Vaccine passports working 'well' despite chaos claim

John Swinney has said the new vaccine passport app is now functioning well despite the nightclub industry brandishing it a "shambles".

The scheme to allow only fully-vaccinated people to attend some large events had suffered teething problems.

But the deputy first minister revealed that 280,000 QR codes for the scheme had been downloaded by Sunday.

Representatives of the nightclub sector have claimed "confusion reigns" for club operators.

Many venues did not ask for proof of vaccination over the weekend because of the bugs in the app, while others reported low numbers of people with the new vaccine passport on their phones.

The Scottish government had previously announced there would no enforcement of the new rules until 18 October, to give venues a chance to get their procedures up and running.

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Mr Swinney told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme that the "system is functioning well now and has been since during the day on Friday".

He added: "The early hours were slow because of the demand on the system. Up until 4pm yesterday over 280,000 QR codes had been downloaded through the app enabling people to access their Covid certification."

Mr Swinney acknowledged there were still a "very small number of cases" where people were unable to download a QR code as proof of vaccination.

"We'll try to resolve those issues with individuals, but ultimately the fallback may well be that individuals have to use the paper copy," he said.

Many people reported problems registering with the scheme on Friday

Unseated outdoor events with more than 4,000 attendees need to carry out a "reasonable number" of spot checks under the passport scheme, while nightclubs and smaller venues will be required to conduct more rigorous checking.

Many people took to social media on Friday to complain of problems with the vaccine certification app which only became available to download about 12 hours before the scheme started at 05:00 that morning.

The Scottish government then increased capacity on the servers which support the app.

'Confusion reigns'

Mike Grieve, chairman of the Night Time Industries Association, and director of the Sub Club in Glasgow, described the government's suggestion the app had teething problems as the "understatement of the century" and said he felt the scheme was a "complete shambles".

He added: "The messaging on this from the Scottish government is abysmal. Nobody knows what is going on, confusion reigns and we're stuck with trying to enforce this on the streets.

"This app was rolled out at 5pm on Thursday evening to come into force less than 12 hours later and by Friday evening almost everyone we spoke to had no idea what was required.

"Most people believed that the government's decision to push back on enforcement was a delay to the scheme coming into force, which of course it wasn't."

Mr Grieve said that the Sub Club was full to its 410 capacity on Friday night but only six people attending had the new vaccine app.

Football clubs hosting three premier league matches this weekend said no fans would be turned away for not having proof of vaccine status in the wake of the issues with the app.

A number of nightclubs did the same at the weekend and did not ask people for proof of vaccination, according to the Night Time Industries Association.

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