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I recognise that families and people with lived experience have raised legitimate concerns about social care, but I do not think that they have asked for a major structural review to fix it.

The president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Councillor Alison Evison, has rightly asked why local government services were wrapped into plans for the national care service at the very last minute. She said:

“If there is nothing to hide it should be a fairly straightforward question to answer”.

Where was the consultation—unless I missed it—on the decision to significantly expand the scope of the Feeley recommendations?

Covid-19 has been linked to nearly 11,000 Scottish deaths, and one in three of those, tragically, has taken place in our care homes. Our thoughts go out to the families of all those who have died during the pandemic.

The cost of cancelled operations, delayed diagnoses and the inability of many patients to access healthcare will be significant, but ministers must accept that many of those problems pre-date the pandemic. Before I turn to the proposals for the creation of a national care service, I note that a brief review of the challenges that are facing our national health service has proved to be sobering.

In our accident and emergency units, over a quarter of patients are still not seen within four hours, and 115,000 patients are waiting to be seen for key diagnostic tests. Performance against the 12-week treatment time guarantee is at its third-lowest level since records began, and a fifth of patients are waiting too long for mental health treatment.

I would like to make some progress, first.

Drug deaths have tripled under the SNP Government, and waiting times for residential rehab regularly exceed a year. The chairman of the British Medical Association Scotland, Dr Lewis Morrison, says that doctors are exhausted and that many are simply considering leaving the NHS altogether. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine says that there is genuine concern that hospitals will not be able to cope this winter.

Covid has contributed to those challenges, but it is not, ultimately, the root cause. Years of this Government’s poor workforce planning are finally taking their toll on our NHS. The First Minister told Parliament last week that the creation of a national care service is

“the most significant public service reform since the creation of the national health service.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2021; c 13.]

The builder who botched the extension is now asking whether they can build a new house, all while a public health typhoon is blowing.

According to the Feeley review, the creation of a national care service will put adult social care on “an equal footing” with our NHS, but a brief look at our NHS in the present crisis raises serious questions about whether this is the right time to embark on such significant reform of adult social care. The Scottish Conservatives readily concede that social care in Scotland needs reform and investment, so we will look closely at the Government’s final proposals. The question is how far and how fast the process should go.

Hard-working staff are exhausted and the system is under immense strain. There are long-term demographic, structural, staffing, commissioning, funding and delivery challenges. Last year, the Care Inspectorate issued 197 warnings about staff shortages in care homes. In Fife, 395 people are waiting an average of 77 days for care-at-home packages. However, rather than looking to fix the urgent failings in the system, ministers now propose to bite off far more than they can chew, with a widespread reform programme.

Despite the current crisis in care, the Scottish Government proposes to consolidate adult social care, social work, children’s services, justice social work, alcohol and drug services and areas of mental healthcare in one service under direct ministerial control. Those reforms focus on structures for tomorrow and ignore the crisis in social care today. Although I welcome Kevin Stewart’s commitment to further consultation, I wonder whether he is genuinely listening. If he is, he must already be hearing the alarm bells ringing on the scope of the proposed service.

Will the member take an intervention?

Patrick Harvie has been in government for one week and already the SNP’s army of spin doctors have got their claws into him. Let us be in no doubt that the Greens have traded in their tandem for a pair of ministerial limousines and that they have left their principles on the pavement.

Throughout the pandemic, Scots have largely done what has been asked of them. We were told to stay at home to save lives, protect the NHS and defeat the virus, and we did. We were told to close our businesses, which put livelihoods on the line, and many of us did. We were told not to visit sick and dying relatives, and many of us did not. We were told to bury our dead without family and friends there to mourn them, and we did. That was the price of regaining our freedom.

The incursion into our lives caused by Covid has been unimaginable, but it has also been largely justifiable and based on practical and workable solutions. However, the issue that is before us today is different. Many Scots have raised legitimate concerns about civil liberties. What is being proposed means that, for the first time, Scots will have to provide private medical information to strangers in order to access some of the most basic things in our society. Critics say that that will create a two-tier Scotland: the have vaccines and the have nots.

What will those with medical conditions do? Can the Deputy First Minister guarantee that the exemption scheme will be operable from 1 October? We know that the vaccine uptake among those from deprived or ethnic minority backgrounds remains lower than it is in the population as a whole. The move risks further entrenching inequality.

The Government insists that the scheme will not be in operation for a moment longer than it needs to be, but it is commonly accepted that we cannot eliminate Covid, so surely the logic of the Government’s position is that passports will be here to stay. In its headlong rush—[Interruption.] I will give way.

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

We have seen, time and again, how the Government has not handed back the powers: it keeps seeking to extend them, and it is confirming that it will not necessarily withdraw them. It did that in June for the powers that could have—[Interruption.] No, I will not give way; I really must make some progress.

Notwithstanding what the Deputy First Minister says about the nature and timing of the powers, what evidence does he have that the policy will increase vaccine take-up? Even if it does, will it not undermine testing, creating a sense of reassurance that nightclubs are Covid free?

Let us consider the challenges faced by the industry. How will the equipment be rolled out? When will the beta testing of the app take place? Who will man the checkpoints? Who will pay for them? We found out today that it will be hard-pressed businesses all over again. What will we do for those people who do not possess smartphones? How long will it take for the authorities to make and distribute the paper certificates?

The SNP Government should stop, pause and consult further on the concerns that have been raised. The Scottish Government has failed to prepare the Scottish public or Scottish business for the introduction of the system. It has not addressed the problems raised by business, and it has glossed over legitimate concerns about civil liberties. It is for those reasons that I will vote against vaccine passports today.

The coronavirus is the biggest threat that this country has faced in decades. The pandemic that it has provoked has made us challenge long-held beliefs about the way in which we live our lives, the role of the state, individual freedoms and the finely balanced relationship between our rights and responsibilities. The public health emergency has forced many of us to set aside significant doubts about the interventions taken by Government. A silent killer was ravaging our care homes and indiscriminately killing our friends and family members. The stakes were simply too high not to take unprecedented action. However, let us not dodge the elephant in the room. No liberal Conservative such as I am would have handed those fundamental freedoms to the state in any other circumstance or on a never-ending basis.

The question that we must consider today is whether the Covid passport plan will work and whether it is the most effective way and the most practical mechanism to prevent the on-going harm caused by Covid.

Until a matter of only a few days ago, senior SNP figures appeared to be against Covid passports. Let us take as an example Mr Brassneck himself, Ian Blackford. Speaking about the United Kingdom Government’s plans, the SNP’s Westminster leader raised “serious concerns over ethics”. He said that there were concerns about “equity, ethics and privacy”. Ian Blackford is not the only member of the SNP to pivot on a pinhead. When the Deputy First Minister was asked in late July on “Good Morning Scotland” about the merits of barring the unvaccinated from certain events, he said:

“I think it’s the wrong way to handle it.”

He said:

“I would be much more convinced by an argument that was about engaging people ... and explaining the rationale”.

What about Mr Swinney’s coalition partners? Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater will today vote for measures that they vehemently opposed only a fortnight ago. That is despite Mr Harvie’s belief that vaccine passports

“could set a dangerous precedent for the longer term”.—[Official Report, 23 February 2021; c 18.]

We found out this week that CAMHS referral rates are now the highest on record, with one in every 100 children being referred for specialist care. Will the minister now outline what he intends to do to honour the Government’s commitment to increase the CAMHS workforce by 320 new staff?

Yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care conceded that waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services are “unacceptable” and admitted that the targets were badly missed before the pandemic.

Speaking after National Records of Scotland was forced to release data on Covid deaths in care homes, the First Minister said that the agency

“operates in these kinds of decisions independently of ministers”.

However, last week, we found out that former cabinet secretary Fiona Hyslop intervened with NRS in February to delay the release of the same data until after the election. That meant that families of care home residents who, tragically, died were left in the dark for months longer than should have been the case. Does the First Minister stick by her claim that no political pressure was applied to the NRS with regard to the release of that data, or did she, as she has previously put it, take her eye off the ball again?