Seòmar agus comataidhean

There are two parts to Mr Bibby’s question. First, I make the general point that, whether it is tremendously welcome or not, I am an extremely regular attender of this committee. I give evidence to the convener and other members and, regardless of what the formal evidence session is about, there is an opportunity to ask me questions about any issue—that is a given and is on-going. That can be done in committee meetings or at portfolio question time, so I would not worry about the ability to raise issues with me.

However, I take the point about having the best formalised structure to update members in a fast-moving situation. I am very alive to that, because of my governmental responsibility and because I think about how the committee can perform its responsibilities. If there are developments between evidence sessions or programmed reporting on the Scottish Government’s approach to EU alignment or retained EU law, I am perfectly content to update the committee on that—as I did in my letter yesterday—to give context that can perhaps influence and inform members’ questions and allow them to be informed of the latest state of play.

I am sure that it has not escaped members’ notice that we are literally dealing with a situation that changes from week to week. If we can do more to keep the committed updated on progress, I am perfectly content that we write to the committee to do that.

I put on record my appreciation to members of the House of Lords, who have been working with the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government and with whom we have an extremely close working relationship, on this and other issues. On this issue in particular we have an extremely close working relationship with them. We share each other’s concerns, and a number of members of the House of Lords—those from Scotland and from Wales, in particular—have been very active in raising the concerns of both Governments, for which I am grateful. In answer to Mr Bibby’s point about whether there is more that we can do to keep the committee updated, that is a very live and on-going issue for me, and I will continue to do my best to keep the committee informed and answer its questions.

On the question of the nine items in the schedule that relate to devolved subjects and whether we are concerned about a clause or sub-clause of those nine items, as opposed to whether we have a general concern that they have devolved impacts, I think that I am right in saying that it is a general concern at this stage, because one really needs to work through all the pieces of legislation and specific provisions.

We have passed the stage of asking whether there is a devolved impact—there is. The question is whether we can gain, through looking at particular scenarios, knowledge of what would happen were the provisions to fall off the statute book. Civil service colleagues are trying to work through that to understand what mitigation might be required. I am happy to update the committee when we get to the stage of understanding that, so that members are aware of that concern, too.

There is no comparison with the constructive working relationship that I and the Welsh Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution, Mick Antoniw, have with a number of members of the House of Lords. From memory, we have had perhaps three meetings on the issues during the progress of the bill through Westminster. I have not had a single meeting with the UK minister in the House of Lords.

I am not sure whether committee members are aware of the sarcastic quip from the dispatch box about the likely reaction of the Scottish Government. I paraphrase, but it was something along the lines of, “Well, you would expect that wouldn’t you?” It was certainly not informed by any communication with me. We have not met to discuss any of the issues. As with many other matters on which the UK Government is proceeding with legislation or policy that relates directly to devolved competence, unfortunately, there is a gulf between the rhetoric and the reality when it comes to co-operation and close working relations, which are illusory.

I think that I am correct in saying that I will be giving evidence to the committee on 29 June on the operation of devolution post-Brexit, and we will discuss at some length at that meeting issues such as intergovernmental relations, the codification of expected norms of behaviour between Governments, the sovereignty of Westminster, the Sewel convention, delegated powers for UK ministers to legislate in devolved competence and, indeed, the UK internal market. However, it is fair to say that this is an evolving and moving situation.

I have to say, as somebody who thought that the devolution settlement was exactly that—settled—it clearly is not, and a variety of mechanisms are being used to row back on devolution.

I am not sure whether I have the microphone, but I will carry on as if I do.

I think that these areas are being explored by officials in the Scottish Government and at Westminster. Following on from what my colleagues have already said, I think that there are other related issues with regard to the extent to which measures are fully devolved or on which there is a degree of shared competence. I do not think that it will come as a surprise to committee members to learn that this was always a consideration that gave us concern.

It is not as simple as saying that the Scottish Government would wish something to remain on the statute book in Scotland, whereas the UK Government might wish it no longer to be on the statute books that would apply to England and Wales; it is about whether there is a duty on both Governments to try to deal with issues where there are currently shared competences that are a contributing factor to the complication of the situation in which we find ourselves.

I suppose that that is a reflection of the circumstance being fast moving, because we do not have clarity on all of that. It leads to the subsidiary but no less important point about what the role of the Scottish Parliament, in committee or plenary, is in relation to having an understanding of the process and being able to play a part in scrutinising it.

I will have to defer to colleagues about specific outside organisations but I make the general observation that, at the heart of the question is a reflection on the difficulty of trying to deal with hundreds and thousands of pieces of retained EU law and work out which are still operable, which apply and which require to be incorporated into what is being described as assimilated law and to do so in such a way as to get maximum external expertise as part of the process. That is one of the areas that, for anybody who cares about having the best legislative standards that we can have, is deeply problematic because, as I have said a couple of times this morning, we are dealing with a fast-moving situation.

Until recently, we were dealing with a situation in which the major concern—not the only one, but the major one—was that, among the thousands of pieces of legislation that might fall off the statute book, there might be additional laws that one had not even identified as being relevant and retained but would fall off the statute book because they were overlooked. Now, because of the change in the UK Government’s approach, we have a list of 500-plus pieces of legislation to be added to the schedule.

The question of due diligence on all those measures is good. Whether one can say with absolute certainty that all the laws beyond the nine that we have identified as potential matters of concern have a clean bill of health is definitely a question. I have been keen to ensure that we are as confident as we can be that we are not losing the high standards that European Union membership and legislation guaranteed for us before Brexit because, as the committee knows, it is the Scottish Government’s policy to remain as closely aligned as possible to the high European standards that exist.

We are seeing a pivot in the UK Government’s approach to dealing with retained EU law and are having to use our resources as quickly as we can, given the timescales that the UK Government has now imposed on us in its legislative programme. That will evolve if we are to assume that the bill is passed. However, that raises as many questions as you have been asking until now.

However, on whether specific external organisations have been part of the sift process, if one wants to call it that, I defer to colleagues.

That is a very good question and we have to get the best possible answer to how we work our way through what is a new situation. I think that committee members understand that we are now dealing with a fundamentally different approach to retained EU law than we were dealing with even a few short weeks ago. It would be fair to say that we are going to have to satisfy ourselves that the processes meet the new circumstances that we find ourselves in. I would most certainly be happy to update the committee on how we propose to do that.

As you will have noticed from Greig Walker’s title of retained EU law management programme lead, an area of the Scottish Government is looking at that area in great detail across the piece. It is correct to say that some areas of ministerial responsibility have a much bigger focus on the issue, just because the corpus of European Union law is much more extensive in the areas of the environment, agriculture, fisheries and so on than in some other policy areas. How we will take this through the various directorates of the Scottish Government is definitely something that we will have to be focused on as we get greater clarity.

It goes without stressing at great length that we are talking about legislation that has been fundamentally changed during its course through the parliamentary process at Westminster and has not yet been finalised. We are absolutely aware that we are going to have to react to that legislation in its final form. It is going to be a serious administrative challenge. We are going to have to build in appropriate mechanisms for the reasons that Mark Ruskell has outlined, to make sure that there is co-ordination between Government ministers. As I have said during this evidence session, the important role of the Parliament is then in understanding the process.

We are, of course, not talking about the introduction of new legislation in the sense of novel legal requirements. We are talking about the maintenance of existing European Union law, but Mark Ruskell is absolutely right to point to the mechanism by which we can ensure that Government goes through what will be a new process to ensure that we retain the laws and safeguards that we wish because we want to remain aligned and, as a consequence, how we are best able to integrate that process into the wider parliamentary programme and, in particular, the committee’s role in scrutinising my work and that of colleagues in this policy area.

First, welcome to the committee, Mr Bibby. You might not be aware but, in previous evidence sessions, I have said to the committee—and I am happy to say again today—that I am open to ensuring that we have the best reporting requirements that are commensurate with proposals that the Government is dealing with. Having sat for 10 years on the European Scrutiny Committee, I understand the importance of the work and want your committee to be able to fulfil its obligations.

What is important from my point of view is that we are in the process of updating our approach of reporting to the committee in relation to European Union alignment. The two things—retained EU law and European Union alignment—are areas in which we can integrate the process.

As has been the case until now, I am still perfectly content for committee officials and Scottish Government officials to work together on how we can do that best, because I totally appreciate the needs, interests, concerns and expectations of committee members, and I understand that they want to have the most up-to-date information that they can about such issues.

This is a work in progress, and I am perfectly content to have suggestions from Mr Bibby, any other committee member or the committee as a whole about how we can best update you.

It has been unhelpful to have a cliff edge in relation to Covid support funding. Given that everybody has been focused on trying to recover, bounce back and deal with the diminution of reserves that were spent before and during the Covid pandemic, the substantial ending of funding has been problematic. That was pointed out to the UK Government. There has been some intervention in relation to energy costs, but, again, that is coming to an end, although bills remain extremely high.

It is a matter of concern that, when we have all those pressures, the funding decisions endanger the ability of cultural and arts organisations to genuinely bounce back, because, as we have discussed at the committee, public behaviour, among other things, has not immediately snapped back to pre-Covid levels. Although we are seeing good returns from different venues in Scotland, including museums, we are still not back to where we were before.

We have not seen the economic recovery or the return of the public yet—we are encouraging that to happen as quickly as possible—but we have gone from Covid pandemic circumstances to the ending of funding before a recovery has taken place. That endangers the recovery, so it is problematic.

Good morning, convener, and thank you for the opportunity to make some opening remarks. I think that we all agree that the Scottish Government’s budget for 2023-24, which was published on 15 December last year, takes place in the most turbulent of economic and financial contexts that most of us can remember.

As the Deputy First Minister set out in his introduction to the Scottish Government’s budget, the cumulative effect of war in Europe, surging energy prices, raging inflation and damage to labour supply and trade due to Brexit, along with the United Kingdom Government’s spectacular financial mismanagement, creates the most difficult set of conditions in which to set a budget.

I must stress that our ability to respond to the cost process is limited by the inactivity of the UK Government and the financial restrictions of devolution. Our budget is largely fixed, our reserves funding is fully utilised and we have no ability to borrow to increase our day-to-day spending.

Since I last appeared before the committee, we have continued to work with the culture sector to identify barriers to immediate and long-term recovery. The Scottish Government has now convened hybrid round-table meetings with the culture sector in Glasgow, Inverness and, yesterday, Dumfries. In addition, we convened a round-table meeting last November with culture sector public bodies. Those meetings have helped to explore ways in which organisations can best work together to develop shared solutions.

I want to reassure the committee that we have been listening to the intelligence that the sector has provided at those meetings and that we will continue to do everything in our powers and resources to help those who are most affected by the economic crisis.

The 2023-24 budget required us to make extremely hard decisions and to prioritise spending. As I said in my response to this committee’s report on culture funding, we will invest £278 million in Scotland’s culture and heritage sector next year. That will include continued investment in Scotland’s screen industry, with £9.25 million for Screen Scotland, and investment of £72.7 million for Historic Environment Scotland to ensure that it can continue to care for our heritage in communities across Scotland.

We are providing an additional £2.1 million to support increased costs in the national collections. We are also committed to maintaining spend in other areas of the culture budget, including museums, public libraries, the national performing companies, youth music and community-based culture.

Those commitments have required hard choices to be made. Over the past five years, we have provided Creative Scotland with more than £33 million as an additional element of funding in response to a downward trend in arts funding from the National Lottery Community Fund. At a time when we face incredibly difficult decisions about Government funding and with Creative Scotland able to draw on its accumulated lottery reserves, we have discontinued that element of funding. I am grateful that the Creative Scotland board took the decision on 19 December to use lottery reserves to guarantee to its regularly funded organisations that their funding will remain the same for the next financial year.

I know that the committee has concentrated on the culture budget in its pre-budget discussions, but I am also happy to answer questions on other areas of my portfolio, and I will touch briefly on external affairs and the referendum budget.

For external affairs aspects, international engagement continues to be essential to successful delivery of “Scotland’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation” and our net zero transition. We are committed to being a good global citizen and to playing our part in tackling global challenges, including Covid-19, climate change, poverty, injustice and inequality, particularly through our international development fund. This budget continues to support that important work.

One of the key priorities for 2023, to which additional funding has been allocated, will be the delivery of the new talent attraction and migration service, which will bring together and expand services for employers and individuals. The service will help employers to use the immigration system to meet their skills and labour needs. It will provide good-quality information and advice to people who are thinking of moving to Scotland or who have just moved here. Scotland must be able to attract people from all over the world to work and study without excessive barriers, and migration policy should support mobility, collaboration and innovation.

On referendum costs, to help our most vulnerable citizens, we intend to utilise the finance that had been earmarked for a referendum on independence—£20 million—to make provision to extend our fuel insecurity fund into next year. I stand open to any questions.

First, I note that that is an extremely sensible reflection on the circumstances in which we find ourselves. For the record, it is important that we understand the context of why meeting net zero and climate targets is so challenging in this area. We are talking about how we can, in large part, retrofit buildings and facilities that were built at a time when one did not even conceive of the climate and environmental challenges that we now face. How does one retrofit a castle, or an older building or facility, in a way—to go back to Mr Golden’s point—that can involve a workforce with the skills to be able to do that appropriately?

For example, Historic Environment Scotland still has stonemasons, to protect and restore historic buildings. One needs traditional, older skills, which are, perhaps, less a part of the mainstream economy. During the Dumfries roundtable, I heard about that in relation to leatherworking—again, a mainstream skill 100 or 150 years ago—which is now very much in demand both in the equine sphere and in fashion. It is a multibillion-pound industry.

I heard the point that was made in evidence to the committee, and I hear very much what Maurice Golden said about matching the skills to the requirement in that part of the sector. Given that that has just been raised with your committee, and that you are raising it with me now, Mr Golden, I definitely want to make sure that we do everything that we can to help those in Government who have responsibility for skills and training.

It is exactly the same as the opportunity/challenge that we have had in relation to screen. Suddenly, a part of the economy is booming and we require people who have the skills to support the industry. People need to be able to find the appropriate training courses, the opportunities to learn and the route map into that industry. There is a direct parallel.

I want to look into that more and I will be happy to report back to Mr Golden and colleagues. The point was extremely well made.