SNP ministers were on Friday urged to “stop dragging their heels” on scrapping face masks in schools after Scotland’s national clinical adviser said the “day is coming” when the requirement will end.

Prof Jason Leitch said he believed secondary pupils would soon no longer have to wear face coverings in class, although he did not know exactly when the restriction would be lifted.

His intervention came less than 24 hours after John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister, said the requirement remained “absolute” in Scotland’s schools and ruled out following England by scrapping it.

The Scottish Tories said it was “clear” that even the SNP Government’s own advisers believe the change must be examined and asked why ministers were “so reluctant” to consider it.

Dr Sandesh Gulhane, a GP and the Scottish Tories’ shadow health secretary, said the justification for masks in schools was “ebbing away” and the SNP had been “too quick to impose harsh restrictions and too slow to ease them”.

Face masks ‘have negative impact on learning’

Parents’ groups and Dr Christine Tait-Burkard, a leading virologist, called for secondary pupils to be allowed to ditch masks after the requirement was scrapped in England on Thursday.

Dr Gulhane contrasted Mr Swinney’s insistence that masks needed to be retained in schools with the interventions by Dr Tait-Burkard and Prof Leitch.

He said: “The SNP must stop dragging their heels on this and end this restriction as soon as possible. Face masks have a negative impact on learning, especially for those children with extra needs, and after two years of disruptions caused by the pandemic, pupils, teachers and parents want some normality restored to education.

“But once again, we’re witnessing a government that’s too quick to impose harsh restrictions and too slow to ease them.”

Prof Leitch told BBC Radio Scotland that an education recovery group chaired by Linda Bauld, a public health expert and government adviser, would make recommendations to government clinicians about the timing of scrapping face masks in schools.

“They’ll give us advice to remove them when they think it’s appropriate, and I think that day is coming,” he said.

Poll shows backing for tough festive restrictions

The row broke out the day after Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, accused Nicola Sturgeon of being  “far too gung ho” in imposing tougher restrictions over the festive period.

He recalled how Ms Sturgeon had said before Christmas that she wanted to go even further with measures and was only prevented from imposing a broader lockdown by a lack of Treasury support.

The First Minister claimed this week that the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed case rates in England, where no similar restrictions were imposed, were 20 per cent higher. However, the headline finding was that one in 20 people on both sides of the border had Covid last week.

Willie Rennie, the former Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, on Friday reported Ms Sturgeon to the UK Statistics Authority over her claims, saying that the ONS figures “may have been seriously twisted” by the First Minister to justify her restrictions.

A poll undertaken by Savanta ComRes for The Scotsman, found that more than two-thirds of people thought the tougher restrictions imposed over the festive period were either definitely or probably the right decision.

Gillian Martin, an SNP MSP, said: “This polling also shows how the Tories are completely out of touch with reality, as a large majority of people in Scotland back the measures put in place by the Scottish Government and recognised the need to keep people safe from the virus.”