Hansard

It gives me no pleasure to take up members’ time to speak against the motion, but I feel that it is important to raise how unsatisfactory it is that SSIs are presented to the Parliament with a broad range of elements that we have either to support or reject en masse. I have raised the matter at the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee and hope that, in the next session of Parliament, the manner in which SSIs are presented can be reviewed.

This afternoon, we are being asked to support seven different restrictions and requirements in one SSI, with the only connection between them being that the Scottish Government considers them important in suppressing the Covid virus. However, I am struggling to find the evidence to support some of them.

For example, what happens to landlords who are not receiving rent but cannot take action? Will they lose their properties if they cannot pay their mortgages? If the properties are then sold on, what happens to the tenants?

Do parents who can, by court order, see their children only at a contact centre lose the right to see their children during this difficult time?

How does having a number of people waiting and chatting outside a takeaway door—as I have experienced—aid management of Covid, when people can stand inside and queue in a supermarket?

Finally, why is it necessary to prohibit consumption of alcohol in a public place in a level 4 area, when the regulations require people to stay at home unless they have a reasonable excuse not to, and when many areas already have byelaws governing the matter?

I am reserving my position until I hear whether the minister can give rational and evidence-based explanations for the regulations, and explain how the risks that they pose will be mitigated.

I wonder whether my fellow MSPs are fully conversant with the content of what they are voting on and, as lockdown continues, of the risk that some of the regulations pose when the bundling of them is so disconnected.