 Ar ein ddafnodd mor cyfletu yn serffant â gwasanaeth yn gyflawni fynd, bydd y ffaith cyd-wyrd yn ynion o ddim yn y cimbers. Felly, mae'n ceisio o'r bwysig yn dda i gael i gael i ffasg Should Be Worn oes losiwn i ffraith cydach o ddefnyddio ymddianydd, o fy rollos cyfletwyr Cymru noon a'r bwysig i'w refaiio'r cyd-wyrd yn y cyfrifiadol, felly gael i ddefnyddio'r bwysig i'w disodaethio, y byddwn i. Ydw i eitb defnyddio gan ydynt yn ddiogweddannu gwahanol dros fewn i gael rhywbeth y mynd i llai i yn eitb i ddefnyddio'r Ymgirionedd y Llyfrgell yma uchydigol fel y Gweithridd sydd wedi'i dweud i gael cyfynod am gweithio i ddweud â'r yw gwrthod, ac yn adnodol ar y gweithredu i gael cyfynod. Dw i'n maen nhw, maen nhw, rywbeth a economaeth nhw beri gael eu cyfunnynau ei ddweud. Circle virus on the而且 on the role of the most people The The emergence of the overcome very last week it is evident that the pandemic continues and the virus remains very much with us Although we continue to live in this fluid situation we expect this winter to be difficult and in particular were preparing for a more challenging flu season We have learned through this pandemic that effective early interventions often a lot earlier than might seem oblivious at first sight is needed to prevent harm and reduce the need for stronger intervention later. We need to learn from this pandemic and ensure that we are never in the position we were in March 2020 when the schools shut, businesses shut and we were all told to stay at home. I will shortly be talking about the committee's work on baseline health protection measures in the run-up to winter. First, it is important to stress that many of the issues that are raised with the Covid-19 recovery committee do overlap on to other committee works such as health, education and finance, just to name a few. The Covid recovery committee has taken great effort not to duplicate the important work done by other committees. Instead, we have focused on the on-going public health measures being used to respond to Covid-19. At committee we routinely consider regulations that put in place the on-going changes to health protection and travel restriction measures. However, that inquiry allows us to get under the service of the issues. In the new year, we intend to prioritise scrutiny on Covid-19 recovery with specific focus on health inequalities. This is an important debate, the first of its kind, with the opportunity for all conveners to speak about their committee's Covid-19 recovery related scrutiny work. I am looking forward to the contributions from other committees on their work and the Deputy First Minister's response. In terms of the Covid committee, we decided to undertake work on what role baseline health protection measures in particular ventilation could play in lessening the impact of Covid-19, especially over winter and as we move forward. We also looked at the measures needed to support long-term recovery. During our inquiry, we heard first from ventilation experts and then from those working in the health and social care services, the hospitality industry, business and leisure sectors and schools. We looked at ventilation and the relative success of other health protection measures in helping to slow down the spread of the virus. We all know that one of the main ways that the virus spreads is by inhaling droplets in the air and that ventilation is one of the key measures used to reduce the spread through inhalation. Although I am aware of the debate yesterday, prior to that, not much of the focus had been on ventilation to date, so we looked at how improving ventilation could be an effective response to a potentially worsening situation. With a difficult winter upon us, we want to do everything we can to prevent any closures of schools and businesses. No one wants that to happen. We asked witnesses what could be done to keep businesses open in the hospitality and leisure sectors, how best to keep health and social care services open, such as GPs, dentists and social care centres, and considered health protection measures in schools and the impact on young people. We were told of the challenges faced by retail and hospitality sectors and also heard of the importance of carbon dioxide monitors in assessing ventilation in buildings. We discussed the support available to businesses to improve ventilation and install co2 monitors to reduce transmission and the challenges faced by the leisure industry, which often uses buildings that are not always suited to ventilation adaptations required. In the health and social care services, we heard of the impact of the baseline measures that have had in capacity and how services are delivered. We were told that doctors were continuing to provide a mixture of remote and in-person consultations to meet demand, and that mask wearing can sometimes be a challenge in non-verbal communication during in-person consultations. I am delighted to have learned yesterday that new transparent face masks made here in Scotland have been approved for use in health and social care settings and will be in use within the NHS Scotland from this month. We were told that over 4 million dental appointments have been lost since the beginning of the pandemic, with baseline measures limiting capacity to 40 to 50 per cent. We also heard that the workforce in social care services has been affected, and the economic stability of the sector is at risk. The vaccine certification scheme and possible extensions were issues concerning the business and hospitality sectors, although there is no consensus among the witnesses on whether the scheme should be extended. We will continue to pay close attention to that debate and scrutinise any proposed changes to the scheme through the appropriate regulations. Turning to schools, generally, witnesses are supportive of mask wearing in schools as a necessary measure to stop the spread of Covid-19 and to help keep our schools open. However, there was no consensus among parents about the wearing of face masks in schools. Some had concerns over pupils' learning in relation to hearing and understanding until masks should be removed in classrooms. We heard of the challenges of achieving an appropriate balance between heating and ventilation in schools. Concerns were raised about increasing costs associated with providing additional heating and ventilation systems, and whether heating systems would be able to cope with the worsening weather over the winter. We also took written evidence from members of the Scottish Youth Parliament about their general thoughts on Covid restrictions, how hard it was for them not to see friends and family during lockdown, and mixed feelings about the current restrictions. I will quote one. I have mixed feelings. I agree that we need to be unlocked, but I do not like the idea of clubs being open because cases are going up again. I am a bit unsure. I am not going to go to a club. I am not going to chance it, but with uni being back, I think that that should be prioritised more than a club. I think that some restrictions, seminars being in person would be good, but some people want lectures to be in person instead of online. Having 100 people in a lecture hall wearing masks does not feel great. What did the committee learn? Our inquiry showed me how much can be achieved through relatively simple modifications and forward-thinking regarding the proper ventilation of our buildings. Although it does not exactly set the heather alight, we learned about the simple things that can help such as the use wherever possible of high-level rather than low-level windows. That prevents cold drafts while still providing good ventilation—simple but effective. I would urge the Scottish Government to review the evidence that we have heard and consider any new ways to promote the use of good ventilation to help to prevent the spread of Covid-19. We have all got our mailboxes. The member recognised that a case rate for under-15s of 4 per 100,000 is that the rates of Covid-19 in schools at the moment are incredibly high. That is with the Government's current interventions on ventilation. Do not we need to do more? I thank the member for the intervention. I believe that the Scottish Government is doing everything that it can that has been advised by the experts at this time, but we might have to investigate other options. We have all got four mailboxes regarding the challenge of non-compliance and current health protection measures, be it wearing face masks in shops or people reluctant to get vaccinated for a variety of reasons. Those are clearly areas where more work must be done to change the public attitude. We also need to think about how we build for the future and ensure that our buildings are fit for purpose and able to cope with any future pandemics. Presiding Officer, I would like to finish by putting on record the committee's appreciation for the constructive engagement that all committees have had with us. I would also like to pay thanks to the clerks to help and support the work of the committee. On behalf of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to today's debate. The committee took evidence from a range of stakeholders on seasonal planning and preparedness in health and social care on 9 November this year. As we look towards recovery from Covid-19, that evidence highlights the scale of the challenge that we face with the recruitment and retention of health and social care staff across all disciplines. Many stakeholders told us how extremely tired staff feel, given everything that is faced over the period of the pandemic. Staff across nursing, general practice and many other health and care professions have experienced non-stop and persistent levels of stress and pressure, where they see no prospect of that improving and increasing number are leaving the profession for the sake of their own health and wellbeing. We heard more flexible working patterns are needed to address that alongside sustainable long-term workforce planning. On that last point, Covid-19 has impacted on employment opportunities, specifically for younger people. We asked what can be done to encourage more young people to consider a career in health and social care. With that in mind, I have written to colleagues on the education, children's and young people's committee that see if there is any way for them to explore this further in their skills remit. We also heard about substantial vacancies across all allied health professions. That has a knock-on impact on the provision of preventative health measures, in turn, creating additional pressures on hospitals and primary care further down the line. Several of our health and social care colleagues pointed to the more sensational and negative media reporting most recently on GPs and hospitals and said that that was also putting people off from either coming back to work in healthcare or pursuing a career in health in the first place. Stakeholders highlighted other key contributing factors to the situation, the first being the lack of a sustainable education model to support workforce development for allied professionals. Again, we need to focus on encouraging more young people to pursue a career in those professions, working with partners in secondary, further and higher education to facilitate that. The second factor is a short-term approach to funding and the late provision of funds to NHS boards, which creates an additional barrier to recruitment and workforce planning. We also heard that return to work schemes could help to bring back allied health professionals on a career break. In social care, we heard that staff recruitment and retention issues are now acute and worsening and impacting on the sector's capacity. 63 per cent of providers responding in a recent survey said that they have had to reduce capacity for service delivery due to recruitment shortages. The training can take years for the majority of health professions, but, by contrast, we heard that social care workers can learn on the job and they could start tomorrow, yet there are still significant challenges. The main challenge is that working in social care simply is not an attractive enough option for many. Currently, social care cannot compete with sectors such as retail and hospitality, offering similar or even better rates of pay and comparatively less pressured and stressful working conditions. That was a particular problem in more remote areas. There is a pressing need to look at improving pay and terms and conditions, as well as promoting the value of the profession of social care. Social care is there to support people to live well, live independently and live the lives that they want to lead. Perhaps that is not portrayed clearly enough in the rhetoric that is out there. Some stakeholders suggested a golden hello for those joining the sector could help boost recruitment and a loyalty parent could help support retention, but they also said that, if such measures are to work, a consistent sector-wide approach would be required. Otherwise, we could see increased staffing churn between organisations if only some providers offered incentives while others do not. Those stakeholders that we spoke to acknowledged and welcomed the additional resources that were made available to them to support their wellbeing at work through this difficult winter period, but they said that they are hearing reports that the key challenge for staff is being able to carve out the time to make use of those resources at a time when staff shortages mean that they are not asked to take on additional responsibilities and to work extra shifts. To prepare for this most challenging of winter periods, we need immediate action to look after the health and wellbeing of our existing health and care workforce. As we look towards recovery from the pandemic, a key priority must be to create a sustainable, long-term plan to ensure that we are building the health and care workforce that we will need in the future. I call on Finlay Carson to speak on behalf of the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee. Presiding Officer, the impact of the health crisis has been felt everywhere, but in rural areas, in particular, the way in which recovery policies and priorities are delivered could have long-term impacts, leading to either more sustainable rural communities or further devastating depopulation with impacts right across every part of the country. Rural and remote communities and islands in particular have paid a heavy price during the pandemic. One example is of the many residents already experiencing loneliness because of the location, suddenly having to face being cut off further from society as villages and rural areas suddenly became shut down for months on end. That came with a disproportionately high impact due to the age and profile of our rural areas, and those already suffering from ill health were forced to close their doors on the outside world, self-isolating for even longer periods. We know that there continues to be a divide, which is growing as more and more aspects of everybody's life requires the internet, and the impact of the lack of a reliable broadband service was even more strongly felt in lockdown as many people could not keep in regular contact with their family members and friends. It is important that, while we start planning on our recovery from Covid-19, those issues are recognised and tackled hen on as a matter of priority. Public transport or more accurately, the current lack of it will play a major part in rural recovery. While passenger numbers have fallen dramatically in both buses and trains, I believe that it is vital that provision of services return to pre-Covid levels. Now is not the time to be cutting back on trains and bus timetables because we desperately need rural workers to be able to get to work or the work will disappear. There is a strong argument that ideas such as the 20-minute community model can be looked at through a rural lens and a possible starting point on how to address the all too often scenario of which comes first in rural areas. Is it job creation? Is it availability of workforce, or housing, or public transport? The answer is a difficult one, but we need them at the same time. As a convener of the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee, my colleagues and I have asked that recovery policies are rural-proofed, which will ultimately slow and start to reverse the trend of rural and remote communities being depopulated with young people, families and potentially elderly residents now being forced to move into towns and cities in order to access services. We have a fantastic opportunity with more people working from home in rural areas right now, but we must ensure that those trends are not reversed. The important message is now that pre-Covid recovery plans need to be rural-proofed, and that should not lead to or reduce or end up with centralised services, with health, for instance. We need greater support for rural GPs in order that residents can be treated locally and not forced to travel greater distances to larger towns. Among many of the issues that the Rain Committee examined is how precious and fragile our precarious food system is and how urgent transformation of our food supply chain is required. Scotland Food and Drink admits that it has been on a crisis footing as a result of the pandemic, and it has revealed how many of us have been heavily reliant on exports that were found to disappear overnight with Covid. In committee, we heard from James Withers from Scotland Food and Drink in response to a question from Ariane Burgess that, over the past 18 months, one of the silver linings to the very dark cloud of Covid has been the huge amount of support from the Scottish public and consumers for businesses in their area. The local food movement has taken a step forward, but there needs to be an emphasis on looking at some of the challenges in the local supply chain. Although the food supply chain did a remarkable job in the pandemic, we have a very centralised system of food distribution and the most resilient supply chains are often the shorter ones within communities. Professor Brennan, the chair of the Scottish Food Coalition, added that Argyll and Bute, which has shown huge innovation in how it responded to Covid, supported and was working creatively with local suppliers and what is, we know, a geographically complicated area. It showed ability in contracts, in bringing in, encouraging and mentoring and supporting new suppliers and reducing bureaucracy. Encouragingly, local convenience stores have come into their own during the pandemic, becoming more flexible, making their decisions more quickly and responding to changes in consumer demands. Indeed, their connection with local suppliers will grow with importance over the next few years. Local shops are and will remain absolutely central to rural communities across Scotland. Throughout the pandemic, they have shown a flitness of food by changing where they have their deliveries from, getting more local produce and working with people and suppliers different from what they would normally do. That diversification supply chain is to be welcomed, and it has got to be a big plus for the sector. That needs to be at the heart of the Covid recovery now and continue to be the case. Creating relationships with local suppliers, especially in horticulture and agriculture sector, is how the food supply chain in Scotland should develop and flourish in the months and years ahead. I call on Claire Baker to speak on behalf of the Economy and Fair Work Committee, and Ms Baker will be followed by Kenneth Gibson. I am pleased to contribute to this afternoon's debate on behalf of the Economy and Fair Work Committee about our work on the on-going impact of the pandemic, the position of the Scottish economy and the support and policies that need to encourage investment and employment as part of the recovery effort. The committee wants to see support to encourage investment, growth, prosperity and employment opportunities, while building resilience and protection against any future economic shocks. We have heard evidence from stakeholders on business, employment and skills, including the economic development agencies along with Visit Scotland, and have identified a number of specific spending priorities for the Scottish Government's forthcoming budget to support and drive economic and business recovery for a post-pandemic society. We recognise that there is a considerable opportunity now to challenge and reset what we do and how we do it. Of particular interest to the economy is the fair work agenda. The pandemic has disrupted our economy, creating further insecurity for many sectors. There is now a choice between trying to rebuild an economy that returns to our old ways of working or one that is driven by increased fairness and equality and employment. Many witnesses we have heard from in recent weeks have emphasised the importance of skills, and we will look to work with the Education Committee on taking forward the agenda. There were practical calls from businesses. They are asking for more of a one-stop approach to business and to improve joint working between agencies, support that is more tailored to local needs. The committee recognises the creation of the Find Business Support Portal, but as the cabinet secretary acknowledged to the committee, there is more to be done that can simplify the landscape. With a view to the 10-year economic strategy, which is imminent, it needs to match the scale of effort and ambition that is needed if we are to fully recover from the economy. Looking at the impact on SMEs, the effects of the pandemic have been uneven. Although most businesses have returned to trading, many smaller businesses accumulated significant debt during the pandemic. FSB Scotland made a number of suggestions to help small firms, such as extending the terms of loan repayments. Repayments only started when a certain level of profitability has reached and controlling costs such as non-domestic rates. The committee has asked the Scottish Government to consider those suggestions in the context of next year's budget. We also had a session on exploring support for SMEs in the move to net zero. While we heard about some good work taking place, we also noted concerns that many businesses are still in survival mode and may not feel at this point able to look any further ahead. Businesses are recognising the importance of the transition to net zero, but there is, understandably, little appetite to take on further debt to invest in the measures that are needed. The committee is calling for clear road map for businesses to drive the necessary and sustained efforts that they need to decarbonise. We recognise that the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women's employment. They were in sectors of the economy that were the most exposed, and they were also in ones that were more vulnerable to the virus. The committee recognises the vital role that women play as part of the workforce as employees, entrepreneurs and business owners. We welcome the commitment in the programme for government to progress a women's business centre, and we would like to see that prioritised in the forthcoming budget to ensure that women's contribution to economic recovery can be realised. As we consider winter pressures in the debate this afternoon, our inquiry into supply chains illustrates the pressures in our economy. We have identified the pressures of labour shortages and skill shortages, the impact of Brexit in our changed trading relationships and the pandemic that has created global supply change challenges. They are all under even greater pressure as winter approaches, and that brings a new set of challenges in our how to deal with Covid. That work is currently on going with the committee, and at its conclusion we hope to bring forward practical solutions, including short and longer-term actions that can be taken to support Scotland's supply chain as we continue through the pandemic. We also received evidence from Visit Scotland, and at the moment the tourism and hospitality sector will be concerned about the emergence of the new viruses, and the Government and the committee feel that we need to look seriously at their budget proposals to make sure that they have sufficient support. What is clear from the committee's work so far is that there are no easy answers for the challenges that we face, but there are choices that we can make about what sort of society we want to be and what our economy should look like and do for us. If the pursuit of net zero and the wellbeing agenda is to be caught at our recovery, we must be realistic about where we are and identify and respond to that as the challenges arise. The forthcoming budget and a 10-year economic plan must respond to the significant challenges that we face as we all strive for a recovery that is fair for everyone. I call on Kenneth Gibson to speak on behalf of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. Mr Gibson will be followed by Arianne Burgess. I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Finance and Public Administration Committee about the priorities for pandemic recovery. Others have spoken about the devastating impact that Covid-19 has had and what their committees are doing to shine a light on the needs of the public sector and the economy as we look ahead to recovery. However, the impact on our lives, health, jobs, businesses and the way that we work is required on an unprecedented level of public investment. That is why our committee was keen to look at the overall impact of the pandemic on Scotland's public finances as part of a pre-budget scrutiny. We found that, in total, £13.6 billion was spent on Scotland's Covid response to date, with a fuller £500 million expected as a consequence of the UK autumn budget. While perhaps understandable and a never-developing situation, we heard an evidence that it was not always easy to identify and track the flow of Covid spend. That could become even more challenging as we continue our recovery. The committee therefore asked the Government to commit to providing transparent and timely information on all Covid allocations. That will not only allow proper scrutiny of where and how effectively money is being spent, but it also enables us to learn lessons for the future. In the early months of the pandemic, HM Treasury provided a funding guarantee of in-year resource to devolved Governments, which gave more certainty to budget planning. With no such guarantee this year, the Scottish Government was in the difficult and uncertain position of having to allocate spend without knowing whether all the resources announced by the UK Government would actually flow to Scotland. There is no doubt that this has made budget management more challenging here. In the short term, we have asked the UK Government to commit to a funding guarantee if the fiscal situation rapidly develops. Longer term, we have called on both Governments to examine whether funding guarantees could be a better way of managing devolved finances. We also made recommendations regarding the upcoming fiscal framework review, which governs the budget process in Scotland based on the pandemic experience. While the framework broadly worked as intended, that was more by accident than design, the economic impacts were largely the same across the UK with additional in-year Barnett consequentials. The committee would like the review to look at how the fiscal framework can be strengthened to withstand a situation in which future health or economic shocks disproportionately affects one part of the UK. We know that some sectors, including hospitality, retail, leisure and travel, have been particularly affected by Covid, with some building up significant debt in the process, and Clare Baker talked eloquently about their concerns a few more months ago. We therefore asked the Scottish Government to consider how to make best support to these sectors to recover, rejuvenate the high street and grow the economy. It may not be possible within next year's spending invoked to provide a similar level of relief from non-domestic rates to businesses who struggled the most. Nevertheless, we welcomed the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy's commitment to, and I quote, ensure that taxation enabled businesses to fully recover and trade. We also understand the continuing pressures on local government finance with lost income during the pandemic and additional reliance on reserves expected in 2022-23. The Scottish Government was asked to explore whether greater flexibility can be afforded to councils enabling them to better respond to local priorities in the next budget round. The economic outlook for the UK looks better than forecast at the start of the year on the Crown notwithstanding. Forecasters recently revised up their expectations for growth over the next five years, falling stronger than predicted growth in the first half of 2021, supported by the vaccine roll-out. The Office for Budget Responsibility expects the UK to now reach pre-pandemic levels at the turn of the year, surpassing February 2020 levels by January next year. However, while unemployment and economic scarring is predicted to be lower than anticipated last January, inflation has risen sharply, prompting fears of a cost of living crisis. That is evident in the cost of fuel at the pumps, heating bills and our weekly shopping baskets. We will look to the Scottish economic and fiscal outlook in the Scottish budget on 9 December to find out the latest on how the Scottish economy is faring and how the Scottish Government plans to invest in recovery. Members will also have an on-going interest in the framework for the upcoming resource spending review and the medium-term financial strategy, which is published on the same day, to see how the Scottish Government proposes to address some of the longer-term impacts of Covid-19. I look forward to exploring in more detail other aspects of the committee's report, including the pre-existing challenges to Scotland's public finances in a new year budget debate. I call on Arianne Burgess to speak on behalf of the local government housing and planning committee. Ms Burgess will be followed by Ms Nicol. As convener of the local government housing and planning committee, I am going to focus my contribution on the vital role local government will play in driving recovery from the pandemic. That was the focus of the committee's pre-budget scrutiny. The experience of the pandemic emphasised just how critical local authorities are to the communities that they serve. Through the dedication and hard work of council staff and collaboration with community and third sector workers, local authorities ensured that communities were able to access vital services throughout the pandemic. They continued to do that as the pandemic endures. If there is to be meaningful and transformative recovery from the pandemic, local government needs to take a leading role in that process. Simply returning to the status quo is not good enough, and the recovery from the pandemic must involve tackling inequalities, inequalities that have only been exacerbated by the pandemic. That can only be achieved with the full involvement of local government. However, to do that, local government needs to have the finances, certainty, workforce and tools to deliver that transformative recovery. In the rest of my speech, I want to talk about what needs to be in place for local government to be able to play a full role in the recovery from the pandemic. First, local government needs sufficient resources and funding. The intention of any local government funding settlement is to allow local government to deliver core services. In the current circumstances, leading the economic recovery from the pandemic is also a crucial part of the work of local government. It is therefore an important aspect of local government funding arrangements. Different views were presented to the committee on whether or not local government funding has or has not gone down in real terms. Irrespective of your view on whether or not local government funding has or has not gone down, funding is not keeping pace with the ever-increasing demands on local government, and that needs to be recognised. For local government to play a leading role in recovery, not only does it need to be sufficiently resourced, but it also needs more long-term certainty about resources. COSLA stressed how important multi-year funding settlements from the Scottish Government are to local authorities. Not only has the absence of multi-year funding frustrated the ambitions of local authorities by preventing them from developing long-term plans, but it also impacts on their partners. Without certainty about their own funding, local authorities are unable to make long-term commitments to their partners. We recognise that the Scottish Government has not been in a position to offer multi-year funding, but with the UK Government setting out a three-year spending plan, the opportunity is now there. The long-term certainty would enable local authorities to work with their partners to make the kind of long-term plans that could help to tackle inequalities and make transformative societal changes. I would welcome any update on progress towards a multi-year settlement. Witnesses have raised concerns with us about the extent of ring-fencing and the constraints that they place on local authorities to act flexibly to meet local needs. Funding provided to local authorities during the pandemic was to a large extent not ring-fenced, and it enabled local authorities to act flexibly to meet the greatest need in their areas. We would all accept that there will always be some funds that it is appropriate to ring-fence, but at the same time local authorities were able to act effectively and responsibly during the pandemic because of the flexibility afforded to them. The positive lesson of the pandemic must not be lost. The need for a fiscal framework for local government was repeatedly highlighted to us. We will pursue that issue in the context of our considerations of the local governance review over the coming years. The consistent message to the committee so far has been that local government for local authorities to be able to act flexibly and to deliver locally. It is a privilege to speak in today's important debate as the convener of the criminal justice committee. I thank the convener and members of the Covid-19 recovery committee for securing today's debate. I think that it is especially valuable that we will have an opportunity to hear so many other contributions from a range of different committees this afternoon. This reminds us all that Covid is not just a health issue but one that has impacted on almost every part of our lives. To echo the words of the cabinet secretary for justice and veterans, when he last spoke to us about Covid, it has certainly not gone away. The pandemic is far from over. Like many other sectors, the virus has significantly impacted the criminal justice sector. As a committee, we have tried to ensure that the sector has been able to cope and continue to function to the greatest extent possible during the lockdowns. As we slowly start to recover, we have tried to make sure that we retain some of the incredibly innovative changes to practice that the pandemic has brought about, whilst ensuring that we carefully study Government plans to make some of those permanent. As we said recently in our pre-budget report, any proposals must enjoy the support of the sector and any fundamental changes to the way that we currently conduct business must be carefully studied and the impact on rights considered. The balance of justice must not be undermined by any changes. I would like to thank everyone working and volunteering across the sector for their incredible efforts to keep the criminal justice system functioning. Their professionalism and commitment has been second to none, but let me also acknowledge that the pandemic has left our sector with massive challenges. One of the largest is the backlog of cases in our courts, in particular our sheriff and high courts. As we heard recently before the pandemic, there were approximately 1,330 trials outstanding in our sheriff and jury courts and there are now in excess of 3,500. Every single one of those cases represents a victim who is awaiting justice but also an accused who is waiting to come to trial. It is not surprising with the figures that the cabinet secretary recently told the chamber that remand numbers have jumped to nearly 30 per cent of the prison population. A growth of nearly 2,000 extra trials is challenging enough, but we also know that a significant proportion of those cases are for serious offences such as rape and crimes of sexual violence. That means that many of the 3,500 trials will result in a conviction and imprisonment, putting yet more pressure on the prison system, healthcare sector and voluntary groups that work in prisons supporting education and training and responding to drug misuse and mental health issues. We also know that it is likely to take years to tackle this backlog. Can you imagine the strain on a survivor of having to wait another three or four years for their case to even come to court? We were very privileged recently to hear from a group of just such survivors. I can honestly tell the chamber their stories and the journeys where some of the most powerful evidence I have ever heard. We simply must take action to address the situation. Let me conclude by updating that the committee will be publishing further reports, including on covery recovery, in the coming weeks to set out our suggestions for improvement. We look forward to helping in any scrutiny of a covery recovery bill, and we will play our part in working with the Scottish Government and others to do all we can to recover from this brutal pandemic. I call Richard Leonard to speak on behalf of the Public Audit Committee. It is a privilege to be the convener of the Public Audit Committee, because the committee lies at the heart of parliamentary scrutiny and democratic accountability, guardians of the public purse, but guardians of the public interest as well, promoting openness, good governance and strong leadership, doing it in the cause of public trust and confidence, not just in public spending but in public outcomes as well. At no time have those principles been as important as they are today. The Auditor General for Scotland reported that, last year alone, spending on Covid-19 by the Scottish Government was at least £8.8 billion. A further £4.9 billion is expected to be spent in 2021-22. That has been named at saving lives, at saving jobs, keeping our children in school and our national health service going. In the midst of human suffering and the awful loss of life, almost 10,000 of our fellow citizens have died from Covid-19 in Scotland alone. It has also rekindled a new spirit of social solidarity. Only last week, the committee heard at first hand about a new dawn of community empowerment in neighbourhoods across Scotland in response to the pandemic, but we have to make sure that this new dawn is not a false dawn, which means longer-term funding for the voluntary sector so that vital services are sustained. It means as well that all public bodies, not just local government but all public bodies, must understand that they have an obligation to support and empower the communities that they serve. The pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on the lives of young people and children, disrupting their learning, harming their wellbeing and, for too many, plunging them into even deeper poverty. That is set out starkly in the Joint Auditor General for Scotland and Account Commission report published earlier this year on improving outcomes for young people through school education. Put bluntly, pupils living in the most challenging circumstances have been the ones most affected by school closures. They are the ones less likely to have access to devices and broadband, to suitable study space and the ones more likely to have caring responsibilities, which is why the committee agrees with the Auditor General that improvement needs to happen faster, that we need to address inconsistency across the country and that we must start properly measuring our young people's outcomes, not just by exam results but by their health and wellbeing, by their confidence to make sure that they are going forward and not backwards. Audit Scotland has also reported that the number of children and young people waiting for more than a year for mental health treatment has trebled in the last 12 months. Sam H. Warner has said that, as we recover from the pandemic, there is likely to be a wave of mental health problems across our communities that is even greater and that carms referrals will continue to rise. However, we know that one in four of referrals to carms were rejected last year. We know as well that no national data is collected to establish whether alternative services were accessed and critically what difference they made. I say to the cabinet secretary this afternoon that it must be a priority for the Scottish Government to work with Public Health Scotland to improve the quality and scope of data on the provision of carms as a matter of urgency, but to improve the quality and scope of services as well. Can I turn finally to the vaccination programme? In our scrutiny of the Covid-19 vaccination programme report published by Audit Scotland, we heard that 90 per cent of people aged 18 and over have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. That is critical because, as the report highlighted, if you are not vaccinated at all, you are twice as likely to contract the virus. You are three times more likely to be hospitalised as a result and five times more likely to die from Covid than somebody who is doubly vaccinated. The truth is that people living in economically deprived communities, our younger people and some minority ethnic groups are more likely to be in that unvaccinated category. That is a matter of public health, but it is a matter of social justice and economic inequality as well. The road to recovery will be a prominent feature of the work of the Auditor General for Scotland work programme in the months ahead, as it will be for the committee. We look forward to scrutinising further Audit Scotland reports. We will challenge Government directorates, we will take to task public agencies and we will take evidence from people on the ground. We will follow the pandemic pound, be guided by the facts and so hold Government to account. That is our job and it is one that the entire committee, on behalf of this Parliament and on behalf of the people, is absolutely determined to get done. I am grateful to Parliament for the opportunity to respond to the important scrutiny work undertaken by the Covid-19 recovery committee and by the contributions of other committees so far this session and we thank each of the committees for that work. This is a vital part of the process of parliamentary accountability, which will strengthen our approach to recovery. As we look towards an uncertain winter period, it is clear that the pandemic is far from over. We must all continue to take the appropriate steps to keep ourselves, our loved ones and our communities safe. Because of the measures that we have all taken to control the virus and the outstanding efforts of those who have developed and deployed the vaccine, we find ourselves in a stronger position than we did last year. However, the real risk that the coming months could see a dramatic rise in cases remains very significant, especially with the identification of the Omicron variant and with the fact that we are moving into the winter period with less ability for people to spend more time out of doors. Public Health Scotland is working rigorously to assess how many cases of Omicron there are likely to be in Scotland, and they, together with local test and protect teams, will work to identify how the virus might have been transmitted and to work to break further chains of transmission. However, we should not await the outcome of this work before taking the necessary action that we must act now to reduce the opportunities that the virus has to spread. As I explained to the Covid-19 committee this morning, the Scottish Government considers the state of the pandemic on a weekly basis. On the basis of assessing the case for proportionate action in the context of the evidence available to us, it is always working on the precautionary principle, giving the necessity to act as swiftly as we can to interrupt the spread of the virus. The Government has taken the stance so far, which was set out to Parliament on Tuesday, that, rather than introducing new protections, we are asking people to significantly step up and increase compliance with existing procedures, including getting vaccinated, taking more regular tests, particularly in relation to levels of socialisation within our society in the run-up to Christmas, maintaining hygiene measures, working from home wherever that is possible, and the encouragement, as the finance secretary has been undertaking with the business community, to more organisations to enable more of their staff to work from home and to show Covid certification where that is needed. I would like to use this debate as an opportunity to thank everyone who has continued to play their part to protect Scotland. The work of the committee over the past few months has necessarily focused on baseline measures and our approach to trying to live with the virus. For that reason I want to focus my remarks on some of the issues that arise out of that scrutiny and the importance of ensuring that the emphasis on baseline measures is a message that is clearly understood by members of the public and applied in the way in which we all live our lives. The vaccination programme has fundamentally changed the balance of harms associated with the pandemic, with the relationship between infections and serious health harms significantly weakening. That has been the strategic change in the way in which we are able to handle the pandemic by the fact that we have a significant level of protection within the population. As of 2 December, 88 per cent of the adult population in Scotland have been vaccinated and 39 per cent have received a booster or third dose. However, it is crucial to ensure that, of course— Thank you. Figures by Public Health Scotland yesterday show that parts of Glasgow such as Finneson, Kilburn Hall and the city centre east, where less than 30 per cent of people have actually had a second dose. How can we get on top of that? We have to take steps to make sure that the vaccination programme is available to individuals. I am certainly satisfied that we have comprehensive availability of vaccination venues that are in accessible locations. One of the questions that has been raised with us has been about the possibility of creating mass vaccination centres. It is a point that Dr Gilhane has raised in the chamber before. There is an argument to be had as to whether a wider range of locally accessible facilities that maximise convenience and reduce travel costs for individuals are a more reliable way of securing access to the vaccination for some of the people in the communities to which Dr Gilhane refers, or whether we should have those in larger, more centralised venues, which is what the Conservatives have been arguing for. I noticed, however, that Mr Carson was rather arguing against such approaches in his contribution to the debate this afternoon. We have to make sure that we have available the facilities that are accessible to members of the public and, crucially, the communication to encourage and motivate individuals. The best messaging around that is the significant protection that the vaccine offers to individuals to reduce the risk of serious health harm as a consequence of receiving the vaccination. The vaccination programme has a crucial role to play in protecting the public and in reducing the pressure that the national health service faces, which is, of course, as significant as the winter period emerges. The Scottish Government has set out a significant NHS recovery plan, set out on 25 August. We have also set out the measures to invest in the national health service to ensure that we have sufficient capacity of staff, sufficient investment in facilities to do, for example, the new national treatment centres, which will enable us to make progress on addressing the delivery of care, which has, of course, been interrupted for some individuals by the course of the pandemic over the past 18 months or so. The recovery plan, which is focused very much on ensuring that we have the necessary resilience in place over the winter period, complements the work that is being undertaken to ensure that we have population-wide protection as a consequence of the vaccination programme. Let me turn in my concluding moments to the issues of the Covid recovery strategy, which was set out to Parliament in early October. That is focused unreservedly in addressing the points raised by Ariane Burgess and also by Richard Leonard, unreservedly on tackling the inequality in our society that has been exacerbated, existed before Covid and has been exacerbated by Covid. The strategy is unapologetic about focusing on the necessity to tackle the issue of child poverty, to do that by focusing on increasing financial security for low-income households, by enhancing the wellbeing of children and young people, by undertaking early intervention activity rather than waiting for CAMHS support to make sure that our interventions are as early as possible to enhance the wellbeing of children and young people and creating good green jobs and fair work to enable families to be able to have access to higher-quality employment. We have developed that strategy very much in collaboration with the local government community in Scotland. I will be chairing a joint board with the president of COSLA to monitor the implementation of the Covid recovery strategy, because we accept that there has to be an alignment between the local government's activities, the voluntary sector and the private sector to ensure that we make as much progress in the work of Covid recovery. What Covid recovery has to be about is ensuring that we protect the population from the risks of the virus at this stage, but that we create a fairer and a more equal Scotland where every individual has the opportunity to prosper and to thrive, and that is the focus of the Government's work on Covid recovery. Many of us learned a new Greek word this week, omocron, but is omocron more dangerous than a delta strain? We don't know yet, and now we're on heightened alert. We wash our hands and we wait for the data. Artificial intelligence and data has been at the heart of the international Covid-19 response. Data is key to our amazing vaccine development and the trialling of new treatments, and without data there'd be no contact tracing apps that go ping in the night. Data-driven innovations are also transforming how we do healthcare at large. For example, drones delivering medical supplies for remote regions, and new optometry technology will soon be trial to support primary care. So today's Covid recovery debate, I seek to make a case for data-driven innovation, and how, if we harness for healthcare the world-class skills we already have in Scotland, we can build back better. The data-driven innovation and AI landscape in Scotland is thriving, though UK and Scottish Government programmes are funding with major donors over a billion pounds, and it's being pumped into innovation and skills development here in Scotland. In healthcare, Scotland has the greatness at its fingertips, literally. Scotland has the potential to be a world leader in developing, testing and proving medical technology. We just need to want it more and embrace homegrown, home-funded start-ups and university spin-outs. I would argue that we don't really have a choice. Now we have the spectre of 100,000 Scots struggling with long Covid. I had a very productive meeting with whom I was in use of many months ago, but it does seem all this momentum has stalled, whilst the announcement of money is welcome. Actually providing help for our long Covid clinics is what we need. Our NHS and social care services face huge workforce crisis and challenges. Yes, we can increase our medical school numbers by funding more places, I support that. Yes, we can incentivise experienced consultants to put off retirement, and this is possible. Yes, we can ethically recruit excellent qualified staff from overseas, I also support this. But we won't be able to increase our staff numbers enough to meet patient demand. We need to be innovative, and the solution lies in data-driven innovation. But it's difficult for our homegrown talent. Many get seed funding from us initially. But to get a foothold in our NHS, bureaucracy so often slams the door on innovation. Where are your past three years accounts? Do you employ more than 50 staff? When you're lean and mean, you don't qualify. That's why we've lost some great ones to the US, where they've secured venture capital and built their companies over there. Surely here in Scotland we should be adopting medical technology solutions at scale to manage patient care, shorten hospital stays, reduce hospital via admission rates, improve patient satisfaction and better patient outcomes. As one tech entrepreneur said to me yesterday, our smart start-ups don't want yet another Government grant, they want their first order. Here in Scotland we need a new model, a strategic innovation model so our NHS regions can pilot homegrown cutting edge solutions that will improve healthcare delivery and efficiencies. As an example, I spoke with another tech start-up company who developed a remarkable antibody test using high performance assays to detect new strains of the coronavirus. This is five to six times less cost than we are paying at the moment. This technology has been heralded as a game changer. We need it. If we can crack this nut, it will not only improve services and cut costs, but it will also help our smart young medtech companies to grow and capture markets overseas. Public support for data-driven innovation depends on trust in good governance, but we need to have the right rules and regulations in place that support not hold back our model of publicly funded healthcare. Innovation has been at the heart of our fantastic response to this pandemic. Let's pull together and harness innovation to see us through the crisis and into recovery. From Omicron to beyond. The impact of Covid-19 across Scotland has been devastating, and our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones. Scotland has now recorded over 12,000 deaths due to Covid-19, and that is a heartbreaking milestone, but we are not through that yet. With the arrival of the Omicron variant in Scotland, the immediate focus must be on resourcing the test and protect system so that it has the necessary surge capacity and urgently speeding up the roll-out of the booster jab to eligible people. I know that the cabinet secretary will agree with me, because that means greater use of mobile and walk-in vaccination centres and many more local opportunities for clinics. Members have, of course, raised complaints about vaccination centres turning people away, even though eligibility criteria have been changed from six months to three months. The Government has apologised for the confusion, but it would be helpful to know when people can attend without being turned away. It will undoubtedly be an enormous task for vaccinators, with over 2 million people who are eligible for a booster jab yet to receive one, and something like 280,000 people have yet to receive their second vaccination. Let me thank the vaccinators in advance for their work. At the committee this morning, the question of waiting and drop-in clinics was raised. Do you accept that it is a challenge that, if you have a drop-in clinic, more people may turn up than can be coped with? My experience in my local area is that some of the drop-in clinics have not had enough people, but letters in the Helensburg end of my constituency have not arrived with constituents. They have taken the novel approach of just going to the vaccination clinics to get their booster jabs, and the vaccinators have welcomed that. Whatever arrangements are put in place, clearly it is about working at pace, and I think that the Government recognises that. Many people remain uncertain about this Christmas, whether they will be able to visit family, and whether they will be able to travel abroad. Although we support a four nations approach, the Scottish Government does have powers in this area, and should they decide that there needs to be a quarantine put in place, can they make sure that this is accompanied by a package of support for the travel industry? I welcome any assurance that the cabinet secretary can offer on this point. I want to focus my remaining comments on health and social care, because even before Covid-19, health services were struggling to keep up with demand, and there was a growing backlog of care. The pandemic has exacerbated long waits. There are over 650,000 patients waiting to be seen, and unless urgent action is taken, lives will be lost. Ambulance delays remain too long. A and E waiting times are at the highest ever recorded, and there is simply no capacity in our hospitals because the SNP has stripped out more than 1,000 beds, and social care is in crisis too. Although the number of Covid cases in hospital thankfully remains relatively low, any increase, as has been seen with the new variant in South Africa, would be a catastrophe. Staff are already working flat out and under enormous strain, so too are the staff in social care. Vacancies are increasing as people leave for other jobs in hospitality and retail, because the pay in social care is so poor. Care packages are being cancelled because of those workforce shortages and families are left alone to cope without support. Family carers have been the unsung heroes of this pandemic, as without their efforts we would have struggled to cope. So where is their recovery plan? Where is their respite? Because in many local authorities respite has simply not restarted, and family members are now being told that they need to step into the breach yet again because care packages can no longer be provided. The Scottish Government must act urgently or the strain will simply become too much. Let's start with spending the Barnett consequentials of £165 million that remain languishing in the health budget as yet unallocated. You cannot sit on the money because the NHS needs it now. Winter pressures have been with us for a few months now, and they could get even worse because we do not yet know the impact of the new variant. We need an adequate workforce planning in place because there is insufficient staffing. We need increased bed capacity because there is a lack currently. The current sticking plaster approach will simply not get us through this. Let me finish once again by thanking all the staff for their hard work and dedication, but their goodwill may well be tested this winter. To the other speakers before me, it is important that we hear the work of all the committees and how the Covid recovery is being addressed by each. This afternoon, I want to reiterate the importance of vaccines, the importance of messaging by Governments and public bodies, talk about long Covid and finish with saying something of the resilience of young people living through this period. Firstly, I too want to pay tribute to our healthcare professionals who are exhausted. This has been a relentless time for them and everyone on front-line services. We know that the public are grateful. We used to hear it every Thursday evening in the streets, and I am hopeful for the time when they can step down from the top tier of unremitting struggle. Scottish Liberal Democrats have proposed a burnout prevention strategy, a commitment that new staff will be trained and recruited until safe staffing levels recommended by their royal colleges are met. New toil and annual leave guarantees, backed by joint government and health board guidance, to guard against overwork, ensure that planning places a greater emphasis in guaranteeing staff leave and provide new protections around precious time off. What has been discovered in Southern Africa in the form of the new Omicron variant is a stark reminder of the existential threat posed to our own recovery by the collective failure to help vaccinate the whole world. It is only when we are all vaccinated that we will truly destabilise the Covid pandemic. The fastest way to end the pandemic is to ensure that vaccines are available to everyone globally. We are all interconnected and interdependent. Our governments and public bodies must be clear on messaging. They have been on the need for vaccinations, and I urge everyone eligible to go and get their first, second or booster jab. However, this is a complex, fast-moving situation, and our governments and public bodies must strive to make things clear and simple. I observe that there has been confusion where messages for the islands can be different from those found in national media outlets. On long Covid, I have since the summer been asking constituents to get in contact with me and NHS Shetland so that we are able to determine the needs in the aisles. A Scottish Liberal Democrat has led the first long Covid debate in this chamber, and I am grateful to the fellow members of the CPG on long Covid, many of whom joined Alex Cole-Hamilton and me in the debate a few weeks ago. As my party leader referenced to the First Minister today, 99,000 people in Scotland are now living with long Covid. Before I conclude, I want to reflect on the importance of our young people in the recovery from Covid. We know how resilient they have been through this and how much they are needed in the recovery. The Deputy First Minister will recall that I have previously raised concerns with him about the on-going student experience. Young people are our investment into the future. We want them learning for all our sakes. We cannot afford to have a brain drain. We need their talents, skills and knowledge. However, people are telling me that they cannot understand why university learning is still mostly online, with students perhaps only in university for in-person lectures less than a day a week, while pupils and school staff can attend schools daily. One constituent told me that their young person would be better off flying from Shetland to their mainland university for a day each week, rather than spending most of the time isolated, away from home, struggling and learning online in small and expensive student accommodation. We do not want to see high drop-out rates in education as another consequence of the crisis. We need everyone contributing to the recovery from the pandemic. I wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons. I call John Mason, the first speaker in the open debate, to be followed by Liz Smith. As a member of the Covid committee in both the previous and the present sessions, it has been interesting to see how things have changed. The committee was keen to use today's debate to strengthen the links with other committees and to try to ensure that we are not overlapping with each other, nor are we leaving gaps that someone should be covering. Covid's impact has been so wide-ranging that economy, education and many other committees probably all of the committees have some kind of angle on it. I am keen to see Parliament functioning well and having a joined-up approach as much as we can. One of the challenges for the committee has been in deciding exactly what its role is and what its focus should be. It was clear for the previous committee, as things were changing so dramatically from week to week, that almost all we had to do was react to that. However, now that things have settled a bit and seem to be gradually improving, it is all a bit less clear. I think that we need to accept that in some sectors at least full recovery is going to take quite some time. Older people who might have travelled overseas as tourists, including both to Scotland and from Scotland, might well be wary for some time of making such trips, and that will impact the tourist sector. Most obviously, the NHS cannot possibly get waiting times back to normal anytime soon or the justice system with its waiting times that we heard about. I accept that it is hard to hear for many waiting for a hip replacement or similar non-emergency procedures, but I do not think that there is really any quick way around that. Moving on to more specific issues, we face a number of challenges going into the winter, but one that concerns me is the number of people who are still not getting their vaccinations and also those who are arguing against either the existence of Covid or the vaccines as the main way of tackling it. I accept that overall vaccination rates are very good and stand comparison with most other countries, and I certainly do not want to see vaccination made mandatory. However, we do see a reluctance or a hesitancy in certain quarters to get vaccinated and especially among some ethnic minorities and also in poor areas. Younger men in a constituency like mine have always been hard to reach by the health services, and I do not have an easy answer to that, so the committee will be focusing on some of that next Thursday. More serious are those who, for whatever reason, spread misinformation and downright false statements about Covid and the vaccines. That is perhaps seen most clearly on social media, but I have to say that I do not entirely blame social media for that. Twitter, Facebook, etc. have been extremely useful for all of us and for the health services in communicating with the public. However, let us also remember that we all as MSPs have a role to play in supporting and building trust in our health services. Of course, we need to be asking questions of Government and others as to how the pandemic is being handled. Mistakes will inevitably be made, and it is right that those are explored and learned from, but we all need to be careful not to undermine the tremendous work that our doctors, nurses and other health staff are doing. Looking further forward, there is still a lot that we do not know about. Over time, will most office workers return to their offices? If they do, will it be for full time or just some of the time? We are not yet sure of those answers to those questions, but they will hugely impact on our town and city centres and how our public transport will react if there are no longer the peak time rushes that there used to be. Finally, to some of those who have supported both the previous and the current Covid committees, in particular, being able to regularly question people like Gregor Smyth, Jason Leitch, Linda Bald and Helen Stagg, to name but four, has been both a great opportunity and a great privilege. I focus my remarks very much on the most recent comments that have been made by the business community, building on exactly what they told us five or six weeks ago when we had our last Covid debate in this chamber. They are very much still of the view that, whilst minimising the Covid threat, absolutely has to be the priority, especially with the dangerous new Omicron variant. The second priority must be about developing our ability to secure a strong economic recovery, one that is sustainable not just for the short term but for the years ahead. That economic growth is absolutely critical not just for jobs and investment and tax revenues but to encourage a greater economic optimism that we also desperately need. What is it that business is asking for, whether that is the chambers of commerce or the CBI, the Scottish Retail Consortium FSB, as they face up to the on-going pandemic to supply chain issues, to the increased cost of living and national insurance increases? First and foremost, they are very much talking about making their businesses secure for the future. The Federation of Small Businesses, and of course it is Small Business Saturday this weekend, is very clear that to complement the existing measures that have been agreed by this Parliament, we also need a package of discrete measures to assist with the small business recovery. I have a great deal of sympathy with that because I think that small businesses are very much the bedrock of our economy and they have been very much at the heart of our local communities during the pandemic. I know that that is something that the Deputy First Minister recognises in his own constituency and Richard Leonard referred to it in his own remarks this afternoon. It is why the Scottish chambers of commerce have been so strong about the need to revitalise our towns and cities, not just in the short term with measures such as extending the business rates relief and the small business bonus system but longer measures too. The Scottish Government should be credited with some generosity in its approach over the last financial year in permitting some business rates relief, and I hope that that is something that will be true in next week's budget as well. Business is keen to remind us that the short term measures, although they are very helpful, will not be nearly enough. The chambers of commerce and CBI want to see reform of non-domestic rates system and a planning system and the SRC wants reform of the commercial property market. Of course, it is absolutely essential that Scotland is not at any competitive tax disadvantage with anywhere else, including England. I also think that it is very noticeable about how much business is focusing on upskilling and training and building an effective digital infrastructure. We know that unemployment has not risen quite in the way that we were once expecting, and we also know that job vacancies are higher than expected, which clearly tells us that there are some mismatches of skills within the economy and perhaps a lack of flexibility within the labour force. It would be very helpful if the Scottish Government could spell out exactly what it is going to do to address some of those labour issues just as quickly as possible. However, the critical issue relates to the provision of greater certainty and stability. I think that those are the words that Kate Forbes used herself when it comes to economic policymaking, to a much more coherent and holistic approach to that policymaking and ensuring that Scotland remains fully competitive with other economies. They want a Scottish Government that fully engages with them, not just one that gives them a quick phone call to tell them that there will be some new regulations coming out in a few days time. They want a Scottish Government that brings a clarity of purpose to both business support and planning ahead, and a Government that provides clear supporting evidence to underpin the decisions that it is making, because those decisions are absolutely crucial if we are going to have public trust in the way forward from Covid. That is something, as we know, that there has been a great deal of confusion and contradiction at times, so I think that that clarity of purpose is vital. Next week's budget, of course, is an opportunity. I look forward to responding to that budget statement and to the engagement process between stages 1 and 3 after Christmas. Thank you, Ms Smith. I now call on Paul MacLennan, who will be followed by Pam Duncan-Glancy for minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. We face our second winter and our second Christmas in having to deal with Covid. Everyone is tired of the impact personally, but also an impact that is having on our local and national services. The discovery of the Omicron variant is worrying, and it will be a few weeks before we discover the full impact. We all have to play our part in keeping the virus under control. As the First Minister indicated on Tuesday, the vaccine programme is our best line of defence. We all need to play our part in our own constituencies to ensure that as many people as possible get vaccinated. We heard this morning that our booster programme is the best performing in the UK. Lartral flow testing needs to be a regular occurrence for us all, not only when we go out to events and socialise, but also on a regular basis outwith. Only yesterday, we have seen a poll by Ipsis Moray showing that 84 per cent of people asked to held a favourable opinion of the Scottish Government's handling of the pandemic. The message is clearly working about the vaccine booster programme and adherence to rules and regulations. Covid, prior to the vaccine, had a very telling impact in a number of ways and across all sectors of life in Scotland and, of course, in my constituency in Yslodion. In retail, many of our high streets were closed for months on end. That did not only impact on them but on the supply chain. In tourism, we have seen our highly successful tourist trade struggle as a visitor tap was turned off overnight. This week, I have met the aviation sector and with Mark Crothall from the Scottish Tourism Alliance. Both sectors are recovering, but they need their pipeline of visitors to build up for summer 2022. Care for the most vulnerable, we have seen our community resilience teams working amazingly over the months during the pandemic. I know in my own constituency that they are ready to step up again, my thanks to volunteer centre Yslodion into the area of partnerships. I recently brought forward a member debate on mental health and Covid a few months ago, and Covid has exacerbated this issue, alongside highlighting other inequalities within our society. My office manager, Lyn Jardin, made a very good point in recent meetings with anti-poverty groups. We have often heard the phrase in discussions that some groups in society were difficult to reach. She pointed out that we should be talking about them about easy to ignore. We must continue to ensure that we reach out to all of our communities and no one is left behind. Of course, the most important issue facing us is to relieve pressures on our care and health services. On care, we have seen pressures on the sector. The sector was, of course, impacted by Brexit, as well as its hospitality, farming and logistics industries. The pool of available people has been reduced due to Brexit and has placed pressures on our care services. The recent GCVI announcement and boosters for all age groups will, of course, require resources in staff and buildings across East Lodian, Scotland and the UK. The vaccine programme in Scotland has saved an amazing estimated 27,000 lives. In East Lodian's share of the population, we are talking about over 500 people in East Lodian whose lives have been saved. We just have to look at the large increases in cases across Europe if vaccinations fall behind. The balance between staffing hospitals and vaccination booster centres is very difficult and very much a balancing act. The quicker we can reduce pressures on NHS nationally and the accreditional staff will return as quicker to our more sustainable delivery of services. Presiding Officer, in conclusion, every one of us in this building and everyone in Scotland must adhere to the guidelines now more than ever. Get the vaccine, wear masks, wash your hands and test regularly. We owe that to our retailers, our tourist sector, our voluntary sector and, most importantly, to our care and NHS workers. Thank you. I now call on Pam Duncan-Glancy. We follow by Willie Coffey in four minutes, Ms Duncan-Glancy. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. On Monday, the First Minister addressed the country and offered new advice on Covid-19. We are once again at a significant moment in the pandemic. In that update, the First Minister announced that the first cases of the new Omicron variant had been detected here in Scotland, including in Glasgow, where I represent. The First Minister told people in Scotland to redouble our efforts to suppress this virus. The same must be true for the Scottish Government. We must see prompt action, and that action must be taken with us all and the long-term in mind. We must avoid a situation in which people are left without the support that they need to live or the income that they need to get by. The pandemic and all that has come with it has had a disproportionately detrimental impact on women, unpaid carers, lame people, poorer people, older people and on disabled people. It has also had a disproportionate impact on the people in Glasgow. For those groups, things were already impossibly hard before the pandemic, but the pandemic has made things worse. I have made it my mission to be a voice for the people who have been left behind. Unpaid carers are one such group. They are terrified at what lies ahead. Families are having care packages cut as local authorities ask relatives to step up and step in where social care has been stopped and not yet reinstated. The social care system is not ready, prepared or resourced for another wave of Covid-19. As a result, it will be unpaid carers, predominantly women, who bear the brunt. They are already broken. We cannot continue to lock down social care services with no end in sight. We need an effective track and trace system, something that we have not really had here, to protect people from the virus and allow us to remobilise key services like social care. When I talk to carers, they feel abandoned, let down and forgotten. One unpaid carer said last week of the decision to live with Covid that unpaid carers had been, and I quote, sacrificed at the altar of economic growth. That has had a huge impact on disabled people's human rights too. Inclusion Scotland have said that it was not just the direct and catastrophic impact of the virus on disabled people that has been a concern, but in action turmoil and indifference to their lived experience has shut them out and left us behind. Too many decisions have been taken about those groups without them. I have said many times in the chamber that our recovery journey must not repeat those mistakes. We must take all of those groups with us, and that includes ensuring that decisions made as a result of the new variant and the need to double down on our efforts once more are made with the wellbeing of those that have been hardest hit in mind. That includes our financial wellbeing. The First Minister set out new guidance that should test and trace contact us, we must self-isolate, regardless of vaccination status. That marks a significant change in guidance. The difference facing us now is that we have no furlough and much of the support and protections have gone. We do, though, have the benefit of hindsight. We can learn from where we went wrong, perhaps understandably when things didn't work, and we can support those who were left behind through this uncertain moment. That starts by ensuring that anyone who needs to self-isolate is able to, without fear, of losing out on income. Affordability must not be a barrier to isolation. That is why, this week, I have written to the Scottish Government to ask it to update eligibility for the self-isolation support grant to include people who are advised by NHS tracking trace to self-isolate not only those who are just unvaccinated. That is merely reverting to previous guidance. There cannot be additional restrictions without additional resources. The public are doing all they can to protect themselves and each other, and the Government must do the same and ensure that everyone, regardless of their income, is able to safely follow the First Minister's guidance without putting themselves at risk of ill health or hardship. We cannot force people to choose between paying their bills or surviving the virus. There is much that we still do not know about the virus, but we have known from very early on that it does not discriminate against who it infects, and that, without proper support, the impacts are disproportionately felt by those who were already facing significant disadvantage. So, Deputy Presiding Officer, I hope that the Government will consider seriously my proposal and give people confidence in the new guidance and that they will reflect carefully on those who have lost the most this year. Learn from that, listen to them, and take action to protect us all. Thank you. I now call on Willie Coffey to be followed by Gillian Mackay in four minutes, Mr Coffey. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. First of all, I would like to place her in record my thanks to the Covid committee convened by my colleague Siobhan Brown and to all the committee conveners for their contributions today. All have made some really important contributions to our understanding of how the public we serve are feeling about the current situation. I was privileged, too, to serve on the committee in the last session very ably chaired by Mr Cameron when it was established pretty much as an emergency committee to consider the changes and regulations brought in to try to cope with and thwart the virus as it spread throughout the country. We have come through the early lockdown and the various levels of restrictions in different parts of Scotland, the emergence of and the life-saving impact of the vaccine and the gradual reopening of the economy, if I can put it like that. Yet Covid is very much still here. In the three full months since September, we have seen over 270,000 new positive cases in Scotland. That is 37 per cent of the entire case numbers, Presiding Officer. And we have seen just under 1,500 deaths. That is 14 per cent of all the deaths, Presiding Officer. That is just in the last three months. If there is anything that we should learn about the virus, it must surely be that it will find a way to mutate and keep spreading. And that, Presiding Officer and colleagues, is why we need to try to keep a step ahead of it, to rely on science, on the advice from our experts and to take the measures that we think will protect our population, save lives and help our NHS not to become overrun. I think back to the start of the pandemic and the tragic scenes that we must all surely remember that came from Italy, with large numbers of people dying, communities in fear and in isolation, people singing from balconies to try and recover some kind of community spirit, and the heartbreak of losing family members without being able to see them. I recall then looking at Italy's figures at that time and thinking that this could kill 500 people in Scotland. And I also recall someone writing, this is what's coming our way next and come it did. Now look where we are. We've lost nearly 10,000 people directly to the virus and it would have been so much more, possibly 27,000 more without the vaccine and without those baseline protection measures we have had to put in place to protect people as best we can. Make no mistake, though, we are still in a battle to save lives. The virus hasn't gone and it's still killing people every day in Scotland and all over the world. Sadly, yesterday, Presiding Officer, we lost another 27 people to this dreadful virus. The Covid committee is right to be looking at how we prepare for winter and to look ahead at what our priorities for recovery should look like. Yes, there are deliberating on issues about how to have effective ventilation and CO2 monitors in our schools, our offices, our homes and businesses in the middle of a Scottish winter and we have heard some of that debate today. It was really good also to hear the testimony from the members of the youth parliament about their thoughts and their concerns so please keep taking that evidence as you carry on your work. Presiding Officer, I think we owe the Covid committee and the various experts who offer their advice and the parliamentary staff who support it a huge debt of gratitude for the vital work that they are all carrying out on our behalf. We are also doing what we can to on our committees. As we move into winter and grapple with the new Omicron variant, I sincerely hope that the members of this Parliament can come together in the main to agree on how best to promote the public health measures that are needed to save lives. We didn't drop our guard, Presiding Officer. Far too many lives still depend on us getting this right. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Coffey. I now call Gillian Mackay, who will be followed by Craig Hoy. Four minutes, Ms Mackay. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate and I want to focus my remarks on how we can help public health recover from the pandemic. The Omicron variant is a painful reminder that we are not out of the woods yet and that Covid-19 is still a very real threat. The Greens have been clear that we need to take a precautionary approach and ensure that a range of mitigations and health protections is in place, including a robust test and trace system, asymptomatic testing and PCR testing for international travellers. It's indisputable that the pandemic has had severe and serious pressures on all areas of health and social care, and I would once again like to put my thanks on record to all those who have worked so hard during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, Scotland was known for its poor public health. The sick man of Europe, Monica, has been hard to shake. I have said before that I would like to see this Parliament be the public health Parliament and that we need a renewed focus on improving people's standard of living and tackling non-communicable diseases. We should be building on people's increased awareness of their health that has arisen from the pandemic. We know that inequality is a main driver of poor health and, as we have heard, current costs of living rises have put a real squeeze on incomes. Everyone has the right to an adequate income to live on, and the Greens have long supported a universal basic income. At the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, we heard from Professor Sir Harry Burns and others the positive impact that this could have on health and wellbeing. Although our preference would be for a UBI, I am pleased to see that work on a minimum income guarantee is under way and I look forward to monitoring progress. We saw during the pandemic that emissions fell significantly along certain routes as we took less car journeys. Many of those routes are seeing a return to normal and those living, working and playing along them are again being subjected to a higher level of pollution. As part of recovery and in improving health, we need to tackle environmental harm such as air pollution as well as health harming products. We know that more people have been drinking at home during the pandemic and this is contributing to more alcohol-related deaths. Those were up 17 per cent in 2020. We need to address the ubiquity of alcohol. Why, when we are constantly told of the health benefits of sport and rightly so, do we allow alcohol brands to sponsor sporting events? Seems counterproductive to say the least, particularly when combining the fact that more people have engaged with sport at home where we know more drinking has been taking place. There are also impacts that this has on children in households. I have expressed my support for the upracing of minimum unit pricing. This policy was bold when it was introduced but, in order for it to continue to have an impact, we must ensure that it keeps up with inflation. I would also like to see mandatory unit calorie and ingredient labelling and prominent health warnings on alcohol products so that people can be better informed about what they are consuming. We put calories and ingredient labels on food and other drinks and we need to ensure that alcohol is not the exception to the rule. I would now like to turn to mental health. We know the impact the pandemic has had on mental wellbeing. The Greens are clear that everyone should have access to the support and treatment that is right for them, whether that be medication, counselling, social prescribing or inpatient treatment. We want to see treatment options diversified particularly in the community. People should be able to access services through their DPs or, for example, we also need to make better use of social prescribing. Clinicians' time to engage with social prescribing was limited before the pandemic and, as we know, health services are under more pressure than ever. Provision of social prescribing can also be patchy. Alongside an expansion in provision, I would also like to see it made easier for clinicians and other professionals to sign post-patients to resources and for patients to self-refer. Community mental health link workers will hopefully play an important part in that. To conclude, Presiding Officer, while we deal with the on-going impact of the pandemic, it is never too early to set out our positive vision for Scotland. Now is the time to implement bold radical policies to improve Scotland's public health now and for generations to come. Thank you very much indeed. Ms Mackay, before I call our final speaker, I just remind members that anybody who has participated in the debate would need to be in the chamber for closing speeches. With that, I call Craig Hoy for around four minutes, Mr Hoy. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As members that serve on all committees of this Parliament will know, there is no doubt that Covid put a massive strain on our public services. This Parliament and the UK Parliament passed sweeping new laws giving local authorities, health boards, the courts, public agencies, emergency powers to respond to the pandemic. That allowed them to act quickly in the eye of the storm, often with little or no consultation. But that is not an approach that any democratically elected representatives should be comfortable with. Deputy Presiding Officer, I want to touch on two issues both relevant to my constituents in South Scotland and both in East Lothian. Both show the risks and the damage that can be done when public authorities act with little or no consultation. The first concerns the future of the Edington hospital in North Berwick and it is something that I do hope that the health committee might look into. Deputy Presiding Officer, the Edington cottage hospital is a valuable local resource. It has nine beds for respite and palliative care and a minor injuries clinic. But it was closed, albeit temporarily, by NHS Lothian in September with no consultation. No consultation with GPs. No consultation with local residents. No consultation even with the friends of the Edington hospital. The decision was taken by NHS Lothian and the East Lothian Health and Social Care partnership under emergency gold command powers. The health board says the move was taken to ease pressures caused by high levels of absence due to sickness and self-isolation because of Covid. But Deputy Presiding Officer, we know that patients do better when they are in their own communities which is why local health services are so important. That is why 97 per cent of the 1,929 residents who participated in a recent survey that I conducted said that they wanted the hospital reopened. And I raise this now, Deputy Presiding Officer, because NHS Lothian will review the future of the Edington hospital next week. But so far, engagement levels have been poor. Poor by the local health authorities but also poor by the Government at a recent meeting, Paul MacLennan MSP said that the Cabinet Secretary for Health had agreed to meet with local campaigners. But, as of just a few moments ago, the chairman of the community council was still waiting for a reply to that request for a meeting. So I do hope that Mr MacLennan has not either over promised or that Humza Yousaf is going to under deliver for what I will take an intervention. Paul MacLennan. Yeah, just in form Mr Roy, there has been an email sent to the community council this afternoon offering dates. And so just to advise that. So I'm quite happy to forward that on to him. But there has been a request sent to the community council asking for feedback on dates. So that's been sent this afternoon. Craig Hoyan, I can give you the time back. Super, I've just been in touch with the chairman of the community council who's pointed out that there are just four working days until the decision will be taken on the hospital. And at that point she hadn't heard anything. But I very much welcome the fact that the minister is going to reach out. In fact, there is a meeting at 6pm tonight and I have the zoom link and I would be very happy to forward it via the Deputy First Minister to the cabinet secretary for health. The second issue of concern locally concerns the X5 bus. Again, an issue that was a development that took place with very little or no consultation. In early October, my office contacted East Coast buses who issued a standard response outlining the reasons for continued withdrawal of the X5 service. Those included challenges with recruitment, the need to prioritise key services and the focus on delivering the 124 service. I recognise those challenges but I also recognise that they apply across all routes, across the whole of the Lothians and are not confined to the X5 route. So I do hope that East Lothian buses will engage further both with myself and local MSPs and also local communities. Deputy Presiding Officer, both those cases reveal the real risks of using emergency powers long-term. I do hope that once we emerge from Covid that this is something that committees of this Parliament look into to ensure that local communities voices are heard even during emergency situations. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Mr Hoy. We now move to closing speeches and I call Michael Marra for a generous four minutes, Mr Marra. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It's a very welcome debate today and I have to say trying to sum it up in the huge scope of the variety of issues is a challenge in itself. But it's a very small challenge in comparison to the many challenges that we've heard of today from all these speeches that the whole of this country faces. I was struck early on in the debate by Gillian Martin's continued use of the phrase as we look towards recovery. And I have to say it feels, I think, for many of us this week in particular, like a distant horizon, given the advent of the Omicron variant and the challenges that we can anticipate, that we still hope that what can be avoided and, God willing, if the results of current research into that strain come back in a more positive vein, then perhaps some of the plans that we've been talking about today may be more possible in the near future. John Mason talked about the challenge of balancing recovery versus management, almost the idea of trying to balance those two competing topics, both in this Parliament and the functions of government, a question, I suppose, of what we are trying to do. And, of course, the answer to that is both. But it's a particularly pressing challenge both for the Government to be able to manage because we're absolutely clear that the scale of the present challenge across Scotland and our public services and our households and our communities that people are continuing to face. I think Jackie Baillie was incredibly eloquent, as usual, very grounded in the reality in our NHS and our social care services that people face. Beatrice Wishart spoke about universities and the challenges that they are facing, but whether it be constituents having to travel and the challenges of online learning and that people face and are willing, our hope, to see those universities open up more broadly. And Pam Duncan Glancy talked about the challenge of disabled Scots, the absence of their respite services that Justin Glasgow described but also in my home city of Dundee where respite services have not been reactivated, have not been part of the remobilisation and the huge challenges that that presents for people across Scotland and the families who are often the most hard pushed. So when we talk about the scale of that challenge now and that we can also think about the huge disruption that we know is going to leave a very long legacy in Scotland that we are going to have to collectively come together and try and manage. And I thought actually the description of the challenges and the justice system that Audrey Nicholl brought out, the huge backlog in number of cases from I think her figures were 1,330 to over 3,000. Now those are staggering figures and she was right to highlight that behind every single one of those cases is a family, who are family of a victim and people who are seeking justice in some form of resolution that allow them to move on with their lives. I've dealt with constituents have been waiting for years already and yes Covid has come to them as yet another barrier and to having the emotional resolution that they hope for and it's right that that committee has taken very close views of that. I didn't hear much in terms of what the solutions to that might be and I have to say in recent years the closure of local courts across Scotland removing capacity from our local communities to deal with those situations. I think has contributed to some of that backlog and we do need to have a concerted effort for government to see what can happen to do much about that. We talked about the education situation. There were some highlights of the education challenges that we face in this country and I have huge concerns about the Covid cohort of young people coming through our schools particularly those in transition going into primary school going to secondary school or leaving secondary school who are without the familiarisation of their new environments or struggling to adapt to that trade unions are coming to me saying we need to have a programme to address those needs and urgently and there is little evidence that that is the case. I close by talking about I think Mr Swinney's focus on the issue of inequality and saying that that's to be at the heart of our recovery process. I have to say I'll believe it when I see it. I'm afraid. I've tried to be consensual on this but this is during this pandemic an election where Mr Swinney's party stood on a manifesto of regressive taxation and they have not been allies to those of us who have argued for our fair society in terms of their approach to taxation and how we might use the resources of this country to create a more equal society. So it will be judged in the first terms in the next week in terms of what is done on the pay for carers meeting the £15 demand and that can be the first step that can be put in place to ensure that we begin to actually build out of this give people respect and realise some of the warm words but instead of the cold comfort that we have seen from this Government in recent times. Thank you very much Mr Marra. I now call on Brian Whittle for again a generous four minutes Mr Whittle. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm delighted to be closing this debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. I think I would start by saying that in committee I've always tried to remember that we are called the Covid recovery committee and that we need to start looking beyond the current pandemic with an eye on how we enable society to recover where it needs to recover and to get back to a more normal pattern of life. In our private briefing this morning I was suggesting to our advisers that the emergence of the Omicron variant was something that was predicted in a way that most viruses will mutate and that this pattern would probably continually be repeated as we move forward. That the battleground would be in science and medicine to make sure that vaccinations and treatments stay ahead of these mutations. However it became apparent that the Omicron variant matches a worst-case scenario previously modelled by medical science. That of course gives Governments the issue of balancing their response to this Covid strain while medical science investigates the Omicron strain against transmission rates, against serious illness potential and the impact that will have on the NHS and vaccine effectiveness. During this debate the education was raised several times. Beatrice Wishers spoke about this in her speech and Governments must consider how school pupils can recover their education and, despite the huge efforts from teachers with the best will in the world, online learning is unlikely to be as effective as face-to-face learning both academically and socially. That can be demonstrated starkly in the rise of poor mental health with one teacher telling me that one out of 10 pupils has been referred for mental health issues. As an aside, when considering mental health I think that there's a need to protect our outdoor learning sector and that is Parliament, we cannot afford to lose this educational tool. I would ask that the Scottish Government support this sector. School heads are desperate to use outdoor learning but insurance costs are now prohibitive, as Liz Smith and I heard just yesterday. In John Mason's contribution he discussed how we balance the challenges and in health I have asked the Deputy First Minister and Professor Lee several times about the balance between Covid prevention steps and treatment against the rising issue of non-Covid-related conditions. Cancer identification or chronic pain as well as many other conditions will have a mortality attached to them. The current national death rate is sitting at about 12% of what is expected much of which is not as a result of a Covid diagnosis. That is a dilemma and I fully recognise the Government that the Government faces. That pull between treating Covid against non-Covid conditions. However, I think that it is incumbent on the Scottish Government to collect the data as Sandesh Gulhani recognised in his speech that we collect that data on as many conditions as possible and that would undoubtedly help to map the journey ahead and prepare us for what may be coming. As an example, I would highlight the need to collect data around what stage cancer is being diagnosed at compared to pre-Covid. That would afford crucial work post-planning and give our NHS an indication of where resource will be needed going forward. I am focusing on recovery post-Covid, if you like, although the truth is it is unlikely that there will ever be a true post-Covid period. I asked Professor Leitch his estimate for when normality would return and he suggested next spring for the UK and five years globally and I am sure that will already be revised. Focusing on recovery, I recognise the real and present danger that Governments face right now in tackling Covid. However, we must recover. The current scenario must move on. It cannot continue indefinitely, especially if we are to continue to take the public with us. I ask of the Scottish Government as, while working to tackle Covid, they are always aware of non-Covid health issues, educational recovery, economic recovery and have a route map out of the worst of Covid. In the end, we have to believe that vaccines and medical interventions will deliver our pathway out of Covid. What happens next must be planned for, Deputy Presiding Officer. Thank you very much, Mr Whittle. I now call on the Deputy First Minister to close for around six minutes, generous six minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This debate has been initiated by the Covid-19 Committee and it has been my privilege since the election to appear regularly before the Covid-19 Committee. I did so on some occasions prior to the election as well. I do agree with the comments made by Willie Coffey, to which I will come back to some further comments that Mr Coffey made in a moment about the role of the committee. It is a committee that I think offers generally a thoughtful place to reflect on the difficult dilemmas that are at the heart of handling the Covid-19 pandemic. I would say generally a thoughtful place. Sometimes some members of the committee just cannot help themselves, but I, as always, am on my best behaviour in those situations. One of the points that Mr Coffey made, which I think is important in his reflections on the work of the committee, what he has learnt from the expert opinion that the committee has heard from many, many sources, is the importance of not lowering our guard to Covid at any particular stage. I think that those are particularly wise words for us to reflect on in this debate, because at different stages over the last 18 months or so, there have been moments where we could have felt incredibly optimistic about what was the situation that lay ahead of us, only to find a development that comes along to challenge us. Indeed, if I think back to just last week, a week past Tuesday, the Cabinet, in its assessment of the pandemic, took a fundamentally optimistic view of where we were, reflected that in the statement that was made to Parliament that afternoon by the First Minister and by Thursday afternoon we were dealing with the hard realities of Omicron and what that can do to drive the path of the virus. So I think that Mr Coffey puts on the record some really important words about not lowering our guard at any stage. The other point that is central to the work of the Covid Committee is that it airs the dilemmas that lie at the heart of handling Covid. The committee will have heard from me, as Parliament has heard from me on many occasions about the development of the four harms framework that we developed last summer, in the summer of 2020. We did so because we had taken dramatic action to lock down our society and economy in March 2020 for everything other than essential purposes. We had to have a means of establishing what was the safest route out of that and how we could navigate a way through that. And hence the creation of the four harms framework which acknowledged the relationship that exists between the direct health harm of Covid, the non-Covid health harms in our society, the economic and the social harm that can be created. And Mr Whittle has regularly revisited the questions about non-Covid health harms. Indeed, we rehearsed some of those questions again this morning at committee. And these are honest and difficult dilemmas to try to resolve because if I share with Parliament one illustration that I was making to the committee this morning, one body of opinion can pressurise us to speed up the vaccination programme which could involve taking staff out of elective care to go into the vaccination programme whilst another body of opinion is quite legitimately saying can we have more elective care? And these are the dilemmas that we have to honestly air. Indeed, we heard some of those dilemmas in the debate today. Pam Duncan-Glancy talked about the fact that carers feel sacrificed at the altar of economic growth. Liz Smith was arguing for us to get on with delivering the economic growth. So these are some of the dilemmas that have to be wrestled with at the heart of the way in which we navigate our recovery from Covid. Because what Liz Smith put into the debate was the aspirations of the business community to yes minimise the impact of the virus but also secure recovery and growth. And I suppose I agree with both of those points. Where we won't probably be able to agree with everything the business community wants is that we want to do the same volume on each of those particular themes. Because fundamentally for me as a minister I have to make sure that the public are protected from the impact of Covid to enable us to then move on to economic growth. Pam Duncan-Glancy's point I think drew out some of the fact that we can try to make progress on the recovery of our society but that risks in her words seem to carers that they perhaps are not as do not carry as or their interests do not carry us as much weight as they move towards delivering economic recovery of course. Pam Duncan-Glancy Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer and thank you for taking the intervention. I think the point that was being made by the unpaid carers last week was not only that they weren't involved in discussions which I think is one that we shouldn't lose but it was also that so much seems to be open yet health and social care services are continuing to remain locked down and the impact that that has on them is that they are providing unpaid care and support to family members at a time when social care services are not back up and running in the way the other areas of the economy or of the society are. I think that that's the the point that they were making at that. Deputy First Minister I can give you the time back up. Deputy First Minister Thank you, Presiding Officer. And that's an entirely reasonable and understandable point for unpaid carers to be made in that respect. I'm certain there'll be dialogue with unpaid carers organisations that is undertaken but I'll make sure that that is the case as a consequence of the issues that have been raised in Parliament today. There are of course a range of different tools that are available to us as a society to deal with the challenges of Covid to enable us to make progress on recovering our society and us in meeting the challenge of not lowering our guard. That involves us all participating in the baseline measures around hand hygiene, around cough etiquette, around physical distancing. It involves the use and maximisation of the vaccination programme, which is an incredibly successful programme delivered by hardworking people on the ground with enormous levels, leading levels of vaccination levels within the United Kingdom on every single possible permutation of the vaccination programme. So there's a huge amount to be confident about the resilience that we have in place. One of the other tools that would be helpful to have is financial flexibility. Pam Duncan-Glancy made the point that there should be financial support that would be available in the absence of furlough. That's precisely why the First Minister wrote to the Prime Minister in the aftermath, along with the First Minister of Wales in the aftermath of Omicron, to indicate the need for us to have that sufficient financial flexibility to tackle those issues. Pam Duncan-Glancy. Thank you. I'll be brief. I also think that I mentioned the letter that I've written to the Government asking if you would review the criteria for self-isolation support grants so that money is available to people if they need to self-isolate and change it to account for the new guidance on the Omicron variant. Deputy First Minister, if you could begin to... I will do, Presiding Officer. We'll certainly consider carefully those issues. The issues of self-isolation grants support are absolute material to ensure that people who are not in a financially strong position are able to fully comply with the arrangements on self-isolation and, of course, that is material to interrupting the spread of the virus. Pam Duncan-Glancy is absolutely right. That is a tool that we must ensure is effective in interrupting the spread of the virus should that be the case. Lastly, Presiding Officer, let me conclude with just some remarks about the Covid recovery strategy because I am very pleased that the Government has agreed that right at the heart of the Covid recovery strategy must be the tackling of inequality. Mr Marra will know that he and I part company on the rhetoric that he adds into the debate here. The big first test of the commitment to take measures on child poverty will be whether Labour decide to support the Government in doubling the child payment from April of next year. That will be the big test of the budget. That will see. We'll see. We'll wait and see whether there's any rhetoric that we get out of the Labour Party about that question. We'll just wait and see what comes there. Because if the Labour Party decides in the spring of next year that it's going to find another excuse not to vote for the Government's budget and it's not going to support the doubling the child payment, that will say to all the children and families around our country who live on a world of child poverty that the Labour Party is more interested in playing political rhetoric than they are in putting in place the practical solutions to the tackling of poverty. And, of course, this Government will have no truck with that because this Government is prepared to put its money where its mouth is to tackle child poverty and will see if the Labour Party is with us or not. Thank you very much, Tewdy First Minister. I now call on Murdo Fraser to wind up the debate on behalf of the Covid-19 recovery committee and again a generous seven minutes, Mr Fraser. Thank you, Deputy President of House Splendid's generous seven minutes. Look forward to that. So, I'm delighted to close this debate as deputy convener of the Covid-19 recovery committee and I thank all the members who contributed and I listened to all the contributions with great interest and in particular heard from all the other committees about the work that is being done in relation to Covid-19 scrutiny in committees other than our own. And that's really important. During our inquiry into the baseline health protection measures it's been really helpful to hear from those working in health and social care services in hospitality business and leisure sectors in schools and a whole range of different environments on how they've been affected by the measures put in place and how they've sought to adapt. Unlike the committee, I've been struck how effective some relatively simple measures can be in reducing the spread of the virus. And I hope that our evidence sessions and the debate today will help to highlight those measures. As politicians we all have strong opinions and differing views as to what baseline health protection measures the Scottish Government should put into place. There's no secret, for example, that some of us have different views on the place of vaccine passports. But in the main, I think that this debate has been free of much party political division. Well, with the exception of the deputy first minister it did his best to wind up with the debate just a few minutes ago. Willie Coffey I thought made some very important points in his contribution about the challenge that faces us because it is a unique public health challenge that the country faces. And it's right that everybody tries to work together in so far as we can to face these challenges. And although we will disagree at times on the approach that's taken in fact, in most cases, there is more that unites us than divides us. So I'd like to respond to a few of the points that members made during the debate. We heard from a succession of committee conveners. I don't know what the collective term for committee conveners is. Deputy Presiding Officer, perhaps it's a cacophony of conveners, but we heard from many of them. And it's interesting that there were a number of common themes. So a number of members spoke about the issue of health. Gillian Martin highlighted in particular issues around workforce in health and social care who are under unprecedented strain. In our committee we heard a few weeks ago from Donald McCaskill from Scottish Care who was talking about the issues in social care and how the big problem in social care right now are experienced care workers leaving the care service because of paying conditions. And that is an issue that clearly needs to be addressed. Sandesh Ghulhani talked about the issue of innovation in medical care and the opportunity that provides how we can perhaps learn from some of the things that have been done over the past year that are done differently and how we can build on that in the future. And a number of members talked about the vaccination programme Jackie Baillie raised concerns about the vaccination programme which we of course were discussing in our committee this morning. And Beatrice Wishart highlighted the importance of vaccines. And a number of members Richard Leonard, Paul MacLennan and Gillian Mackay talked about the issue of mental health which is too often forgotten. And how we've seen this concern about a rise in mental health which is perhaps exacerbated by lockdown restrictions, isolation and in particular the impact that this has on young people and how that leads us to consider the issue of funding for CAMHS. And then we had a number of members who spoke about the economy. Finlay Carson, Claire Baker and Kenneth Gibson, all those committee conveners raised these issues highlighting the need for on-going business support. Liz Smith talked about the upcoming budget and what might be done in that in terms of on-going rates relief for sectors which have been hard hit. And Claire Baker made a really important point about debt because a lot of businesses have built up substantial debt over the past two years. And that's a real challenge because we need businesses to be able to invest and move on to help deliver our ambitions for net zero and that's going to be really difficult for them if they're already carrying substantial levels of debt already from the experience they've had over the past 18 months. Finlay Carson talked about the impact on rural communities. I think one of the really interesting things we're saying is changes in working patterns driving population shifts out of cities. So we know there are people who previously had to work in a city centre perhaps five days a week. Now perhaps I've shifted to a working pattern where they're expected to be in the office maybe one or two days a week. And that means they no longer need to live in daily commuting distance of a city centre. So I know of several families who've moved out of Edinburgh into Fife, into Persia, into West Lothian because they can afford to buy a nicer house in a nice community setting because they don't anymore have to make that daily commute into Edinburgh. And of course if that is something which we want to encourage and I think has a positive for many rural communities then that needs improved connectivity it needs good transport links it needs good broadband and it also needs as Finlay Carson said improved rural services such as access to GP practices for example. And I think that that's all going to be really significant as we look at the way the economy's going to develop in the years ahead and Craig Hoyne his contribution picked up some local issues that were impacting on the people he represents that arise directly from that. We also see a very significant role for local government in terms of Covid recovery and Ariane Burgess referred to that in her contribution and referenced some really important points about the need for finance for local government and the need for certainty to be able to plan ahead and the need in particular for multi-year budgeting and we look forward to the Scottish Government's budget next week when we'll hear how the finance secretary will respond to some of these points. And Richard Leonard and Pam Duncan-Glancy both talked about the issue of communities and tackling inequality and how that's been really that will be really important as we move forward and rebuild society in the wake of what's happened in Covid. And then Audrey Nicholl talked about another aspect of public services which is justice and highlighted the impact that's been on that public service three and a half thousand delayed trials the prison population up substantially with many more prisoners on remand and the impact that has and the enormous emotional impact on the victims of crime and those who are waiting to give evidence as witnesses and especially what that means for those who are victims of crimes like domestic abuse or sexual offences and clearly there's a major social impact there. And finally we talked a bit about what's happening in schools Richard Leonard referred to this too the long-term impacts that the pandemic has had on pupils learning especially for those from deprived areas and those with additional support needs and the negative impact the pandemic has on attempts to close the attainment gap. So nearly at the end of my time Presiding Officer just to close I think we can agree that as we move into the winter we now face this new unexpected challenge which is the Omicron variant and we don't know at this stage exactly what that has in store for us we don't know how serious it's going to be but it's right we take a precautionary approach as Governments across the United Kingdom are doing and that means all of us adhering to the current baseline protection health measures that are at the heart of the work the committee has been doing. So let me finish Presiding Officer by echoing the convener's words we owe it to the people of Scotland to ensure there is strong parliamentary scrutiny of the measures proposed by the Scottish Government to respond to the pandemic and I think that today's debate has helped in hands about scrutiny. Thank you. Thank you Presiding Officer as a new member I seek your guidance during the debate that we just had I said that the Cabinet Secretary for Health who I see is now joined us had not yet been in contact with North Berwick community council in respect of the closure of the Ellington hospital in an exchange Mr MacLennan said that the cabinet secretary had in fact been in touch to set some dates immediately following that I received an email that was sent directly to the cabinet secretary for health from the chairman of the community council who says hi Humza I'm watching the live parliamentary meeting Craig Hoy MSP has stated that we are still awaiting a reply with a meeting date from yourself however Paul MacLennan MSP rebutted this by advising that meeting dates had been sent to me earlier this afternoon to confirm she says I've received no emails from yourself or your office with dates however we would very much welcome this at your earliest convenience perhaps now that the minister is here he might be able to say whether or not that meeting has in fact been meeting confirmation has in fact been issued and Presiding Officer if not could I just perhaps seek your guidance as to how I might correct the record if I believe that it may have been inadvertently inaccurate for clarity all members if you could take a seat at the moment Mr MacLennan please thank you all members are expected to be courteous and respectful in their conduct and this of course includes being accurate during proceedings and I would say to the chamber that while the point of order mechanism has been used to raise questions about the accuracy of contributions these are not in fact points of order members themselves members themselves are responsible for the accuracy for off their contributions and it is not a matter for the chair to rule on as noted earlier if a member believes that inaccurate information has been provided there are a number of mechanisms available for the record to be corrected some of these include seeking to make an intervention inviting the member to reflect on the accuracy of what has been said if timing doesn't allow this raise the matter in writing with the minister or member and if relevant pursue the point in written questions and follow-up questions or lodging motions for debate and in the event that a member does wish to make a correction to information they've provided in the course of proceedings there is a mechanism that enables them to do so I would now like to move on so that concludes point of order Michael Marra Thank you, Presiding Officer I rise to make a point of order in relation to section 1-3-C of the Scottish Ministerial Code noting your previous comments which sets out the importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament On 27 October the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport was addressing Parliament on ambitions for COP26 when I asked him how many times had he personally met the UK Government in support of the ACORN project for carbon capture in Aberdeenshire He informed the chamber that he had done so on at least two if not three occasions in the past month alone Information released through freedom of information of the cabinet secretary's diary however showed that no such engagements with the UK Government ever took place Despite the cabinet secretary calling the decision around carbon capture not coming to Aberdeenshire wholly illogical and that it will materially affect the businesses and communities in the north-east of Scotland sentiments which I share it seems there was no direct ministerial efforts or engagement to persuade the UK Government to invest in the technology in the north-east of Scotland Our country and my region needs a Scottish Government prepared to knock any door no matter how little they might like doing it to make the case for co-operation new projects and jobs in green industries I am inquiring, Presiding Officer what action you and the Parliament can take given this breach of the ministerial code I know that many members are aware I appreciate this may not be the case for all members but matters in relation to the ministerial code are not for standing orders and therefore are not for me to rule on such matters should be rightly addressed to the First Minister Mr MacLennan point of order Yeah thank you Presiding Officer not a point of order I think it raised just a minute If it is not a point of order Mr MacLennan not a point of order it was a point of order that was made by Mr Roy I think we're not Just to set the record straight he made an accusation Sorry Mr MacLennan Yeah we won't engage in a debate with regards to Mr Hoy's point I can quite happy to show him it his point of politics Now as I was going to say that concludes the debate on Covid-19 preparing for winter and priorities for recovery and it's now time to move on to the next item of business which is consideration of parliamentary bureau motion 2393 on approval of an SSI and I asked George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move the motion Moved, Presiding Officer The question on this motion will be put at decision time and there is one question to be put as a result of today's business and that question is the motion 2393 in the name of George Adam on approval of an SSI be agreed Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed that concludes decision time and I close this meeting