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This afternoon’s debate has offered a rare opportunity to take the temperature of the culture sector in this post-Brexit, post-Covid world. I hope that the budget that is proposed by the Scottish Government marks the start of the end of the austerity that the culture sector has been suffering over a number of years.

The Scottish Greens welcome the uplift of £34 million in the draft budget this year and the commitment to a further £20 million next year. I hope that it marks the start of Creative Scotland offering meaningful multiyear funding to organisations that have been struggling for years. Those organisations have to continually reinvent themselves in order to try to secure core funding, when they should be getting on with delivering creative projects that would be successful if only they could get that money.

Alex Cole-Hamilton talked about the shadow of uncertainty that has hung over many artists and projects throughout the long years of austerity and continues to hang over them in the post-Covid funding environment. We need to restore confidence in the sector. Neil Bibby characterised the approach as a bit of a hokey cokey, whereby funding has been committed to, then withdrawn, then brought back in again. I agree that that has been unhelpful. I hope that the budget that is being proposed this year will start to build back confidence again.

I also welcome the Creative Scotland review, which will be led by Dame Sue Bruce. I hope that the review will be wide ranging and look to get culture out of the silo that it is sometimes seen as being in. As Maggie Chapman said, culture projects have the capacity and the power to heal, uplift and inspire. We are now decades on from the Christie commission, which had a whole agenda on preventative spend, but we are yet to make significant progress in areas such as mental health, education, community development and restoration of our communities.

However, there are organisations that create communities. They include Sistema Scotland, which Evelyn Tweed spoke passionately about; DCA in Dundee, which Maggie Chapman talked about; the Stove Network, which was mentioned by Colin Smyth; and Creative Stirling, which was an incredible driver of innovation throughout the pandemic. Those organisations are the driving force and beating heart of our communities, and they support and uplift the most vulnerable people. It is really important that the funding is felt by those organisations, which often survive on relatively small amounts of money but do incredible work.

I am heartened to hear that the work of the culture collective will be brought back, because there are some really innovative organisations operating under that umbrella. A real wellspring of innovation will arise from that, and we can learn a lot from such networks of community cultural organisations.

I welcome the fact that the Government has announced a 40 per cent relief for hospitality venues, which is particularly welcome when we consider the plight of grass-roots music venues. There is an issue about the £51,000 threshold, because there is a small number of city centre venues that will not benefit from that rates relief. Set against a crisis in which, across the UK, every week last year one grass-roots music venue shut down, we need to find ways to support that sector. One way would be to look at the application of a visitor levy. Another option, which the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture has spoken about with me and Patrick Harvie on a number of occasions, would be the national introduction of a ticket levy.

Does Evelyn Tweed agree that it would really help if Stirling Council brought in a visitor levy? If we had a visitor levy in the city, we would be able to invest in so many of the incredible cultural organisations that we have, from the Smith to the other bodies that she mentioned.

To ask the Scottish Government how the needs of pupils with additional support needs are taken into account in the procurement and replacement of the school estate. (S6O-04176)

It is absolutely clear that schools are being built right now without proper consideration of the promises that this Government made to future learners with additional needs.

For example, within the next year, a school in the Stirling Council area is being rebuilt. Current ASN provision is for 12 places, which, families tell me, is completely oversubscribed. The provision in the new school will, again, be for just 12 places, so that lack of ASN provision in the school building will be physically locked in for years to come.

Will the cabinet secretary review the council school building programmes to make sure that they are fit for the future, so that we do not end up repeating the mistakes of the private finance initiative schools from 20 years ago?

GB Energy will be quite closely aligned with GB Nuclear. Is there an acceptance in the UK Government of this Government’s policy on nuclear in national performance framework 4?

Why not?

CalMac has a target for reducing carbon emissions, and that will be part of the national carbon accounts for transport and reduction of emissions. At some point, all this stuff has to be verified.

Thanks for that. I am thinking about where we are with our energy policy and the energy strategy just transition plan. Is that, in its draft form, well aligned with the objectives of GB Energy? If GB Energy feeds into the energy strategy just transition plan, would there be a need to update it on the back of GB Energy coming into some form of existence, or is everything well aligned anyway?

Indeed. It is highly unlikely.

You have mentioned the Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland. I am interested in exploring what that partnership working might look like. Would it effectively be a carbon copy of the relationship that GB Energy has with the Crown Estate? Would the relationship with Crown Estate Scotland be similar? Is there currently any detail on what that partnership working would potentially look like?