 Good morning and welcome to the 11th meeting of the COVID-19 recovery committee in 2021. This morning we will continue our inquiry into baseline health protection measures with a specific focus on how these measures are working in the hospitality, business and leisure sectors. I would like to welcome to the meeting Gavin Stevenson from Scottish Licence Trade Association, Leon Thompson, the Executive Director of Scotland UK Hospitality, Barry McCulloch, Head of Policy for Federation of Small Businesses Scotland, Kirsty Cumming, Chief Executive of Community Leisure UK, Professor Irene Peterson, Professor of Epidemiology and Health Informatics University College of London. Thank you for giving us your time this morning. This is the third of four evidence sessions we have planned on baseline health protection measures. These measures are the main tools that we are using to respond to the COVID-19, which include ventilation, face coverings, social distancing and vaccinations. Each member will have approximately 12 minutes to speak to the panel to ask their questions. We are tight for time this morning and have a number of witnesses, so I would ask you to please keep your responses as brief as possible and don't feel that you have to answer every question. I apologise in advance, however, if time runs on too much, I may have to interrupt members or witnesses in the interests of brevity. I will now turn to questions, so if I may begin by asking the first question. As we move into winter and try to keep as many businesses open as possible, the committee has been looking at baseline health protection measures such as ventilation when the committee heard from experts on 4 November. I remember Mr Stevenson, when you were in the last committee, you told us that in general large nightclubs have good quality ventilation systems already in place. The Scottish Government has announced £25 million to improve ventilation and for CO2 monitors and reduce transmission for businesses. Firstly, I would like to ask how well ventilated the premises are in leisure and hospitality sectors. Secondly, how many businesses currently have carbon monoxide monitors that you are aware of? Is that something that the industry is considering? In terms of the number of businesses that currently have carbon dioxide monitors, that is certainly not a statistic that we have tracked, but we would be very happy to survey our members and come back to the committee with some more accurate information. With regard to the grants on ventilation, I mean certainly £25 million is a very welcome support to the sector and I would imagine that businesses are currently very much looking forward to that grant system opening, which I believe it does next week. I would note that the individual amounts are capped at £2,500 per application, which will certainly help in terms of things like adding perhaps additional vents or window openings, but certainly would not be enough to install substantial mechanical ventilation systems. In terms of the current state of ventilation across the sector, broadly the larger premises tend to have very good mechanical ventilation, particularly larger night clubs, because that has always been required for customer safety. Smaller premises perhaps in listed buildings may have less ability to install such large mechanical ventilation systems, but certainly would have a form of ventilation throughout the premises, because that has always been a requirement for customer safety. However, I think that anything that we can do in terms of increasing that ventilation would be very welcomed by the sector. Thank you very much. I move on to Leanne Thompson from UK hospitality for the same question, please. Good morning. Yes, absolutely in line with Gavin, it is at this point not possible to give you a figure on how many businesses have co2 monitors, but I am very happy to check that against or to check that with my membership. I would suggest that many more probably have them now than did have before, because ventilation has been a topic of discussion for a number of months now, certainly over the summer. Businesses have been getting ready for the winter and looking at Government advice, which has been made available around improved ventilation. In terms of the ventilation scheme that goes live next week or opens for applications next week, absolutely welcome. Businesses will make good use of that. The only caveat is that this is an issue that we have been talking about since the early part of the summer, so it is disappointing that the scheme is only going live now towards the end of November. It varies from business to business in terms of the ventilation that is in place, as Gavin has said. One thing that I would draw to the committee's attention is the use of outdoor space, which hospitality businesses have made good use of over the past months when they have been open and trading. That is something that we would like to see continue. Thank you very much. I bring in Kristi Cymru from Community Leisure UK. I suppose that, similar to the previous two witnesses, we do not have a robust statistic in terms of CO2 monitors, but we know through conversations with our members that the vast majority of them have CO2 monitoring in place. We also know that the Scottish Government guidance on CO2 monitoring has meant that a number of spaces across public leisure and culture have not been able to return to full capacity or have not indeed reopened. I think that one of the main challenges across our membership is the range of venues and buildings that they operate. Operating a number of heritage buildings, for example, a number of older venues, smaller spaces, where ventilation is inevitably more difficult and would require substantial upgrades. There are some spaces within our membership that have not yet reopened at all because of those issues, and, as I said, some of them operate with reduced capacity. In terms of the Scottish Government's fund, which was a £9 million to £25 million, that is very welcome, but it specifically excludes our members. None of our members would be eligible for that fund, as it excludes allios from applying for that fund. However, even if we removed the allio exclusion from that fund, the rateable value would exclude the vast majority of our members as well. It would then dig into the detail of the amounts of funding, very small amounts for individual items, and it would be very challenging for businesses within our sector to apply for the logistics of application for very small pots of funding. There is certainly a challenge there. We also know that there is not the huge amount of funding available from any other sources for ventilation, so the cost is being picked up where that is needed by our members themselves or in partnership with their local authority partners. The other point around ventilation that is coming through really strongly from our members is the enforcement of ventilation guidance at the moment. There is clear guidance from Scottish Government, and our members are fully compliant with that, but there certainly is a feeling that that is not the case across all venues, both within the sector and in other sectors around ventilation. It feels that there is an enforcement issue there, which is leading to a bit of an unequal playing field. Can I ask the same question of Barry McCulloch from the Federation of Small Businesses Scotland? I echo many of the comments that were made previously by panellists. I highlight the launch of the £25 million business ventilation fund next week as a significant development, because there are clear market failures around the ability of the smallest business to make sure that the property is properly ventilated during the winter months, given that they are not able to do what they have done during the spring and summer seasons. I think that Wildster has been that hiatus, as Leon MacDonald mentioned, between the announcement of the fund in late September and the publication of the details this week. There are roughly three points that we would offer by way of initial reaction. First, there is a lack of precision in who the fund is aimed at. You go through the different types of businesses that could apply for the fund and think that there are over 25 different types for a fund of £25 million. Second, there is a lack of clarity on how the applications and the appeals process will operate. There is a possibility, as we have seen during the crisis, of 32 different systems and 32 different appeal processes, which, as we know, can lead to businesses in one area receiving funds when another does not pay out. Lastly, given what we may go on to talk about around the certification scheme, there is potential disappointment, I feel, for businesses given the likely high demand and the relatively small amounts available. You will be capped at £2,500 per eligible premises. Thank you very much for your comments this morning. I will just move on to Meryr Fraser, please. I wonder if I could ask—maybe I will start with Gavin Stevenson—about the announcement that we had from the Scottish Government on Tuesday that they are considering an extension to the vaccine passport scheme that could potentially come into place from, I think, the fourth of December, but will be here on Tuesday coming. First of all, what is your view on that? What impact would that have on your businesses? Secondly, what sort of engagement have you had with Scottish Government ministers around that particular policy? The five trade bodies in Scotland surveyed members last week to ascertain what the economic impact of the current version of vaccine passports had been. It was a little short of devastating. We have provided information to the committee on the financial damage that has been done so far, but it would be typical that between 20 and 40 per cent of turnover has been the decrease from the month before vaccine passports were implemented to the month after vaccine passports were implemented. There is a direct correlation between the implementation of vaccine passports and a substantial and unsustainable decrease in trade. Any proposed extension of the scheme is deeply unwelcome from the sector. Of course, that is not particular to just Scotland. We have now got data from Wales, again, surveyed this week, showing that there has been a substantial decrease in trade in the Welsh sector and, indeed, similar reports internationally, which we have also provided excerpts of to the committee, showing that there were decreases in trade in France, in Canada and elsewhere after those schemes were implemented. If Scottish Government is determined to proceed with the roll-out of the scheme, it would be absolutely essential to have significant financial support go in place for winter, because otherwise a very substantial proportion of businesses just will not survive this winter. What engagement have you had with Scottish Ministers on this issue? We have requested—the trade bodies have requested—a meeting with the First Minister, some two months ago, which we have received an acknowledgement of the request, but no meeting has yet been scheduled. We requested last week a meeting with the Deputy First Minister, and we are told that he was unavailable. We do today have a meeting scheduled with Mr McKee, and we will see what the outcome of that meeting is. I could ask the same question to Mr McCulloch next. On Gavin's points, I suppose that notwithstanding the previous comments made by the Deputy First Minister regarding the possible expansion of the scheme to this committee, I think that it is fair to say that the statement that was made in the chamber last week took many business owners by surprise. Whilst we and others had been monitoring the current scheme in the situation in Wales, what was surprising was the potentially large expansion under consideration to cover indoor hospitality and leisure settings. It led us, as it led other colleagues to conduct the SNAP poll, with more than 600 members revealing that 52 per cent of businesses across the economy were opposed to the move, and notable finding in and of itself. The story that we were most interested in and talked to Scottish Government officials about was the reaction from the businesses that could be potentially caught by the expanded scheme. When you look at the response of hospitality and leisure businesses, you will probably be surprised by the opposition to an expanded scheme that increased to 77 per cent, with businesses fearing that the scheme would lead to increased costs, sales and a considerable increase in antisocial behaviour. Just to circle back to your previous point, Mr Fraser, that we have been talking to Scottish Government officials, releasing them to the Deputy First Minister and making that statement last week and putting forward their case to mitigate the impact on the smallest business. Thank you. Perhaps I could ask Kirsty Cumming next. Thank you. It is interesting to hear from the previous two witnesses, because obviously I am coming from a slightly different perspective where we do not have vaccine passports within our membership at the moment or within our kind of sector. It is interesting to hear from the experience of other sectors, but we have had a consultation and we have had a few conversations with our members around the possible expansion and what that would mean. There are certainly significant concerns within our membership around the idea that it might be expanded across public leisure and culture. To give some kind of detail on that, there is the logistical challenge in terms of how this could be implemented. A lot of leisure centres particularly have what we call easy access gates, so no actual reception desk. It would require additional staff that are not currently in post to be there to staff and check passports. That is against a backdrop of recruitment crisis within the sector, where we are currently struggling to recruit more particularly front-of-house staff across leisure and culture. It is also the unaffordable angle of that against the backdrop of financial pressures. There are concerns around pressure on staffing, particularly the mental wellbeing of staff due to the recruitment crisis that we have in the sector at the moment. There are already huge pressures on quite a number of staff across the country due to staffing shortages, changed working patterns and the whole Covid landscape behind that. There is a concern that this would be an additional pressure and the risk of potential antisocial behaviour from those that were opposed to it. One key concern that has been raised is the health risk. At the moment, our members are operating time slots, booking and so on to ensure that there is no gathering of people outside of venues ahead of their activities. If we bring in Covid passports, that requires a checking process. There is quite a significant risk that that will lead to queuing to get into venues, which is not currently there at the moment, or for people to be queuing outside of venues, particularly in winter months. Again, some real concerns around the customer base for our members. A lot of the customer base are older customers, people with underlying health conditions, long-term conditions that are using these facilities. Having another barrier to people being active, whether that is queuing or whether that is confusion over how to access Covid passports, there is the risk of those that are digitally excluded and having to bring paper or passports. Those who have additional support needs, for example, people living with dementia. There is a number of dementia-friendly activities that take place. Again, this is seen as potentially being another barrier to that. The final point is looking at where the Covid passports currently in place is quite a different setting to what our members operate. Particularly if we look at the length of time that buildings are open. Most of our members' venues are open up to 13 hours a day, seven days a week, which is quite distinct to some of the other settings where Covid passports are currently being used. Again, the staffing issues that go alongside that. The main concern is the deterrent to people being active and the impact on their wellbeing by bringing in what is seen as another barrier. The same thoughts as the other witnesses there. The announcement of possible expansion of the scheme has caused widespread alarm across hospitality. Hospitality businesses are currently not in scope or very well aware of the impact that it is having on businesses that are in scope. Indeed, some businesses that are currently out of scope are experiencing some economic impacts as a result, in any case. Issues around staffing are a big concern for our sector. Checking passports as people arrive is going to be a major challenge. The timing of all that is very difficult. Hospitality businesses are getting ready for what they hope will be a busy Christmas season. If the expansion of the scheme begins on 6 December, which is the date that has been given, that has the potential to be pretty disastrous for businesses that already have bookings in place, with people perhaps cancelling, and other people not making bookings and deciding to have celebrations at home instead rather than going out to the hospitality venues. It has caused alarm, and quite rightly so. As Gavin highlighted, the findings from our joint survey, the impact of the scheme at the moment, is having a detrimental impact on business. I could switch to Professor Peterson, if that is okay. I have to say that I did have a look at the paper explaining why lateral flow testing may be relatively better now, or better than it was thought to be in comparison to PCR testing. However, I have to say that it was quite a complex paper. I wonder whether you could briefly and in simple words explain where you have got to with this. Yes, I do accept that it is not a simple paper, but it is a very important paper because there have been a lot of doubt around lateral flow tests when they were first introduced earlier this year. One of the key problems was that the lateral flow test was compared directly to PCR tests without taking into account. It is two different types of tests. When studies were made, it was like comparing apples and oranges. It appeared from many studies that the lateral flow test had a very low sensitivity, so there were reports of a sensitivity of 40 per cent, for example. The reason why this happened is because the PCR test is a test for genetic material. When you have Covid, you would keep having genetic material in your body for a long period after you have been infectious. Often, when you take a sample of, let's say, 1,000 people, they may test positive on the PCR test, but probably more than half of them, if they have no symptoms, are not infectious. On the other hand, the lateral flow test is a test of infection, so it identifies the proteins from the virus, and therefore it only tests positive in the period where you are infectious. This paper illustrates that. When you make a direct comparison between lateral flow test and PCR test, it may appear that the lateral flow test has a much lower sensitivity, but if you want to examine when people are infectious, the sensitivity of the lateral flow test is much higher and we estimate that it is certainly above 80 per cent and possibly close to 95 per cent. It sounds very encouraging that we can put more reliance on the lateral flow test. Could we go as far as saying, just forget about the PCR test and just rely purely on the lateral flow test? For a public health measure, I would say yes. However, I think also, oh, am I on? I think that the PCR test has a very important function in terms of you can sequence for new variants when you are using a PCR test. I still think that there is a place for PCR testing, but I wouldn't use a PCR test as a public health tool. That's great. Others may come back to you, but I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Maybe I could switch to Mr Stevenson and some of the things that you have been saying about the vaccine passports and so on. My key question is, do you not think that you have been slightly overstating your case and a certain amount of crying wolf? People are not taking you seriously because you use such strong language like devastating and so on. I have tried to get into a restaurant in Edinburgh on a Wednesday night, and it was absolutely full. I have gone into a pub on a Wednesday night in Edinburgh. I couldn't find a seat. Glasgow last Friday night was in a restaurant absolutely full. Parts of the hospitality and licence trade sector seem to be doing absolutely fine. I wonder if you do not think that you are somewhat exaggerating it. Similarly, with the passports, I went into a coffee event the other week and showed my passport no problem, absolutely fine. In France, it seems to go to a café, go into a shop and show your passport no problems. Do you not think that you are overstating your case? The challenge that we have here is that all the venues that you just mentioned are not currently required to use vaccination passports. If you were able to get a seat in a busy restaurant or saw a busy pub, largely those venues do not currently have to use vaccination passports and therefore would have substantially less impact from the current implementation of vaccination passports. On the other hand, if you had read the survey results that we have submitted, you would find that all five of the Scottish trade bodies surveyed their members. For those venues and those premises, there was a very significant decrease in trade. You have mentioned the roll-out in France. The National Federation of French Cinemas reported that they had lost 7 million ticket sales in a month due to the implementation of Covid passports. Indeed, one of the French hospitality trade bodies reported that 80 per cent of bars and cafes and 60 per cent of restaurants saw their revenues drop by at least a fifth in the month after implementation of vaccine passports. We have had similar outcomes when they have been rolled out in Canada and in New York City. That is not particularly a problem just in Scotland. That has been the experience, not just in Scotland but elsewhere, that vaccine passports, when you put barriers between customers and businesses, results inevitably in a substantial loss of trade. We have previously given evidence to the committee that businesses in our sector require a turnover of 90 per cent or so of normal levels to break even. When you are reducing their turnover by 20 per cent, 25 per cent or 40 per cent, there is clearly going to be a devastating impact that absolutely will affect the viability of those businesses. The argument has been put before that, if the vaccine passports are more widely used, people will be more familiar with them, both businesses and individuals, so they become the norm. I still think that that has been the case in France from what I hear one of my staff was there recently. Would you not think that that would be perhaps the case? If there was a negative test as part of the system, would you be more comfortable with it? On the point about if it was the norm, it would be easier for people to use, accept it more. That is not what we are talking about. We are still talking about an expansion that targets hospitality. We are not talking about extending the scheme out to the rest of everyday life. The burden is still being put on hospitality businesses. hospitality businesses, while they are continuing to prove their metal in the face of a number of challenges, are still at least reporting a 10 per cent decline in business in the last quarter. Compared to 2019, hospitality businesses are not in a strong position or still very fragile. Anything that comes in that potentially damages that move towards recovery is unwelcome. Hospitality businesses have continued to deploy baseline measures and go beyond baseline measures to keep staff and workers safe. They are running very safe venues at the moment. There is no evidence that has been provided so far by the Scottish Government that vaccine passports are making a difference to transmission rates or that an expansion will make the kind of difference that is being sought for the months ahead. I will make a comment as a user of Covid passports. This summer, I went to Denmark on holiday and the Covid pass was widely used. Not one time did I find that there was a problem in terms of getting into venues or in terms of staff having trouble in taking the Covid passport. At that time, my younger daughter was not fully vaccinated, so she had to have a test passport, but that worked out very well. All venues that we visited welcomed the passport because it gave the customers a feeling of being more safe in the environment as the chance of encountering somebody who had Covid was much lower in the venues. I would suggest that you take that into consideration when you evaluate the use of passports. I can fully appreciate that there might be some cost, but that is not up to me to comment on. That is very helpful indeed, thank you, convener. Thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel. Can I come to Christi Cymru first? Obviously, community leisure is a particular interest of mine. How do you feel that the leisure industry has managed to adapt through the pandemic? It is my experience that it has been extremely good at delivering a safe environment. How do you feel that the leisure industry has ffared? I think that, from our perspective, the adaptation across our members has been phenomenal, whether it has been the pivot to the digital or whether it has been adapting the new safety measures, the communications out to users or facilities. I think that we have seen really positive feedback from users of both the culture and leisure facilities right across our membership. One of the things that has been heartwarming is some of the feedback on reopening as well, the real feedback showing how much people value the opportunity to be active, to engage in culture and to socialise. The adaptation has been a journey, and it has for everyone. I mean, even dialing in here this morning, virtually, who thought would be here a couple of years ago. I mean, our members have really kind of run with it. I think that there is an expectation as well, a learning process, as to what will actually change permanently going forward. We are not expecting to go back to exactly how things were. If we look at library services as an example, there has been a huge uptake digitally. More people accessing library services than ever before, and that kind of digital availability of content has really made it much more accessible. A lot of people have been a bit of a lifeline through lockdown as well. Thank you. My experience is obviously quite limited, and the only thing that I really see is the track. The way that they have adapted is that they have opened a gate, and we are checked in externally. We do not go through the main building. It is like an SNS operation, and I think that it is quite remarkable. I wonder what you feel the impact would therefore be on that kind of leisure facility, and you have talked about libraries and etc. If the Covid passport is expanded into that area, it would be fantastic coming, please. Yes, I mean, I think that, as I touched on previously, the real concern is that it is going to just be an additional barrier. Those that really want to be active, those that are very comfortable with the passport, and that will be a lot of people. It is not necessarily going to hugely impact people using the facilities, but if we look at the return rates across leisure specifically, as an example, it has been increasing since the reopening, but it has plateaued somewhere between 60 and 70 per cent of pre-Covid levels right across our membership. Indeed, right across the sector and across the UK, the levels are fairly consistent in terms of that 60 to 70 per cent mark. What is interesting, I think, is looking at who has not returned and why they have not returned to using facilities. We do not have any concrete or robust evidence around that at the moment, but anecdotally, it is a lot of people that have more health concerns, a lot of people who are perhaps more vulnerable and have more anxiety around returning to public spaces and taking part in group activity. There is a real risk there that, if we bring in Covid passports and there is another barrier, there is also a messaging that goes out as well. If there is a Covid passport for some venues, whether that is across leisure or culture, are those venues being seen as being less safe than other venues? It is a subliminal messaging that is going out to people, and that is a real risk. To move on from some of the words of Fraser's questioning about the expansion of the vaccine passport impact and potentially what that could mean, we all recognise that we certainly need to take measures to restrict Covid spreading. You are against vaccine passports and the expansion of vaccine passports. What do you feel should happen? What is your alternative options to that? Thank you. My position in this debate is to represent the views of FSB members. That scenario is to put forward the evidence that we collected from over 600 members, which detailed their views on the introduction of the scheme and the impact. Given where we are at the moment in terms of the potential scope of the scheme, we are very much focused on how you minimise the burden on the smallest and potentially lowest-risk settings. I think that there is a variety of options in that, but what we are trying to portray is the reality of how the scheme could function in neighbourhood cafes, country cafes and what that would be like. We are trying to explore, through the context of the business regulatory impact assessment, the trade-off between the public health gain on the one hand and the economic impact on the other. It is not at all to be alarming, but to have that grounded evidence-based conversation about what that scheme could look like. Conversations will continue to take place between Government and trade bodies to try to arrive at that point. As I said at the start, FSB members have made their views very clear in the sectors that could be within the scope of the scheme, and they would rather that the scheme did not go ahead. Thank you. Is Gavin Steam has anything to add to that? The sector is clearly very keen to work with Government to try to minimise any of the adverse impacts from Covid. Equally, it would be naive to believe that if people are excluded from going into hospitality venues because they have not got a Covid passport or perhaps because they have not been double vaccinated, it would be naive to think that those people are going to go home and put their pajamas on and watch television. We have seen in previous waves of the pandemic substantial increases in house parties and in gatherings in unregulated settings, where there will be significantly fewer baseline mitigations being enforced, where there may be worse ventilation and where you would not have that regulated environment for people to gather in. It was widely reported that Police Scotland broke up 44,000 house parties in the last phase of the pandemic. It seems to me that when 90 per cent of the population is double vaccinated, 80 per cent of the adult population is double vaccinated, what is it that we are trying to achieve by implementing vaccine passports across all of hospitality? There is no evidence to suggest that the people who are excluded are not going to simply move to a less safe environment and continue mixing. I will give Liam Thomson the opportunity to respond if he has anything to add. Yes, and I will focus on what businesses are already doing to keep their customers and workforce safe. Beyond the baseline measures of making sure that people are wearing face coverings and getting customers to use the check-in app, many businesses are still deploying a safety regime, which goes beyond the baseline measures that came in at beyond level zero. Cleaning regimes, table service, still continuing, one-way systems are often still in place, increased distance between tables, which means that fewer customers and businesses can have in at any one-time investment in ventilation. We have talked a little bit about that and similarly keeping perspective screens in place. Businesses are already taking a lot of action to keep their customers safe. There is no evidence that hospitality businesses have been responsible for significant spread of Covid. Just around the timing, we are coming into a period of time when hospitality would get a fair proportion of their annual income. The impact of introducing more stringent controls during that period of time, but the impact on things such as time to plan with staff and ordering supplies and rotas, etc. How quickly can you pivot under those circumstances? I will go to the bottom of the call, if I could. Businesses have shown throughout this crisis that sometimes at the drop of a hat within two days' notice, three days' notice, sometimes a little bit more, that they can quickly adapt their businesses and put in place measures that accord with their regulations. Should it be that way? I absolutely shouldn't, but I would highlight the versatility and the adaptability of business owners. That has been a way that they have kept going throughout this crisis and it will continue to be. I think that what we want to see is a period of time where there is at least time to deliberate on the design of the scheme. If the debate about the scope is complete or undertaken, then the discussion has to move very quickly to how we do it. What does that look like and what is the process? Are we checking the passes at the door or are we checking on the inside? Is it related to bookings? Is it related to ordering? How does it work in businesses that have multiple services, whether that is a motel with a restaurant or a farm with a farm cafe? That is where the conversation at the moment has to accelerate quickly to give business owners the time to plan. As you mentioned, Mr Whittle, we are entering into a vital busy trading period. Many of the FSB members will be looking to make as much money during this period, because the January to February period is noticeably quieter. Whatever we decide, we have to take the business community with us and we have to co-design this in whichever way we can to mitigate those pressures on the smallest business. Have we got time to go to Leanne Thomson? With Barry's point, businesses have shown themselves very adept at doing whatever is required of them, and I am sure that they will be able to do that again if they need to. Perhaps the biggest challenge in this is the timescale and how that will play out with the public, because what we found with the introduction of the scheme as it exists at the moment is that it took quite a long time for the members of the public to get their QR codes sorted out and be in a position to start using them. We had what was termed a grace period, which was indicated that it was for businesses, but it was largely to do with the public getting used to vaccine passports. Given that we are moving into a critical time for hospitality businesses, Christmas trade and so on, if the public is not ready for this, businesses will suffer. I have huge sympathy for the industry. I have worked in hospitality, I had a hospitality style business, I have worked in the food and drink sector, I have still got a lot of friends and colleagues who are in it and I have taken time to speak to a lot of them. I have got to say John's point to yourself, Gavin, and I certainly do not mean to pick on you, but what I am getting back from them is to say, if I have got to do it, we will do it because we will stay open. That is the biggest message that I have got coming back to me. If they have a concern, it is that they cannot get enough staff. If you are saying that businesses have to work at 90 per cent of capacity in order to get a break-even point and keep going, a lot of those businesses are working at 70-75 per cent already because they cannot staff it. That is their biggest issue, the one that I am getting back to me. I also pick up on the point that Brian made about that this is a community effort to try to get on top of it. We are very fortunate to be sitting here because we get evidence from right across medical, epidemiological, we are getting it from everywhere. I get that your interests are going to look after your industry, but it is still a societal problem. We know that the age group that this was targeted at in order to bring the vaccine numbers up worked to a certain extent. I would be comfortable to see the passport vaccine extended because it makes the messaging a lot easier. One of the things that we have explored in here religiously has been how the messaging has gone out. If people know that, between now and Christmas, they are going to have to have that passport vaccine, they are going to get it. To me, if that drives up vaccination, it is worth it because your businesses will stay open because if we do not and we go into another lockdown, everybody shuts. Gavin, I am happy to argue with the point with you, so please come back to me. There are a couple of things in there. We have surveyed hundreds of premises across Scotland in the last week and asked them some of those very specific questions. 72 per cent report that there has been a negative change in customer confidence and advanced bookings since the launch of vaccine passport. Only 2 per cent reported a positive change to confidence and advanced bookings since the launch of vaccine passports. That is based on over 200 responses from across the hospitality sector and from a broad range of membership bases of the five trade bodies. We can only report back to the committee what the members and what the businesses in hospitality are telling us. With regard to your point about driving vaccination uptake, it is questionable if there has been any significant change to the trend of vaccination uptake in the 18 to 29-year-old age group since the launch of vaccine passports. There was, of course, an uplift in second dose vaccination during that time period because there was a significant uplift in first dose vaccination several months earlier and those people were now coming due for their second dose. If you look at first dose vaccination rates, which is in other words reaching the vaccine hesitant or reaching the sector of those age groups that are resistant to vaccination, there does not really appear to have been any substantial uplift in the trend rate from before vaccine passports were announced until afterwards. Finally, just to comment on the Christmas topic, there is no time now for people to get vaccinated with two doses before Christmas. If somebody chose today to get a first dose of vaccine, it would be 12 weeks from now until they were able to get their second dose and, therefore, after that, get their vaccine passport. That takes us well past Christmas, so it does not seem likely that the motivation will be there for people to go out today and get vaccinated if they have not already been so, just purely to attend Christmas parties or at least not Christmas parties this year. I am going to dispute your point that there has not been an uptick in the number of people, particularly in that age group that you mentioned, because we had the Deputy First Minister telling us that he cannot give us a definitive, but he cannot prove a negative. I would argue that it has had the effect that we are trying to achieve. Leon, what is your position? I would like to say on the point of staffing that that is a major challenge for our sector. I highlight one of the things that came out from the survey that has been shared as well. That is the extent of the abuse that has been heaped on staff working in hospitality over the past months. Respondents to the survey that about 81 per cent of businesses came back and said that verbal abuse levels had gone up against staff in their hospitality venues. That has largely been driven because of staff shortages and customer frustration. I suggest that, if staff have to check vaccination certification, that is going to create a rise in likely hostility towards staff, particularly from people turning up, who do not have certification with them or who cannot prove that they have been vaccinated. The pressure will fall to individual members of staff and businesses to turn those potential customers away, which will increase conflict in hospitality settings. We all understand our specific responsibilities around when people are vaccinated and taking all necessary steps to keep people safe. As I said, hospitality businesses have been very good at doing that and will continue to play their part in that. There needs to be stronger messaging to the public about being vaccinated and the responsibilities that we each have as a member of Scottish society. If we can get that right and hospitality businesses can play their part in getting that message out there, we can see the vaccination rates go up without resorting to an expansion of Covid passports. I just want to build on those comments and stress that almost all businesses will accept additional public health measures if that is the alternative to a lockdown. Of course, we are on that. That may have been strongly from the discussions that we have been having with members since the announcement was made, but that does not mean that we should not fully scrutinise the additional measures such as the extension of the vaccine certification scheme, which is what we are doing here. To be clear, we are not just talking about pubs and nightclubs, but about capturing large parts of the everyday economy from cafes, restaurants, gyms, personal trainers and sporting entertainment venues such as Crazy Golf. Our argument throughout all of that is simply about the economic and public health trade-offs. If there is a trade-off, there may be a debate to be had, but it is important to talk about the timing in the process points where we could have firmly evaluated the merits of the policy in the summer. However, now we are designing and potentially implementing a scheme of breakneck speed ahead of a really key trading period. I think that what the crisis has told us is that the initiatives that are hovering away in the background cause a lot of uncertainty for business owners, even those who are not directly captured. It is about trying to have those honest candid conversations with business owners while giving them the reassurance that they can trade their way out of the crisis. As I said right at the start, I genuinely have enormous sympathy for the sector, but I have also got absolute confidence in knowing the sector as I do that it will be able to pivot and manage this. My biggest concern will be the fact that you cannot staff it properly and that you are increasing VAT next year. That, to me, will be a much bigger issue than the vaccine passport being implemented. I come to any person just now. How widely have you distributed your findings and how well is it being received? First of all, I apologise that there is building work going on in the neighbour, but I will try to answer your question. Can you repeat, please? How widely have you distributed your paper and how well has it been received? If it is accepted, is it usable as a public health measure? The paper has been widely distributed in terms of the media. The day it was published, it was on the front page of BBC and Sky News and has been widely distributed. In general, there is now a much more general acceptance that the letter of test is much more sensitive than originally thought. I do not know whether that answers your question sufficiently. Will that lead to it being a more usable public health measure? I certainly hope so. That is the reason why we made the paper, because we were aware of all the negative publicity that the test had at the beginning. However, I often think that when you introduce new tubes, it takes time before people accept the tubes and understand how important they are. I think that the letter of test is one of the most important tools that we have to keep control of Covid apart from the vaccines, of course. However, as you had experienced in the previous week from Glasgow, you could see that it is a very helpful tool in terms of giving you a vapid answer and identifying people who are infectious. I noticed that I phoned my GP practice this week. Interestingly, the GP was there with automated message making clear that if anybody was continuing to be abusive to the staff, they would be removed from the practice. Therefore, the level of abuse towards front-line staff is not something that is just particular to your industry. I suggest that the message that needs to go out is that, if people are abusive, they would not be welcome in the pub, restaurant, whatever it is in the first place. That is the danger that we have heard this morning. You say that the Government is putting up a barrier between customers and businesses, but me going on and pulling up my certificate, I would hardly call that a barrier. Maybe we can move on through the negatives. The numbers of vaccination among young people have gone up and have gone up since the proof-of-vaccine was introduced. The issue is that you cannot necessarily claim that that was a direct result of the proof-of-vaccine being, but again, you are wrong to say that it has not gone up. We need to take the sort of well-turns out of the equation here and start talking about what needs to actually happen. On that note, is it your view and the industry that, as well as proof-of-vaccine, it would be also helpful, as Northern Ireland did yesterday, for example, where they have introduced much more stringent measures than we have here so far—the proof-of-negative test? Do you have a view on that? Do you think that it would add something to the need to prove that you are safe to go into those venues? Gavin, do you want to kick-off me a bit? Sure. I think that just to clarify there, I would not say that there had been no increase in first-o's vaccination in the 18 to 29-year-old age group during the course of the roll-out. What we said is that there had been no significant increase to the trend in first-o's vaccination during the roll-out. We have provided in the evidence packet that we sent into your committee a trend line that is public health Scotland data on vaccination. If you can point to me where there is a significant increase around the launch of vaccination certification, I would be grateful, because we certainly cannot see it having looked for it. In terms of the negative testing, when we look at the barriers that are being put between businesses and their customers, there are two key issues here. The first one is that a proportion of customers—and it is a very small proportion overall, but it is much more focused for places like nightclubs—will not be double-vaccinated. Obviously, they cannot get a vaccine passport, therefore they cannot get into a premises. That is clearly a barrier. In terms of adding the option of negative lateral flow tests, that would certainly remove that barrier if a customer could either prove that they were double-vaccinated or prove that they had a recent negative lateral flow test and therefore gain admission. That would be a helpful and welcome addition to the scheme if there was an option to add lateral flow testing for those customers that could not prove double vaccination. The take-up of the vaccine passports is also an issue, and we have been asking for data from Scottish Government for a number of weeks now as to how many unique users in Scotland have taken up the offer of a vaccine passport. Government has been unable to provide that information to us, albeit that it has noted that there are perhaps a million and a half or so downloads of the app, then some additional downloads of paper copies, but they may in fact be the same people or substantively the same people that have the app. If there is only 30 per cent of the Scottish population that has a vaccine passport, then clearly that would be a barrier to the two thirds that have not yet managed to obtain a vaccine passport from the Government. We are tight for time, so can I ask the other members of the panel, maybe start with Barry, specifically on the question of the negative proof being added to what is already in place in terms of the proof of vaccine certificate? Given that I have zero expertise on this issue, I will not contribute to this point, and I will perhaps leave it to experts such as Professor Peterson to provide the committee with an informed view. Any other members of the panel specifically on whether the proof of negative tests should be included with the proof of vaccine certificate? Professor Patterson? I think that it would increase the uptake of the Covid pass if you allowed to include a recent negative test, for example within 72 hours. Some people may decide to go and get the vaccine because it makes life a lot easier, but on the other hand you should also allow people to get entry if they can prove that they have a negative test. I am aware that that is a part of the Danish Covid pass and also that it allows people who have had a recent infection a Covid pass. I do not have a huge amount of expertise in this area, but one thing that is worth mentioning is in terms of the planning and pre-booking for events. If we look at, for example, on the cultural side of our membership, things such as theatre performance, pans and mines being the topical one that is coming up, people book tickets months in advance for attending these events. There is a consideration there as well around those who are not vaccinated for whatever reason but have already paid for tickets to events, so there is perhaps a consideration around lateral flow testing as an alternative to allow people entry. Certainly some members have reported that if a negative lateral flow test could be used as an alternative, that would help their businesses and they would be turning away fewer people from the door at the moment. I certainly spoke with panthermines this week and panthermines came up and that very point came up. Barry, you have not got a view on the negative test, but has the federation of small businesses put forward any proposals where they believe that the Government could support small businesses if that roll-out takes place? That is a key point. If you go back to Mark's 2020 consecutive interventions in public health, there has been the other side of the coin, which has been direct financial support. Where we took down that path, the relationship between public health interventions on the one hand and public financial support delivered by the Scottish Government and the other would have to be part of that equation, because, as previous panellists have said and others have made clear, that it will potentially dampen trades. That is something that is coming through our evidence and discussions with members. There is a definite conversation to have about how you alleviate that impact, especially for the unlicensed trades who do not have doorstaff and who have very little experience of such schemes. Her point with Government officials will always be about the practical operation of any scheme and how we get it right. The crisis has also shown that we do not always get it right at the first go, and we constantly need to keep it under review. That is maintaining openness to ideas, while also providing support to businesses. That is quite a key element that we are talking about in those measures, Mr Rowley. We all appreciate how challenging it is for the industry at the moment. We have just got a little bit of time, so if I may just ask one more question. Looking at barriers for businesses at the moment, I would like to know the witnesses' views on the impact of leisure and hospitality, particularly in town centres and city centres and also in the local communities on the continual shift for home working. So, can I please ask Leanne Thompson first of all? Thank you. Yes, that is having an on-going impact. City centre hospitality business particularly badly impacted by the working-from-home message, and it is very hard for them to really move forward until there is reasonable footfall again during the week and in the daytime. It also spills out into the evenings as well, because if people are not in offices and other workplaces, then nobody is going out straight from work. We have talked about Christmas as well, it has an impact on Christmas too. There is certainly going to be fewer staff parties, work get-togethers and so on, and members are reporting that they have got very few bookings for Christmas events, work-related Christmas events. They are hoping that they might see a bounce in those numbers, particularly around the unofficial Christmas parties, if you like, but at the moment it is not a good picture that is coming from city centre hospitality venues and businesses. Can you ask Barry McCulloch for his views on it? It is impossible to not have this discussion about the health and wellbeing of our city centres and our town centres without linking it to where we were before the crisis, where many local places were still struggling with the crisis of the way, or the crisis in the 1980s or 1990s. What we have seen is that there is a balance in our membership between those who have been directly affected by the loss of commuter traffic and commuter spends and the likes of city centre leisure hospitality, but there have also been those businesses who have found the benefits and efficiencies from working from home. What the Scottish Government's Town Centre review, which I took part in for FFB, tried to do, was trying to find that balance between increasing the economic benefits for local neighbourhoods, where there are lots of small businesses who have done pretty well, because the spend that is not taking place in our city centres has been taking place elsewhere, albeit at much of that online. We were trying to provide targeted measures to our city centre businesses who are really struggling. What we are seeing on top of that to complicate matters further is a real structural shift in the economy with increased digitisation and mass transport habits changing in terms of how people get to work or go to work. I think that at this point, and it's coming through from the evidence that we are seeing it and others, it's really difficult to disentangle the impact between the pandemic and other structural shifts, particularly for independent retailers. It is that group that, whilst you didn't ask about the community retailers, is that group that we have considerable concerns about, particularly in places such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, who rely not just on local people using their facilities and services, but they also rely quite enormously on foreign travelers coming to the country and spending money. How that all goes together and creates a degree of uncertainty is something that concerns us and I think that as we move forward throughout the pandemic, the Scottish Government and others will obviously need to channel quite substantial sums of money into our city centres and towns to allow them to regenerate and regroup given the pandemic's impact. Thank you very much. Can I bring in Gavin Stevenson, please? Absolutely. I would completely agree with the previous comments from colleagues. There has been a substantial impact on hospitality businesses from the decrease in footfall in town and city centres as a result of home working. It is just another of the impacts that the sector is having to deal with at the moment on top of other barriers to trade and impacts that will, no doubt, continue for some time to come. Thank you very much. Can I just lastly ask Kirsty on the leisure aspect, please? Thank you. I mean, I suppose it's slightly different in the leisure perspective. A lot of leisure sport centres are not traditionally in town centres, but we have certainly seen an impact on usage patterns, people that would traditionally commute, use leisure facilities before or after work or use facilities in a different geographical area to where they live as well. There has certainly been an impact from that perspective. The other impact that we have seen is around the footfall, as previous speakers mentioned, in town centres. If we look at the footfall or museums and galleries, cultural attractions, that has been significantly down. Whether that is as a result of home working or as a result of people not wanting to go into city centres or the general landscape, we couldn't draw any conclusions from that other than esbos anecdotally. We know that there is significant reduced footfall for these venues. Thank you very much. Members, have anyone got any other questions for our witnesses today? Jim Fairlie? I've got one very brief one. That is the first person you said about businesses should allow the use of lateral flow tests or a proof of a negative test. My only concern about that is how do you stop people cheating? That's a good question. At the moment, we have a system in the UK where you are self-testing. We may continue with that or you may decide to have test centres operating for this purpose. You could have a two-arm testing approach. People can test at home, but if they want a negative lateral flow test, they may have to go to a test centre to have it performed, maybe one option. Or you may say, okay, we are going to trust people that they have a photograph of the lateral flow test and that is submitted for approval. I think that there are different options that you can choose. Thank you very much. I would like to thank all the witnesses for their evidence and for giving us their time this morning. If witnesses would like to raise any further evidence with the committee, they can do so in writing. The clerks will be happy to liaise with you about how to do this. I'm just going to move into private now. Thank you. Good morning. We'll now move on to agenda item number two. The committee will take evidence from the Scottish Government on the latest ministerial statement on COVID-19 and subordinate legislation. I welcome to the meeting our witnesses from the Scottish Government. John Sweeney, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for COVID Recovery, Professor Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director, Dominic Munro, Director of COVID-19 Exit Strategy and Elizabeth Sadler, Deputy Director of COVID-Ready Society Scottish Government. Welcome. Thank you for your attendance this morning and thank you also for your letter providing further information on vaccine certification monitoring information following your last appearance at the committee and also for the letter that we received yesterday regarding long COVID and children. Deputy First Minister, would you like to make any remarks before we move on to questions? Thank you, convener. I'd like to make some opening remarks to the committee and I'm grateful for the opportunity to discuss a number of matters, including updates to Parliament this week and last week on COVID-19. I set out in the recent ministerial statements to Parliament that we continue to face a very serious position in relation to the management of the pandemic. Cases are at a very high level, having increased by 10 per cent in the last seven days. The NHS is under sustained pressure and we can see from a range of other European countries the gravity of the on-going situation that a number of countries face, of which we are one. We do also continue to make good progress with the vaccination programme and the roll-out is continuing at considerable pace. Reflecting on the COP26 summit, the rigorous measures put in place to try to reduce the risk of COVID transmission, including the requirement for daily testing, seem to have been effective. As the First Minister set out on Tuesday, we have reached the latest three-weekly review point for the remaining COVID regulations. As announced, the cabinet agreed to keep the current regulations in place with no immediate changes, although we also discussed the possibility of future changes to the COVID certification scheme. As the First Minister outlined, based on current and projected vaccination uptake rates, we are assessing over the next few days whether we should amend the current certification scheme by considering the scope of the scheme and the role of lateral flow tests within the scheme. No decisions have been taken yet, but the settings that could come under the scheme in future are indoor cinemas, theatres and some hospitality settings. We would retain exemptions for those under 18 for those who cannot be vaccinated or tested for medical reasons, for people on clinical trials and for those who work at events or in venues subject to the scheme. The exceptions would also be retained for worship, weddings, funerals and related gatherings. We intend to take a final decision next Tuesday in light of the most up-to-date data. In the meantime, we will publish an evidence paper tomorrow. We are consulting businesses on the practicalities of implementation should changes be made. Certification continues to play a role in helping us to increase vaccine uptake to reduce the risk of transmission of coronavirus, to alleviate pressure on our health and care services and to allow higher risk settings to continue to operate as an alternative to more restrictive measures such as capacity limits, early closing times or closure. Finally, an updated strategic framework was published on Tuesday. We updated it so that we are as prepared as we can be to manage foreseeable pressures as well as the real risk of increasing Covid-19 cases as we enter winter. Our strategic intent remains appropriate in guiding our response to suppress the virus to a level consistent with alleviating its harms while we recover and rebuild for a better future. I am very happy to answer the committee's questions. Thank you very much Deputy First Minister. If I could turn to questions now, and I've got just two. The first one is very brief. I know that all members have been inundated with emails regarding a campaign, so I just would like to have clarity from the Scottish Government. Is the Scottish Government planning to implement vaccination passports for children? No. Thank you. Moving on to next question. I wonder if you've had the chance to consider the evidence we have heard last week about the role of ventilation in high-risk medical settings such as dentistry. We heard about the significant backlog of 4 million appointments which were lost due to the pandemic. It is clear that ventilation has a big role to play in recovering those lost appointments. The British Dental Association told us that dentists need to use fallow time between patients to make their settings safe. The fallow time can be as low as 10 minutes with good high-speed suction equipment, but the time needed between appointments can sometimes be as long as 50 minutes, which there isn't time available. The BDA estimated that the current funding to improve ventilation works out around £1,500 per surgery, but in their experience, upgrading ventilation can sometimes cost between £15,000 to £20,000. Is this something that the Scottish Government will give further consideration to? Yes. There are obviously some real challenges here. I will bring in Professor Leitch here, who is professional career, is in this area. There are obviously some real issues about the potential for spread of the virus, given the procedures that are being followed in dental practices. I have to say that dental practices have adapted to the challenges that they face. Even with that adaptation, there are still real pressures in relation to accessing dental services because of the amount of time that is required to be left between appointments for the type of hygiene process to which you refer, convener. We will continue to engage with the BDA and relevant interested parties on this question because the role of ventilation is significant and there may be further practical steps that we can take to assist. A lot of practices will have a lot of very sophisticated processes and equipment available to them. I recognise that the dental surgeries that I attend nowadays are in marked contrast to those that I attended in the past, so there have been significant enhancements. However, there is a necessity for us to ensure that we work with the sector to boost the practical support that is available, in addition to the financial support that we have already made available to support ventilation improvements. Professor Leitch wants to add that to that. You have covered it well, Deputy First Minister. It is an excellent question. Dentistry is just about the hardest piece of the health service to make Covid safe because of the aerosols that we generate when we drill. It is as simple as that. That is the blunt truth. The other elements of dentistry are not any more high-risk than other close-up contact outpatients like physiotherapy or other things that you would do to the head and neck. However, the aerosols that you generate from the air, water and drilling, that is the problem. That was not fully understood two years ago because it could not be. Now, as we have moved and the world has gathered, in fact Scotland has led the way, there is an evidence-based paper that gets updated all the time from Dundee University, led by a colleague of mine, and that has gone to all the chief dental officers in the world in order to adapt the way Scotland has adapted. We will have to continue to adapt and adapt again. It is not just ventilation, it is also the type of drills that are used. You can change the suction at the drill tip rather than in the room. There are lots of technological things that we can do, and then it is a matter of educating the broad dental teams about how that works. 50-minute fallow time is now, I think, a thing of the past, but fallow time is not. Fallow time is allowing the dust to settle, and cleaning the dust next patient. That is why you have that fallow time. Rather than it being in the air, you give it time for it to fall onto the surfaces and you can then clean it away. That is what that is about. Ventilation is one of those solutions. It might be helpful if you had either saw oral evidence from the chief dental officer or even a letter from the chief dental officer, I think, would fill in some of those gaps for you. I know and I should reiterate what the Deputy First Minister said. The teams who are quite close to me—I go out for dinner with them, they are my pals—have worked really hard to make this as safe and as fast as they can. I appreciate the comments. I would like to ask a couple of questions that have come up in evidence that we have heard today. The first question that came to your comment was just that it was in private session from our committee adviser Professor Peter Donnelly, who told us that there has been a 20 per cent rise in excess deaths compared to what we would normally expect at this time of year. That cannot be explained by an increase in the Covid rates. He said that that is an issue that needed urgent consideration. In his view, that is down to pathologies and diseases that are going undetected and untreated, including, for example, later stage cancers. I wonder if you agree that that is a serious issue. If so, what has been done to try to better understand why it is happening and what should be done to address it? It is a serious issue and it relates directly to some of the difficult judgments that the Government has made in reconciling the challenges of dealing with Covid with the wider challenges that Covid presents to the rest of society. The development of the Four Harms framework was last summer 2020, an explicit recognition of the very legitimate issue that Mr Fraser raises. The direct health harm of Covid, which I would acknowledge, was the central focus of Government decision making between February, March 2020 and the summer of 2020, when we adopted the Four Harms framework, and then the other three harms of non-Covid health harm, economic and social harm. That was a recognition by the Government that we could not just deal with Covid alone, we had to make sure that other factors and other conditions were being addressed. I think that there is obviously a whole programme of activity that has been in place to ensure that there was as little interruption as possible to some of the routine services that would perhaps identify some of the conditions to which Mr Fraser refers and to ensure the recovery of health services to enable them to be addressed, but the points that Professor Donnelly raises merit further investigation and analysis, which the Government is and will be continuing to do, to ensure that we have the proper and correct balance between measures to tackle Covid and measures to tackle the wider health harms that members of the public will face. That dilemma gets to the heart and influence as some of the decisions that we make about what we as a whole society have to do to tackle the issues that are thrown up by Covid. It is a serious issue and it is one that the Government is looking at with care. It is an excellent point that Dr Donnelly makes. It is three things and anybody who asserts that they know what it is is probably wrong. We do not know yet what it is, but it is three categories. It is Covid, it is postponed care by health services around the world and it is postponed care by people for whatever reason they did not come forward, either they are scared of Covid, scared of bothering us, scared of whatever it might be. There is an excellent website called EuroMOMO and Scotland participates in EuroMOMO. EuroMOMO is where we measure excess mortality for the continent, so it is a continental problem. It is about those numbers 10, 15, 20 per cent in all major European economies. We will not truly understand what that is until those people are through the system. We have actual diagnoses and actual outcomes. Some of it will be undiagnosed or late-diagnosed cancer for sure. Some of it will be Covid. Some of it will be respiratory disease on top of respiratory disease that already existed. It is a consequence of a global pandemic. I fear that it will also be happening in countries where we do not know, where we simply do not have the Covid rates or the other disease monitoring that we have across Europe. It is a phenomenon that we absolutely have to tackle. My colleagues in the health service are dealing with the consequences of it every day. Thank you. That is a very helpful answer. I know that my colleague Jim Fairlie would like to pursue some of this in due course, and I am sure that it is an issue that the committee will want to return to because it is so significant. Can I ask a separate question about the issue of vaccine passports and the consideration that the Scottish Government is giving to potentially extending those? I am not going to get into rehearsing all the arguments for and against because we have debated those before and will debate those again. However, I want to ask a specific issue that has come up in terms of evidence this morning, which is the potential for extending these vaccine passports to either other hospitality groups or, for example, theatres. We know that there are people currently who will have made bookings for Christmas parties, Christmas office lunches, people who have made bookings for the theatre, the Pantel season, and our family have done that. People tend to book those things well ahead. If those premises are brought under the remit of the vaccine passport system and people have not been vaccinated at this point, there will not be time for them to get vaccinated prior to Christmas. Therefore, they will be looking presumably to cancel their bookings and get money back. That will be a significant challenge for theatre operators, for the hospitality trade. Does the Scottish Government recognise that challenge? If it goes down this route, does it also recognise that those businesses legitimately would be looking for substantial financial compensation to make up for that loss of income? I recognise the issue and it is one of the practical issues that we are considering as part of the points that we are addressing in relation to the potential expansion and extension of the scheme. Those are legitimate points to consider. In trying to put that into context, we have in general very high levels of vaccination in the country. Therefore, the position is such that the overwhelming majority of the population is double vaccinated. As I said earlier on, any consideration we would be exempting children. In the case of the Pantel season, children would not be covered by that. However, in different age groups, particularly in the 18 to 29-year-old age group, we have a lower level of vaccination compared to older age groups. As we go higher up the age groups, we have very strong levels of vaccination. The number of cases that might be affected by this, because of those higher levels of vaccination, I do not think that substantiates the severity of the question that Mr Fraser put to me or the volume involved in the question that Mr Fraser put to me. There would undoubtedly be some people who would be affected, but because of the high vaccination rates, I do not think that it would merit some of the characterisation of the size of the problem that Mr Fraser raises. What I am satisfied about is that access to the vaccine certificate is pretty straightforward. The system is working well. People are able to download their vaccine certificates. There are occasional cases where people's data is not correct. I have furnished the committee with more detail on that point, which Mr Fraser and I exchanged comments about at the last time that I was at committee. Amongst 10 million or so vaccinations, issues with about 7,000 are currently outstanding and being resolved, which is a very small proportion matters to those 7,000 people, but it is a small proportion. Those are all issues that we are considering as part of the practicalities that we are involved in. If I can just ask one follow-up to that, Deputy First Minister, I am still getting communication with my constituents. I am sure that you are too, who are people who cannot still get vaccine certification via the app. Those are people either because they were part of trials and the app is not able to provide that certification, or people who have been vaccinated in other jurisdictions, perhaps overseas. Again, the app does not permit them to produce that certification. They are concerned that, if the vaccine passport scheme is rolled out further, that puts them at a disadvantage. What is being done to make sure that people in those categories can get the certification that they need? I think that I would want to secretary the two categories in there. On the question of people in vaccine trials, their circumstances should be addressed by the measures that we have taken. If there are people who still do not have that, I would happily engage with members of parliament or individuals to try to resolve those issues, because their circumstances should be pretty clear because of the arrangements that we have put in place. There are examples where people have been vaccinated in other jurisdictions, and I am seeing a number of cases in that respect, both within my constituency and more widely. Individuals should seek the help line to provide assistance to resolve those issues, and, as I said, we are working through all those cases to enable them to be a solution in place for some individuals. There will be some issues around some vaccines that are not MHRA-approved, which is slightly more challenging, but I would expect that to be at the extreme end of the spectrum. They are more challenging to resolve, but nonetheless, we will endeavour to resolve them. I will move on to Alex Rowley. I will remind members and the witnesses that we are a bit short of time today, so we could stick to about eight minutes for questions and answers. Thank you, Alex Rowley. In terms of where more will be finished off there, if I can pick up on that. You have quite a number of people. I have been surprised by the number of people who have contacted in the office, where they have had vaccines abroad, where they have been working abroad. I also, sadly, had a lady atop to the other day who has been told medically that she cannot get the vaccine. She also feels that this is probably her last Christmas, and she wants to go out to places. There are cases where proofy R negative test would change that situation for those people. Northern Ireland, as I saw yesterday, have agreed a much wider roll-out than the Government here has of the proofy vaccine certificate, but have also included in that, as has most to Europe, the proof of a negative test. That is what I want to come on to. Although I did not hear Mr Swinney on the radio yesterday, I am being told that he seemed to suggest that both the negative test and the vaccine certificate would be required if there was going to be a further roll-out. Can you say to us what the thinking of the Government is around this? What evidence that you are looking at in terms of including proofy a negative test? The first point is in relation to the circumstances that Mr Rowley puts to me about the lady who is, for medical reasons, cannot obtain the vaccination. In terms of the arrangements, she should be able to obtain certification that enables to demonstrate that that is the case. There should be no impediment to that lady being able to access documentation that would allow her to essentially operate as if she had a vaccine certification. On the wider question that Mr Rowley puts to me, the point that I was making on radio yesterday morning is that there is a spectrum of public health interventions that we can undertake in relation to the use of vaccine certification and other evidence, if I could put it that way. At one end of the spectrum, you have what I would call the belt embraces approach, which would be vaccine certification and a lateral flow test. That would be demonstrating that people had been double vaccinated and they also had undertaken the LFD test, which would provide assurance that at that moment, because as we know, one can still be double vaccinated and contract coronavirus, that they were not in that position. That is the sort of belt embraces end of the spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum, it would be a LFD test only option. The point that I was trying to get across is that there are a range of choices that can be considered on that spectrum. Among them, there is vaccine certification, or the alternative of LFD evidence, or as Northern Ireland has applied a third, which is demonstration of recent infection for, well, appropriate recognition of having had coronavirus and therefore having antibodies. There is a range of options that are available there, and obviously the Government is giving consideration to those options, as I have confirmed to the committee before. This one will accept that this is not the normal way to do legislation. We continually pass SSIs in here that were enforced previously. It is not ideal, but I for one have said that party politics and try-to-score political points should be put to one side. We are in a crisis and everyone should be behind the Government in trying to get forward. However, the quid pro quo for that is that we have complete transparency in terms of the thinking. If you bring forward next Tuesday proposals to expand this without including whatever European country that your colleagues in Wales and Ireland have done, I think that you will need to explain that and we need transparency. We need to understand, although making laws in a way that is not the norm and does not give you full transparency, we need to understand better for the Government what it is thinking as. I do not think that it is just good enough to say, well, we will make that decision next Tuesday and we will announce that. First of all, I think that he puts to me a completely reasonable point, so I do not dispute that. What I would say in response is that I think that these issues are all being aired by the Government. We set out some weeks ago, back in early September, although we aired a way back in probably April, I would think, the first possibility of vaccine certification. We have aired the evidence, we have aired some of the options that I am here today to engage in that conversation. I appreciate that this is where, as a minister who is having to wrestle with the situation, I am grateful to Parliament. Parliament has been very pragmatic about the legislative approach that we have to take to deal with a situation that is changing around us and the Government, frankly, could not bring forward the necessary legislation in the fashion that we would all like to be able to do. We will have the normal processes of scrutiny. However, what we are trying to do is to be as open as possible, aiding those issues and responding to the issues raised by members. That is either in the format of this discussion here at the committee or in the statements that are made by either the First Minister or myself for the health secretary in the updates that we have made in recent weeks and also in wider debate. I give Mr Rowley the assurance that we will also be providing an update to the evidence space to inform a wider audience about the issues that are preying on the Government's minds and that we are wrestling with as we come to these conclusions. Finally, there is an article in The Guardian this morning where it is for the health editor Andrew Gregory. It says that mass wearing cuts Covid incidents by 53 per cent. It says global study. Basically what they are saying is results from more than 30 studies from around the world were analysed in detail showing statistically significant 53 per cent reduction in incidences of Covid with mass wear and 25 per cent reduction for physical distancing. I have raised this before but I am concerned. This week I have been in a number of shops where particularly I would say the younger generation but parents, young parents etc, not wearing mass face coverings. The shop itself that I was in and one shop I was in anyway had these tannoy announcements every so often saying you should wear a mask. If the evidence, if this piece in The Guardian today is right and the evidence shows that mass wearing is having such an impact on trying to allow us to live with this virus then I think the Government needs to look at enforcement. You know, there is no point in introducing further baseline measures where one of the strongest measures is not being enforced. You know, the Government, I know you have said that, the Cabinet have discussed this, but where we are, are you satisfied with the levels of enforcement or should you be looking at other steps to ensure enforcement face coverings in shops etc? I saw the material to which Mr Rowley refers. It is a very substantial academic paper that is published in the British Medical Journal on the subject of media reporting this morning. It looks at a range of different surveys and research exercises that have been undertaken that internationally prove on a compelling basis the merits and value of face coverings and being an obstacle to spread the virus and physical distancing. So, in terms of the decision making of the Government, having taken the step to ensure that we maintain the position on face coverings that we have maintained, I am glad that we took that decision. I think that Mr Rowley puts a fair challenge to me about whether or not that is being applied as much. The research evidence that we gather demonstrates, I think that it would be fair to say, a declining level of compliance with those routine measures, but what those studies show in a compelling way is that those routine habitual elements of protection would actually help us to avoid having to do other things. So, if we all want to avoid the other things that we all want to avoid, the other restrictions, disciplined use of face coverings would help us in that challenge. What follows from that is the question about whether there is a necessity for us to take a more stringent approach, which puts much greater regulatory force into those arguments. That is obviously part of the agenda that the Government is considering. When we looked at those issues at Cabinet last week, we took decisions—we could have taken decisions at Cabinet last week—to relax even the restrictions that we have in place at other requirements about face coverings. We did not do that. The advice that I gave to Cabinet was that the current assessment of the current state of the pandemic merited no relaxation of the measures. We agreed to come back next week to consider whether we need to extend them further, and the points that Mr Rowley raises are issues that we will consider. Murdo Fraser spoke earlier about some of the evidence that we took this morning, and the 20 per cent that we cannot of the excess deaths that we now have. That is talking in a generic way about what is happening nationally. I want to talk about one person. I have a constituent who is younger than me by some number of years. She is a mother of four. She has cancer. She has had one operation. She has been through chemotherapy, and she is now—last week—was taken to nine wells, prepped for surgery. She was in the day before, and she came to nine o'clock the following morning, and her operation was cancelled because there was no ICU bed. She contacted me in some distress because she is fearful of her life. She has been told that she needs this operation. If she does not get it, she is not going to make it. You can understand the concern of her family and everybody else about it. We need to something to just remember that that is what it is about. We were told this morning that ICU beds are blocked for longer by people who are in with Covid. We have also been told that all of the people who are in ICU are people who are unjagged, who have not had the vaccination. I know that we are doing all the things that we are doing, but what can we do now to get her a bed? The first thing that I would say is that the circumstances that Mr Fairlie recounts are deeply regrettable. I am afraid that the burdens that are being wrestled with on the health service make examples like that a possible consequence of the pressures that we are facing in the national health service. We are in a situation where the national health service at every level is under enormous pressure. There are urgent questions in Parliament on a fairly regular basis about the pressures on particular health board facilities because of the pressures on the health service. If there are individuals who require intensive care support, we have to be satisfied that capacity is available for them, whether they are coming into hospital for an operation that is pre-planned, as in the case of Mr Fairlie's constituent, or where there has been an immediate emergency, where somebody requires intensive care support and it could not have been predicted. We are having to plan for those two circumstances. ICU occupancy on 17 November yesterday was 73. That was down from 79 a week before. That will be spread across the country. The overall position on hospital occupancy is a slightly better position than it was a week ago. However, the solution to the challenge is to try to reduce the burden that Covid is placing on the national health service. That is the solution for Mr Fairlie's constituent, which is why the Government is taking the measures that we are taking to tackle the wider challenges around Covid. Professor Leitch will comment on the point about length of occupancy in ICU beds in relation to Covid. There will be a variation in the length of stay of Covid patients in hospital, depending on, for simplicity's sake, age and wider health context of those individuals. Fundamentally, the challenge that we face is about reconciling the need to deal with the impact of Covid and the need to protect, to address the other health conditions that members of the public will face, which is the point that Mando Fraser put to me at the start of this session. The first thing, Mr Fairlie, is clearly to express my sympathy to that family situation. I am certain that my colleagues in Tayser will do everything that they can to correct that, and I imagine that they are doing that today. Tomorrow, if that does not get resolved, please feel free to get in touch and we will try to see what we can do. There is some context here, which the First Minister has begun. There are 277 people in intensive care today in Scotland, 277 for all diseases. Our baseline intensive care capacity was about 200 before Covid arrived, so we did not have 277 beds before Covid. Now we have 277 people in beds in intensive care fully staffed with doctors, nurses and care teams in those intensive care units. Covid has changed the game globally. It is a new disease and we have not taken anything away. No disease has disappeared. Therefore, we have had to adapt, and we have had to adapt really quickly whether we are in Austria or Scotland, and the intensive care teams have had to change the way in which their buildings work, their staffing work, and everything. That, of course, has led to just exactly the same answer that I gave Mr Fraser earlier. There is a backlog of people who have had conventional care that is carried on. There is a backlog of people who have been scared to come forward. I would make two fill of comments. The beds are not blocked by people in intensive care. They are being treated in intensive care and they are in the right bed. We do not put them there for no reason. We let them out of intensive care as quick as we can because it is not a good place to be for them or their families. We want them out, and there will be beds downstream for them to move to, because intensive care is so high in terms of demand that we need them. The other thing is that the length of stay is increasing. Ironically, it is something to celebrate because, forgive the shorthand, the patients are not dying as quickly. We have learned so much about this disease that we can save lives better. That is one of the reasons why the death rate is so much lower now than it was in the first and the second waves. Intensive care teams now have more drugs and ammunition at their disposal to keep people alive, but that means that they stay longer and survive. That is fantastic, but there is a consequence to that. That means that they are in bed for longer. About 16 Covid cases have been in intensive care for longer than a month. There is every likelihood that they will have a good outcome. Not all of them, but some of them will have a good outcome. That means that that bed is full for over a month. It means that it is not available for a stroke patient or a cancer patient during a time. That is to be celebrated because we are able to keep those people alive and they will walk out of hospital subsequently. It is a very complex system of clinicians, of drugs, of patients and families, but in its core it is about your constituent. It is about that lady and her family. We need to make it as good as we can for her and for everybody else that system touches. I can confirm that I have written to the chief executive and if her next date is cancelled, I will be on the phone. At home boosters, we are being inundated with people who cannot get out and are requiring a booster jag. They are going to seven, eight or nine months since their last second jag and there seems to be a disconnect between GP surgeries and the healthcare system putting the two together. We are getting positions where people are not even on the system, so there is something wrong somewhere and it would be possible to find out what the problem is so that these elderly patients can get back out into society. Obviously, in terms of the way in which we have opted to, to some extent, various around the country, health boards have looked at the scale of the challenge to roll out the booster vaccination programme and the performance has been quite extraordinary. Yesterday, there were in excess of 65,000 vaccinations undertaken in Scotland and that is now a pretty routine figure for a daily basis between flu and the booster jag. Obviously, there is a range of different models being used from larger centres, smaller facilities in smaller communities, but then also a degree of distribution at very local level in individual homes or care homes to those who cannot access other centres. That programme is being pursued and rolled out. I would give the assurance that everybody that needs to be covered will be covered by that programme, but, obviously, it may take slightly longer to get round a volume of home visits at the same time as we are taking forward large volume of the distribution of the vaccine, but I am certainly very happy to explore further what additional steps can be taken to address the issue that Mr Fairlie raises to ensure that individuals are receiving the vaccination point that they are required to. I am reminded that this committee is called the Covid Recovery Committee, so we are trying to look ahead at how we get out of this particular crisis. I want to return to the stat that Murdoff Fraser raised earlier on that there is 20 per cent more deaths than expected that are now no longer explained by Covid and the impact that that is going to have going down the line. The example that I would like to use is around MSK and chronic pain. We know that, for example, having a knee replacement or a hip replacement significantly improves the health and wellbeing of that individual and then negates the need to continue medical attention while they have that issue, if that means so, and the deterioration in mental health etc. There is a mortality associated with not treating that kind of condition. We have already heard about cancer as well. One of the things that was said this morning by Peter Donnelly was that we are not collecting the data around things such as a cancer stage shift when it is first being diagnosed and that there are diseases that are going under-investigated and under-treated. The balancing act that I completely understand from the Government is around focusing on Covid as opposed to other conditions. However, to my mind, I think that there is pressure on the health service just now. Are we stoning up future pressures on the health service and creating another crisis that is inevitably coming down the track? I want to helpfully engage with Mr Whittle's question, but I want to push back on just one bit of the terminology that was used there, where Mr Whittle suggested that the Government focuss on Covid rather than on other health conditions. I would reject that as a characterisation of what the Government is doing and what the Government is trying to do. It relates to my answer to Mr Fraser earlier on. We are trying to wrestle with all the health challenges that we face as a country. Some of them are about Covid and some of them are about other factors. What I accepted in my answer to Mr Fraser is that some of the other conditions that have always been with us, are still with us and will be with us tomorrow, are attracting less attention and capacity within the health service because the health service is also having to deal with Covid. That is my pushback on the characterisation. We are trying to deal with everything, but Covid presents an extra volume of activity. Professor Leitch's response to Mr Fairlie about ICU in a sense makes this point. We had 200 ICU beds before Covid. We have now got 270 beds, but we have got 70 of them occupied by Covid patients. We have expanded the capacity of the health service beyond what we would normally have, but that extra capacity has been taken up all by Covid. I think that there is underlying Mr Whittle's question as a fair and reasonable observation, which is that the longer routine procedures such as a new replacement or a hip replacement are delayed for an individual, the greater their recovery is from the weakness and challenges that they may be facing just now. Someone who is finding it difficult to be mobile because they need a new hip is going to get more acute and more challenging the longer they have to wait for a hip replacement. Obviously, if they have a hip replacement, having a father who has had a hip replacement, the difference in his mobility pre and post is colossal. He has had years and years of extra ability to scoot about, which has been good for him in every respect. That is the fundamental problem, but we do not have an easy answer to it, because the Covid condition has got to be addressed and the other cases have got to be addressed. Then you will have examples that Mr Fairlays are life-threatening. We have to make sure that they have priority over some other conditions, which will be enormously painful for individuals, but they will not be immediately life-threatening, which is the case that Mr Fairlays will be. Thank you. A given that you have pushed back, you will not be surprised that I would have pushed back against you. That was raised by Peter Donnelly. It is the unexplained 20 per cent more than expected deaths that are there concerning. I am looking at stats here that say that the number of patients waiting to be seen for eight key diagnostic tests is 30 per cent higher than they were for the 12-month average back in 2019-20. I am back to that point again. I totally recognise the need for the Government to balance. I am starting to question whether I will get that balance right. As Peter Donnelly said, the diseases that are being under-investigated and under-treated and the data that is not being collected. What I am asking here is whether there is a potential for the Government to start collecting more data around this, because there is a crisis coming down the road at some point. I would have thought that the data collection issue is appropriate, but I will take that point away. I will take further advice from health officials, unless Professor Leitch wants to add them to my comments. I would have thought that the data collection would give us information, because, for example, we will know from existing data the number of patients who are considered requiring particular treatments. Let us just concentrate on hip replacements. We will know how many patients are waiting for hip replacements who have been referred through the system. We will know how long they are waiting. We will know how much longer they are waiting than they would have waited pre-Covid. Data like that will exist, but I will explore the points that Mr Whittle raises with me. Fundamentally, the question that comes down to this is where he and I are in agreement is about balance. How much of the resource of the health service is required to support people with Covid—how much of it is required—not just to support people with Covid, but to do other things associated with Covid. For us to be able to vaccinate 65,000 people on a daily basis, we need trained clinical staff to be crudly, not in a hospital, but in a village hall. We need them to transfer to do that, because vaccination is going to be an important bullwork against the virus. However, if clinical staff are delivering vaccinations, they are not delivering the other healthcare that we might want them to deliver in another setting. We are trying to maximise the resources that are available to ensure that all health conditions are adequately met and addressed, but I would have to accept that that places increased strain on the existing health services and the way in which they operate. The consequences for that for patients are that they may have to wait longer for treatment to be received. Very briefly, if there is specific data that Mr Donnelly wants, I will do my best to get him it. I know Peter and I relatively well. I am not sure which gap he specifically refers to. If it is initial diagnosis cancer stage data, you cannot get that until you see the patient. You cannot be on the waiting list. Most people refer for cancer, but cancer is not mentioned in their letter. They come with pain, they come with lumps and bumps, so we cannot know. That subsequent diagnostic data and then outcome data only happens as the disease progresses and the treatment progresses, so that is available. It is a slightly more researched version of that data. We do know who is waiting. We know in some sense what disease they have, so it might be a sore hip or a sore knee. In many cases, we do not know what is wrong with them and they are waiting in order to get a diagnosis for what is wrong with them, but I am happy to look for what data Dr Donnelly wants. I might be slightly more forceful than Mr Swinney, which is unusual, but I am not sure what he wants me to stop. If he thinks that the balance is wrong, I will have to stop something. I come to this committee and you tell me to accelerate vaccines, do more testing, treat the backlog. There has to be balance in there somewhere. I have just spent three days in the Western Isles and I have seen astonishing healthcare in really quite difficult environments. Vaccines in the backs of hotels, a mobile testing unit in the car park and the hospital still doing absolutely everything that it can to provide the healthcare to that population. We have a new disease. We are having to manage that new disease and all the old disease. I will just clarify what has been asked by Mr Peter. Sorry, sorry. We have to move on to John Mason, please. I think that there are three questions, if I may. We have quite a useful email from the British Society for Immunology with some figures in it. One of them was, if somebody has been vaccinated, they are 32 times less likely to die than if they have not been vaccinated and the two doses of vaccine give between 92 and 96 per cent protection against hospitalisation. I think that those are quite strong figures. Are those the ones that we recognise? That is good. Secondly, if we are going to roll out the vaccine certificates further, there is both the issue of people having had the jags, but there is also the issue of people not having access to the certificates. For example, I have the largest bingo place in the UK in my constituency and they are saying that 40 per cent of bingo customers do not have access to smartphone technology. I am wondering whether it would be possible to just send a paper copy of everyone's vaccine certificate to them? For vast numbers of the population, that would be, frankly, a waste of resources, because they have access to smartphone technology. A paper copy of a vaccine certificate is only a phone call away for individuals, literally a phone call away, and they will have it sent in the post. If there was to be—I am very confident that systems—we were giving a notional 14-day turnaround time for paper certificates, but they were generally arriving in two to three days. The capacity is there to deliver certificates to those who require them if they are required in a paper form. Thirdly, we had evidence early from Professor Peterson that we could put more reliance on the lateral flow tests than we have been, so I wondered what you were thinking on that. The material on the assessment that we operate—I listened with care to Professor Peterson's evidence this morning, which I found very interesting indeed—is that the lateral flow test is more than 80 per cent effective at detecting any level of Covid-19 infection, and it is likely to be more than 90 per cent effective at detecting the most infectious people at the point of testing. There is a strong and high reliability in lateral flow testing, and that is why we encourage people to use lateral flow tests and to do so on a regular basis, because it introduces an element of opportunity for individuals before they are going into wider settings to assess themselves. Are they potentially a carrier of the virus and then putting others in danger of contracting the virus? There is a strong evidence base that supports the use of lateral flow devices. Obviously, the primary purpose of the Covid vaccination certificate scheme has been to boost vaccine uptake. Obviously, the use of lateral flow device tests has a wider application, and that is obviously one of the material issues that we are considering. Up till now, we have put quite a lot more emphasis on trust in the PCR tests, so I wonder whether her studies can bring the two more into balance. Professor Peterson's answer to you on that question explained why there is the necessity for both. The lateral flow test is a routine, regular safety first type of assessment. The PCR test gives us the ability to be absolutely certain to be able to draw clinical data out of that test to provide us with information about the development of the virus. We know that to be significant from the issues that we are wrestling with the delta variant, which has had such a profound impact on the prevalence of the virus in Scotland. That concludes our consideration of the agenda item, and I thank the Deputy First Minister and his officials for their evidence today. We move on to the third agenda item, which is consideration of the motions on the made affirmative instruments and the draft affirmative instruments considered during the previous agenda item. Deputy First Minister, would you like to make any further remarks on the SSIs before we take the motions? I am in your hands, convener. I would be happy to give an explanation of what is before the committee if that would be helpful, but I also do not want to hold the committee idea. Are we agreed to move on block? I now invite the Deputy First Minister to move on block motions S6M-01688, S6M-01885, S6M-01886 and S6M-01918. Thank you. Would any members like to make any comments? I know that no member has indicated that they wish to speak, so I will now put the question on the motions. The question is that motions S6M-01688, S6M-01885, S6M-01886 and S6S6M-01918 be agreed? Do members agree? Thank you. The motions are agreed. The committee will publish a report to the parliament setting out our decision on the statutory instruments considered at this meeting in due course. That concludes our consideration of this agenda item and our time with the Deputy First Minister. I would like to thank the Deputy First Minister and his supporting officials for their attendance this morning. The committee's next meeting will be on 25 November when we will take evidence on baseline health protection measures. That concludes the public part of our meeting this morning. I suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to leave and for the meeting to move into the private section. Thank you.