WESTMINSTER is now back in session, virtually. The same as Holyrood has been managing, and it is working well enough – even if there are a few lumps and bumps to be worked out yet. We are back for questions, statements and committee meetings, which will go a long way towards holding this government to account.

Too much of the past few weeks has been “inside sources” briefing one compliant lobby correspondent or another with the inside scoop on government thinking, lately on plans to lift restrictions. This is dangerous, given we’re dealing with a UK Government so dysfunctional they are obviously more interested in briefing against each other than informing the public. There are indeed calls to provide clarity on when this will end, but any information on this needs to be carefully thought through and based on the science, as we have been doing in Scotland.

The UK daily statements have been illuminating, as much as for the insight into how the Westminster media work as anything else. Where we have had Nicola Sturgeon and Jeane Freeman each day, supported by whichever expert is most appropriate, the UK briefing has been led by a variety of ministers, so it is hardly surprising that the message is slightly different depending upon who is at the lectern. The questioning from the UK media has been at times toe-curling, with, amongst a few exceptions, the focus being on scoops and scandals rather than any long-term digging in to get at the truth of things.

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The Sunday Times, in fairness, last Sunday blew the lid off that with a remarkable expose of just how the UK Government has been working.

Again, I was struck by just how many people it must have taken to speak off the record to the journalists to brief them to that extent. They’re getting their excuses in, because there will come a time for answers.

We are all working hard now to get through this, and to keep people safe, and now is not the time for politicking. But the UK Government has questions to answer and there will be a reckoning.

I wrote some weeks ago that many industries are going to be different after this, and I think one that will have some real questions to answer is the insurance industry. A number of companies have been simply posted missing at a time when their clients needed them most. One constituent of mine has had a particular problem with a business interruption insurance that covered some pandemics, but not this one.

Our Treasury spokesperson Alison Thewliss has been pushing this hard with the UK Treasury, and it is clearer and clearer that we are dealing with a failure of oversight and regulation which is entirely from UK Government policy. I appreciate that the insurance sector is under unprecedented strain. Usually the reinsurance market would allow companies to offset their risk on the basis that there might be a flood somewhere in the world or an earthquake somewhere, but this pandemic is everywhere simultaneously.

If all the claims are paid, then many companies are at real risk of bankruptcy, so there is not much appetite on the part of insurers to find ways to pay out on what they are not black-and-white committed to pay. But that is where I am in favour of the state standing behind the companies and giving far clearer instruction on how policies should be dealt with.

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BUSINESSES that have taken out business interruption insurance should not need to quibble with insurers on what does or does not constitute a pandemic. Covid-19 is a notifiable disease, economic activity has been massively curtailed by the state and businesses surely should have a valid claim.

Issues like these are not just esoteric matters of policy – they’re a real-world crisis for a lot of

people right now and only proper regulation will force the hand of the insurers. That is where the UK Government needs prodded by MPs like me asking questions and highlighting that the system isn’t working.

Quite the reverse is the case – the system is broken and we need the state to step in while we rebuild a more sustainable one.

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