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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 4 May 2021
  6. Current session: 13 May 2021 to 19 October 2025
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Displaying 669 contributions

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Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 25 September 2025

Angus Robertson

I will come to the specific question from Mr Kerr in a second. Historic Environment Scotland is in a period of transition as we speak. Mr Kerr knows that I was able to confirm the appointment of Sir Mark Jones as the incoming chair of Historic Environment Scotland. Many people in the committee will know Sir Mark, and I am delighted that he is taking on the role. As Mr Kerr and other members of the committee are aware, there are on-going issues in Historic Environment Scotland, particularly management-related issues. In acknowledging that, I am keen to highlight the general work that Historic Environment Scotland does and my satisfaction with that.

Having said that, I think that there are a number of reasons to have concerns about the management and governance in Historic Environment Scotland. Therefore, not only was I pleased to appoint Sir Mark; I have met him to discuss those issues and to give him the maximum confidence that I would wish him to have in addressing the specific issue that Mr Kerr raises, as well as others, and in ensuring that Historic Environment Scotland can continue its good work—with confidence that the leadership, both through the board and in the senior management team, is exactly what it should be.

I have not seen a final conclusion of any report about the incident that Mr Kerr raises, but he will appreciate that I am taking a very close interest in that and in other issues. There is a general understanding outside the committee that issues are being raised directly with members of the Scottish Parliament, with me and with the civil service. All of that will be shared with the incoming chair of the board, and I have a very high degree of confidence that he will take all those matters seriously.

I say all of that with the caveat, from my previous answer, that I am very mindful of the arm’s-length relationship between Government and public bodies such as Historic Environment Scotland, which is why I have such confidence in Sir Mark taking up his role. He must be able to get on with his responsibilities as the chair of the board. He has a long-standing working relationship with the chief executive of Historic Environment Scotland, Katerina Brown, and I am optimistic that they will form a formidable team. I look forward to hearing more about that in the weeks and months ahead.

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 25 September 2025

Angus Robertson

Yes, absolutely.

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 25 September 2025

Angus Robertson

That was question 1?

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 25 September 2025

Angus Robertson

By its very nature, the range of organisations that have become regularly funded organisations through the multiyear funding process is extremely broad. There is a challenge for Government—both with a small g and a large G—to work out how we can marry together what they are able to do in communities and society more generally to bring maximum benefit in spaces such as health and wellbeing, tourism or economic development. Through the Creative Scotland review process, I am keen to understand where there are examples of this working very well and where there are examples of it working less well.

For example, I am aware that the approach of Scotland’s three different enterprise agencies is quite different. Cultural organisations in the Highlands and Islands might well have a very different relationship with Highlands and Islands Enterprise than cultural organisations have in the part of Scotland that Scottish Enterprise serves, as well as in the south of Scotland and the Borders.

What I am trying to say to Mr Brown is that there is not a fix-all solution to all of this. We will have to make sure that we are making progress on that across the piece. Some of it will be very easy, and I have already given examples of where that is happening, such as with our national performing companies. What is Scottish Ballet doing? What is the RSNO doing? They all have tremendous examples of things that they are doing, and I encourage the committee, if there is an interest in learning what those might be, to do just that. Because the number of organisations that are funded on a multiyear basis has doubled literally only this year, this is new, so we will have to look at it with new eyes to understand how the significantly increased part of the cultural sector that is being funded through Creative Scotland in this way is able to deliver on a cross-portfolio basis.

10:15  

We are discussing all these opportunities in a pre-budget space because the Government has committed to the biggest increase in cultural funding since the outset of devolution. We are ahead of target in delivering the additional £100 million annual uplift to the culture sector, and it is important that we do not lose sight of the foundational change that there has been in the level of spending on culture in Scotland and the fact that it is based on a multiyear approach to funding. We are the only part of the UK that is doing this; we are ahead of most other countries in the industrialised world in doing this; and we need to recognise that what we are doing here is groundbreaking, and is a good thing. Therefore, I would answer Mr Brown’s question by saying that I think that we have opportunities as never before to ensure that we are getting that cross-Government benefit.

One thing that I have been reminded of, and which it is worth reflecting on, is that, for historical and administrative reasons, certain things in the cultural space are funded from elsewhere. With music, for example, the funding for Sistema Scotland comes from the children and family fund, while funding for instrumental music tuition comes from the education portfolio. We are going to have to work together, but the good news is that we are doing so.

For example, we have recently seen the launch of what is a world first—a curriculum for screen education in our primary and secondary schools. It has emerged from Screen Scotland, which is answerable to me as cabinet secretary, and it will be delivered in the education space. Jenny Gilruth and I have been working closely to deliver something that no other country in the world has done to date, for which there is a tremendous welcome and acknowledgment that it is a good thing, and the benefits of which will be felt particularly in areas of economic and social deprivation.

We are trying to work together across portfolios to understand where culture helps education, economic development and so on, but there will be no one-size-fits-all approach.

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 25 September 2025

Angus Robertson

I am delighted to represent Edinburgh Central, which is home to all Edinburgh’s major festivals and to Murrayfield, where AC/DC and Oasis played. Mr Brown will be aware that there was some media coverage about capacity being a concern, which I appreciate. I had the good fortune to be at the Oasis concert and see how tremendous and popular it was and how people came from the rest of Scotland. Mr Bibby is nodding, so I assume that he was in the audience and can attest to that. Murrayfield, which is a tremendous venue, both for rugby and for cultural events, coped with the challenge. Public transport worked very well, even though the gig happened at the same time as the Edinburgh festivals, which are the third largest ticketed events in the world.

If, by extension, the question is whether too much is happening in Edinburgh rather than elsewhere, I cannot really answer that, because I am a great supporter of festivals in other parts of Scotland.

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 25 September 2025

Angus Robertson

Mr Bibby knows how committed I am to the screen sector in Scotland, which, as he also knows, is growing in economic importance. More is being spent now on film and television in Scotland than has been spent in past years. There are additional job opportunities in that part of the cultural sector, and I am confident that there are more jobs in that area. He highlights a particular concern about Scottish Television. He will have to forgive me—I do not have information about that announcement in front of me. However, I can give him the assurance that I take all of those issues very seriously. From previous examples, such as the BBC discontinuing “River City”, he knows that I have had concerns about anything that suggests that we are not heading in a positive direction when it comes to jobs.

Mr Bibby also highlights what that means for our wider democratic discourse—if important public service broadcasting provision is being downgraded, that would concern me greatly. I will, no doubt, be speaking with the chief executive of Scottish Television about this. I need to understand what exactly is happening, because we want STV to flourish, just as we want the BBC and other public service broadcasters, such as Channel 4, to flourish.

I would be very concerned about job losses, because we certainly do not want to see a loss of talent in the television sector in Scotland. We want to maintain confidence in the direction of travel in Scotland, which, in recent years, has been very positive, as we move towards a £1 billion gross value added to the Scottish economy from the screen sector in the years ahead.

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 25 September 2025

Angus Robertson

First, I thank Mr Adam for helping me to understand the history of punk in Paisley and Renfrewshire more generally. That was not part of the briefing notes that I prepared for myself.

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 25 September 2025

Angus Robertson

I am very sorry that Mr Adam was only able to ask this question right at the end of the evidence session, because I could—and will be delighted to—talk at great length about this. What has been happening with the Scottish screen sector in general has been extremely positive in recent years. The economic impact studies prove that to be so: it is heading towards being a billion-pound-a-year industry in Scotland.

Looking at what Isabel Davis, David Smith and other colleagues at Screen Scotland have been able to do, I would like to pay public tribute to them. They are understood in Scotland to be world class; in addition—I have seen this, most recently when I attended the Gothenburg film festival with them to showcase what is happening in Scotland—Screen Scotland is seen internationally as being a world-class screen agency, helping to promote Scotland as a place where one can film, where there is outstanding talent and where opportunities abound. The key part of Mr Adam’s question is how we maintain that, because we are, in effect, emerging from market failure.

Due to the concentration in the past of broadcasting and film production in London and south-east England, everyone has pretty much had to agree that we have to undertake a new way of doing things to ensure that the nations and regions are able to get a fair slice of the cake, for example when it comes to the commissioning of public service broadcasting. We have also had to move from the market failure of having next to no studios in Scotland. As Mr Adam and other committee members know, we now see film studios opening up and being used literally right across Scotland.

We have been bucking international trends. There was the strike in the States, which had a major impact on film production schedules, and there has been a downturn in output for streaming services, yet the direction of travel in Scotland has still been positive, and I am confident that we will see figures shortly that will confirm that that trend continues.

To ensure that it does, we need to deal with the other elements of the market failure that we have not been able to deal with thus far. Education is a key example. How do we ensure that young people in Scotland learn the requisite skills so that they can work in front of or behind the camera and be part of a screen sector in Scotland that, frankly, until 20 years ago, was exporting its brightest and best? We are tackling that exact question through education, and we are the first country in the world to do this. Screen Scotland came up with the curriculum and has helped to deliver it, together with the Scottish Government, and the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and I lay great store in that being part of the way in which we maintain the direction of travel.

I am very confident that the screen sector in Scotland will continue to go from strength to strength. We have to ensure that, when we hear of countervailing news, such as the announcement that Mr Bibby raised today, we take those challenges seriously, so that the general momentum continues in a positive direction.

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 25 September 2025

Angus Robertson

It was definitely the case that, when there was significant financial distress, especially as we emerged from Covid, there was concern in some parts of the country that certain local authorities might make decisions on the provision of some cultural services that raised the potential for funding to be diverted. The Scottish Government would take very seriously the prospect of the likes of Sistema Scotland or the Youth Music Initiative not being able to continue in one part of the country, because they are an important part of our commitment to helping children in more challenged social and economic circumstances to access music and cultural provision. I have been very alive to that possibility. I have been meeting the cultural lead and other representatives of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities throughout my term in office, and meetings have been taking place more widely with the cultural leads of local authorities.

I am optimistic about learning more from the review of Creative Scotland, which has been looking into the availability of cultural services in different parts of the country, as it is not uniform and there is not a uniform approach. There is one issue around local government and another around the local enterprise companies—we have three in Scotland, and they take quite different approaches to culture. That is another layer of understanding: how are things working in different parts of the country?

We must then add the question of the extent to which Creative Scotland’s decision making is about what is funded and what that means in different parts of the country. Are there gaps? I would be keen to understand whether that is the case. I would say in mitigation that both the Culture Collective and Collective Communities funding streams, which are being provided throughout Scotland, offer important mechanisms to ensure that all parts of the country have the ability to draw down funds to support cultural activity.

Your question, convener, about ensuring that there is provision of cultural services is absolutely right, and there is a whole parallel discussion to be had about libraries, which fits into that context, too.

As the committee knows, I walk a fine line between wanting to ensure that we, as the Government, are doing everything that we can to support local government, the enterprise companies and Creative Scotland and respecting our arm’s length relationships—which exist for obvious reasons, as it is not for cabinet secretaries to micromanage what we might personally wish to have more of, whether on stage, on screen or wherever. I leave that to the experts.

Having said all of that, and referring back to the question that you posed, convener, I would say that there is a role for Government in using our convening power and the best possible information to ensure that we have cultural provision across Scotland that can by accessed by people of all backgrounds. In general, that is working well, and I am interested to learn, through the review, whether there any areas where we could be doing more.

I can see a very subtle hand movement from Lisa Baird, who may, I think, want to add something.

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27

Meeting date: 25 September 2025

Angus Robertson

If I can take the virtual microphone back for a second, I will add that, in parallel to that, the decisions that we have been able to make with expo funding and in being able to support festivals beyond Edinburgh and Glasgow, working in parallel with the strategic partnership for Scotland’s festivals that we now have, provide another example of our trying to ensure that we have benefit throughout the country from the available funding.

I am looking at Mr Halcro Johnston, who has, I know, an interest in culture in the northern isles, which is a very good example of a place that has tremendous festivals. The Orkney folk festival is an example of that. If we have a tremendous model, as we do through the expo funding route—which really is first class—why would we not want that to be able to support festivals in the rest of the country? We agree with that point.

That is a good example of our trying to add value right across Scotland.