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Pat, will you start?

My final question is about private rented accommodation, which Hazel Chisholm has just mentioned. Last week, the consul said that Ukrainian households are having difficulty accessing private rented accommodation because landlords are asking for guarantees and credit checks, which Ukrainians are simply unable to provide, for fairly obvious reasons. The consul suggested that local authorities could act as guarantors. Is that feasible or realistic?

Good morning, consul. Thank you so much for coming today. I have a question about housing, which you have talked about already. The Scottish Government has announced that the contract on the ship in Glasgow is coming to an end at the end of March, I think. The ship here in Edinburgh had its contract extended for a further five months in December. I think that that is the position, but I am happy to be corrected.

Given that it looks as though that temporary accommodation will come to an end in the next five to six months, it is vital that new accommodation ensures that existing employment and education can be continued. Do you have any concerns about the transition from the ships to housing on land? You have already spoken about some anxieties, but please feel free to expand on that.

There is still a specific issue with refugees and with the movement of Ukrainians across the EU. Do you have any observations to make about that?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. The committee warned of what we describe in our pre-budget scrutiny report as the “perfect storm” that the culture sector faces with the budget.

As we have seen, the budget for Creative Scotland has been cut by more than 10 per cent. The committee heard stark evidence last week from a number of witnesses, most notably Iain Munro, who is the chief executive of Creative Scotland. He warned that due to those cuts,

“a quarter to a third of the current 120 regularly funded organisations are at risk in the months ahead. If the cuts last into the years ahead and we do not have national lottery reserves to offset them and we end up passing them on to the sector, I estimate that probably no more than 60 out of those 120 RFOs will be funded.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 12 January 2023; c 2.]

Why have you chosen to cut the budget for Creative Scotland, thus endangering the future of up to 60 of our cultural organisations?

Welcome to the committee, ambassador. It is a delight to have you here.

You have covered some of this already. I am wondering about two things. First, you spoke about military and economic assistance, but I think that you also mentioned humanitarian assistance. I am keen to hear you expand on what the EU is doing about that.

You touched on multiyear funding. In the 2021-22 programme for government, the Scottish Government committed to providing three-year funding settlements. However, in evidence last week, Sir John Leighton said that multiyear funding

“is highly desirable, but ... is not in sight at the moment.”

He said that, given that he had to set a budget now for the financial year that will begin in April,

“It is hard to imagine shorter-term cycles of funding.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 12 January 2023; c 25.]

Is there any realistic progress towards multiyear funding?

I was fascinated by your comments about the role of the presidency in trying to maintain unity. It has been almost a year since the invasion, and when it happened everyone was surprised by how quick the EU moved and by how unified it was. A year on, now that Sweden holds the presidency, do you see any change to that? Has it been a hard job to keep that unity together?

Just to be clear, Iain Munro said that, even this year, using the national lottery reserves,

“a quarter to a third of the ... regularly funded organisations are at risk”.—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 12 January 2023; c 2.]

I hear what you say about the financial constraints but, as you said in your opening comments, hard choices have been made. They have been made within the whole of the Scottish Government’s budget. According to an analysis by the Scottish Parliament information centre, only three portfolios have had a decrease in cash in real terms. One of those was yours. In fact, yours had the largest decrease of all the portfolios, both in cash and in real terms.

Within your portfolio budget, hard choices have also been made. You spoke about external affairs, which has had an increase, and culture, which has had a decrease. Last week, Moira Jeffrey, from the Scottish Contemporary Art Network, spoke about the jobs that are involved. She said, I think, that RFOs support about 5,000 jobs in direct employment, and that,

“once those jobs are gone, they will not come back.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 12 January 2023; c 3, 2.]

In the light of that evidence, have you reconsidered the cuts to Creative Scotland, given the jobs that are at stake?

Thank you.