Seòmar agus comataidhean

It is, yes.

Thanks very much, convener, and good morning, colleagues. Thanks for the invitation to contribute to the committee’s discussion as part of its 2024-25 pre-budget scrutiny and for the opportunity to make some opening comments.

I am a passionate supporter of the culture sector and the fundamental role that creativity and self-expression can play in everyone’s lives. Along with the economic value of cultural exports for Scotland, the sector is crucial for our international connections, ambitions and reputation. However, we all recognise the challenges that the sector has experienced through the pandemic and the cost of living crisis. Its international engagement has been directly impacted by Brexit, which has led to financial fragility in parts of the sector. Support for cultural organisations has therefore never been more critical.

I appreciate that the sector is very concerned about what the future holds in respect of Scottish Government funding and support. The responses that I have seen to the committee’s call for views on culture budgets make sombre and extremely stark reading. I recognise the strength of feeling that has been expressed by the culture sector this week about the funding for Creative Scotland. I will address that shortly.

I reassure members that I understand and appreciate the difficult situation that the sector faces. I have been discussing with my Cabinet colleagues the important role that culture can play across the piece, and I have been pushing for the best possible settlement for the sector for next year. However, none of us is under any illusions about the challenges that are faced with our public finances. To illustrate that, I note that, in the 2023-24 pay round, an estimated additional £785 million will be spent on pay compared with our original central pay assumptions. That includes the agreed pay deals for teachers, national health service agenda for change staff, doctors, junior doctors, dentists and those in the fire service, plus the proposed offers for non-teaching local government staff and the police and the Scottish Government’s two-year offer. The figure also includes pay assumptions on the deals for further education and the judiciary.

To enable enhanced pay deals, we have had to make difficult decisions in reprioritising existing allocations. However, as all committees know, there is no unallocated pot of money from which to fund higher pay deals or extra support for those in need. If the pay bill grows faster than our overall funding, it squeezes our wider capacity to maintain services. Every additional percentage point on a pay deal and every pound that we spend on measures to help with rising costs must be funded by reductions elsewhere in our budgets.

Last year, we prioritised funding for enhanced public sector pay deals to support those who need help most, and we spent over £900 million more than was originally budgeted. However, I recognise that the culture sector needs stability and the opportunity for longer-term planning and development. We are committed to developing a fair funding approach for the wider third sector, of which cultural organisations are a key contributor.

I have had to make very tough choices to balance my budget this year in the light of all those challenges, and it is with regret that I note that that includes not being able to top up Creative Scotland’s lottery funding shortfall for this year. I know that the sector is frustrated by that, but it is worth highlighting that the Scottish Government has topped up lottery funding for five years, which is two years more than was originally agreed. That has meant providing an extra £33 million over the five years to Creative Scotland.

I discussed the issue with Creative Scotland’s board last week, and I was grateful that the board agreed to use its accumulated funding reserves to avoid passing any impacts of the decision to its regularly funded organisations. I have assured the board that the funding will be provided next year, subject to the normal parliamentary processes, and I have discussed that with the Deputy First Minister.

We have an obligation to balance the Scottish Government budget each year and to prioritise funding in order to deliver the best value for every taxpayer in Scotland. Given the rising costs and pressures on budgets across Government—which are made more challenging as a result of United Kingdom inflation—we continue to work with partners to ensure that all public investment is used to deliver the maximum benefit for communities and organisations across Scotland.

This year, funding from the Scottish Government and partners across the country helped to deliver the 2023 UCI cycling world championships. The event promoted the health and wellbeing benefits of cycling and drove wider economic and social benefits across Scotland. However, due to increases in costs, including through inflation, the total funding that was provided by the Scottish Government and partners to support the delivery of the championships is still being finalised. Final costs will be confirmed in due course, but they are of the order of £8 million. Prior to the completion of the event, Scottish Government funding was delivered through our major events budget. However, following the event’s conclusion, any additional funding that might be required will be managed centrally by the Scottish Government.

The 2023-24 programme for government commits us to producing a plan to deliver improvements, including greater clarity and consistency in existing arrangements and a recognition of the third sector’s strategic role in enabling the transformation and delivery of person-centred services to the people of Scotland. We will continue to build the case for multiyear funding, and we will explore the extent to which that can be secured in unpredictable economic circumstances.

Culture can also play a valuable preventative role in health settings. Evidence has shown that participation in cultural events and activities can promote lifelong health and wellbeing, reduce social isolation, increase resilience and confidence, and give individuals an increased sense of purpose and of belonging to their communities. As was announced in the programme for government, we will publish a refreshed culture strategy action plan later this year. The culture strategy will set out a vision that recognises the value of culture and its power to inspire, enrich and transform our lives and communities. Our action plan will set out the actions that we will take in response to the challenges that are brought about by the changed landscape.

That commitment reaffirms my aim of placing culture as a central consideration across all policy areas and making it clear how it can deliver on a range of priority outcomes, such as improving health and wellbeing, supporting a thriving economy, raising educational attainment, tackling inequality and realising a greener future. It is more important than ever to work together to explore ideas such as sharing back-office functions, maximising income through philanthropy and—this is perhaps more important—enabling organisations to become more sustainable. In a time of limited resource, collaboration rather than competition will be of significant benefit to the wider sector.

I have two things to say about that; the first is a wider cultural but also linguistic point. I am well aware of the fragile nature of Gaelic-speaking Scotland, Gaelic-speaking communities and the importance of one’s community being reflected in one’s language, whether that is in terms of television, radio or the wider arts. We have support that helps provide television and radio in the Gaelic language and has an impact on different communities—there are the BBC studios in Inverness, Stornoway and elsewhere.

Secondly, I draw people’s attention to other organisations that are really important in that respect. We should also acknowledge that some of that is difficult to capture in metrics, although it should not necessarily be so. Last night, I was at an event to celebrate two years of success for the Culture Collective, which is supported through Creative Scotland, which is funded through the Scottish Government. I do not know whether you have ever taken evidence from it, but it provides hugely important funding for freelance creatives to practise their art in communities across Scotland. When one walked into the reception last night at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, there was a map of Scotland with a little dot showing where each of those people was from, and they were from right across Scotland. There was testimonial evidence of what they have been able to do and the impact that they have been able to have. We have already talked a little about health and wellbeing and other things that are really important for better governance and living in a better society.

To my mind, what those people do is critical, not only in enabling their arts to be practised in their communities, but to our mission of making the interventions that we want to make. There was one person who said that he was the only person he knew who worked in culture in the community that he lived in. That reflects the fact that, in some parts of the country, some people find themselves in that less-than-optimal situation. The good news is that we now have two years of experience of funding people so that they can operate as creative freelancers across Scotland. A lot of good stuff is happening, and more can be done. That gives me an opportunity to congratulate the Culture Collective on the wonderful work that it has done.

There is much around the challenge of depopulation that we need to think about. We must ensure that our cultural institutions throughout Scotland continue to be supported, and if there are ways in which we should be doing more of that, particularly within our different linguistic communities, I am keen to support that.

Mr Ruskell mentions a number of key facts, one of which is the size of the portfolio’s budget relative to that for the rest of Government. Another is the fact that there are certain responsibilities within the portfolio that have wider Government benefit. He is right to say that the responsibility for major events is one of those; responsibility for the census is another. Although the census falls every 10 years, there is a significant risk of financial displacement within a small portfolio if one has such a major responsibility without necessarily having specific funding. In the past, interventions have been made to provide specific support for the likes of the census.

What the Scottish Government is doing is a really good example of its recognising the cross-Government benefits that major events can bring. There will be wider discussions about how that should be approached in future. One of the side-effects of Scotland becoming as successful as it has been in recent years with major events is that we need to think about how we do all of that. I do not think that anyone wants there to be a displacement effect within the wider portfolio, which includes, as well as culture, external affairs. To go back to Mr Cameron’s point, the culture portfolio includes our ability to project, among other things, our cultural offering to the rest of the world, so it is really important that we maintain all those different areas of the portfolio’s work so that we can do what we are trying to do to promote Scotland domestically and internationally.

No doubt, there will be conversations about how we make sure that we have a cross-Government approach to major events, but there is an acknowledgement that one of the benefits of major events working hand in hand with the culture directorate in the Scottish Government is that a lot of people in the civil service who work in culture are extremely talented in the organisation of events, whether those are cultural events or wider events that are hosted in Scotland.

There are reasons why major events work closely together with culture. The question is whether the funding model is fit for the place that we now find ourselves in, having had that good experience of major events. Since the Commonwealth games in 2014, we have seen really large, world-class events and we have the aspiration to do more. Therefore, we must make sure that we have the right mechanisms—funding is a part of that—to be able to do that.

Those are, frankly, unnecessarily pointed questions from Mr Bibby. He has been here since the beginning of the session, so he heard me draw attention to not only the inflation rate but—this is mission critical in the context of having a serious approach to funding culture—the appreciation of the additional pressure on the Scottish budget due to pay settlements worth an additional £785 million. That significant amount of money brings additional pressure to bear on the Scottish Government budget.

In reference to Kate Forbes’s question, it is the additionality of the costs of the likes of pay claims—I am not talking about inflation, which means that you can buy less—that squeezes the Government’s budget and that has the impact of displacing our ability to do everything that we would want to do. That is a really very basic public administration and finance point.

Unless somebody wants to be serious about explaining how one deals with that pressure by finding money from elsewhere, one must broach the pressures that one is having to face and deal with them. It seems to me to be eminently sensible that if one has the ability to use reserves such that one does not actually cut—that is, end—funding for organisations, that is the best course of action. If Mr Bibby would prefer to cut culture budget lines in areas where there are no reserves, he has to explain how to do that. I have not heard that from anybody thus far.

We find ourselves in circumstances that, again, any fair-minded person would acknowledge are significant and extreme. Given those pressures, where there are reserves that can deal with a situation in extremis and can then be recompensed to ensure that on-going financial and planning purposes are fulfilled, it seems that that is the prudent, sensible and sustainable decision, which we are making. If not, one is talking about ending financial support for cultural organisations, which I am not prepared to do.

Thank you very much, convener. I echo your thanks to the committee members who are moving on. I also welcome the members who are joining the committee. I am a pretty regular attender, so I look forward to spending more time with the new committee members, and wish those who are departing the best of luck with their new responsibilities.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to join it today. I am also very grateful to the committee for its initiating this important inquiry. As the committee has been hearing, there are widespread concerns about the future of devolution, given the approach of the current UK Government.

I believe that anyone who supports devolution to this Parliament should be very worried about those developments. We as parliamentarians should be particularly alive to the threats to this institution. After all, we are here because the people of Scotland voted for this Parliament. It is their democratic mandate that has given us democratic self-government in Scotland, and there is no mandate for the steady erosion of the devolution settlement that we have seen since the Brexit referendum.

Convener, you will have seen our paper that sets out how the UK Government has undermined the devolution settlement since 2016. In brief, Westminster has passed—without the Scottish Parliament’s agreement—the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, which reduces our effective powers and allows UK ministers to make further changes unilaterally.

The Sewel convention has, in the words of Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales, “withered on the vine”. From there being no breaches between 1999 and 2018, the convention will have been breached 10 times when the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill receives royal assent.

The Secretary of State for Scotland and the UK Government have blocked legislation on devolved matters passed by the Scottish Parliament for the first time, using powers intended as a “last resort”—and they have done so without following any of the agreed processes intended to avoid such an action.

The UK Government is taking a direct role in devolved policy, including decisions on public spending on devolved matters, bypassing the Scottish Parliament. It has tried to redesign the Scottish deposit return scheme, changing the model agreed by this Parliament to fit its own plans. The levelling up fund has been used to pursue UK Government aims in areas of our responsibility—by “our”, I mean all of our responsibility, as a Parliament, and not just the Scottish Government’s—instead of funding the priorities of this Parliament.

The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill currently at Westminster will put on a statutory basis the UK Government’s “levelling up missions”, which purport to set targets for Scotland and the rest of the UK for devolved matters, such as health, education and crime. Those matters—and any objectives and targets—are for this Parliament and this Government. The UK Government simply has no business setting such targets. To do so cuts at the very purpose of devolution; namely, to allow Scotland self-government and autonomy in areas of devolved responsibility. It is incumbent on us all as parliamentarians and supporters of devolution to recognise the threat that those actions pose to devolution and to take action to address them.

I very much look forward to hearing the committee’s conclusions and recommendations, but I will finish with a few suggestions, if I may.

The pre-eminence of the Scottish Parliament to decide on devolved matters should be restated, although we still have to acknowledge Westminster’s continued claim to sovereignty on all matters.

There should be a recognition that there is no hierarchy of Governments. Each has its own powers, and each has its own responsibilities. There should, therefore, be a commitment to working together with mutual respect and co-operation among the Governments of the UK, as equals. Flowing from that, the Governments should co-operate through negotiation and consensus using agreed intergovernmental processes such as common frameworks, instead of the UK Government centralising and imposing its views using the formal powers of the Westminster Parliament.

Furthermore, there should be a return to the previous constitutional norm that the Sewel convention is always followed, underpinned by proper legal duties on the UK Government.

Those are minimum necessary steps to restoring confidence in the devolution settlement. I recognise that other members will have their own ideas, and I look forward to discussing those with the committee.

Some people amplify that particular perspective incorrectly. Neil Bibby’s question is very good. There is tension between intergovernmental relations and transparency, which I think is understood by committee members.

The Governments are not supposed to provide a running commentary on the issues that are discussed at meetings. I might characterise my unhappiness about the general approach, but I have not provided a running commentary on the substance of what was discussed at meetings. It is important for there to be trust between Governments about how one proceeds with different policy areas; I understand and respect that.

For parliamentarians and committees that have the responsibility to hold Government and Government ministers to account, how can we best report back in a way that you can take a view on? I have given evidence to the committee a number of times, and I say again on record that I am extremely keen that my officials work with the committee clerks to find the best way in which we can report back to the committee on retained EU law, Scottish Government alignment with European Union legislation and policies and intergovernmental relations. That is a work in progress, and discussions are taking place on how that happens in relation to retained EU law and European Union alignment.

On intergovernmental relations, we need to think about how we make clear how things work and how things do not work. If it is not already in the public realm, it is not unhelpful for people to be aware that it is a matter of record; the Scottish Government keeps records on intergovernmental relations. We try to have an institutional memory of those experiences, whether they are good, bad or indifferent.

I find it curious that a lot of this revolves around the extent to which UK Government ministers and departments understand devolution and, if they do, the extent to which they are prepared to have a pragmatic relationship, or whether they see the process as a tick-box exercise. I get the feeling quite a lot that meetings are held to simply say that consultation took place and that there was discussion on the issue, as opposed to genuinely taking something away and saying, “Right—I wasn’t aware of that,” or, “That’s a good suggestion,” or, “No, I don’t think we’re likely to agree with that, but let’s find a pragmatic way forward.”

There is a public interest in understanding how things are not working. I agree with Mr Bibby on that point, and I will definitely take away and consider how we can help committee members and the wider Scottish Parliament—and through that the public—to understand how things are not working, because it is pretty stark.

One of the great joys of ministerial responsibility is my total admiration for the civil service, its neutrality and the advice that it gives. I assume that there are people out there who do not appreciate that there is a singular civil service in Great Britain. There is not a Scottish civil service, per se, and there is not an English or English and Welsh civil service; there is a civil service that works across Great Britain—there is a Northern Irish civil service, which is different. One of the benefits of that is that officials are able to work together, often very well at a technical level, but it presupposes a number of things.

Of course, civil servants work to ministerial guidance on things. If ministerial guidance is such that, in relation to the Sewel convention, one is prepared to make legislative proposals that require a legislative consent motion, and that is communicated on a Friday, but the next Monday, which is less than one working day after that, the pursuit of that legislative consent motion is disregarded—that is what happened only a few short weeks ago—it shows how bad things can be. That is the case regardless of whether civil servants are working well together.

Donald Cameron is absolutely right to identify that there are good examples. There is no doubt that there is legislation on which there is co-operation and there are areas in which it makes sense to use legislative consent motions, including—to be pragmatic—where that serves public administration and best policy making.

Donald Cameron used the formulation that the Sewel convention is under strain. Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales, described the Sewel convention as withering on the vine, because there has been an acceleration in the disregard of it. That is the thing that the committee should take particular cognisance of. What we are seeing is a UK Government that is prepared to disregard—increasingly and at an accelerated pace—the likes of the Sewel convention.

I know that the committee knows this, but I will say it so that it is on the record. The disregard of legislative consent motions started with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, then it continued with the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, the European Union (Future Relationship) Act 2020, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, the Professional Qualifications Act 2022, the Subsidy Control Act 2022, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Act 2023 and the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023. Have a look at those dates. Do you see what is happening? It is happening in plain sight.

What is happening is that the UK Government is increasingly choosing to disregard the convention. Many—including, perhaps, Mr Cameron himself—have taken the view in the past that simply having a convention that can be disregarded is something that should be of concern. It is increasingly of concern, because what is happening here is a fact.

I know that the Secretary of State for Scotland has difficulty when he is confronted with the facts about what he and his Government are doing in relation to Sewell. These are not minor pieces of legislation; some of them are extremely important—for example, the internal market act is a profoundly important piece of legislation. The Scottish Parliament voted not to give legislative consent to the internal market act, and the UK Government disregarded that.

To Donald Cameron’s point, regardless of the willingness of civil servants to work with one another—they often do so very well—if UK Government ministers choose to disregard the devolution settlement, they will do so, and that is exactly what they are doing.

That is understood; Mr Cameron is making my point about the approach of the then Labour Government, which is now shared by the UK Conservative Party. It reflects their attitude that ultimate sovereignty is with the Westminster Parliament, and that Westminster has the ability to intervene in areas of devolution.

Such measures were supposed to be last resorts, but now they are not last resorts; they are being used increasingly. I acknowledge that some of those measures are in legislation but were not used. However, they are now being used in the post-Brexit context in ways that subvert the role of this Parliament in holding to account ministers who have been elected to make decisions in those policy areas, and those decisions are being made by a Government and a Parliament that are not answerable to the people who have been elected to make those decisions. That is not appropriate working of devolution or a normal understanding of a self-governing country, whether it is devolved or independent.

The best co-operation that we have had was with members of the House of Lords who are concerned about the UK Government’s proposals, because—as is often the case with ping-pong scenarios—proposals are made at quite short notice and the ability to influence how they are debated and voted on in the House of Lords is often quite an immediate issue.

I certainly never got the impression that the UK Government had the interests of devolved Administrations as a high priority in the process. If it had, it would not have proposed the legislation as it was drafted. It also intended to carry on regardless of legislative consent being withheld on the unamended bill.

The UK Government has gone on to make its concessions in relation to what is known as the cliff edge—the throwing all the babies out with the bath water approach—which was what it intended to do in the first place, and it turned the process on its head by listing pieces of legislation that it wishes to see fall off the statute book. That was a late change, and we were not consulted on it. I am sure that the UK Government would probably say that the Scottish Government’s views and opposition to its original approach had already been articulated. I have seen correspondence that says that the UK Government has partly acted on the concerns of the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government in relation to the REUL bill.

On how the UK Government moved on to the next step of the process, we were informed on a Friday about the changes in relation to seeking legislative consent. Then, on the Monday, the UK Government confirmed from the dispatch box in the House of Lords that it would carry on regardless. That drives a coach and horses through how the Sewel convention is supposed to work. How on earth is the Scottish Parliament, whether it be committees or plenary, or the Scottish Government supposed to have time to consider a proposal about legislative consent from the UK Government over a weekend when no notice was given that it would carry on regardless on the Monday?

None of that speaks to devolved custom or practice operating in any meaningful and respectful sense. On the one hand, it is an improvement that the REUL bill will not sunset a great amount of legislation in the way that was originally planned, but, on the other hand, we know that the UK Government still plans to take more than 500 pieces of legislation off the statute book by the end of this year.

Scottish Government experts have been able to identify nine pieces of legislation that still have an impact in Scotland, but there is little prospect of us having the ability to have those pieces of legislation taken out of the updated REUL bill.