Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have a few quick questions related to the last point that you made, when you made the comparison between Scotland and the European average. Do you know the relevant figures for the rest of the UK? What percentage of the UK’s total expenditure is on culture, and can you include Wales in that?

Okay. With regard to your reserves, I think that you said—you can correct me if I am wrong—that the entirety of the reserves comes from national lottery funding, and that no part of the reserves has been contributed by Scottish Government funding. Is that right?

This will be my final question. Last week we heard that there has been a 40 per cent reduction in local government funding at UK level, which will have a consequential similar effect in Scotland because of the UK Government’s cuts here.

At no point in my memory of the past 13 years has an amendment to the Scottish Government’s budget asking for more funding for the sector been proposed by any other party. We will hear from the cabinet secretary next week, but how would you describe your relationship with the Scottish Government just now?

I am keen to find out whether the Scottish Government could do anything else with the powers that it has, which are quite different from devolved powers in Quebec and Catalonia on taxation and other things. Are there things that the Scottish Government is not doing that it has the power to do, and are there analogies, whether they portray the Scottish Government favourably or unfavourably, that could give us a better picture of what it could be doing? If anyone was able to provide that information in writing, that would be useful.

Thanks for the contributions so far. I spent two-and-a-half hours in Edinburgh central library yesterday, which means I spent more time in the library than at a Scottish Premiership game this week—that is unusual for me. For me—I am a new member of the committee—context is quite important here. India Divers made a point about the fact that we have seen eight councils go bankrupt south of the border, and there has been a 40 per cent reduction in funding to local government. The issue of assets being sold off in Wales was also mentioned. The idea that Scotland can be immune to that is a nonsense debate, as far as I am concerned.

Much of what has been said today has been said for at least 35 years. When I first joined local government in 1988, the same discussions were taking place, with words like “cliff-edge” and “crisis” being used. I think that, as Duncan Dornan said, we have seen continued managed decline in that period. In fact, it goes back to the mid-1970s when the Government had to go to the International Monetary Fund to get funding, but we have had managed decline in public services over that time, and 13 years of austerity does not help.

It is useful to understand the context. For example, Duncan Dornan’s submission says that there has been a 36 per cent decline in public library services between 2010-11 and 2020-21 and a 22 per cent real-terms decline in museums expenditure in the same period. It would be useful to know how that compares with the rest of the UK. The comparison is valid because the same funding underlies much of it. I would like to know where the Scottish Government is doing something good—I would not expect to get too much of that—or where it is doing something that is neglectful of or impinging on the cultural sector, which it could change. Liam Sinclair has made a couple of suggestions of potential ring-fencing and other things. I think that it is part of this committee’s role to reveal the context for what is going on and a feel for where the Scottish Government could improve or where it is doing well and it should do more of it. That is probably more relevant and useful to me in trying to get a handle on some of these things.

My point was not so much about a comparison, although it is interesting to hear about the different services, and it was not so much about, as Liam Sinclair said, a global economic situation. It was simply that, in Scotland, the budget is driven by what the Government in Westminster wants to spend on its services, and we get what we get as a consequence of that. What we need is not thought about; it is just about what we get as a consequence. There is vital difference between ourselves and Ireland and Australia, which is pretty obvious.

I will raise a question, although I am not looking for an answer to this, because I am aware that we are pressed for time. I was interested in the Van Gogh exhibition that happened last year in Edinburgh and which I think is going to other places now. I know that one of the issues was the cost, as a lot of people would not have been able to pay to get in. However, I wonder whether there is anything in that kind of initiative—a bespoke exhibition that travels around—that might be helpful to museums, given the treasures that they have.

I am not looking for an answer now, because I know that we have to move on, convener.

Perhaps if anybody has any thoughts on the following, they can write back to us.

Going back to Donald Cameron’s point and the Van Gogh exhibition that I mentioned earlier, I do not know enough about it—after all, it is probably the only art exhibition that I have been to—but it seems to have raised an awful lot of money, although I do not know who it raised money for. Can we learn anything from that approach? The exhibition probably used pieces of art from public collections. I wonder whether any thought can be given to that, as I think that it made a huge amount of money in Edinburgh alone, and it has now gone on to London and Manchester.

I also mentioned that I was in Edinburgh’s central library yesterday. It is holding an exhibition on witches—indeed, it sits right next to where most of the witches were killed in Edinburgh—but there was almost nobody in the building. Even post-festival, the streets are packed with tourists from everywhere, and I think that, with a little bit of advertising, you could get folk going in. Even the library part was almost empty. I think that you could have brought in folk who might also have been going to the library, and it could have been monetised, too. That might be anathema to some people, but any entrepreneurial ideas that might help the funding situation would be worth hearing, and I think that it would help the work of the committee—and would certainly help me—if anyone who had any such ideas were to send them in.

I am not aware of any relevant interests, although, in the interests of transparency, I should say that my partner is the Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development.

I think that you are right—that would probably not come under divergence. However, I think that it would come under the efficient operation of an internal market.

I want to follow up on the question that Donald Cameron asked about the figures on Scottish exports. There are huge numbers of key figures relating to the economy that rely on pretty ropey survey data. That is true across the UK. In Scotland’s case, we often have to rely on the Department of Trade and Industry, or whatever it is now called, and HM Revenue and Customs for some of the figures.

It is true that, as Donald Cameron said, the figures are very woolly, which is really surprising for a so-called advanced economy in the 21st century. Is it your intention to see whether you can start to nail down those figures, not just in Scotland but across the UK?