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I am sure that the cabinet secretary followed closely the recent evidence that the Finance and Public Administration Committee took from five performing arts companies. At that session, Alex Reedijk of Scottish Opera said:

“It is interesting that we see a trend and increasing evidence that teachers no longer have the skills to deliver elements of the creative part of the curriculum”.—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 13 January 2026; c 10.]

What discussions is this cabinet secretary having with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to address that serious concern?

On behalf of the Scottish Conservatives, I concur with everything that Carol Mochan has just said. Sarah Boyack is not only a long-standing member of the Scottish Parliament but someone who has served her constituents—and the stakeholders whom she has represented, particularly on the issues that are before us today—extremely well.

On a personal basis, I understand exactly what it is like to take a member’s bill through the Scottish Parliament, especially one that runs for a very long time. You get knocked back, you try something else, and you get knocked back again. I have a great deal of sympathy for some of the difficulties that Sarah Boyack has encountered. I put on record again, having said it when bringing forward my own bill, that the non-Government bills unit is outstanding. I am sure that Sarah Boyack has gained a great deal from its expertise.

I agree with Sarah Boyack on the background context of her bill. There has been a long-standing need for a much more holistic approach to policy making—she is absolutely right on that. I also agree that public bodies have often operated under short-termism, which Mr Harvie also referred to, because of the constraints of one-year budgets. It is essential that we make much better use of scarce resources, and there are definitely concerns about the national performance framework.

I took the trouble to read some of the submissions in response to the call for views on the bill. I think that most people agree with that background context, and I very much understand where Sarah Boyack is coming from with her bill. However, I am sceptical about various aspects of it, and I want to sound those out.

On section 3, I think that Sarah Boyack made a valiant attempt to define the terms “wellbeing” and “sustainable development”. I give credit to her for that, because it has made us think. However, as my colleague Roz McCall said, it is extremely difficult to put such terms into legislation with definitive and comprehensive meanings for them, because they are multifaceted concepts that touch on emotional, cultural, mental and physical health, as well as social and environmental safeguards. It is therefore difficult to find a balance of those complexities that would suit all individuals, whether now or in the future.

There has been much discussion about the recommendation to establish a commissioner. I am a member of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, which looked at the issue of commissioners in considerable detail. It was one of the most interesting aspects of parliamentary business that I have participated in. We were very conscious not just of the increasing number of commissioners, but of the associated costs—as one would expect of a finance committee. As somebody who has been representing patients on the Eljamel inquiry, I have heard a lot of discussion about the absence of commissioners when public bodies fail.

I understand where Sarah Boyack is coming from, because there has been failure, but I do not think that that means that there is a need for new legislation. However, there is a need for the Government and public bodies to take responsibility for decision making. If they get things wrong, they should be held accountable. I do not think that we are seeing enough of that, which is why I am very sceptical about the need for another commissioner.

I will finish on the basis that it is always difficult when we are contemplating new legislation. It takes a great deal of effort and time to go through all the relevant evidence, and when there are differences of opinion, it is not always about the different parts of the evidence but about the process, and Sarah Boyack has perhaps run into a bit of difficulty on that basis. There should be processes that are workable. The fact that they are not workable and have not been doing their job is not a fault of the legislation but a fault of the people who are in charge of that.

On that basis, I will finish my remarks.

15:31

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is putting in place to encourage young people to engage in the arts. (S6O-05409)

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is putting in place to encourage young people to engage in the arts. (S6O-05409)

I am sure that the cabinet secretary followed closely the recent evidence that the Finance and Public Administration Committee took from five performing arts companies. At that session, Alex Reedijk of Scottish Opera said:

“It is interesting that we see a trend and increasing evidence that teachers no longer have the skills to deliver elements of the creative part of the curriculum”.—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 13 January 2026; c 10.]

What discussions is this cabinet secretary having with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to address that serious concern?

On behalf of the Scottish Conservatives, I concur with everything that Carol Mochan has just said. Sarah Boyack is not only a long-standing member of the Scottish Parliament but someone who has served her constituents—and the stakeholders whom she has represented, particularly on the issues that are before us today—extremely well.

On a personal basis, I understand exactly what it is like to take a member’s bill through the Scottish Parliament, especially one that runs for a very long time. You get knocked back, you try something else, and you get knocked back again. I have a great deal of sympathy for some of the difficulties that Sarah Boyack has encountered. I put on record again, having said it when bringing forward my own bill, that the non-Government bills unit is outstanding. I am sure that Sarah Boyack has gained a great deal from its expertise.

I agree with Sarah Boyack on the background context of her bill. There has been a long-standing need for a much more holistic approach to policy making—she is absolutely right on that. I also agree that public bodies have often operated under short-termism, which Mr Harvie also referred to, because of the constraints of one-year budgets. It is essential that we make much better use of scarce resources, and there are definitely concerns about the national performance framework.

I took the trouble to read some of the submissions in response to the call for views on the bill. I think that most people agree with that background context, and I very much understand where Sarah Boyack is coming from with her bill. However, I am sceptical about various aspects of it, and I want to sound those out.

On section 3, I think that Sarah Boyack made a valiant attempt to define the terms “wellbeing” and “sustainable development”. I give credit to her for that, because it has made us think. However, as my colleague Roz McCall said, it is extremely difficult to put such terms into legislation with definitive and comprehensive meanings for them, because they are multifaceted concepts that touch on emotional, cultural, mental and physical health, as well as social and environmental safeguards. It is therefore difficult to find a balance of those complexities that would suit all individuals, whether now or in the future.

There has been much discussion about the recommendation to establish a commissioner. I am a member of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, which looked at the issue of commissioners in considerable detail. It was one of the most interesting aspects of parliamentary business that I have participated in. We were very conscious not just of the increasing number of commissioners, but of the associated costs—as one would expect of a finance committee. As somebody who has been representing patients on the Eljamel inquiry, I have heard a lot of discussion about the absence of commissioners when public bodies fail.

I understand where Sarah Boyack is coming from, because there has been failure, but I do not think that that means that there is a need for new legislation. However, there is a need for the Government and public bodies to take responsibility for decision making. If they get things wrong, they should be held accountable. I do not think that we are seeing enough of that, which is why I am very sceptical about the need for another commissioner.

I will finish on the basis that it is always difficult when we are contemplating new legislation. It takes a great deal of effort and time to go through all the relevant evidence, and when there are differences of opinion, it is not always about the different parts of the evidence but about the process, and Sarah Boyack has perhaps run into a bit of difficulty on that basis. There should be processes that are workable. The fact that they are not workable and have not been doing their job is not a fault of the legislation but a fault of the people who are in charge of that.

On that basis, I will finish my remarks.

15:31

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for taking my intervention. There is a case for some measure of reform. However, the last time that was done, parliamentary scrutiny was left very incomplete because of the timing. It was a very awkward situation for the finance committee at the time, because we did not have the facility to scrutinise what had already been decided.

Would Mr Ross agree that one area where we could improve things would be to have a finance bill process, whereby everybody who wanted to pitch into budget discussions could do so?

This is not my final speech in the Parliament, which I will no doubt come to sometime in March, but I want to say some things about the scrutiny of budgets. What I have seen over my nearly 20 years in this place is that things are changing. Just as Douglas Ross intimated, I do not think that it is good enough. I am not casting aspersions on any one individual but on the process, because it is not strong enough. There is a frustration in the Finance and Public Administration Committee, for which I have the highest regard—not only for my colleagues but for the way in which the committee operates—that we spend much of our time going into considerable detail in budget scrutiny but that is not reflected in how the whole Parliament can contribute to the process.

I have argued time and again—and I continue to argue—that this place needs a finance bill process so that there is much more effective scrutiny by the whole Parliament as to exactly what each of the budget lines really means.

Fiscal sustainability is a huge issue just now. It does not matter which economic analyst we listen to; everyone is telling us that we have to get serious about the size of the gap between the projected expenditure and what we are going to take in. There is a really strong feeling and frustration, including among economic analysts, that we are not taking this sufficiently seriously. I worry about that, because budgets are the most important thing that Parliaments do. We have to get it right, but at the moment we are not able to do that.

To go back to Michelle Thomson’s point, we must understand not only what the Government’s priorities are—and not just through straplines about tackling child poverty, dealing with the climate crisis or ensuring that there is economic growth—but which policies will best deliver on those broad targets and which could be deprioritised. I am sure that I do not have to tell the cabinet secretary that very difficult choices have to be made. Such choices will be easier to make if we understand which policies are most effective at delivering on the outcomes that we all want to see and which policies are perhaps not in that bracket. I do not think that the Parliament is very good at making such decisions. As I said, that is no reflection on any one individual or committee; I just do not think that we have got this process right.

When it comes to budgeting and understanding what the longer-term finances of the country will be and how they will be challenged, we must remove the short-termism in our approach. There is far too much short-termism in the Parliament, and I think that we have got used to it. We are not planning ahead in the way that we should be. That is a frustration, especially in the Scottish Fiscal Commission, which feels that we are not taking sufficiently seriously major challenges such as economic inactivity, productivity, economic growth and how we will deal with the demographic time bomb. Those are serious issues that confront the Parliament.

The Parliament has a lot of thinking to do about how to better inspire the members in the next parliamentary session to work on budgets and to do things a bit better.

The minister is making a case as to why we need a finance bill. It is so important that we can work across different portfolios and that all members in this Parliament can scrutinise that on a cross-party basis. Does the minister agree? The Finance and Public Administration Committee members are pretty unanimous on that.