Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am sure that Mr Russell will be delighted that he is in your thoughts. You obviously have the advantage of having been involved in the process at a time that I was not. I deal with the ball as it is at my feet. The committee will know that the power is there in legislation for it to be used, and it is the Scottish Government’s intention to do so, but not within the current reporting period.

I will draw your attention to an issue that you might want to come back to in order to understand how the decisions are made. The recast drinking water directive came into force on 12 January 2021, following formal adoption by the European Parliament on 16 December 2020. There is a two-year transposition window. The Water (Scotland) Act 1980 provides for regulations to be made insofar as they relate to standards that must be met by water that is for human consumption. However, the recast directive introduces a much wider set of requirements, such as those relating to risk assessments of catchments, supply systems, internal plumbing systems and so on.

I flag that up to the committee as an area in which we are considering using the powers. When Government ministers have said that it is important that they have that legal club in the metaphorical bag to be used in certain circumstances but have not yet used it, the question, of course, is why they needed the power in the first place. The answer is exactly for circumstances such as those.

I have looked closely at the whole area, and it strikes me that, because the range of ways in which that Government can legislate and introduce regulations is very broad, we should seek to use the most sensible way of doing that—Mr Cameron, as a lawyer, will know that. Being pragmatic, Government has sought to make sure that it does that in the most appropriate way. In short, the process was proposed for a good reason, is there for a good reason and will be used for a good reason, but has not been used yet. Other methods have been used to deliver the Scottish Government’s intent of retaining alignment with the European Union.

Indeed. However, the baseline position is that we are trying to remain as aligned with the European Union as we can be and as it makes sense to be. I understand that, for you to be able to understand how that is working in relation to specific measures, you will have queries about how it works. You have a range of ways whereby, if you are unaware of how things are working, I, as the cabinet secretary with lead responsibility for external affairs, can answer on that, through answers to direct questions in the chamber and written questions, and through statements from the Scottish Government in relation to specific legislation.

We possibly need to draw together the range of ways in which one can access information about things, so that it is obvious how one does things or can do things, and so that we can make it absolutely clear how we are going to flag up and incorporate information about the processes that we are using in relation to specific legislation and proposals by the European Union. If there are additional ways in which we can proportionately answer such queries—for example, I refer to Ms Boyack’s suggestion of a website, although people are also interested in paper—those are all things that can be looked at. From our perspective, it is a question of how we get a balance between doing what we are doing—we are remaining aligned—and ensuring that you have as much information as you require for your purposes in scrutinising the Government’s work. I am entirely open to considering how we can best do that.

Yes. Exactly that point was made in a discussion that I had with the voluntary sector. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations has had extremely positive and mature links with colleagues across the rest of the European Union. I think that Irene Oldfather, who is an erstwhile colleague who is very well versed in how Europe works, is involved in that.

Colleagues in the SCVO were extremely keen to ensure that we use Scottish civic society’s links and, by extension, those of local government and professional organisations, for example, so that we are fully sighted on developments. We need to look at all the ways in which we can ensure that we are up to speed and have the best co-ordination and the best practice. We need to look at what we are doing with this and that, take that away and work out a format.

I have given the example of speaking with the SCVO. We are already having such discussions. However, there is the question of the format and regularity of discussions and the extent to which they are structured around particular proposals that emanate from Europe or the priorities of the European Commission or of an incoming presidency. We want to be flexible to ensure that we capture experience, insights and good will.

That is a very good suggestion.

There is a full panoply of engagement. I am sure that many of you feel that we spend half our lives in Teams meetings. I certainly do, whether that is meeting with COSLA or with any number of other organisations. Our colleagues in Government deal with stakeholders, some of whom you have taken evidence from. It is helpful to get that evidence. I have previously said to the committee that input from those stakeholders is valuable, because it allows us to reflect on how things are working and on what we need to do more or less of. I stress again that we want to ensure that we do that as well as we can.

The Scottish Government’s intention is to retain what we believe are the higher standards of the European Union, rather than join the race to the bottom that is signalled by the approach of the United Kingdom Government to no longer being part of the European Union. If anyone is concerned that decisions are being made in Scotland with the intention of diverging from or diluting the higher standards of the European Union, I can give them an absolute assurance that that is diametrically opposed to the Scottish Government’s aims.

The trade agreements that are being forged by the UK Government illustrate a weakening of standards compared to those previously agreed by the European Union. We are right to be concerned about a race to the bottom, but the Scottish Government is not in that race. We are racing to try to maintain high standards in their own right, so that we have the highest standards, but also so that, when we rejoin the European Union, we can do so with the greatest of negotiating ease, because we will in effect be fulfilling the standards of the acquis communautaire.

Fantastic—I got the pronunciation correct. That is an apposite and timely example of the approach that has been taken in Scotland. It is not to diverge in the sense that we wish to disapply or have significantly worse standards; it is that, de minimis, we want to have the same standards, but they could be higher. Incidentally, that approach was open to the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Government prior to our being taken out of the European Union against our wishes.

The short answer is yes. Expanding on that, it behoves us all to support those who are delivering this—whether that is the management of museums or other cultural organisations—to reimagine the cultural recovery that we are all in favour of. We should not simply seek to go back to where we were pre-Covid; we should realise that much has changed. You made the point that we are enjoying and consuming culture in ways that we did not do before, and that should make a difference to our thinking about our policy and budgetary approach. We are alive to that and in the middle of that process. When we come back to the committee at the stage when budgets have been agreed and processes have been gone through, I will be more than content to share with you and reflect on the extent to which we have been guided by an awareness of those changes.

In passing, I note that I have been keen to say to civil service colleagues and cultural organisations that we are not the only people in the cultural and arts world who are going through this. Every other country in the world is having to grapple with the impact of the pandemic and many countries have experienced a similar impact, with a lack of public access to facilities, a drop in income and concern about how one recovers or intends to recover. I have been keen to impress on everybody who is involved that we should be trying to learn lessons from elsewhere as well as from here. There is not a monopoly on common sense in Scotland, so I am keen to work out the best way in which we can learn and emulate best practice from elsewhere. Given that we are in this process, I will be happy to feed back to the committee on what we have and have not learned, to ensure that we can do this as well as we can.

That is a well-timed question. I welcome Mr Ruskell to the committee. I think that he is aware of the announcement that the Scottish Government made this week on funding for Sistema, which has been warmly welcomed by that organisation. I am sure that all members know intimately what Sistema does and how it literally transforms the learning experience of young people but, for anybody who is watching the proceedings, I note that it is an excellent example of a primarily culturally focused intervention that indisputably has an impact on the more general quality of people’s lives and, hopefully, as a knock-on consequence, on their opportunities in life.

Mr Ruskell’s point is, in its own way, an optimal example of the point that I made in my sneak preview, which you have kindly invited me to give even more insight on—forgive me, but I will have to resist that. I reiterate the point, because Sistema is a good example of a project that has an impact across Government responsibility. I am keen that the benefits are understood among colleagues whose primary responsibility might be health, education or justice. I am sure that many of the benefits are understood, because we are parliamentarians representing a constituency or a region, so we are aware of the impact that some projects have. However, I genuinely hope that mainstreaming that thinking across Government will help to deliver on the aspirations that we have in the culture strategy and the programme for government. Sistema is possibly one of the best examples of that.

Forgive me, but I am not going to show any more leg on the creative recovery strategy. I am sure that we will come back to that and I hope that it will be worthy of the ambition, because it should be.

I should first declare an interest, having attended Broughton high school, which is a specialist music school in Scotland’s state system. I was a normal school pupil and not in the music unit, but I had the benefit of being around people who were. In general, the school had a tremendous musical aspect in the education of pupils, which encouraged some of us, me included, to play for the Edinburgh secondary schools orchestra. I do not claim to have been a tremendous violin player—I was at the back of the second violins—but it was great to be part of that.

I am sharing with you my personal experience to show that I understand how transformational music in the broadest sense is for young people and the importance of encouraging music tuition and its take-up. I am delighted that, in its programme for government, the Scottish Government included commitments on that, and that those have been and are being taken forward.

That is another example of the cross-Government approach between culture and education. The committee needs to know that I am keen on supporting that. My officials know that I am keen to understand how the commitments on which the Scottish Government was elected are delivered. I want music tuition to go from strength to strength. I want take-up to be possible for kids everywhere, and not just for those who have the good fortune, as I happened to have, of being in a school with a particularly strong musical tradition. There are places where that is less the case. We have good organisations such as El Sistema that deliver among the most deprived communities, but there are other communities that perhaps fall between those positions. We have to try to ensure that we impact on young people’s lives as best we can right across the country.

It is a good kind of question. We could probably come up with a list of questions like it, against which a joined-up approach could be measured. I am not trying to introduce a whole series of new metrics—I am looking at the speed with which my civil service colleagues here are writing notes about my suggestion. However, the issue that Donald Cameron raises is a case in point. I suspect that, if people furth of the culture and arts world are encouraged to open up pathways so that people can get the benefits of our cultural institutions, some will be quicker than others to do that. To what extent does one have to pull and to what extent does one have to push for that to succeed?

We are talking about a cultural change—in the small c sense—in how we see culture. With hand on heart, I cannot honestly say that I know exactly how that will turn out. However, I know that we do not have an alternative, because we need to encourage kids, particularly those from deprived communities, to learn that cultural institutions and offerings are for them as much as they are for anybody else.

Creative Scotland has deduced from some of its research a statistic that only 30 per cent of people know how to access information on cultural events. That is probably surprising for those of us who go to such events and who know where to look. If we take that at face value, we have to accept the profound disconnect with a significant part of society. That is why we need a joined-up approach, with doctors prescribing or encouraging such activity, or schools helping kids to go to places that they would never normally go, instilling in them the sense that it is worth going back, and encouraging them to go with their parents. As I said, there is no alternative. That is another example of where good thinking on the committee’s part will encourage us to think about how we can deliver that across Government.

I would be happy to do the entire evidence session on that subject because we should all be very encouraged by and excited about it.

The funding is the remit of Screen Scotland, which is funded through Creative Scotland, which is in turn funded by the Scottish Government, and we lay great store on what is happening. As an organisation, we are very enthused, as I am personally, about the quality of Screen Scotland, what it is currently doing, what it is able to do with the resources that it has and what we are planning to do.

I have numbers in front of me that tell me that we have been funding production growth—allowing more film and television projects to be undertaken in Scotland—since 2015 and that £9.9 million has been funded. The estimated economic benefit to Scotland as a return is £140 million. Therefore, the benefit of the Government encouraging that particular sector is massive.

Studios were mentioned. Ten years ago, we did not have a single one, and now we have facilities at Bath Road in Edinburgh, in West Lothian—being used for the second series of “Good Omens”—and in Cumbernauld, which are being used for “Outlander”. We are very pleased that the facilities in Glasgow that are used by the BBC are remaining in the BBC structure. We also have the Kelvin hall, into which the Scottish Government has, for good reasons, put a lot of money in order to be able to produce there.

Notwithstanding that we now have those sites, which are being used and are booked back to back, it is hugely encouraging that we are getting more interest and a demand for further facilities. We absolutely need to grab that opportunity with both hands.

Some aspects are perhaps less obvious than those that we might read about in the newspapers. We might read of another big-ticket film taking place in Scotland—I am looking forward to as much of that as possible—but understanding what happens below that, and what the Scottish Government and our agencies can do, is going to be key in ensuring that the benefit of that development is realised as widely as possible.

In that context, the most exciting prize of all, in some respects, is in skills and training. The Scottish Government puts funding in, through Screen Scotland and other funding routes, to training in different skills. That is another example of where the Government needs to be as joined-up as it can be.

Skills are being developed through the work of Screen Scotland. Edinburgh Napier University has a creative centre, which I reflect on because I had a conversation about it this week with the principal, that is developing skills that are mission critical for the screen sector. Edinburgh College is developing craft skills—we cannot overlook this bit, as it is really important—so that, when productions come to Scotland, we have people who are able, for example, to build the sets. That means that we need brickies and plasterers who can work in a film environment. It is very well-paid work, but it needs people who have that kind of experience.

I had the good fortune of being able to visit the Bath Road studio during the filming of “The Rig”. The set was incredible. It was huge—that is one of the advantages of the facility. I was watching a helicopter landing indoors, in a studio. It is amazing what they can do.

It was put to me that one of the reasons that they could make such a production was that they could use the workforce from the Royal Lyceum theatre, which was not operating at the time because of the Covid lockdown. In that sense, it was a happy circumstance, because the people who work in set design at the Lyceum were able to continue working. However, when the Lyceum is back up and working, what happens with the next Bath Road production, “Anansi Boys”? I am sure that they have great people to do that, but I am just trying to illustrate that one of the things that we in Government need to do—and that the committee can help with, in fostering an understanding—is to get things right for the industry. We must support more productions to come here; help to provide the facilities that will enable the industry to emerge out of the market failure of the past; work with broadcasters, streaming services and other commissioners to bring more work to Scotland; and do what is needed to provide people with the skills to support production. Getting all of that right will be a virtuous circle.

Scotland has amazing scenery as a backdrop to films. However, albeit that we wish for Scotland to be represented as a backdrop in plenty of films, the even bigger prize for us, as technology develops, is the filming here of anything that is set anywhere. As a cultural offering, that is a massive prize for us.

I put down a marker on an additional point. For decades, we have exported those who are our brightest and best in the industry. That includes the talent that we all know; just think of all those Scottish performers who are now based in New York or Los Angeles—or London, for that matter. However, added to that are all the people who might not be known—directors, producers and people who work on the shop floor, so to speak—who have gone where the work has taken them. We now have the prize of a full career opportunity, for life, based in Scotland.

Sorry—I have spoken about the matter for quite a while, and I could speak longer about it. I hope that I am giving you a flavour of the fact that Screen Scotland’s work will be transformational. It is a new string to our bow when it comes to culture and the arts in Scotland, and we should grab with both hands the opportunity that it brings.

I would be happy to hear about anything that you find out through your work that suggests that we should do more or less of some things, or do them differently.