Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have taken a few and I am conscious of the time.

Nine local authorities with Scotland’s highest concentrations of deprivation are sharing £43 million of investment. A further £7 million from the schools programme is being shared between 73 additional schools with the highest concentration of pupils from areas of deprivation. Headteachers are being given an enhanced £147 million of pupil equity funding to support disadvantaged pupils. In addition, of course, all councils are offering 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare to eligible children, thereby making high-quality early learning and childcare available to families and saving parents up to £5,000 per year for each eligible child.

The Scottish Government’s recent announcement about building a system of wraparound childcare for school-age children over the course the parliamentary session is to be warmly welcomed. That will offer care before and after school and in the holidays, which will be free to families on the lowest incomes.

This afternoon’s debate gets to the heart of why we are here: to protect the most vulnerable in our society and to provide hope and opportunities. I ask members to please support the motion.

That is an issue on which there still needs to be discussion. I did not see the interview in question, so I cannot comment on Mr Marra’s specific point. I come back to the issue of the borrowing powers. We need to ask the UK Government for those.

An important point that has not been mentioned is the fact that the Scottish Government has taken the first step in establishing a minimum income guarantee, which will help to ensure that everyone in Scotland can live healthy, financially secure and fulfilling lives.

Pam Duncan-Glancy makes a valid point, but I come back to the point that Neil Gray made. We, in this Parliament, do not have the borrowing powers to achieve that. If we had those powers—as we would in an independent Scotland—we would be able to do that. As Neil Gray said, we must look at the demand and how we can meet that.

That brings us to the fundamental question about the myriad of powers that are split between here and Westminster. We need to have all the powers here.

Claire Mack, the chief executive of Scottish Renewables, has said that the current transmission charging system is

“entirely contrary to ... the net zero agenda”,

and she called on the UK Government to act without delay to address the outdated scheme. Can Maurice Golden address that point?

The first line in the Scottish Government’s “NHS Recovery Plan 2021-26” is:

“Scotland’s National Health Service is our most precious institution.”

We can all agree on that. It continues:

“In our hour of greatest need during the pandemic the women and men who staff our NHS provided exemplary care in the most trying of circumstances.”

It says:

“The aim of this plan is to drive the recovery of our NHS, not just to its pre-pandemic level but beyond. This recovery plan is backed with over £1 billion of targeted investment over the next 5 years to increase NHS capacity, deliver reforms in the delivery of care, and get everyone the treatment they need as quickly as is possible.”

We have only four minutes in which to speak. I want to focus on a couple of key points in health and social care.

The plan sets out key actions for the next five years to help to address backlogs in healthcare and increase capacity by at least 10 per cent. Other key actions include

“increasing investment in National Treatment Centres ... to more than £400 million, contributing to delivery of over 40,000 additional elective surgeries and procedures per year”.

I know that my constituents will welcome that at East Lothian community hospital. The other key actions include

“raising primary care investment by 25%, supporting GPs, community pharmacists, dentists and optometrists”

As well as work to support workforce capacity and planning, a national workforce planning strategy that supports remobilisation, recovery and the rebuilding of health and social care services is vital—[Interruption.] We are tight for time. I am sorry.

The strategy will be published by the end of the year and will articulate a long-term health and social care workforce vision alongside our priorities for workforce growth, recruitment, retention, and training and development. I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is dedicated to that really important piece of work. The strategy builds on on-going work to support the boards’ workforce capacity.

A national care service will be among the biggest-ever achievements of the Parliament.

I am sorry; I will maybe take an intervention later on. I am tight for time.

I am sure that he did not.

The social care sector directly employs 205,000 people in Scotland, which is approximately 8 per cent of the country’s workforce. It has been estimated that the sector contributes around £3.4 billion to Scotland’s economy, so it is a really important part of it.

Like everyone else, I received Oxfam Scotland’s briefing for the debate, which was on placing care at the heart of the Covid-19 recovery. We have to remember that. Oxfam Scotland mentioned care issues and poverty, which are deeply linked. Those who care for adults unpaid report escalating care needs and financial pressures. Polling that has been conducted during the pandemic shows that nearly 30 per cent reported struggling to make ends meet. Oxfam Scotland also says that Scotland must commit to a new national outcome on valuing and investing in all forms of care.

We had the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, Shona Robison, and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities at the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. They also said that outcomes are really important. A proposed new national outcome on valuing and investing for care is vital as we move ahead, and it is to be embedded in the national performance framework to drive policy and spending decisions.

I turn to unpaid carers for the disabled and the elderly. They provide support and care for family members with additional support needs without pay. Prior to the pandemic, there were an estimated 788,000 carers, including 44,000 young carers, in Scotland. I know that a national care service will take into consideration that most of the care done in Scotland is unpaid, while ensuring that those paid to care are protected from poverty; it must deliver for the people doing unpaid care and those supported by the carers.

The actions that the Government is taking will put us in a better place as we recover from Covid.

I think that has been mentioned, and Public Health Scotland has covered that in various briefings that it has had. [Interruption.] I want to move on. That is the reality. However, we need to undertake the most proportionate actions to keep people in venues as safe as possible in what, as I said, will be a very challenging winter period.

As I have said, vaccination reduces transmission and significantly reduces the risk of serious illness. We have heard questions about whether vaccine certification will increase vaccine hesitancy. We have examples. A certification scheme has been introduced in France, and there has been an announcement of such a scheme in Israel. Both of those schemes have been associated with significant increases in vaccine uptake.

Covid certification has become an increasingly common response to the exceptional circumstances that we are all facing. The fundamental question is: how do we reduce the risk of transmission in the most proportionate and least restrictive way possible? Certification is a reasonable response to a very difficult discussion.

Yes—I am sorry, Presiding Officer.

I speak to businesses all the time about the measures, and they are supportive—[Interruption.] Yes, businesses support the measures. They do not want to close—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but I will not take an intervention on that point. I have taken a few, and I need to get on—[Interruption.] Let me answer the question. I have spoken to businesses that have had to close over previous months, and they do not want to go back to that situation, so they support the measures.

I will move on. The Scottish Government has made it clear that domestic vaccine certification will not be used to enable people to gain access to key services, or in settings where people have no choice but to attend—for example, healthcare, public transport, shops and education settings. The Scottish Government also does not consider it appropriate—[Interruption.] I will not take an intervention—I have taken a few already.

The Scottish Government also does not consider it appropriate to introduce certification for the hospitality industry as a whole. As has been mentioned, it is envisaged that children and people with medical conditions would be exempt. The Scottish Government has never ruled out Covid certification. The First Minister said:

“we continue to consider very carefully the possible, albeit limited, use of Covid status certification for access to certain higher-risk venues in future.”—[Official Report, 3 August 2021; c 4.]

Covid certification has already been introduced by several Governments of different political persuasions in countries across Europe. In August, the European Union digital Covid certificate was introduced in all 27 member states, as well as in Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein. Politicians from all parties agreed that it was a proportionate and necessary step to help to control the pandemic while opening up travel and social venues. There has been little or no ideological dispute, which may be a lesson for our opportunist Opposition.

Many countries have already gone much further than the Scottish Government is proposing to do. What the Scottish Government is proposing is also being proposed by the UK Government, which is looking to introduce certification for England at the end of this month. The scheme that the Tories are opposing in Scotland is the same one that their Conservative colleagues at Westminster will support—[Interruption.] No, I will not take an intervention—I have taken a few, and I am conscious of the time.

With regard to Labour, Keir Starmer has said that he supports “passports plus testing” for mass events but not for “access to critical things”. That is exactly what the Scottish Government is proposing. The Scottish Government will continue to keep all requirements under review—that is the important part. Any changes to legal restrictions will, of course, be scrutinised by Parliament.

If both Opposition parties are concerned about how the scheme will operate, they should support the principle of Covid vaccination certificates and work with the Government on implementation. Only this afternoon, I had an email exchange with Hospitality Scotland, which said that it was not against the scheme in principle. It has concerns about how the scheme is to be implemented, and it is speaking to the Scottish Government about those, but it is not concerned about the scheme in principle.

I ask members to support the motion, to protect the health of Scotland and enable us to finally move out of the pandemic.

The first duty of any Government is to protect its citizens. The pandemic has presented the biggest challenge to our way of life, our prosperity and our communities. When I spoke in the programme for government debate on Tuesday, I said that serious times required serious and responsible government, and that is what we have in what is being proposed today.

Let us look at the fundamental facts. Vaccination reduces transmission and significantly reduces the risk of serious illness—of that there is no doubt. We know that far fewer people are dying from Covid-19 than before the vaccination programme was rolled out. That is why we must all do what we can to ensure that people take up the offer of a vaccine, to protect themselves and those around us.

We must also ensure that there is enough capacity in our health and social care system—and nobody has touched on that today at all. In an ideal world, we would not be considering Covid vaccine certification. Like others, I do not want it to be in place for any longer than is necessary. However, the alternative may lead us to the possibility of facing further periods of closure for some of the higher-risk settings. That is the reality. [Interruption.] Sorry, but I will not take an intervention. I have a lot to get through.

We need to undertake the most proportionate actions to keep people as safe as possible in the venues that they visit, particularly in what is likely to be a very challenging winter period. We know that the highest risk is among unvaccinated individuals, who are significantly more likely to get infected.