Covid-19 Restrictions (Christmas)

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 20 January 2022.

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Photo of Douglas Ross Douglas Ross Conservative

The First Minister needs to make her mind up. She accuses the Conservatives of opposing every measure that she puts forward, but then, in the same breath, she accuses the Conservatives of wanting a cautious approach.

It is not opportunistic to trust that the people of Scotland can learn to live with Covid rather than having to live with her Government’s restrictions. Those restrictions are having a massive impact on jobs and on businesses and communities across Scotland, which are not getting the money or the support that they were promised.

The First Minister has got the big decisions wrong over the past few months. She was too quick to bring in unnecessary Covid restrictions, too late to launch mass vaccination centres, too late to change the self-isolation rules and too late to get funding to businesses that need it. The First Minister says that she does not shy away from mistakes that she has made in the handling of the pandemic. Can she finally just admit that, by introducing the tough restrictions here in Scotland before Christmas and by wanting to introduce even tougher restrictions, she has simply made the wrong call?