Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee,

Meeting date: Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Official Report 275KB pdf

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Scottish Register of Tartans Bill: Stage 1

Item 3 concerns the Scottish Register of Tartans Bill. Once again, we have a shuffling of chairs at the other end of the table. We will take evidence on the bill at stage 1 from the poor, long-suffering Mr Mather, who must now deal with his third topic of the morning. This time, he will be joined by Mike McElhinney, the branch head of manufacturing policy in the Scottish Government, who gave evidence to us a week ago. We also have with us George MacKenzie, the keeper of the records of Scotland. Mr Mather, it might be helpful if you introduced your final colleague, because the committee is not aware of who he is.

He is Neel Mojee.

We know now.

The Government supports Jamie McGrigor's member's bill, which is a good example of the Parliament working on areas of consensus. We have taken a realistic and pragmatic approach, which is proof that, in the Parliament, we can engage, listen and learn and be persuaded by argument, not simply by force of majority. Since Jamie McGrigor's previous bill was introduced, some major issues have been resolved. The Scottish Tartans Authority and the Scottish Tartans World Register have agreed to share data with the Scottish register. That will avoid the need to create a new public body and will use public resources better and more effectively.

We are working with industry experts on the detail. Diverging views exist on what constitutes tartan, but we are working on that issue openly with the industry and on the classification of tartans for the register. The proposals are based largely on existing classifications and will involve giving due prominence to woven tartan. I am aware of the issues between the wovenists and modernists. We accept and respect the varying views on woven and non-woven tartans. The fact is that most tartan is woven, but not all of it is. Again, the issue is pragmatism, and we believe that we should maximise the commercial opportunities for non-woven tartans—through measures such as screen printing, their use on ceramics and printing on to fabric—by considering tartan to be the design or pattern and not purely the woven iteration of the design. That will maximise the register's relevance and potency.

The bill is a function of extensive on-going industry engagement. We continue to consult and involve industry experts. Industry sub-groups are helping us to work out the details of how the register will function. We are working assiduously to take all the views into account.

The bill will fill a big gap because no genuine national repository of tartan exists in Scotland. The situation has been piecemeal and incomplete, perhaps dominated by interests that do not cover the entire sector. There is a risk that tartan records could be lost, that access to the records might not be as complete as we would want and that the records might not be commercially optimised for Scotland. The bill recognises tartan as a core part of our culture and a core brand. It is one of a few products or images worldwide that can broadcast effectively the nature and name of a country. The register promises to widen interest in tartan and to get more people thinking of it as a mechanism to get more product out there with tartan embedded in it. The register will help the industry to promote itself more effectively and will make a vivid statement to the diaspora out there that we are taking care of our birthright and maximising its potential.

I am most heartened by the fact that the keeper of the records and the National Archives of Scotland will be engaged in keeping the register, largely using existing resource, but using it better and ensuring that the Scottish Tartans Authority and the Scottish Tartans World Register and their accumulated wisdom, knowledge and data are cherished and managed for all time.

You were right to mention the debate between the wovenists and the modernists. The bill will be of great interest to the two camps, which are why we currently have the two registers. What is to prevent further registers from being set up if there is another issue on which the industry cannot agree? There could be several more—we could end up with a whole series of splinter organisations. The evidence that we have heard so far has not contained an assurance from the two existing organisations that they will effectively wind themselves up. Where is the advantage to the public and to the country in having a single organisation under the public umbrella if the issue is not resolved and if there is the potential to have other organisations in the future?

I see the situation marginally differently. I see both the existing registers as being willing to merge their data in with the national archive—

At least one of them has said to us that it does not plan to wind up.

Okay, but I think that we will see a consolidation of data in the national archive, with the power of its legitimacy, brand and capability driving things forward. There will be a gravitational pull, whereby anybody who registers a new tartan will ensure that it is registered in that archive, because that will give increased legitimacy to that tartan and a better capability of getting it broadcast effectively to other people who might want to use that design.

I would have hoped that the motivation for the bill would have been not just the commercial interest but the public interest. What is the public interest? What are the costs to the public purse of going down the route of agreeing to set up the register? There will be a cost to the public purse, will there not?

Could you rephrase that? I am not sure that I understand.

Quite appropriately, you plan to place the register that is to be set up in an existing public body. However, that will involve costs. What is the public benefit of having the register in the public sector? There will be a public cost. If we are going to do something of this sort, there has to be a clear public benefit.

The public benefit is the added legitimacy and the increase in the number of jobs that will flow through the textile industry from the interest in tartan and from the motivation of more people to produce tartan goods. We think that the interest will be huge.

When we first launched the proposals, I had phone calls to make from my typically busy Friday surgery in Oban to the United States, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Vancouver in order to satisfy radio interests there. People in North America are interested in what is happening with tartan here. It is a matter of raising the profile of tartan and giving it legitimacy and a central domain that people can access and browse, allowing them to see designs and to motivate themselves to produce more. The key thing is building economic value from what has been very much a latent brand to date.

Are you a wovenist or a modernist?

I am a pragmatist on the issue. As always, when looking for increased sustainable growth, I have an avaricious component to my thinking. I want us to maximise the potential return. I think that we can find a way of accommodating both sides—comforting the woven side that anything that is designed could be produced in woven format.

You have spoken about how iconic tartan is and about its close association with Scotland. It is a core brand. You have said that you want to secure more jobs in the textile industry.

Under the heading "Meaning of Tartan", the written evidence that we received from the Scottish Tartans World Register states:

"A tartan is a woven pattern. This Register should be a Register of woven tartans."

In our previous discussion of the issue, we had an interesting debate about whether any tartan should be woven material or whether it could be a design on the back of an aeroplane. If you want to protect and promote the textile industry and the jobs in it, should you not insist that any registered tartan must be a woven fabric?

In my previous life, I was in the information technology industry, where I discovered that restrictions close down development and ultimate benefit. The sensible compromise is to ensure, as we will, that we seek a thread count for any design, so that it can be woven. If we were to do exactly what the member suggests, we might preclude designs that turn out eventually to be not only iconic woven designs but iconic woven designs that have a huge mass market. The next Burberry design that everyone wants to wear may appear on a mug or a ceramic of some other description.

Section 6(9) states:

"The application may include a woven textile sample of the tartan".

Could the word "may" be changed to "must"? The person who designed the new Burberry tartan to which you refer—perish the thought—would then have to get a small textile company to produce a sample for them. Would that not boost jobs in the textile industry?

At the moment I am spending a lot of time with Russell Griggs of the regulatory review group, who has been terrific. Russell and I meet on a three-weekly basis. Time after time, the message that I get from him is that I should take great care to ensure that any measures that we take do not have a negative impact on competitiveness and economic momentum.

How would it impact on competitiveness for us to insist that anyone who designs a new tartan must produce a woven textile sample of it? Surely that would increase business for textile producers.

We should consider the case of the impecunious student or school that wants to produce a tartan. What about schools in overseas countries that might otherwise make connections to Scotland? The measure that you propose would act as a further barrier. The pragmatic approach is for us to seek a thread count for any design, so that it can be woven. We should not preclude the flow of imagination and ideas into which Scotland can tap. We are about to tap into a world of potential generators of intellectual property called tartan that will flow into Scotland. It will include ideas that none of the 5.1 million people in Scotland can come up with. Let us not make the bar too high.

My question relates to the same point. You spoke about restrictiveness: I presume that you support the raft of very restrictive legislation that we have to protect Scotch whisky as a brand.

I will seek to negotiate that dilemma. With Scotch whisky, I am always keen that Scottish provenance and value that is created here are maximised. Maximising the value that is created here is the common theme in the point that I have just made to Mr Whitton and in what I am saying to Lewis Macdonald. I am out to maximise value for Scotland. It is important for us to ask for a thread count for any design, to ensure that it can be woven and appear on a kilt, skirt or shawl, but much more important is the huge avalanche of ideas that can flow into Scotland and provide us with designs of which we have never thought and could never think.

I presume that when you had conversations with radio journalists on the other side of the Atlantic, they were all keen to be reassured that the register that is being promoted has the imprimatur of Scotland's devolved Government and is an official Scottish tartans register, rather than simply a commercial opportunity.

Absolutely. In essence, there are people overseas who are probably more forcibly Scottish than we are. They consider us to be the direct custodians of their birthright, and I am very keen to ensure that we make the best possible job of it.

What do you say to the suggestion that the requirement for a thread count and information on it puts in place a barrier—very small, but a barrier nonetheless—and that the requirement to weave that counted number of threads to form the tartan might be important to the credibility of tartan, since you describe it as precisely that?

It is a compromise—going halfway and essentially forcing the issue of thread count establishes a link. It gets people thinking without creating a barrier that might lead them to say, for example, "Well, we have had this little academic exercise in class, but we will take it no further because that would mean that we have to have it woven, so we will just bin the exercise." We might then lose the design that could end up being the kilt that everyone wants to wear in 2015.

Do you believe that a requirement to weave is a greater barrier than a requirement for a thread count in order to do the weaving?

The barrier is slightly less with the thread count requirement, and it does not have the same cost implications, given the situation of the weaver who would struggle to make a commercial return on what would be a very small sample.

You talked about the fact that there will probably be an "avalanche" of designs from around the world. Is that desirable?

It is probably desirable. That would make my iconic hunting Stewart kilt and other iconic tartans even more iconic—it gives them a cachet. The difference would be that the existing tartans have provenance that goes back in time; they are associated with certain parts of Scotland and certain names. I very much agree with the "Let many flowers bloom" idea.

I mentioned my enthusiasm for Eric Beinhocker earlier. He says that even in a business, you might want to have five or six competing business plans to maximise the chance of evolution. Having lots of new tartans coming forward would keep tartan alive and vibrant. It would work in other parts of the world with the Scottish connection—that Scottish provenance—to maintain what Michael Porter discovered when Russell Griggs had him working for Scotland the Brand: that 98 per cent of the people in the world know what Scotland is, which is something that only 15 or 16 other countries enjoy. I believe that although whisky and golf might play a part in that, tartan plays a bigger part.

I will resist the temptation to ask whether Eric Beinhocker is a modernist or a wovenist. I am hugely supportive of the principles of the bill: it is a great idea and we have to protect an iconic brand. You used the phrase "custodians of their birthright". I agree with that, but I am more interested in the longer-term sustainable return for Scotland in tartan than in the kind of commercial "avalanche" that the minister mentioned. My concerns are that an avalanche of designs would dilute a very potent brand, and that that avalanche will then be on the official Scottish tartans register. Does that concern you?

No, it does not. Vibrancy is important. I mentioned earlier Mr Beinhocker's thought that stasis in the fitness landscape was a recipe for extinction. We need both that vibrancy and the custodianship of absolutely classic brands. I will still be wearing hunting Stewart.

That pleases me, minister.

During the previous meeting at which Mr McElhinney gave evidence I talked about organisations that for £50 will name a star after someone, perhaps as a Christmas present. Given the fairly wide definition of tartan—an application would have to include the tartan's thread count and sett, but I understand that that would not be a difficult hurdle to overcome—I am concerned that a number of companies might set up and offer to name tartans after customers for the cost of registration, which might be £70 or £80. Tens of thousands of people might decide that that would be a great Christmas present for someone and apply for a tartan. That would dilute a powerful brand. Is there anything in the bill that would prevent that scenario from happening?

Instead of thinking about how to preclude such a scenario, it is worth thinking about the other side of the coin, whereby tens of thousands of people who have a direct association with a given tartan or an association with their town's local tartan feel an affinity with Scotland, which makes them more likely to buy goods and services from Scotland. They might have Scottish forebears or skills that are appropriate to Scotland, which would make them more likely to come here.

A few years ago I remember hearing that Highland games were being run in east Germany and the Czech Republic. When the organisers were asked why they were doing that, they said, "The Scots are Celts and we are Celts, but their Celticism is cooler than ours and we want some of it." We are not going to make it compulsory to be Scottish, but there are huge commercial advantages for us that go beyond the sale of tartan.

We agree, but the bill would not make a blind bit of difference to any of that.

With respect, I disagree. The fact that we are having this lively debate is indicative of the bill's effect and if the bill is passed, as I hope it will be, the rest of the world will start to engage at a neat time, because during the year of homecoming we will be able to make the call even more vivid by saying, "Come back with your tartan tie and kilt or skirt." Jamie McGrigor's bill is exceedingly timely and there could be an explosion of material advantages to accrue from it.

I am conscious of time, so I ask members to ask brief questions.

We do not want to inhibit creativity. The important question is what should and should not be registered. What difference would the bill make? How would it ensure authenticity, so that there was not a plethora of tartans that had no meaning to anyone apart from the people who registered them? Surely we want the register to be meaningful.

I ask officials to respond and add texture to the issue.

Section 6 of the bill sets out criteria that the keeper of the register of tartans would apply in respect of each registration. For example, applicants would have to demonstrate the uniqueness of the design and provide the tartan's name and the association with the name that was claimed. The criteria would ensure that the tartans that were registered were sufficiently unique to warrant entry. Such an approach would militate against dilution of the authenticity or uniqueness of registered tartans.

Are the criteria strong enough?

The criteria in the bill more or less reflect the criteria that are applied by the current registers. By including them in the bill we would put them on a statutory footing. For the first time, there would be a statutory definition of tartan, against which new tartans that applied for registration would be tested. Over time, new tartans would be registered after being tested by the keeper against a set of criteria and against the first statutory definition of tartan to be passed by Scotland's Parliament.

It is not, however, possible to trademark intellectual property rights.

We cannot do that within the current devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament.

Indeed. So, to pick up on the minister's earlier example, what is to stop Burberry just getting on with it? If it does not get a trademark out of this—one that it can then use to marketing advantage in the commercial world—I am at a loss to understand why, for the Burberry mug, it would even bother with the register.

That is the prevailing situation. The register will take the existing tartan designs and put them on a more sustainable footing. At the moment, they are at risk. They are diverse and independently held, and access could be restricted. That became apparent during the previous session of Parliament. Now—for the first time—everything will be put on a statutory basis. If we accept the argument that tartan is an important part of Scotland's cultural heritage, the register will become a valuable national resource.

The bill includes no classification role for the keeper of the registers of Scotland. Would it be a good idea to define the difference between authenticated historical clan tartans and commercial tartans, whether sporting, corporate or whatever?

Clearly, thought has been given to the options for classifying clan tartans, club tartans, corporate tartans and so on. However, that adds complexity. I have spoken to Kinloch Anderson—lots of corporate bodies are beginning to take a tartan identity. Treating everything the same is tidier. The market, the clan societies and the families can handle classification by identifying themselves with the individual tartans.

We might end up with lots of tartans with the same name. That happens at the moment, but will we deal with it?

The bill says that no two tartans with an identical name will be entered in the register. Part of the reason for that is to ensure that each registered tartan is sufficiently distinct.

Previous evidence showed how registration can work in practice. A sporting organisation or a commercial organisation might change its corporate tartan, so including the date of registration would be one possible way of ensuring that the entry was sufficiently distinct. Families might have branches in different parts of the world, so including an indication of where the family comes from would be another way of ensuring that the entry for the tartan was sufficiently distinct.

We have to take a commonsense approach. No two tartans will be identical; otherwise, people looking at the register would be confused. However, there will be flexibility to ensure that tartans are distinct.

I am sorry to hear you say that classification will add complexity. I fully support the idea of a register, but to me tartan has to do with family and clan and all the rest of it. We should try to protect that. My tartan is MacDonald of Clanranald, by the way.

Hear, hear.

I would have thought that the register should say, "These are the clan tartans of Scotland." We are talking about the year of homecoming for the diaspora. People want to be able to identify with their family tartan, and they will want to see the authentic tartan on the register.

If people want a kilt in a Rangers tartan or a Celtic tartan, that is fine, but those tartans should be listed under the heading of football club tartans. There should also be a separate heading for tartans such as a Royal Bank of Scotland tartan. Would it not be better to register the iconic brand of tartan as under the clan tartans of Scotland?

I regularly meet with Fergie MacDonald at the hotel in Acharacle, and he is an assiduous protector of all Clanranald interests, so I am sensitive to this issue. I invite George MacKenzie to answer the question.

The question is a good one and, essentially, the answer is yes. We require to classify tartans to allow people to find them. In this instance, our approach is not to put the provision in the bill but to make it part of the way in which the register will operate.

Classification is a means of helping people to understand where in the register they are likely to find an entry that interests them. As David Whitton said, people want to look up their clan tartan, so they will be distinguished as such in the register. Given that classification is a means of finding information, it is not appropriate to include it in the basic legislation.

If classification was in the legislation, surely that would protect the uniqueness of clan tartans.

On the other hand, that would also be rather inflexible. Classifications are likely to change over time and we cannot always predict what will happen. For example, we have seen a lot more recent interest in tartans from sporting clubs, which did not happen in the past. In the future, we could see greater commercial interest in registering tartans. By not including classification in the bill, we have the opportunity to change categories if necessary. We intend to take a simple approach to classification by minimising the number of categories under which tartans are classified. Essentially, classification is a means of finding information in the register.

Bills can be amended, Mr Whitton.

I thank the minister for coming to committee this morning and for dealing with the three agenda items that were before us. We are grateful to you for your time, minister.

We move to take evidence from the member in charge of the bill, Jamie McGrigor. I am keen to finish at 12 o'clock, as many members are under pressure of time today. I ask colleagues to be sharp and pertinent with their points and questions.

Thank you for your patience, Mr McGrigor. We will go straight to questions, the first of which is from Mr Whitton.

Perhaps we can establish whether Mr McGrigor is a wovenist or a modernist.

Am I not to give an opening statement before we move to questions, convener?

We are keen to get on and put our questions, if that is all right, Mr McGrigor. In answering Mr Whitton's question, perhaps you will take the opportunity to make a statement.

All right, but my statement is of some length.

We have 13 minutes before we finish. We would be grateful if you could be sharp and to the point.

In that case, I will not make my statement. I will simply answer questions.

The answer to the question whether I am a wovenist or a modernist is that I am both—I am a pragmatist. I want an all-encompassing register that takes in all forms of tartan.

Obviously, you are on the same wavelength as the minister. I think that that was exactly the answer that he gave.

You listened to the earlier exchanges. The last point that I made was on the protection of tartans on the register, including clan tartans. From what Mr MacKenzie said, it appears that classification will not be included in the bill. I would welcome your view on the matter.

In order to keep the bill simple, classification is not included. The national archive will show where tartans are kept. The keeper of the records answered the question quite well.

The difficulty in including classification is that some tartans may be both a clan and a sport tartan, for example. The sensible approach is not to make things inflexible by including classification in statute; it is better to have classification in the secondary stage, so to speak. The point at which a tartan should be classified is when people come to register it.

My question is similar to one I put to the previous witnesses. Is the wording of the bill, particularly sections 6 and 7, strong enough to protect the tartan brand?

I hope that it is. I will mention the thread count. On 14 May, the committee heard from Dr Nick Fiddes and Brian Wilton of the STA, who said that they know from a thread count whether a tartan is weavable and that any sort of rectangular pattern is weavable. It is therefore not necessary to have in the bill wording along the lines of "something that is capable of being woven"; the point is made by including the words "thread count" in the bill.

In any application, a link will have to be shown through a coloured photograph or other coloured pictorial representation of the tartan, a thread count, the name of the tartan and the nature of the applicant's association with the name. That is the important point. It will be up to the keeper to decide whether an application is serious or frivolous, and he will be able to ascertain the applicant's link. For example, for a 2014 Commonwealth games tartan, the applicant would have to show a link to the organising committee. Otherwise, he could be a complete impostor.

Can you elaborate on the status of the existing registers? We have heard in evidence that one says that it will be merged and go out of business but the other appears to be saying that it will carry on. Will that have a detrimental effect on the new register?

I do not think that it will have a detrimental effect. From what I can gather, the STA and the STWR will not continue to register tartans. However, they will continue to be a great help to the new all-encompassing register, which they have been good enough to provide the broad base for by donating their existing registers. The new register will come from those people, who want a Scottish register.

The existing registers are in private hands and are paid for to a certain extent by the weaving industry, which is smaller than it used to be. The fact that the weaving industry has contracted puts the private registers in danger. It is high time that we in Scotland took the buck and started looking after our heritage, which is the point of an all-encompassing register.

Both the STA and the STWR have indicated that they will not accept registrations once the national register becomes live. They will direct any queries for registration that they receive to the new register.

The articles of association of the Scottish Tartans World Register include the ambition to create a nationally held definitive register, as a raison d'être. That register will cease to exist in the future. The STA is different in that it has more of a trade-facing responsibility. Its move away from registration will enable it to free up capacity to concentrate on developing and enhancing its capability to represent the interests of the tartan industry. As we heard before, that involves trade, promotional and educational activity about tartans, including with retail outlets. The STA will move towards a more commercially oriented function than it performs at the moment.

We heard from the minister the commercial considerations in respect of insisting on woven swatches, but I do not understand why we cannot include the phrase "capable of being woven" in the bill. Will you explain that?

I do not know whether it is good to have duplication in a bill, but I imagine that it is not: a bill wants to be as minimalist as possible. The reference in the bill to "thread count" means that a pattern will have to be weavable, so it is not necessary to include the phrase "capable of being woven."

You and I both know that because we have sat here listening to the evidence, but do you not think that it would give the bill better status if it said that a tartan had to be capable of being woven?

Neel Mojee might like to comment on that.

There is a power under the bill for the keeper to issue guidance, and that may be the more appropriate place to make it clear that a tartan must be capable of being woven.

So does the reference to "thread count" give better protection than the words "capable of being woven"?

I do not know whether I would describe it as giving "better protection", but the fact that there is a requirement in an application for a thread count means that the design must be capable of being woven.

I am sorry to be pedantic about this but, although we accept the modernists' argument, why can the bill not just say that tartan must be "capable of being woven"? Would that not send a clear message?

The message would certainly be clear, but the question is whether it is necessary to put that text in the bill. The committee has heard from the experts Dr Fiddes and Brian Wilton, one of whom, I believe, qualified his original statement by saying that anything with a thread count is capable of being woven. All I can say is that this is how the bill has been drawn up. Should we say the same thing twice? Moreover, if tartan is so capable of being woven, do you really want to withdraw the phrase "thread count" from the bill?

You have identified the potential risk to the two existing registers from commercial realities. I am anxious about the public purse. Do you plan to have full cost recovery in registering the tartans?

Will you repeat the last part of your question?

Are you planning to have full cost recovery with regard to the charges that will be levied for registering a tartan? If not, the public purse will have to bear costs that were previously borne by the commercial industry.

The register will not involve any new money. It will be covered by the budget of the National Archives of Scotland, which will put up the £100,000 to set up the register and the £75,000 to run it.

Let me speculate for a moment on the second question. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the existing register websites receive about 1,000 inquiries about tartan each day, or about 250,000 inquiries a year. If the proposed register increased levels of interest in tartan by 20 per cent, it would mean an additional 50,000 queries. If 10 per cent—or 5,000—of those additional queries resulted in a commercial opportunity such as a £100 or £200 purchase from the Scottish industry, the register could generate additional sales opportunities of between £500,000 and £1 million straight away. That is not a bad return on your £75K.

It might not be a bad return for the industry, but is it a good return for the public purse, which currently does not have to bear any of those costs? I think that the answer to my question whether there will be full cost recovery is that there would not.

We do not intend to set charges to recover the full costs of operating the register. Of course, we cannot predict the number of registrations that will be made. You will recall that in our previous evidence we indicated that the charge will be around £80 to £100. At the moment, there are about 150 registrations, which would mean about £12,000 of income. As the expected cost of running the register will be nearer to £75,000 a year, there will be a shortfall.

However, I stress that the register fits extremely well alongside the National Archives of Scotland's family history business. As a result, we are keeping costs down remarkably and greatly limiting the net cost.

The family history business is very much that—a business—that has full cost recovery and is not particularly commercial. In fact, it is in the public interest. Why should we offer the industry what amounts to a cross-subsidy from the National Archives of Scotland's activities when we are not offering it such a subsidy from the main part of the budget?

We offer a package of services. Some—but not all—of the family history services recover their costs; some of the National Archives of Scotland's activities recover no costs at all. The internet service that we operate with the General Register Office for Scotland does make money, does cover its costs and does help to cross-subsidise the personal visitors who come to use our services.

By the sound of it, it will also help to cross-subsidise this activity.

It is a matter of striking the right balance and having something that is attractive. It is about getting the price right in the legislation so that it will not dissuade, as somebody said, the impecunious—someone who wants to register a design but does not have a lot of money. On the other hand, we want to set the price high enough to deter frivolous applications or the name-a-star type application. That balance has to be struck. We are setting the price at about £80 to £100.

Given that we currently have two registers and they cost the public purse nothing, where is the money that it currently costs to do that going, and where will it go in the future?

The economic impact study demonstrates that the tartan industry is a significant part of the Scottish textile sector. If you accept that argument, we work with a number of sectors to support, promote and grow them. The public investment that comes from putting this part of what the registers currently do on to a more sustainable, objective and independent basis, held in perpetuity for the Scottish nation, is a powerful argument for using it to support the industry to promote itself. There are two distinct issues. One is preserving the archive that exists in perpetuity for the Scottish nation.

As I understand it, you have explained that the £100,000 set-up costs and the on-going £75,000 annual costs come out of an existing budget, which is nothing to do with the industry. You are saying that there is no new public money, so that money must come out of other activities in the general records office and the National Archives of Scotland, the Court of the Lord Lyon or whatever. If the industry will be the principal beneficiary, I fail to see why any subsidy should come out of, for example, the Scottish Enterprise budget. Why should it come out of a public budget when the principal beneficiaries are the commercial industries? The budget that it will come out of is one to which we do not currently provide a massive public subsidy. Some might argue that the public already have to bear full cost recovery in respect of genealogy-related activities, but that is not applying in this instance. It seems to be a strange way of going about things.

Minister, can I make a contribution?

I am just a convener.

Sorry.

We heard an excellent report from a lady, Miss Scott—I think that she was from Scottish Enterprise—on what she thought the benefits of the bill would be. I think that it will provide a springboard to promote the Scottish tartan industry and I make no apology for that. I do not want to talk down the textile industry in Scotland and neither does my party, nor do most members of the Scottish Parliament. It remains an important part of the Scottish economy. I see no harm in producing a register that will help the Scottish tartan industry. If there is a problem about that, please ask me another question.

No one is arguing that. What Mr Adam is asking is where—

With respect, Mr Adam is arguing that.

He is asking where the money will come from. We have previously been told that the £75,000 is coming from the enterprise budget. Is that true? Yes or no?

Yes.

Where will the £100,000 for start-up costs come from?

The £75,000 is £75,000 each year for the next three years.

Yes, but it is coming from the enterprise budget.

It is coming from the part of the enterprise budget that supports innovative products to encourage—

Where will the £100,000 for start-up costs come from?

That money has come from the National Archives of Scotland deferring other work to give this work greater priority.

What other work are you deferring?

We will defer cataloguing of archive collections, on the ground that we are still promoting a joint service.

I have a brief supplementary. Mr MacKenzie said, if I understood him correctly, that all the existing tartans would be registered at a fee. I may have misunderstood him, in which case he can clarify the point.

The existing entries in the registers held by the Scottish Tartans World Register and the Scottish Tartans Authority will be taken on to the new register without a fee. We will not charge for that. New registrations after the register begins will be charged.

There is discretion for the keeper to waive a fee for taking into the register new collections or existing collections elsewhere that we may come across as it goes forward, if we think that they will enhance and deepen the value of the register.

Thank you for coming along, gentlemen. It is our job to test the legislation and we are grateful for your evidence.

Meeting closed.