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Yes.

Such dilemmas are at the heart of every budget process that the Government and, if I may say so, the Parliament have to go through. A range of options are available to ministers. What the Government is able to do in terms of borrowing is fairly limited, but other financial options are available. However, Parliament has to endorse the budget. When the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy makes her announcement on 9 December, members of Parliament will have to reflect on it; if they believe that we need to disinvest in one area of policy in order to invest in another, the opportunity will be available to them to come forward with amendments to the budget. The Government makes its judgment based on what we believe is a reasonable balance across all factors, but it is open to any member of Parliament to make alternative propositions.

No.

I listened with care to Professor Petersen’s evidence, which I found very interesting. The evidence that we rely on is that the lateral flow test is more than 80 per cent effective at detecting any level of Covid-19 infection and likely to be more than 90 per cent effective at detecting the most infectious people at the point of testing. There is strong and high reliability in lateral flow testing, which is why we encourage people to use those tests regularly. That introduces an element of opportunity for individuals to assess, before they go into wider settings, whether they are potential carriers of the virus and are putting others in danger of contracting it. A strong evidence base supports the use of lateral flow devices. The primary purpose of the Covid vaccination certificate scheme has been to boost vaccine uptake. The use of lateral flow testing has a wider application, and it is one of the material issues that we are considering.

For vast numbers of the population, that would be, frankly, a waste of resources, because they have access to smartphone technology. A paper copy of a vaccination certificate is only a phone call away for individuals—literally a phone call away—and they will have it sent in the post. I am confident about the systems. We had a notional 14-day turnaround time for paper certificates, but they have generally been arriving in two to three days. The capacity is there to deliver certificates in paper form to those who require that.

I think that it is a serious issue and it relates directly to some of the difficult judgments that the Government has made in reconciling the challenges of dealing with Covid with the wider challenges that dealing with Covid presents to the rest of society.

The four harms framework was developed in summer 2020 and was an explicit recognition of the very legitimate issue that Mr Fraser raises. There is the direct health harm of Covid, which I acknowledge was the central focus of Government decision-making between February and March 2020 and the summer of 2020 when we adopted the four harms framework, and then there are the other three harms, which are non-Covid health harm, economic harm and social harm.

The framework was a recognition by the Government that we could not just deal with Covid alone. We had to make sure that other factors and conditions were being addressed. A whole programme of activity has been in place to ensure that there has been as little interruption as possible to the routine services that would perhaps identify some of the conditions to which Mr Fraser refers and to ensure the recovery of health services to enable those conditions to be addressed.

However, the points that Professor Donnelly raises merit further investigation and analysis, which the Government is doing and will continue to do, to ensure that we have the proper and correct balance between measures to tackle Covid and measures to tackle the wider health harms that members of the public will face.

That dilemma gets to the heart of the overall picture and influences some of the decisions that we make about of what do we, as a whole society, have to do to tackle the issues that are thrown up by Covid. It is a serious issue and the Government is looking at it with care.

First, Mr Rowley put to me the circumstances of the lady who for medical reasons cannot obtain a vaccination. She should be able to obtain certification to demonstrate that that is the case. There should be no impediment to that lady being able to access documentation that would allow her to operate as if she had vaccination certification.

On the wider question that Mr Rowley put to me, the point that I was making on the radio yesterday morning is that there is a spectrum of public health interventions that we can undertake for vaccination certification and other evidence. At one end of the spectrum you have what I would call the belt and braces approach, which would be vaccination certification and a lateral flow test. That would demonstrate that people had been double vaccinated and also had undertaken an LFT, which would provide assurance that at that moment they were not infectious because, as we know, one can be double vaccinated and contract the coronavirus. That is the belt and braces end of the spectrum.

At the other end of the spectrum is the LFT-only option. The point that I was trying to get across is that there is a range of choices on that spectrum that could be considered. Among them is vaccination certification or the alternative of LFT evidence. Northern Ireland has applied a third option, which is demonstration of recent infection—appropriate recognition of having had coronavirus and, therefore, having antibodies.

There is a range of options and the Government is considering them, as I have confirmed to the committee before.

First, I think Mr Rowley puts to me a completely reasonable point. I do not dispute it. In response, however, I say that these issues are all being aired by the Government—we set some of this out way back in September. We first aired the possibility of vaccination certification way back, probably in April I think. We have aired the evidence. We have aired some of the options. I am here today to engage in that conversation.

As a minister having to wrestle with this situation, I am grateful to the Parliament, which has been very pragmatic about the legislative approach that we have to take to deal with a situation that is changing around us. Frankly, the Government could not bring forward the necessary legislation in the fashion that we would all like, with the normal processes of scrutiny, but we are trying to be as open as possible, to air the issues and respond to issues raised by members, either in the format of this discussion here in the committee or in the statements that are made by the First Minister, myself or the health secretary in the updates that we have made in recent weeks and in wider debate. I assure Mr Rowley that we will also provide an update to the evidence base to inform a wider audience about the issues that are preying on the Government’s mind and that we are wrestling with as we come to these conclusions.

No.

I recognise the issue, which is one of the practical points that we are considering as we address the potential expansion and extension of the scheme. Those are legitimate points to consider.

I will try to put the issue in context. We have, in general, very high levels of vaccination in the country and the position is that the overwhelming majority of the population is double vaccinated—as I said earlier, children would be exempt. In the case of the panto season, for example, children would not be covered. However, there are age groups, particularly the 18 to 29 age group, in which there is a lower level of vaccination compared with older age groups. As we go higher up the age groups, there are very high levels of vaccination.

Because of those high levels of vaccination, I do not think that the number of cases in which people might be affected substantiates the severity or the volume of cases implied in the question. Undoubtedly, some people would be affected, but because of the high vaccination rates I do not think that the problem would merit Mr Fraser’s characterisation of its size.

I am satisfied that access to the vaccination certificate is straightforward. The system is working well. People are able to download their vaccination certificates. There are occasional cases where people’s data is not correct. I have furnished the committee with more detail on that point, which Mr Fraser and I exchanged comments about the last time I was at committee. In among 10 million or so vaccinations, there are issues with about 7,000 that are currently outstanding and being resolved, which is a very small proportion. It matters to those 7,000 people, but it is a small proportion.

Those are all issues that we are considering as part of the practicalities that are involved.