FEARS that mourners might abandon social distancing to console each other at funerals are behind the strict limit on numbers at services, the Scottish Government has revealed.

Cabinet Secretary Mike Russell told MSPs “a degree of emotionalism” was inevitable at funerals, and there had been “regrettable instances” of social distancing breaking down.

The current Government advice is for a maximum of 20 socially distanced people to attend a funeral regardless of whether the venue could accommodate more.

At a virtual meeting of Holyrood’s Covid-19 committee, Mr Russell was  asked by MSPs about the 50-person maximum for places of worship and the 20-person cap for funerals, regardless of venue sizes.

Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer, a member of the Church of Scotland, asked: “Could you explain why I would be able to go to my church for a service with 49 other people on a Sunday but if I were to go to a funeral on a Monday there could only be 20 people in the same room?”

Mr Russell said: “I’m happy to get further information on the justification and recommendation and provide that to the committee.

“But I do know for example, and Mr Greer you know this too, that there is a degree of emotionalism inevitable at funerals which may lead to a breakdown of some sort in social distancing. We have actually seen this during regrettable instances. 

“So I think that the limitation,which has been very, very difficult to accept, is a necessary limitation at this stage.”

Mr Greer said members of the public were “struggling to understand” why they could only have “a fraction of the people” who had been in the same building the day before attend a much more personal event such as a funeral.

Mr Russell said: “I very much note the committee’s concern, that they require further information on some of the decisions that have been reached.

“It is entirely fair that they wish to have that information. I will do my best to see what information we can provide on that, and I will try and provide as much as possible.”

Mr Russell, the Constitution Secretary, was appearing before the committee as he is promoting a series of coronavirus regulations through Holyrood.

Tory MSP Adam Tomkins told him it seemed “arbitrary, whimsical and unfair” that shops could let in as many people as they liked, provided they were safely spaced, but places of worship were limited to gatherings of 50 regardless of their social distancing capacity.  

He said: “The right to manifest your religious belief is a human right under the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights, which may be lawfully interfered with only when it is necessary to do so.

"Why is it that we can’t have the same arrangement for places of worship that we already have for retail, and there is right to shop?" 

Mr Russell said he would ask the government’s scientific adviser to provide the committee with more information.

But he added: “I think we should keep a sense of proportion to this.

"No one is saying that people cannot manifest their faith. Nobody is saying that at all.

“A necessary compromise has been reached as a result of the highly dangerous situation - and we do know, and we have seen in other places that religious services and ceremonies of various types have led to an increase of spread of the virus.

“There is a proportionate position being taken, and that is being taken after a great deal of thought and study of the situation.”

Mr Tomkins also asked why gyms were still not being allowed to open in Scotland but had opened south of the border.

“How is it a coherent response to a public health emergency that has caused untold damage to people’s mental and physical wellbeing to allow pubs to reopen but not to allow gyms to reopen?

"We all know how important physical exercise is to mental wellbeing.

“We all know that not not everybody can go for a run in the park. Some people to use the facilities that are only available in gyms.

“How is coherent to allow pubs to reopen but not gyms?”

Mr Russell said: “Just as what happens in the church is not what happens in the pub, what happens in the gym is not what happens in the pub. You are comparing very different activities in very different places with very different equipment being used. 

“A judgment is reached on what appears to be, from what we know, the most risky activity. “For example, the use and then reuse of a piece of equipment is likely to be more risky than somebody sitting at at table at a social distance from somebody else.”

Mr Tomkins said that answer would not satisfy his constituents in Glasgow or the gyms at risk of going out of businesses.