Paul McLennan MSP column: Share your own experiences of Covid pandemic

WESTMINSTER is in turmoil over its handling of the Covid pandemic.

Secrecy surrounds WhatsApp mobile phone messages through which the UK Government managed the worst crisis in our lifetimes: is this the integrity and accountability Rishi Sunak promised?

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government's pandemic inquiry is under way, including the ‘Let's Be Heard’ consultation open to everyone over the age of 14. It's available online at cov id19inquiry.scot. If you know someone with pandemic experiences to share who can't respond online, please print the form, enabling them to complete it by hand.

Share your own experiences too: the goal is to ensure that, in the event of another pandemic, Scotland is as well prepared as possible. I’ll update constituents as the inquiry makes progress.

The pandemic dealt Scotland's economy a massive blow as businesses, shops, tourist attractions, hotels and restaurants closed.

The challenge was to ‘build back better’ and the massive efforts made by all these industries to return to productivity and efficiency are starting to pay off. The margins are small, but it's nonetheless satisfying to compare the first quarter of 2023 with the opening three months of 2022. Scottish GDP is up by 0.3 per cent this year, ahead of the UK as a whole, where growth in the first quarter of 2023 was 0.2 per cent. A small inching ahead for Scotland – but better for business than falling back at a time of great challenge.

Reports show that Scottish companies, as elsewhere across the UK, face very difficult operating conditions, with inflation and energy prices still stubbornly high. Brexit skills and labour shortages, and the loss of frictionless trade with the European Union, our biggest export market, mean that although Scottish businesses and consumers are doing what they can, the outlook is still unsettled.

Out and about in the constituency, I’m hearing bitter criticisms of Brexit – from local residents, from visitors, from businesses, from importers of manufacturing parts, from young people. Scotland didn't vote for the damage of Brexit but we’ve got it anyway.

It's shaping up to be the greatest democratic outrage ever inflicted on Scotland, with the tide against Brexit now running strongly. As a priority, an independent Scotland would start to reverse this disastrous error, the sooner the better.

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