted as of Monday. Many of them are already lifted. The remaining ones will be lifted as of Monday, and we will continue to work with the court service, as we will with other parts of the public sector, to get services back to normal and to catch up on backlogs as quickly as possible. That concludes the First Minister's statement Covid-19 update. We will move on to the next item of business now. That is a statement by Marie Gougeon on developing a catching policy to deliver sustainable fisheries management in Scotland. I will allow a moment or two for people to get into place.