Let us talk about the decision-making process. The First Minister mentioned “substantial guidance”. It is substantial; in the past seven days, students have been given three different sets of guidance, all from different people and all through multiple channels. While students were being asked and advised to act by the Government, some were being threatened with expulsion and fines by their universities. This past week has been a lesson in how not to communicate during a pandemic.

Yesterday,

The Times reported that draft guidance that was prepared by the Scottish Government on 30 August for student accommodation gave an instruction to universities that

“Work and study that can be done remotely must be done so.”

That would have compelled universities to allow most students to work from home. However, when the formal guidance was published on 1 September, that phrase had been removed. That was not, as the First Minster has insisted, simply a “change of wording”; it was a fundamental change in the guidance.

The National Union of Students Scotland says that students should be studying from home, and university staff say that most students should be studying from home. Who were the stakeholders whom the Government consulted and agreed the change with? Why, exactly, was the change made in the space of just 48 hours?