3. To ask the Scottish Government what support is being given to hospitality businesses that cannot operate due to Covid-19 restrictions. (S5T-02463)

On

21 October, the First Minister announced an extension of the restrictions that were imposed on 9 October and further additional financial support for the businesses that are affected by the restrictions. More than £40 million will now be distributed through the Covid-19 restrictions fund, including grant support for hospitality and other businesses that are required by law to close.

My constituent Dave Barclay runs the Airlie Street Bar in Alyth, in Perthshire. Like many traditional pubs, it has no outside space and does not serve food, so the current Covid restrictions mean that it has to close. If Mr Barclay’s pub were in the central belt of Scotland, he would be entitled to a grant of £4,310, but, because he is in Perth and Kinross, he will get precisely half that—just £2,155. Mr Barclay thinks that that is central belt bias. Is he correct?

I do not see it in that light. The grants will be available from 2 November. As is outlined in the strategic framework that was announced on 23 October, grants of £2,000 or £3,000, depending on rateable value, will be available to businesses that are required by law to close. A hardship grant, depending on rateable value, will be available for businesses that remain open but are directly impacted by the restrictions. Those grants will be provided regardless of level to any eligible business and will be paid in fortnightly instalments.

I am acutely aware that the impacts on the hospitality industry across the board have been horrendous and catastrophic. I am happy to look at any individual case about which the member writes to me, and I will do my best to be as sympathetic as possible. We desperately want to provide the financial support to businesses to enable them to make it through to the other side of the crisis, but one of the challenges is that we do not know quite when that will be.

I undertake to look sympathetically at any case for which I have the full details in front of me. I will consider such cases in detail and take the time that each individual person and business deserves.

I thank the Cabinet secretary for that response. Mr Barclay is not required in law to close, but the practicality of not having outside space and not serving food means that he has no alternative—he cannot run his business in any other fashion.

As the cabinet secretary accepts, there are huge problems right across the hospitality sector. We learned today that the historic Queens hotel in Perth is facing permanent closure, with the loss of jobs.

We know that the Scottish Government has received an additional £700 million from the UK Government, bringing the total additional funding from the UK Government in the current financial year to £7.2 billion. How much of that money has been allocated to supporting the hospitality sector?

Since the crisis began some considerable time ago, a substantial amount has been provided to support the hospitality sector. I am pleased that local authorities and the enterprise agencies have stepped up to the mark and are working extremely hard to get that money out. We have sought at least to match the funding that has been available down south.

I am acutely aware of the impact on hotels in rural locations such as the area that Mr Fraser mentioned. I know that Highlands and Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise have devoted a lot of time to speaking to individual businesses and helping them where they can.

Along with my colleague Fiona Hyslop and others, I was able to set up the pivotal enterprise fund and the creative, tourism and enterprise hardship funds, which total £121.8 million and £23.5 million respectively. Those funds have gone some way to addressing the problem. I am not sure that there have been any counterpart funds of that type in England, nor that there has been a counterpart to our hotel support programme of £40 million or our newly self-employed hardship fund.

Nonetheless, it is not a competition. Although we have done better than England in some areas—perhaps Mr Fraser would argue that the converse is true; I do not know, but he has not done so yet—my job is not to make such comparisons. My job is to ensure, working with my colleagues—Kate Forbes in finance and Fiona Hyslop in enterprise, in particular—that we reach out to every business and provide them with the hardship financial support that they need to bridge the gap to the other side of the crisis.

It is not an easy task. We have sought to engage the UK Government in that task from the outset, and Nigel Huddleston, the tourism Minister, has been very helpful and constructive. However, it is fair to say—as the Deputy First Minister said earlier regarding the most recent announcement of £700 million—that we simply do not have the detail of the support yet. I hope that we will have it soon.

I have been contacted by constituents in Glasgow and people from elsewhere in Scotland who are working in hospitality businesses and who have been told by their employers not to install the Protect Scotland app on their phones or told to keep their phones switched off while they are at work. Some who have been contacts of positive test cases have been told not to self-isolate by their employers or told that, if they do, it will be viewed as unauthorised and unpaid absence.

What action can the Scottish Government take against such employers—some of whom are well-known high-street names in hospitality and retail—who so dangerously put their business interests ahead of the lives of their workforce and their customers? Does the Scottish Government support the Unite hospitality rescue plan, which involves routine regular testing for hospitality workers and bringing sick pay for those in isolation up to full pay?

As a matter of general principle, employers have an absolute duty to cater for the safety of their staff and their customers. Of course they do—no one could conceivably disagree with that, and everybody must recognise that it is a fundamental duty. Mr Harvie has not mentioned any specific examples. If he has any such examples, I will consider them with colleagues—it is correct that I do so—should he wish to write to me.

However—in the interests of brevity, this is the last thing that I will say—I have, as much as any member in the chamber, been in touch with businesses daily over the past 10 months, including this morning, and I have to say that the overwhelming Majority of business leaders take their responsibilities extremely seriously. Not only that, but they have invested substantial amounts of money in protecting the health and safety of their staff and customers as well as taking all steps to ensure that appropriate training is provided.

I hope and believe that the types of behaviour to which Mr Harvie referred are the exception—a relatively small exception—and not the rule, and I hope that he will understand that, unless I get specific examples, it is difficult for me to go beyond what I have said today. Nevertheless, I will, of course, look at any specific case that he wishes to refer to me, and I will do so carefully.

Further to Murdo Fraser’s questions, pubs that do not sell food and do not have outside spaces are, to all intents and purposes, forced to close because they cannot make a living out of selling soft drinks on their own. The Scottish Government is therefore shirking its responsibility by saying that they can stay open and sell soft drinks.

I appeal to the Cabinet secretary for the same support to be made available to those establishments as is being granted to those that are legally obliged to close. We know that cafes and restaurants are allowed to stay open until 6 o’clock to deal with isolation and loneliness, and the pubs concerned serve that same purpose for men who will not use cafes or restaurants but whose mental health is at stake. We need to preserve those businesses.

I understand the point that Rhoda Grant is making, which was also made by Mr Fraser. She has accepted that the closure is not required by law; it is a de facto matter, rather than an ex lege matter. Nonetheless, Ms Grant makes a not-unreasonable point. The grants system that we have produced has a closure fund and a hardship fund. The funding must be relatively clear, and I believe that we have set it out clearly.

However, this is an on-going debate in which we are considering how to respond most appropriately to the public, accounting for public money while recognising private need. I hear what the member says, and we can obviously give further consideration to these matters. Nevertheless, as things stand, such premises are able to trade lawfully, albeit that, in some cases, as Rhoda Grant says, there may be a very limited market for a pub that is unable to sell alcohol.

I take the Cabinet secretary’s point that we do not want to compare things with England all the time, but, although it appears that the Chancellor of the exchequer has given a blank cheque to English businesses, that does not appear to be available to Scottish businesses. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that the situation is unfair for Scottish businesses and that either the Scottish Government should have those powers or Westminster should be providing the money?

Without making a political point, I note that the fact that we do not have clarity about the £700 million that was announced two weeks ago simply means that, from a legal point of view and from the point of view of Kate Forbes, who, as the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, is governed by strict rules regarding the disbursement of public money, until such time as there is a proper exchange of information on the matter, the situation is just not acceptable.

As the Deputy First Minister said, the finance secretary wrote to the Chancellor of the exchequer on 20 October, which is now a relatively long time ago, with regard to Covid. I respectfully suggest that the full details be provided as soon and as swiftly as possible. That would allow us better to get on with the job that we all have in trying to serve the people of Scotland.