– in the Scottish Parliament at on 11 June 2020.
Liam Kerr
Conservative
3. To ask the Scottish Government how many police officers have been tested for Covid-19. (S5O-04406)
Humza Yousaf
Scottish National Party
Information received from Police Scotland confirms that, as of 8 June 2020, 914 police officers and staff have been tested for COVID-19.
I would advise the member that Police Scotland publish data on the number of tests arranged. The information is available from the Police Scotland website and is published each week.
The testing of police officers and staff is important and will continue as long as is necessary. Our police officers are on the front line each day. I thank them for the work they do to keep us safe. As the Minister for Community Safety has already said, there is no barrier to accessing testing for police officers or staff.
Liam Kerr
Conservative
Police Scotland has more than 17,000 officers and 5,000 staff, but the data to which the Cabinet secretary referred suggests that fewer than 300 tests were arranged during the whole of May. The Scottish Police Federation warned that asymptomatic testing was not being offered, and it seems that it is right.
The SPF has asked why Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service guidance allows those arrested for coughing or spitting on officers to be released from custody before trial. Does the cabinet secretary know why that is the case?
Humza Yousaf
Scottish National Party
There are two parts to the member’s question. On testing, I repeat what the Minister for Community Safety has confirmed: officers who have been involved in a suspected Covid-positive incident can get tested, even if they are asymptomatic. There is no equivocation on that point.
On the point about the Scottish Police Federation, I always listen carefully to what it has to say. Decisions on who is placed in custody and who is retained on remand are not made by ministers but are independent of them.
If someone has been accused of assaulting police officers, and has a pattern of behaviour of assaulting police officers, I am not entirely convinced that keeping them in a police custody cell, where they would be surrounded by police officers, is necessarily the best course of action. However, I will listen carefully to what the SPF and others have to say on the matter.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
