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Do you think that there might be a tension when large cultural organisations and festivals, such as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, want to invest in communities but their investment can feel very top-down? For example, they might say, “Here are 60 tickets for something that we are producing.” One view that was quoted from the Edinburgh creative hubs is:

“If you want the margins to engage, then invest in the margins. It’s quite straightforward.”

Is the balance right? Is culture something that is being offered to people—I would not quite say “being done to people”—or can it emerge from communities? Is that partnership right at the moment? The view that we have heard is that sometimes it is not, and culture is seen as a type of philanthropy—“Would you like to come and see our show?” instead of, “What are you creating in your community and how can we invest in and develop that?”

If you recognise that, what role can Creative Scotland play in helping to reset, or at least question, the relationship in that partnership and whether it is working in certain areas?

Are there barriers in terms of the scale and capacity of organisations, particularly those in rural areas that might be suited to applying to a small grant scheme but less suited to applying for funding for a bigger project? I am thinking particularly about core funding. It is easy for organisations to apply for funding for a small project but, if the core funding is not there to invest in their buildings and assets or management or cleaners or paying for heating and all the rest of it, they are never going to reach the point at which they can come to Creative Scotland with a bigger, more transformative application to serve their communities.

Do you recognise that the core funding issue is a big issue and that it is not just about rural arts community hubs? It is also about urban organisations. If the money is not there to employ a manager or core staff, everybody will be running around writing short-term applications for project funding without anybody to run the show.

Thank you.

Today, a group of nine animal welfare organisations have teamed up to call for a phase-out of greyhound racing in Scotland. The industry is on its last legs, with just one racetrack left in Scotland. No dog deserves to be forced into a gambling-led industry with an unacceptable risk of injury and death. Does the First Minister agree that it is now time that Scotland phased out greyhound racing once and for all?

The cabinet secretary may be aware that Scotland’s environmental watchdog, Environmental Standards Scotland, has raised concerns about the UK Government’s proposed ditching of national air quality laws, saying that Scotland would have no national programme on long-term air quality targets. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the Tories are now the polluters party? Having scuppered the deposit return scheme this week, they are now cancelling action to protect our lungs as well.

If I have time, Presiding Officer, I would be delighted to.

Yes, absolutely. The bus industry has faced a number of headwinds, some of which are being caused by Brexit, and the driver shortage is very much part of that picture. However, fundamentally, where there is not a good reason for services being cancelled and passengers experiencing poor services, we need to hold the companies to account. The bus open data system is a really good way to do that, and I think that that would be welcomed by the traffic commissioner.

Secondly, our buses must be affordable. From subsidies to concessionary travel schemes, millions of pounds of Scottish Government money is given to bus operators. Despite that, private bus operators have recently hiked fares. There has been a 9 per cent increase in Glasgow, a 12 per cent increase in the Highlands and a 15 per cent increase in Perth and Fife.

Earlier this year, the former transport minister, Jenny Gilruth, committed to a review of all public subsidies for bus, to look at how increased conditionality on public funding could improve bus services. Applying conditions to public grants is not new. We need to see conditionality applied to all Scottish Government funding for private bus operators to prevent profiteering, fare hikes and cancellations.

We need to see an integrated ticketing system that allows people to take the bus, train, tram or metro using one ticket or travel card. I hope to see that in the Scottish Government’s upcoming fair fares review.

I do not have time.

There is no long-term future in North Sea oil and gas. Research that was undertaken for the Scottish Government makes it clear that, under all scenarios, the North Sea is a rapidly maturing basin with little prospect beyond the middle of the century. A responsible Government and a responsible Parliament must grapple head on with that challenge and secure a well-managed, supported and just transition for all who work in the sector, and particularly for those communities in the north-east. That also means pushing ahead with site-specific just transition plans for Scotland’s largest industrial polluters, such as Mossmorran in Fife.

The decline in fossil fuels is irrefutable. Our choice now is whether to accept a slow withering of skills and expertise or to grasp the opportunity to maximise the expansion of jobs in renewables and all the supporting sectors. However, the Tories want us to ignore the writing on the wall for fossil fuels. The power over our future still lies in the hands of a UK Government that retains control of licensing and would prefer to sell out the north-east’s chance of a stable transition to maximise short-term shareholder profiteering.

There is no guarantee that an incoming Labour Government would be any better. Keir Starmer’s support for banning new licences for oil and gas in the North Sea is very welcome, but Anas Sarwar has said that Labour might still allow the 500 million-barrel Rosebank field to go ahead. That is an impossible circle to square.

We lie at a critical juncture. Less than two years ago, we all united over COP26 in Glasgow, and we committed to keeping 1.5°C alive. From what I have heard in this debate, there is a consensus—at times an uneasy one—among four parties in the Parliament that we need to move beyond oil and gas and that we can do that in a just way that takes workers with us and puts them at the fore. The only outliers in the Parliament are the extremist Tories, who deny the reality of climate change. However, the time for urgent climate action is now. There is no credible long-term future in oil and gas, and it is our duty as politicians—credible politicians—to map out the alternative.