The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 2338 contributions
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Mark Ruskell
I will wrap up on a couple of points that have been made. The Ofcom review suggests that there should be more of a spread of public service media across different providers. How would that affect the BBC’s relationship with such providers? Its relationship with some online providers has certainly been a bit frosty. Would spreading public service media across different providers improve the relationship, or would it provide a challenge? Would there still be partnership, or would that lead to more competition?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Mark Ruskell
One part of that ecology, as you call it, is the Kelvin hall studio. What contribution do you think will be made through that capacity? How will it enhance the entire sector’s ability to produce content in Scotland?
09:45Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Mark Ruskell
Those answers have been really interesting in highlighting the pressing problems that you face at the moment.
However, I want to pull back out to the bigger picture. Scotland’s national performance framework has four indicators on the dashboard for measuring our cultural health: attendance at cultural events; participation in activity; growth in the cultural economy; and the number of people working in arts and culture. Are they adequate in describing or showing us the health of the sector and our cultural health more broadly? Looking at your submissions, I have to wonder whether the metric with regard to the number of people working in arts and culture, in particular, adequately describes what is going on with regard to fair work, insecurity of contracts and other such issues. Could that be improved, or are the metrics on that dashboard the right ones to be thinking about as we recover from Covid?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Mark Ruskell
So the Kelvin hall has very much been factored into your strategic development.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Mark Ruskell
Finally, the metrics for the BBC Scotland digital channel that you have talked about this morning, such as the 2.5 per cent viewing share, compare very well with those for other digital channels, but does the fact that you are doing pretty well compared with those channels act as something of a comfort zone in which you think, “Everything’s great”? What are your long-term aspirations for the channel? If, as I hope, they are about substantial growth, what will trigger that? Will it require a big drama such as the major hit “Keeping Faith”, which originated on S4C and then went on to the BBC? Is it that type of trigger that will get more people to watch BBC Scotland or will it be, say, a big news event such as indyref 2? What drives that kind of aspiration? Is it more about slow, continual, moderate growth instead?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Mark Ruskell
It is a very quick one. Clearly, the cultural sector and cultural activity are hugely important in their own right. However, is what the sector does for the rest of society being captured by funding streams? Some cultural organisations do a lot of regeneration and placemaking work. Can they get access to funding to do that kind of stuff, which does not easily fit into one box?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Mark Ruskell
The Grangemouth future industries board is one practical example of a conversation that is led predominantly by the industrial cluster rather than by the community itself. How should we roll out just transition plans for individual sectors or within individual communities?
You will be aware that there are community concerns about the ethylene plant in Mossmorran. That may be a different context from the one at Grangemouth. The Mossmorran conversation is being led by the community rather than by the operators, which seem to be reluctant to take part in discussion at all. It is a different starting point. How would a just transition plan work for that site, which is the third biggest carbon polluter in Scotland? How would you compare that to the Grangemouth future industries board, which has been very much corporate-led and driven?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Mark Ruskell
Good morning. I was really pleased to see just transition principles being embedded through the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019 and the setting up of the commission, albeit not on a statutory basis. Is there a concern about just transition being interpreted in the same way as sustainable development? In other words, it has a thousand different flavours, and the board of an oil and gas company and a community affected by a major development will have very different perspectives and points of view on the matter.
Can just transition and the work that you have started deliver the real systemic change that is required, or is it still predominantly about mitigating climate impacts by building more efficient kit or putting carbon capture and storage solutions into existing plants instead of making wholesale change? I would be interested to get your sense of where discussions on just transition have reached and, more important, who is leading them.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Mark Ruskell
Professor Skea, you co-authored the groundbreaking IPCC report on 1.5°C that ignited the whole debate. Where do you see oil and gas development and the Cambo oil field? Is that compliant with our need to keep the world under 1.5°C?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Mark Ruskell
Were the community and unions involved in the Grangemouth industry cluster?