Hansard

I am grateful to the Green Party for making time for this important debate today. We have some differences of opinion on universality, but it is important that we make it clear that nobody should be disadvantaged if they are forced to self-isolate.

It is nearly a year since the first cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Scotland. When I look back at that time, it seemed that the threat was very far away. It is strange to think that, just a year ago last week, I was asking the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport about repatriating British citizens from a Chinese city that I had barely heard of and, today, I learned that one of my closest friends has tested positive, after sitting at the bedside of her father, who died in an Edinburgh hospital of Covid on Friday. We had no idea just how much the pandemic would turn all our lives upside down.

Since then, coronavirus has dominated every aspect of the business of Parliament, which is right. Consideration of public health has to come first, but the impact has been felt in all portfolios and discussions—from justice to jobs and from education to the environment. We have not always agreed in the chamber on the right course of action, and sometimes that disagreement has been vehement, but that comes from a good place. It comes from passion and from having a duty of care for the people whom we were all sent here to represent.

The top line of the Green Party motion rightly refers to the Government’s vaccine roll-out. My frustration about that is a matter of public record. It is not the fault of clinicians; it is because of a centralised bottleneck. We are starting to see improvement, for which I am grateful, but I will restate the point that my leader, Willie Rennie, made at First Minister’s question time this afternoon. A vaccine hub has been established in one of the most deprived areas of my consistency, in Muirhouse, but everyone who lives within sight of it will be shipped to the Edinburgh international conference centre to get their vaccines. We really need to identify and remedy some of the administrative hurdles.

The motion also refers to the need for an “effective” test, trace and isolate programme. That need was urgent six months ago; the Government’s launch of test and protect proved to be many things, but “effective” was not one of them. That said, I welcome the plans that the First Minister laid out yesterday to widen asymptomatic testing in healthcare settings and to launch community testing across mainland areas. Some reassurance will be given to teaching staff—who are rightly anxious, given the prevalence and transmissibility of the new variant among young people—that they will have access to asymptomatic testing twice weekly.

These are unprecedented times, as is absolutely manifest in the workload from all our inboxes and mailbags. There have been queries about the restrictions, about interpreting guidance and rules and about many other aspects of Covid-related casework.

However, for me—and, I am sure, for other members—the greatest amount of time has been spent helping people who have had little or no support from the Government, because they have slipped through various cracks in the firmament. I do not blame the Government for that. It is very difficult to have a catch-all provision in these difficult times, but there are many such cases.

The toll that that has taken on people has been huge. The stress and emotional burden of being unable to pay for the basics, not knowing how rent will be paid next month and not knowing how they will keep up a decent standard of living have been unbearable for so many of my constituents, as they have for many of other members’ constituents. The virus is punishing enough without people having to choose between following rules and being able to feed their families, so we need to make it easier for people to self-isolate.

Thanks to the broad shoulders of the UK economy, people have been able to access the coronavirus job retention scheme, and I welcome the First Minister’s announcement yesterday that the £500 self-isolation payment will be available to everyone whose income level is below the real living wage.

As I close, I urge the Scottish Government to ensure that the new measures are robust and inclusive enough that no one who needs or is entitled to support will lose out. The Government will have the responsibility for ensuring that the support packages succeed where they have previously failed, because the livelihoods of all our constituents depend on them.

Let us not lose sight of the recovery. The biggest thanks that we can give to those who are working hard to keep us safe throughout the pandemic is to do everything that we can to fight the virus with a world-class test and trace system, adequate support packages for individuals and businesses, and a vaccination programme that will allow businesses to reopen, our economy to restart and schools to return.

A number of members have mentioned the real possibility, as articulated by Jason Leitch at the COVID-19 Committee last week, that Covid might be here to stay and that we might have to learn to live around it. That means that we need to make it safer and more convenient for people to observe the rules and to ensure that people are financially recompensed if they are required to do so. Achievement of that will require a spirit of partnership and co-operation inside and outside Parliament, with people working together in the interests of everyone, in all corners of Scotland.