Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 01 December 2021
That is a wide variety—between 800 and 1,500 parts per million. One could pick a figure in between, as many councils have had to do. There was no answer in that intervention about the pass and failure rates of the 41,000 inspected classrooms. We have asked, time and again, for Government to produce that answer. We have put in parliamentary questions, but it has not been provided. There has been no real inspection programme. It has been a useless pretence to get the Government through questions in the chamber, resulting, by the cabinet secretary’s own admission, in no action.
Research from Harvard University shows that the use of portable air purifiers can reduce transmission rates of airborne viruses by 50 per cent. The use of high-efficiency particulate air filters can remove up to 80 per cent of airborne virus. Scottish Labour’s proposals follow examples of international best practice and call for the resourcing of the installation of two air filters in every classroom in Scotland. That is the best route to providing robust active ventilation that will better protect health and, by limiting the spread of the virus, minimise potential further loss of time in schools for our children. It is the correct approach that the Government should back tonight, and it should fund it in the budget.
We know that Covid is with us to stay and teachers are beginning to wonder whether this is now simply going to be the reality of Scottish winter months. I know that the Government is committed to expanding outdoor learning, but I would suggest that there are better ways to go about that than by bringing the Scottish winter indoors. Are we going to be in the same position a year from now? The Government needs to start building the pandemic infrastructure that we require for domestic vaccine production, regular mass vaccination facilities and their staffing, a public health system that works, an international vaccine contribution worth the name and, starting today, buildings that can help keep our children, our teachers and our education staff healthy.
In the short term, the advent of the omicron variant reminds us what anyone watching carefully has known for a very long time: a single-track strategy of high vaccination rates—for that is what the whole of the United Kingdom is now pursuing—cannot get case rates down sufficiently to prevent mass circulation and further variants. We must have a track and trace system that works and, vitally, ventilation in our public buildings.
I move,
That the Parliament notes with concern that case rates for COVID-19 continue to be highest among under-15s with seven-day case rates over 400 per 100,000; considers that reducing transmission of COVID-19 in schools will be crucial for reducing levels of the virus across the country and that the lack of proper ventilation is a worry for young people, teachers and parents; recognises that Scottish Government ministers have repeatedly failed to publish information on the rate of failure and criteria for their ventilation inspection scheme, which inspected 40,100 of 52,000 learning spaces between August and October 2021; agrees that, especially during the winter months, there is a need for more active ventilation in schools, and calls on the Scottish Government to ensure that local authorities have funding available to install at least two HEPA filters in each classroom in Scotland.
16:04