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We are doing more. That is why we will imminently publish the refreshed fair work action plan, which I mentioned earlier. The idea is to encourage employers to become fair work employers, which means being flexible, including by offering flexible hours and implementing other measures, such as: giving employees a voice in the workplace; employing people for a minimum of 16 hours per week so that they have a decent income to make it worth while; and paying the real living wage. There is more to do on the real living wage, although we are doing really well on that in Scotland just now: 91 per cent of people in Scotland are paid the real living wage, which is above the rest of the UK by a reasonable margin.

The fair work agenda is important with regard to this debate, particularly in relation to attracting people in the older age group who might have taken early retirement and who have since had a change of heart or are keen to do a few hours here and there. At a time when we are facing labour shortages, we need employers to be more open-minded, become fair work employers and offer more flexibility to suit the needs of older people and, indeed, other parts of the population. It is not just about older people, but there is a bit of an untapped resource there that we should look at as a country. That is all part of the fair work agenda.

We have a diverse economy—that is just a fact—but most employers, if not the vast majority, have the ability to be flexible. I meet more and more employers who are becoming more open-minded and are offering more flexible conditions and hours of work. Perhaps other members are meeting such employers, too.

The world of work is changing. The pandemic has played a big role in that with working from home, hybrid working and much more flexible work that takes people’s circumstances into account. Employers are also much more inclusive.

We fund a number of projects and initiatives to help employers consider how they can take on more people with disabilities, adapt their workplaces and so on. We also fund Flexibility Works, an organisation that promotes flexible working. Various projects are being funded at the moment to push forward all of those agendas.

As you will be aware, there has been an expansion of resources for mental health in Scotland and a reprioritisation. As you rightly said, mental health and chronic pain are the two underlying causes of the figures around long-term illness and inactivity rates in Scotland. A lot of help, which is funded by the Scottish Government, is made available for employers in Scotland to call on to help people with mental health issues, and other issues in relation to occupational health, get back into work.

It is very difficult for us to pinpoint because, as I said in my opening remarks, every person’s situation is different, whether we are talking about people with disabilities or people with mental health or chronic pain issues. They also quite often have multiple issues, which is why they are long-term inactive.

Alastair Cook might want to contribute to that, because his specialism relates to mental health.

There is low incidence of Covid in the population generally at the moment, and the inactivity statistics show that it is long-term sickness that is a challenge for Scotland. There are various surveys of samples of the population. If we take a brief look at them, we see that 0.8 per cent of people who are inactive in Scotland say that they have long Covid. The Scottish health survey estimated that 7 per cent of those with limiting, long-standing illnesses reported having long Covid in 2021; in comparison, 3 per cent of those with non-limiting, long-standing illnesses reported having long Covid. Although there are people with long Covid, the statistics therefore show that it is perhaps not the predominant issue.

That issue was brought to my attention by trade unions and others, particularly during the pandemic. The Scottish Government’s view is that we have many people with long-term illnesses and that to pick one condition and categorise it as a disability would mean having to redefine many other long-term illnesses. Further, different symptoms and conditions could be part of long Covid. The decision has therefore been taken not to recognise long Covid as a disability at the moment. Dr Alastair Cook may have medical input to add to that answer.

Does Murdo Fraser want me to come back in on that?

I add for Murdo Fraser’s benefit that the Scottish Government is very keen to work with employers so that they can provide support for employees to come back to work through providing mental health support. The Scottish Government is making available a lot of support that employers can call on to support their workers to come back. Of course, we need employers to do that.

There are some eye-catching statistics: for example, that poor mental health costs Scottish employers more than £2 billion a year at the moment, and that, for every £1 that is spent on mental health interventions, employers get a £5 return on investment. We have to get that message across to employers more, which I will certainly give more attention to. Those statistics show the importance of that.

The Scottish Government has launched the mental health transition recovery plan, and we also have the new NHS 24 mental health hub, which I am told has received more than 200,000 calls so far. That was launched in July 2020, before the end of the pandemic. We also have other platforms such as a new mental health and wellbeing platform for employers and others to call on. We are trying to help employers to do as much as they can to help employees get support.

That is one reason why the Scottish Government has allocated much more resource to mental health services in the past year or two and throughout the pandemic. As Alastair Cook said, the forthcoming mental health strategy, which will be published shortly, will take into account issues in relation to inactivity and employment.

I made the point that—this might go back to your hobby horse of data—it is difficult to make many assumptions when we have no data to back them up. As I said, Scotland has quite a long-standing issue with long-term illness, and we project that the issue will be even greater in future years. It is difficult to back up and justify homing in on one factor and saying that the figures relate directly to Covid, because of the nature of long-term illness. People can have many different illnesses.

Your key point is correct—we are looking at how to further the delivery of mental health services, because that will make longer-term savings by helping the economy and by helping people to get back to work or whatever. That is why we continue to take the issue seriously.

I am not arguing against your general point; that is something that we should continue to look at, and I am sure that there is always room for improvement. Obviously, if the committee makes recommendations along those lines, we will treat them very seriously. I welcome the fact that the committee is holding its inquiry, and if you give us some recommendations that will help us to help people and Scotland, we will definitely take them on board.

That is a very good question. My view is that we should be doing more to bring people who have taken early retirement back into the workplace, although not necessarily in full-time positions but perhaps through flexible or part-time working. We have labour shortages in Scotland, but it is not just that; we should also remember that things change and evolve. People who took early retirement, having reflected on their work-life balance and other quality of life factors during the pandemic, may be reflecting again, now that we are through the worst of the pandemic. We should take advantage of that. The cost of living crisis is also perhaps encouraging some people who took early retirement from their previous jobs to go back into the workplace to some degree—maybe part time.

We are working with Age Scotland and funding some work that it is doing to help it to train and work with managers and organisations to make their employment policies and workplaces more attractive in order to bring people in the 50 to 64 age group back into the world of work.

Early retirement is one factor that has led to the increase in inactivity in the past few years, although it has not had as much of an effect as long-term sickness. However, when we look at the data, we see that some of those who have taken early retirement have done so for specific reasons such as caring for others, including family members. It is therefore not quite as simple as saying that they are available to come back into the workplace. There are a variety of factors out there.