Seòmar agus comataidhean

We are back after that short suspension for a technical issue. We begin again with a statement from the Deputy First Minister.

Before I bring in the deputy convener, I want to pick up on that response. If you do not want to overly formalise in terms of Scots and you are focused on localisation, what is the point of having the new standards for Scots?

We have been talking a little bit about the areas of linguistic significance, Deputy First Minister, and we would perhaps have some enhanced expectations with regard to the duties to support Gaelic in areas that get such a designation. Why, therefore, is there no additional funding to accompany that, and what incentives or risks might there be for a local authority in making such a designation? Has that been considered?

You have spoken about where funding for Gaelic provision may or may not be. Are you hoping to consolidate that and have a bigger-picture view of the total spend on Gaelic and how it all comes together?

Deputy First Minister, you spoke a bit earlier about issues with capacity, but it is not always about the buildings and the space in the classrooms. How will the Government monitor where the availability of Gaelic-speaking staff prevents public bodies from developing their Gaelic provision? As we have heard, that goes from early learning all the way through to subject choices in secondary education. How are you looking to monitor that and to support development?

I do not want to go back, but I still want to ask a question about the letter that you sent in response to the Finance and Public Administration Committee on the shifting and repurposing of funds. In that, you refer to

“a wider, dynamic approach which takes into account local prioritisation and developing provision, current statutory expectations and resulting activity and new provision resulting from the Scottish Languages Bill.”

I thought that that was quite some sentence. Forgive me, but I was not quite certain what that was trying to tease out and clarify. It would be helpful if you could talk to me a bit more about that.

I will bring Liam Kerr back in.

You spoke earlier about the bill coming to the education committee, but the bill is about much more than education. That is what I am picking through.

The witnesses that we had from the Scots Language Centre said that they would seek more funding but that they did not want it to be on the basis of that money coming from the Gaelic provision. They did not want to rob Peter to pay Paul.

For Gaelic, there is the designation of areas of linguistic significance for different communities and for geographical communities—such as South Uist—and perhaps there can be a community of interest in larger cities, so why is there not similar provision for Scots language in the bill?

Deputy First Minister, we have spoken about the number of public bodies that have Gaelic language plans, but there are far more than 57 public bodies across Scotland that will be expected to have a Gaelic language plan. Surely that is a resource need and a pressure on those organisations that has not been considered.