Promoting Scotland Worldwide Inquiry
If we can take deep breaths and calm down, we can move to the next item on the agenda, which is our flagship inquiry for 2004, on the promotion of Scotland worldwide. At our previous meeting, we discussed the types of witnesses from whom we would want to hear and the themes that we would want the inquiry to address. We also discussed the names of potential witnesses. Members were given a full opportunity to comment and the clerks have produced a revised set of witnesses. The inquiry has been streamlined to six or seven meetings on the themes that are outlined in the paper that the clerks have produced.
For the benefit of the Official Report, I will briefly go through the themes. We want to examine the promotion of Scotland through trade, business and economic development; through the arts, culture, sport, tourism and heritage; and through food and drink. We will also hear from academia, and the theme of international links will be central to the inquiry.
I ask the committee to agree that we maintain a lot of flexibility. We will have to set up the first evidence-taking sessions as soon as possible, but we will want to adapt to changing circumstances and be flexible on whom we invite for future evidence taking.
I am happy to take any further comments on the paper.
I will return to a matter that I think we discussed at the previous committee meeting: the way that we conduct the inquiry. We are going to take evidence at six or seven meetings, and the witnesses will all have submitted written evidence and will be refreshing their evidence, so I suggest that we go straight into questions when they appear. I also suggest that, as a change to the arts, culture, sport, tourism and heritage panel at meeting 2, we consider replacing Peter de Savary, owner of Skibo Castle, with someone from Gleneagles hotel.
Could you say that again?
Could we think about substituting someone from Gleneagles hotel for Peter de Savary from Skibo Castle?
Did you submit that to the clerks?
No, I did not, which was an oversight on my part.
I will take further comments meantime.
I have been remiss: because I have been off, I did not contribute ideas. I will make one general point and then get down to some specifics. If they are not taken into consideration, it is my fault for not getting in by the deadline.
I am concerned most of all about meeting 5, the theme for which is international links. It seems, particularly in panel 2, to be very much Europe oriented. I know that we will devote a meeting to links with North America, but we ignore the far east and Africa, particularly the long-standing, historical links that we have with Africa. In that context, the Church of Scotland is active in the international field and has a number of assistant general secretaries who are responsible for different areas of the world, and I suggest them as possible witnesses. We might also consider Asia—particularly India and the far east—and possibly Australia, in view of the large number of antipodeans who come to Edinburgh.
It might be worth seeking some written evidence from other organisations. For example, on international links, the French have come to the forefront with Médicins Sans Frontières in the past 20 years and I would like to know more about MSF's activities, so perhaps we should seek written evidence from it.
On meeting 1, which is about trade, business and economic development, I had a question mark against the Scottish textile forum in panel 1 and wondered why the Confederation of British Industry Scotland was not included in that meeting.
On meeting 2, I slightly share Alasdair Morrison's view about Peter de Savary and I had three other organisations down: those responsible for the Edinburgh festival—it would be extraordinary not to consider it at all in view of its remarkable success as the biggest European festival of all—and Scottish Natural Heritage and Historic Scotland, which are two important organisations for the promotion of tourism, our landscape and our historic buildings.
I also had slight concerns about the panel of academics. My concerns are not so much about the academics who are on the panel, but there are perhaps one or two academics with a more international perspective—such as Dr Brian Lang, the principal of the University of St Andrews—who might be useful witnesses on the academia theme.
We should thank the clerks for putting the paper together, which must have been difficult to do. At the previous meeting, I expressed a huge reservation about our ability to handle the planned number of witnesses, but it seems to be possible in a way that I did not think it.
Alasdair Morrison has made the point about Peter de Savary. I do not really care whether he comes, but we have VisitScotland down to come on the same day. I do not know whether this is still the case, but, recently, the boss of Gleneagles was the chairman of VisitScotland, and he invariably comes with VisitScotland—I have forgotten his name for the moment.
Peter Lederer.
He would normally come wearing the VisitScotland hat, so I would expect him to be there that day anyway.
Each meeting has two panels of witnesses, sometimes with five witnesses in each panel. How long is it anticipated that we give them? I sometimes worry that we give people such a short time to give evidence when they have travelled from all over the country. We can almost do more harm than good if we get people to come from all over the country and say, "Come in and have a cup of tea. Thanks very much. Go away again." I wonder whether we are giving the witnesses enough time, although the whole arrangement of the inquiry is to be welcomed.
I do not see any specific reference to Scotland's role in the Commonwealth. Might it be worth while inviting someone from the Commonwealth Secretariat, at least to submit written evidence, and possibly to give oral evidence?
On Keith Raffan's points about antipodeans, Africa and so on, would it be possible for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to bring all the various strands together? I have no idea whether that might be possible; it is just a suggestion.
The clerks will look into that.
On Alasdair Morrison's point about the CPA and so on, I would say that we should be able to cross that boundary. We are meeting for a formal lunch on Thursday, I think. We can discuss the matter and liaise, through the clerks, with the external liaison unit. I made some suggestions about this, and I see that one or two of them have been picked up. I am worried about panel 2 for the third meeting, when sportscotland witnesses are due to attend, as shown on page 3 of the briefing. I put in suggestions about the Scottish Women's Rugby Union and the Scottish Women's Football Association. Dennis Canavan will know more about those organisations than I do, but I am aware that they are facing difficulties. Despite the fact that the SWRU team are the current world champions, they are getting no money at all at the moment. I am not an arch-feminist, but I think it would be helpful if we had a female representative in there somewhere, so that we do not have an all-male panel.
On the meetings themselves, we need to work out whether we hear five-minute presentations, followed by question-and-answer sessions, before moving on to the next panel. If we have to have extra meetings, so be it. We meet only fortnightly, unlike many committees of the Parliament, some of which meet sometimes twice a week. If we are going to carry out what is a very important investigation, we should take our responsibilities seriously and try to ensure that we give it our best shot. I hope that that meets with the committee's agreement.
I will try to respond to those points.
I agree with Margaret Ewing. If extra meetings are required, the committee should meet more often. I agree with Gordon Jackson that we should give everyone a fair crack of the whip. Personally, I am against presentations. We might say five minutes, but people will take seven and a half minutes. If each organisation could give us a piece of written evidence, preferably in English—unlike the Highlands and Islands Enterprise contribution, which had to be translated from jargon—and if we could read that in advance of the meeting, we could shoot straight into questions and get going.
I have already made a point to the clerk about the length of time involved, and about my concern that the inquiry will overlap with other activities, although it seems that there is no target for completion of the inquiry. I do not see that there is a particular rush, but it might be useful if the committee could form some sort of idea about the timescale. That would allow us to take account of Gordon Jackson's point.
Targets? That is very new Labour.
I will respond to three or four of the points that have been raised. That discussion was helpful, and I hope that we are in a position to move on. I do not see any problem with accommodating most of what members have said. I am sure that we can address the point about the owner of Skibo Castle being on the list of witnesses. I will ask the clerks to make the alteration suggested.
As far as time commitments and timescales are concerned, I would say that members have an ally in their convener on not having any more presentations and just going straight to questions. I think that we have learned our lessons over the past four years in that regard, and not just from this committee's meetings. Given the size and scale of the inquiry, we should abandon statements and go straight to questions. On Gordon Jackson's point, perhaps having an hour per panel would be suitable, although we should be flexible.
I have asked the clerks for statistics and it is worth saying that, since the election, our committee has met only half as often as some other parliamentary committees and, when we do meet, our meetings are often shorter than those of other committees. Therefore, as this is our flagship inquiry, and as this is the first time that this particular subject has been scrutinised since the establishment of the Parliament, I hope that members will agree that we have to be flexible. If we have to meet once a week, or perhaps more often, we should do so. That would send out the right message. I am sure that the people whom we invite will be very keen to give us oral evidence. It will be up to us to decide who gives the best evidence and to take it on board in our report. We can discard what we feel not to be important. However, it will be worth hearing from as many people as possible.
To answer Phil Gallie's points on the overall timescales, again we will have to be flexible. We would hope to hear all the evidence, and perhaps to begin work on our report, before the summer recess. However, there is no guarantee that we will report before the recess. We will have to play it by ear. This is a considerable inquiry.
Many good points were made on international links. We can ask the clerks to take those points on board and to ensure that there is more of a balance between Asia, the Commonwealth and Europe. We may have to fit in another meeting on that issue. We will play that by ear as well.
I hope that we will hear not only from quangos. If the committee agrees, I think that we should make an effort to hear from people who are actually involved in promoting Scotland, as opposed to hearing only from representatives of organisations. I take on board Margaret Ewing's point about hearing from representatives from the female sports organisations.
I am sure that Alasdair Morrison would agree that we should do that. After all, we did win the gold medal in curling.
Before we move on to the next item on our agenda, I want to thank the clerks for all the hard work that they have done so far. There has been a lot of juggling because of feedback from members, but I hope that we are now in a position to make progress.