John Swinney has stated that vaccine passports in Scotland would be a temporary measure and that the Scottish Government was still looking to continue with plans.
It comes as the UK Government announced that they would not be continuing with vaccine passports plans in England.
Yesterday, UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid said told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show: “I’ve never liked the idea of saying to people you must show your papers or something to do what is just an everyday activity, but we were right to properly look at it.
“We’ve looked at it properly and whilst we should keep it in reserve as a potential option, I’m pleased to say that we will not be going ahead with plans for vaccine passports.”
"We've got to strengthen the basket of measures".
— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 13, 2021
Deputy First Minister of Scotland @JohnSwinney says vaccine certificates are being implemented in 'very limited scenarios', such as nightclubs, to try and tackle rising #COVID19 infections.#KayBurley: https://t.co/yQgqj09e6e pic.twitter.com/7hnyMQbptt
“We have taken a public health approach as you would imagine to all the issues in relation to Covid and we have faced for quite some time really high levels of Covid infection within our community.
“We are seeing that translating into some pretty high hospital admission as well so we feel we have got to strengthen the basket of measures that we have in place to try to control the situation, and one of those measures is the application of vaccine certificates in a very limited number of scenarios in relation to nightclubs and into larger events.
"We think that is proportionate to give us another tool in trying to ensure that we deal with the threat that is posed by Covid.”
When asked once vaccine passports are introduced how they would be removed from society and if Scotland could expect to have such certificates for a long time, Swinney responded saying that the measures would be temporary and that it was something the Scottish Government had already considered.
Swinney responded saying: “We were very clear when we discussed this issue and Parliament agreed on Thursday that this would be a time-limited move. We have said that it would elapse at the end of February 2022 should the regulations be approved and the scheme implemented.
“It is not something that can go on forever and would be strictly time-limited. It has to be a measure that assists us in a proportionate basis in trying to tackle the prevalence of the virus.
“We see, unfortunately, a rising level of hospital admissions in Scotland. That has always been the key issue we were concerned about that the NHS would be unable to fulfill its functions because of the demand of Covid. We have to make sure we have in place all the measures that will enable us to tackle that situation and avoid a situation where the NHS is under pressure.”
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