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It has been good to hear your powerful evidence today in addition to the submissions that we have had from lots of organisations. I cannot think of a committee meeting when we have had phrases such as “a perfect storm”, “dire financial situation” and “crisis” being mentioned by so many witnesses, not just here but in written evidence. Therefore, I am thinking about how we fix it and what evidence we need to take back to the Parliament. Quite a lot of comments have been made about the percent for art scheme and the transient visitor levy as potentially important new additional moneys. However, they tend not to be something that you could guarantee everywhere at the same time. Therefore, they might be important, but what about the overall status of culture?

In their joint submission to the committee, COSLA and the local government directors of finance said that funding in the collective cultural area in local authorities had been cut by nearly a quarter in the eight years pre Covid. Therefore, there is an issue with a reduction in funding at the local level. The committee also heard the comments about the challenge of flat funding at a time when all your costs are rocketing. Do you have thoughts on the equivalence of culture spending? It is not statutory, so should the committee recommend something on the status of funding for culture, given the complexity on the ground and all the evidence that we have seen in our work on social prescribing about the wider benefits of culture? There are benefits for health, wellbeing and the economy. How do we capture that in order to say that culture is important and needs proper funding? Does anyone have thoughts on how we ensure that it is ranked properly?

Thank you, Professor Diamond, for the briefing that you sent us, which has been useful. I have follow-up questions about the post-census work to which you refer in the briefing.

How do you fill the gaps that come from the higher non-response rate than we had in 2011? How do you avoid errors in the assumptions that are made in the final stage—pillar 3, which you talk about—in order to add value to the census returns that we already have? How do you ensure that the information that you add to the census will give confidence to people who use it—particularly in the lower response rate areas, to which you refer? How do you make that calculation about the geography of those areas and the different groups of people who have not filled in the census? How do you avoid errors there? What assumptions are made and how do you make sure that there is no bias in those assumptions? You talked about that being useful in relation to what groups might have been excluded.

Professor Martin, you talked about the difficulty of access to buildings. There are also buildings that are easy to access but produce incredibly low results. What is your perspective on how to get that right for the people who will rely on the data in the census?

Professor Martin, do you want to kick off, because you mentioned the issue of access? I live in a city that has loads of tenement flats, so there are always access issues. In the big place that I visited with the enumerators, what struck me was not the access but the massively low turnout; it was less than 50 per cent, and that was in the boost period after the census had officially finished.

Professor Diamond, do you have any comment on the issue of how to avoid bias in low-response areas?

From looking at previous census data, do you have a sense of the differences between the 2022 census and the previous census in 2011?

That is great. Will the administrative data be published separately, or is that integrated into the final census results, so that it is transparent?

That is helpful.

Dr Whitten, do you have a perspective on oversight, from having looked at the structure?

I want to follow up the answer that we have just had. From a devolved perspective, what specific issues could arise from changing the status of, and basis for amending, retained EU law that should be taken into account in the future? I am thinking particularly of our job as a committee. We have already heard comments about scrutiny and the challenges in that regard. What areas do you suggest we start focusing on? Scrutiny has been mentioned by a couple of our witnesses, such as Dr West, but I will continue with Professor Lock. What topics should we be focusing on and prioritising?

I thank the witnesses for their evidence. I want to follow up on an issue that is raised in the written evidence and that has come out powerfully today. It is about the need for information to be able to predict and plan, and about communications on changes that are happening, particularly for the agri-food and dairy sectors. What is the solution? There is the Northern Ireland business Brexit working group, but what other communication networks are available? You do not have the Northern Ireland Executive to talk to or to push what needs to happen with the UK Government or the EU. What political structures can you lobby? Transparency is one of our concerns in holding our Government to account. Who do you talk to? How do you make this work, given that it is a changing situation?

It feels like we are at an incredibly tough impasse. We have already debated in this committee how on earth you monitor the alignment process, but we are at least able to sit here and do that. Are there alternative sources that you have to get your voice heard as businesses or consumers, either through individual elected representatives or through cross-UK business networks where you can at least get these concerns on to a level at which they might reach the people making decisions, whether it is the UK Government, civil servants or even UK parliamentarians? It feels like there is a real gap here. We get that the politics are really difficult but, if we were not even able to be here, I do not know how our businesses would be able to begin to get their voices heard, never mind consumer groups and environmental groups. Are there ways that you can at least get your issues raised or be seen?

That is useful. Mr Billington, do you want to come in on that? It is one of the issues that come up in your written evidence.