Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 February 2022
That is an issue that we will have to chew over in the bill process—whether we should have a statute book that can deal with emergencies. The Conservatives could quite easily muster up an argument to say, “Oh my goodness, you have been sitting in government for 15 years and have not yet got the statute book ready for emergency situations.” They could put forward that argument, and I would not put it past them to do so. We will leave that argument there and come back to pursue it on another, unhappy day.
In relation to the bill, I welcome the comments that colleagues have made. A number of colleagues have made points about the importance of ensuring that the self-isolation grant is available to people who require it. I have put on record the steps that we have taken to improve awareness of it. We will continue to do that, because it is vital that individuals receive the support that is necessary.
Jackie Baillie asked me about the United Kingdom Government’s decisions—well, not even decisions, but statements that were made by the Prime Minister earlier today about the removal of any requirement for self-isolation. I will just say to her that I have no clinical advice that would suggest to me that that is a good idea on the timescale that is presented. I shall leave it to Jackie Baillie to judge whether that announcement at Prime Minister’s questions had anything to do with clinical judgment or whether it had more to do with the survivability in office of the current Prime Minister. I think that that is no way to take decisions on an important question of that type.
Moving on to the debate, I confirm that the Government will support the reasoned amendment that Jackie Baillie has moved. However, I want to say a couple of things about it.
First, the Government’s approach to self-isolation support has been very mindful of the importance of ensuring that the self-isolation support grant delivers the national living wage. Obviously, we are putting a different obligation on people for the duration of self-isolation now than we did at earlier stages of the pandemic. The requirement today would be for individuals to self-isolate for seven days and then, with satisfactory clearance from lateral flow tests, to return to work. With £500, they would receive a sum of money that is in excess of the national living wage. That is obviously different from where we started. I accept the terms of the amendment, which asks the Government to review the amount that is paid. We will do that. Our objective is to ensure that that amount at least matches the national living wage, and that has been our position throughout the pandemic.
My second point about the reasoned amendment is that I hope that I do not find myself in the situation, which only a handful of us in Parliament will recall—Liz Smith will recall it—that occurred on the occasion of my first budget to the Parliament, in 2007 or 2008, when I accepted a reasoned amendment from the Labour Party at the conclusion of the stage 3 debate and the Labour Party proceeded to vote against the budget and its reasoned amendment. A few of us have been here long enough to remember that; my dear friend Christine Grahame was here, and she remembers it as well. I hope that I do not find myself in that situation at decision time and find that, after I have generously accepted the reasoned amendment, the Labour Party does the unthinkable on me and does not support the bill.
This is a very practical bill. It is designed to protect the finances of our health boards but also to put in place the support that is required by members of the public who we ask to self-isolate. I invite Parliament to support the bill, along with the reasoned amendment at decision time.