 The next item of business is a statement by John Swinney on Covid recovery strategy. The Cabinet Secretary will take questions at the end of his statement and there should be therefore no interruptions or interventions. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Statement for about 10 minutes, please. The coronavirus pandemic has had an enormous impact on every lives of the people of Scotland. As a nation, we came together to fight the pandemic. We made sacrifices to protect ourselves, to protect each other and to protect the national health service. The virus and the measures that we took to fight it changed every area of life, the way we work, socialise and do business. The action that we took and the success of the vaccination programme in mitigating some of the most serious harms of the virus means that we have been able since this summer to lift almost all of the restrictions that we were living under. While important protections remain in place and some new ones such as vaccine certification have been introduced, life has begun to feel a lot more normal. For many of us, that is a good thing, but not for all of us. The pandemic highlighted the inequalities in our society, those who could work from home and those who could not, those who for whom Covid was a milderness and those for whom it was life-changing or life-ending. While the past 18 months have not been easy for anyone, there are many for whom it has been much, much harder, in particular for people already coping with disadvantage. They were more likely to get seriously ill to be hospitalised and sadly die from Covid, and they are the hardest hit socially, educationally and economically due to the restrictions that was necessary to introduce in order to control the spread of the virus. We cannot go back to a life where some people, because of their income, health, disability, race or gender, are less secure and less able to protect themselves and their families from circumstances beyond their control. Our recovery must be about creating a fairer Scotland. It cannot be about going back to a way of living that for far too many people in Scotland was simply not good enough. That is why I am publishing today the Covid recovery strategy for a fairer future. This document has a laser focus on addressing those inequalities. Central to the strategy is our determination to build on the spirit of co-operation, urgency and flexibility that characterised our response to the pandemic. If our people are secure, if they have firm foundations, then our communities, businesses and society will be more resilient and will flourish. This strategy is neither the end of the story nor the whole of it. A vast amount of work has already been undertaken, notably the NHS recovery plan and the education recovery plan published today, and more will follow. It does not seek to provide the level of detail on recovery plans for individual public services, but it provides the overall principles that will guide them. The strategy has a clear vision to address the inequalities that are made worse by Covid, to make progress towards a wellbeing economy where our success is judged on more than GDP and to accelerate inclusive, person-centred public services. Throughout the pandemic and during the preparation of the strategy, the Government has been speaking to people in Scotland about what sort of recovery they want to see. People said that they wanted the recovery that achieves financial security for all, that supports health and wellbeing, that empowers communities in places, that addresses the harms caused by the pandemic, that recognises the value of time and social connections, that advances equality and strengthens rights, that starts from the individual and involves people in decision making, that is evidence-driven, that supports economic development and that is ambitious and transformational. We have listened to what people told us and what was shared through the Citizens' Assembly and with the social renewal advisory board. That ambition for a fairer Scotland is the heart of this strategy, and it lies behind the three outcomes that the strategy works towards, to establish financial security for low-income households, to enhance the wellbeing of children and young people and to create good green jobs and fair work. Those three outcomes are supported by an overarching ambition to rebuild public services, to learn the lessons of the pandemic where, because it mattered, boundaries were overcome and by necessity, all spheres of government and the third sector came together to deliver truly person-centred services. Overcoming boundaries were central to the approach that we took to homelessness during Covid. Pre-pandemic, Scotland had around 300 people sleeping rough or in shared dormitory-style accommodation. People who generally have poorer health and higher rates of complex problems than the general population and were therefore at greater risk of the virus and its devastating consequences. Through our partnership with local authorities and the third sector, rough sleeping was almost eradicated last year. Emergency accommodation was provided, along with daily hot meals and emergency food, and enhanced independent living support was given to young women, experiencing homelessness and who had experienced sexual assault. Having a fixed place to stay also gave access to a range of vital support services, primary care, mental health, advocacy, employment support and addiction services coming together to support individuals. That is just one example of how a collective national approach truly delivered person-centred service and it is exactly the type of approach our country needs in terms of recovery. Our renewed and enhanced partnership with local government and working collaboratively with the third sector and business are the foundations of this strategy. In it, we set out the steps that the Government will take to ensure financial security for low-income families, including rolling out the Scottish child payment to children under 16 by the end of next year and doubling it to £20 per week per child as quickly as possible within this Parliament, expanding funded early learning and childcare for children aged one and two, designing a wraparound childcare system to provide care before and after school and in the holidays where the least well-off families will pay nothing, reducing the costs of school with free breakfasts and lunches in primary school and the school uniform grant, as well as investing in employability support to get people into work. To improve the wellbeing of children and young people, the strategy includes commitments to investing at least £500 million over the life of this Parliament to create a whole family wellbeing fund, shifting to preventative interventions and creating holistic universal support services, investment in mental health support for children and young people and improving and scaling family support services. It details investment in important cultural and creative programmes such as System of Scotland and the Youth Music Initiative. It also outlines how we will address the opportunities that are lost to young people during the pandemic through the young person's guarantee, providing up to £70 million this year, so every person aged between 16 and 24 has the opportunity to study, to take up an apprenticeship, a job or work experience or to take part in formal volunteering. To support employment following the pandemic and Brexit, we will work to ensure that good green jobs are available, simplifying investment in skills and training to ensure that people have the support available throughout their lives, investing £200 million in adult upskilling and retraining opportunities, embedding fair work so that people have good jobs and also to increase productivity and enhancing a quality of opportunities so that everyone can access and progress in work. We will work with local authorities on a community wealth building plan to ensure that there are good local employment opportunities in every area. I am pleased to tell the chamber that the strategy has been agreed with the convention of Scottish local authorities and is supported by local government. Over the past 18 months, our response to Covid has been a shared endeavour, and so too must be our approach to recovery. Local government is at the heart of that, but delivering on the strategy requires focus and prioritisation. Learning from the successful programme management of the delivery of 1,140 hours early learning in childcare, the Scottish Government and COSLA will establish a Covid recovery programme board, which will be jointly chaired. This board will oversee the delivery of the strategy and ensure that focus is brought to this work over the coming 18 months. Partnership with local government is essential, but our collective endeavour for recovery will also involve community groups, charities and voluntary organisations and businesses large and small. There is no sector of Scottish life that does not have a part to play in the successful delivery of the strategy, and there is no sector that does not stand to gain from that success. The role of the third sector during the crisis was proven time and time again in the rapid help that it and thousands of volunteers provided to support communities. Collaboration happened across organisations and traditional boundaries. We must build upon that ability and strengthen the sector's capacity in our recovery. We know that economic recovery is central to the success of the strategy and we will continue to work in partnership with business organisations. We are urgently working with them to better understand the challenges that have been faced as a result of the labour market shortages and to develop a working with business action plan, which will focus on employability, skills and fair work to identify the actions that are necessary to mitigate the impact of labour shortages. Later this year, we will publish a new 10-year national strategy for economic transformation setting out plans for strengthening Scotland's economy. Today, the Government has published a strategy that sets out what we as a Government will do to ensure recovery from Covid in Scotland. It sets out an approach to ensure that the most affected are never so vulnerable again, to enable them to take steps to improve their lives and those of their families. It is a uniquely Scottish approach to progressive recovery, which seeks to build a better society than what we had before. Over the past 18 months, life has changed markedly. Over the next 18 months, the period covered by this strategy, we can build back on a fairer basis. To do this, we must move at pace, devoting the same energy, imagination and urgency to Covid recovery as we did to the pandemic to collectively achieve that change and drive a recovery that delivers for all of Scotland. Thank you very much indeed, Deputy First Minister. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in his statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions after which time we will move on to the next item of business. I would be grateful if those wishing to ask a question could press the request speak buttons now or as soon as possible, and I call Murdo Fraser. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank the cabinet secretary for his statement and for advance sight of it. We will consider carefully the detail of the document that has been published today, as the cabinet secretary himself admitted. This is a high-level strategy paper. What is of course important is the detail of policies and actions that will come forward in due course, and we look forward to hearing more about those. In the meantime, can I ask the Deputy First Minister a question in relation to the issue of the economy and employment that he referenced in his statement? We know that the impact of Covid means that some jobs, which were there previously, have disappeared. Certainly in the short term, they may not return at all, but we also know that new jobs have been created and are likely to stay. Yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extra £500 million for job-related initiatives across the whole United Kingdom. What specific new help will be made available by the Scottish Government and its agencies to help those looking to retrain to fill vacancies in the economy and make sure that they take up secure, well-paid jobs in the future? I am grateful to Mr Fraser for his comments and also for the willingness to engage on the detail of the strategy. As he knows from the discussions that we have had in the cross-party group on Covid, I am open to that discussion about the priorities that we should pursue. In relation to the specific issue of employment, I think that this is a very significant issue. We find ourselves in a situation just now where we have acute labour market shortages in the economy. We have at this stage comparatively low levels of unemployment, but substantial numbers of individuals still on furlough, who have just come off furlough, and we wait to see the impact of that in the labour market. The Government has in place a range of interventions already through the national transition training fund, the north-east skills fund, the individual training accounts, the flexible workforce development fund and the young person's guarantee. The Chancellor's announcement the other day indicates at a high level that we have to interrogate the detail of that, as Mr Fraser would expect, apparently £41 million of consequential funding for the Scottish Government. We will obviously have to look at that in the round of financial announcements made by the UK Government to make sure that it is actually £41 million of new money, because sometimes it is not new money. We will look at that very carefully and announcements will be made by my colleagues as we look to deploy the resources to support the assistance to individuals to enable people to have good high-quality employment within the Scottish economy. Daniel Johnson I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement. Indeed, recovery must be our enduring focus through this Parliament. It is important that he references what new money is. Coming back to upskilling and re-skilling, the £200 million announcement is to me, and can I clarify that that is essentially pre-existing programmes, including the ones that he referenced in the National Transition Training Fund, or is there any additional new money in that statement? I very much welcome the focus on family wellbeing in the statement, but again the £500 million fund, can I clarify how much of that is additional money over and above current local authority spend on social services and care? Most important, the cabinet secretary will be aware that in order to meet the Government's own legal targets on child poverty, the child payment will not need to just double, it will need to quadruple. Many people had the expectation that the Scottish Government were ready to bring forward the doubling this coming financial year, but they will be disappointed that it appears that the Government is falling short of that interim measure. Can we get clarity on when the doubling of the child payment will take place? As I indicated in my statement, the Government is fulfilling the commitment that it made to roll out the child payment by the end of next year, and we have committed to doubling the child payment during the course of this parliamentary term, and we want to do that as quickly as we possibly can do when resources become available to do so. However, I assure Mr Johnson that it has the highest priority within the Government. I welcome his support for the issue of securing the financial wellbeing of families, because I view that to be critical in the work that we have to do to eradicate child poverty. I think that we have to be cognisant of the research evidence that demonstrates that there are a number of ways in which we can tackle child poverty, one of which he rightly alights on is to boost a payment such as the child payment, there are others such as delivering effective childcare support for families that enable individuals to enter the labour market and to command good remunerated employment within the labour market or there are other ways in which we can try to reduce household costs, which is through some of the other measures that I set out, for example, in relation to reducing the cost of the school day, which I recognise to be a significant factor for some families in our country. We have to view those measures as being a collective endeavour of a number of different interventions to make sure that we secure the outcome of delivering security for family incomes, rather than just seeing those as one measure of increasing the Scottish child payment to either to double it or to quadruple it, as Mr Johnson suggested. We have to look at a range of different interventions to make the maximum impact on ensuring that there is security for family incomes. Beatrice Wishart will be followed by Audrey Nicholl. The Deputy First Minister will know that early learning and childcare is a matter that I have raised many times before, as I believe in flexible, accessible and affordable childcare. It is critical to the recovery, but yesterday a new official statistic showed that the number of two-year-olds receiving funded ELC actually fell. 14,500 twos from poorer backgrounds are entitled to it because of the difference that it could make to their life chances and attainment, but less than 6,000 are taking up that place. In this challenge poverty week, what is the Scottish Government now going to do to drive up that all-important uptake? We intend to work very closely with our local authority partners to increase that take-up level. That is a very significant benefit for children and young people. They are the earliest and most vulnerable children in our society, so we have to make sure that they are gaining access to what is being provided. In the links to my answer to Daniel Johnson, it can help families to be able to secure the access to the employment market, which can then strengthen their position into the bargain. I give Beatrice Wishart the assurance that we will work closely with local authorities to make sure that uptake levels are at a higher level. That is one of the issues that I was advised to be taken forward by the programme board that we take forward in partnership with local government to make sure that we are fulfilling those commitments. Households on low incomes are experiencing significant pressure due to Covid-19, and that will only be made worse by the UK Government's ill-judged moves to cut universal credit and the furlough scheme. Does the cabinet secretary agree that those decisions should be reversed immediately, and can he provide any further detail as to the actions that the Scottish Government will be taking as part of the strategy to support households on low incomes? The Scottish Government's position in relation to universal credit reductions that will come into effect tomorrow is well stated. We stated that again on the weekend, along with the First Minister of Wales and Northern Ireland, where we appealed for a reversal of the decision to reduce universal credit. That will increase the hardship that is faced by families. It is an illustration of the challenge that the Scottish Government faces that, on the one hand, we are trying to take a number of measures, all of them aligned in relation to school clothing grants or about the removal of the curriculum charges within schools or about the introduction of the child payment, which is designed to strengthen family income to only find that undermined by a decision of the United Kingdom Government. We will continue to make those representations to the UK Government in the hope that it recognises the damage that will be done to low-income households, and we will continue in our measures to try to impact on the financial wellbeing and security of those households. The Deputy First Minister will be well aware that many of the problems that this report seeks to address predate the pandemic. Today's report confirms and reveals that Scots are living in the most deprived areas. Are 18 times more likely to suffer a drugs-related death, four times more likely to die from alcohol, twice as likely to die from Covid, and can expect 20 years less healthy life? What picture does this paint about life in Scotland for the very poorest under this SNP Government? There are some very deep-seated and long-standing problems in Scottish society that successive Administrations have wrestled with, which are the consequence of poverty. That deeply set poverty which has been a product of industrial decline and industrial change in our country over many years. I am making no apology for this Government. The strategy that is before Parliament today is absolutely focused on eradicating poverty and child poverty. That will be the focus. If Mr Hoy wants to get behind us in doing that, all very well, the first thing that he could do is encourage his United Kingdom Government colleagues not to make our challenge worse by the attack on household income that is coming tomorrow. That is what Mr Hoy could do if he wanted to be helpful to the process and then support us in the focus of the strategy to eradicate poverty and to give people the opportunity of experiencing a better and a safer life as a consequence. Tom Mason, to be followed by Martin Whitfield. Thank you very much. The cabinet secretary mentioned fair work a couple of times, but of course Westminster controls the employment legislation and can drag standards down, so what can the Scottish Government do to tackle this and ensure fair work? A lot of our efforts in this respect have to be done by agreement and consent and by example. In many respects, we do not have the legislative powers to take the necessary actions, so we work in collaboration with the business organisations and with our trade union counterparts to agree common standards and to work to apply those within the labour market in Scotland. I have to say that the business organisations engage at all times constructively with us on those questions and many organisations and many employers set a really good example by paying the real living wage, by engaging their employees in the operation of their organisations and by having fair employment practices. We will ensure that those standards are taken forward in all of our dialogue. We can, as a consequence of our partnership with the Scottish Green Party, have a number of additional commitments about conditionality, about access to public sector funding, which are explicit in the agreement that we have reached, and those will be applied to create the type of fair work conditions that Mr Mason raises with me today. Thank you, Martin. What appeal to be followed by Stuart McMillan? The Deputy First Minister confirmed that COSLA is in agreement with the statement and will all local authorities be in a position to provide free school meals from the start of the next academic year? Also, given that it is challenge poverty week, will the Government meet its interim poverty targets in 2023-24? The thinking behind the strategy has been discussed with local authorities. It is discussed with the leaders of Scotland's local authorities in recent weeks. I have had a number of very good productive discussions with the leadership of COSLA on those questions. Local authorities are funded to implement free school meals. In relation to the achievement of the child poverty targets, the Government is doing everything that it possibly can do to get to the position of reaching those targets. We are conscious and seized of the importance of doing so, and that is why that is at the heart of the strategy that I have set out to Parliament today. Stuart McMillan, to be followed by Jimmy Hulker-Johnston. With many people still working from home and many companies already indicating that the staff will not be returning to the office, will the cabinet secretary outline any work that is under way to help small businesses and the public transport providers who rely on people coming into our town and city centres daily to go to their place of work? A lot of businesses will be affected by the lower degree of footfall that is available in town centres at this moment, and a number of the public transport companies experience some of those challenges. We have put in place a significant amount of support to enable those organisations to be able to weather those very difficult conditions. We have certain interventions that are part of the support that is available, such as the small business bonus scheme, which has been a long-standing part of the Government's programme and which assists many organisations in being able to prosper. We will be encouraging businesses to look at how best they can adapt their trading models to the new conditions that we all have to adjust to. I would say that there is a great deal of support through the business advisory networks in place to assist companies in that transition, and I encourage them to take up those offers where they are available to do so. The strategy document contains a commitment to regional action and a regional approach to recovery, with a particular focus on regional economic partnerships. Can I ask the cabinet secretary whether he recognises the differential impact of the pandemic and the recovery on various parts of Scotland, particularly those island communities that have been doubly disadvantaged because of the ferries crisis? Can he advise me how a regional approach will be followed by proportionate support and funding? The issues of regional diversity are central to the strategy. Yesterday, a number of ministers were involved, including myself, in a meeting of the South of Scotland convention that draws together a number of bodies in the South of Scotland to look at areas of shared activity. We had a very, very healthy discussion about the regional economic strategy that has been formulated by that partnership in the South of Scotland—very much community-led, local authority-led—and the Government is obviously active in that process. Just after the recess, I will chair the convention of the Highlands and Islands, which will be a further opportunity for that regional perspective to be considered, and I look forward to continuing those discussions. In relation to funding, of course, the Government makes funding announcements and decisions at different times. We have set out, for example, commitments around the North East of Scotland training fund. We have set out commitments around the transition funds for the north-east and Murray in relation to the oil and gas sector. Those decisions will be taken to reflect the decision-making that has arrived at a local level, to complement some of the other financial arrangements around city deals that distribute resources around different parts of the country. I should refer to them as growth deals, Presiding Officer, for completeness. Annabelle Ewing is followed by Gillian Mackay. On technology, no-one has a crystal ball and that we are far from out of the woods yet. Nonetheless, people in my Cowdenbeath constituency and I believe across Scotland need a bit of hope in the months that lie ahead. Can the Deputy First Minister indicate what assessment has been made as to the factors that will be relied upon to determine when we are, in fact, to be considered to be safely out of the other side of the Covid pandemic? That does invite the crystal ball analysis, Presiding Officer. The Government has set out its framework for decision-making around Covid, which is essentially about looking at key indicators around the pressure on the national health service, capacity within the national health service and the extent of cases of the virus and the levels of vaccination within our community. We find ourselves at this moment, as the First Minister has just recounted to Parliament, in a comparatively better position than we might have expected ourselves to be in if we maintain the rigorous pressure that there is on the virus for the foreseeable future. I hope that we will continue to give us the strongest possible position to withstand the impact of the virus and, obviously, to experience a much greater return to normality than we have already experienced since we relaxed restrictions in August. The Deputy First Minister's statement repeatedly references reducing poverty and the Scottish Greens have long supported the introduction of a universal basic income to solve this. Although I appreciate that the Scottish Parliament does not currently have the powers to bring this forward, I welcome the SNP's manifesto commitment to introduce a minimum income guarantee as an interim measure. Although I note that this is not referred to in the Covid recovery strategy document, can the Deputy First Minister provide an update on timescales for the introduction of a minimum income guarantee? There is development work under way on this important commitment. It relates very directly to some of the measures that I have talked about in my statement and in my answers in relation to delivering financial security for families. We view that to be a key route to enable us to navigate our way out of the impact of poverty in our society. The Government will continue to pursue the work that has been undertaken and keep Parliament advised of developments of that policy. With gas prices rocketing, it is heartening that the NHS, local authorities and other public sector bodies that use the Scottish Government's national collaborative framework for natural gas supply will see no price increase this financial year to wholesale gas costs agreed last April. However, can the Deputy First Minister say what impact rising fuel prices will have on households, particularly low-income households, the private and third sectors and our economic recovery? That is a very serious issue. The difficulties that some individuals will be facing because of changes in their supply and the difficulties that individual companies have found themselves in may well exacerbate the pressures and the challenges that individuals face. What the Government will be doing is making sure that we have in place the necessary support measures for individuals, the advice services that enable people to wrestle with those challenges in the short term, while we make sure that the heart and focus of the strategy on strengthening the financial security of families enables them to withstand the type of pressures that Mr Gibson has reasonably cited to me today. I assure him that although the issue of energy prices is one manifestation of the financial insecurity of families, tackling that basic financial security question is central to how we take forward the strategy. Thank you very much indeed, Deputy First Minister. There will be a short suspension now before we move on to the next item of business.