2. To ask the Scottish Government what the impact has been of widening the eligibility criteria for the self-isolation support grant. (S5O-05074)

F rom 16 February, we extended the eligibility criteria for the grant to anyone who needs to self-isolate if they earn the real living wage or lower; to applicants who are entitled to a council tax reduction because they are on a low income; and to people with caring responsibilities for someone over 16 who is asked to self-isolate, where the carer themselves meets the other eligibility criteria. Those changes mean that an additional 390,000 people could be eligible for the grant, should they require it, which will help to remove any financial barriers to isolating. We will begin reporting on the figures on the impact of the updated eligibility from April 2021.

I look forward to seeing those figures.

As we make strong progress in suppressing the virus, the numbers will dwindle, but the importance of self-isolation will increase—it will be critical in order to prevent new variants from taking root. We have seen an example of that in Aberdeen this week. Does the Cabinet secretary agree that, if low numbers of people need to self-isolate, we could make those grants unconditional, so that people self-isolate as quickly as possible—within hours—instead of waiting days or weeks before making a decision?

I agree with Mark Ruskell that we absolutely need to ensure that people understand and appreciate the importance of self-isolation. I think that they do; when we look at the levels of compliance across the country, we can see that people are taking this very seriously. I thank them for what they are doing.

As we have always done since we introduced the self-isolation support grant, we have worked with local authorities and others to see what more can be done to support people who are self-isolating. The eligibility criteria that we now have are wide enough to ensure that we provide support to people who are on low incomes and require that support.

More can be done to support people who are in self-isolation. In addition to the self-isolation support grant, there is also what we need to do to ensure that businesses encourage and support their employees to self-isolate, for example. I know that Mark Ruskell and some of his colleagues have been keen for the Government to look at that, so I assure him that we are looking at the situation in the round, and that we will continue to keep the support grant under review to see what else can be done to continue with this important part of our work on coronavirus.