Major Events and Festivals in Scotland
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-1341, in the name of Frank McAveety, on major events and festivals in Scotland, and two amendments to the motion.
I welcome the opportunity to speak about the role that major events and festivals play in contemporary Scotland. I remind members that the importance of festivals is echoed in many different and diverse communities in Scotland and that they have been celebrated by many of our great poets, such as Robert Burns and Robert Fergusson, who commemorated a whole series of events and festivals that included the occasional celebration of alcohol and enjoyment. Those are certainly features of many current festivals.
I want to outline the role that festivals and events play in the wider Scottish economy and their significant role in the development of our cultural infrastructure and the achievement of excellence that is central to what has been achieved in Scotland's cultural scene in recent years. I also want to outline the role that they can play as important focal points for communities, and how communities can have greater confidence as a result of events and festivals. The ambition in Scotland is to continue to compete for world-class festivals and events in order to draw people from around the globe year on year. Such festivals and events can have a significant impact on our tourism economy.
The debate is timely because only last week, Scotland secured the badminton world team championships for 2007. That was done by a partnership of a number of major agencies, including Glasgow City Council, in our largest city. We want to see many more such commitments and to obtain as many events as we can for Scotland between now and 2015.
We have an excellent track record of creating and hosting world-class events and festivals. As we are all aware, Scotland stages the world's largest and leading annual arts festival and, around it, we have a plurality of festivals such as the comedy festival, the book festival, the fringe festival and the long-standing international film festival. Furthermore, at least three years in every five, we host the most prestigious golfing championship, the British open. It might not be part of our culture generally to boast about what we can do, but it is important that we recognise that Scotland is a place that can hold world-class events.
We are becoming more easily accessible, thanks to the increased number of flights in and out of Scotland. The route development fund is important in that regard. Furthermore, the welcome development of the ferry route to Rosyth has had a substantial positive impact on our tourism product.
Our cities are consistently reinventing themselves. We now have six cities, each of which has unique characteristics. One of VisitScotland's most recent innovations was to commit itself to celebrating and promoting those cities through a variety of information networks. We want to ensure that people who come to Scotland can hear the testimony of those who have experienced the contribution that our cites have made. That is a welcome development.
There is no doubt that our built heritage is one of the main things that attract tourists to Scotland from the UK and around the world. In the past 10 or 15 years, continued investment and the involvement of the Heritage Lottery Fund have reinvented such wonderful visitor attractions as Edinburgh castle and Stirling castle.
Across a range of history, we boast four important world heritage sites. There is one on our doorstep here in Edinburgh, Skara Brae in Orkney, the wonderful development in New Lanark—which, I remind people, was almost derelict 25 years ago—and, of course, St Kilda.
We are an important destination for many events and it is important that we match our visitors' expectations. That is why we need consistently to ally what we do in events and festivals with what we do in terms of our marketing strategy and the quality of our product. That is why it is important to engage with all the providers, be they transport providers, entertainment providers, hotel and accommodation providers or anyone else involved in the broader strategy of tourism. We need to do more work in relation to the various parts that make up the whole. All the elements are inextricably linked.
We want Scotland to be a must-visit, must-return destination. We must ensure that people who come here for events—whether the event is a small local one or a major sporting or other international event—experience the friendliness of Scots, about which we hear much testimony, and appreciate the quality and unique nature of the experience. We need to hold on to and cherish that.
Events support our tourism strategy, for example hosting the British open championship reinforces Scotland's image as the home of golf. Events such as the Loch Lomond great adventure race support the growing activity holiday market that Scotland must appeal to. We can use events and festivals to extend the tourist season across the year. That will deal with the sustainability issue that many members are concerned about and it will ensure that we have equity in relation to who experiences the positive benefit of events and investment.
However, the benefits of events and festivals can go much further. They promote Scotland on the international stage. There have been recent welcome developments in respect of the Edinburgh military tattoo, which virtually sells out before it starts each August. It attracts global TV audiences of more than 100 million people and showcases one of our world heritage sites.
Does the minister accept that the military tattoo has political connotations, particularly given that it has invited the red army of China to come in the same year as Parliament will be addressed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet?
I recognise the sensitivity of the issue, but that is a matter for the tattoo's board.
At the centre, we need to recognise that the tattoo has been an incredible success, especially in recent years. It is certainly a feature that we can continue to develop. One key development that the tattoo wants is to go to the diaspora of Scots, especially in Australia and the rest of the southern hemisphere. It wants to promote its wares there and to create a similar experience in that part of the globe.
As for other evidence of development, we acknowledge that events and festivals encourage young people to participate in sport and cultural activity. A commercially driven festival such as the T in the park music festival can be showcased as an incredible success again this year. That event has developed massively in the past 10 years and the number of young people who participate in it has doubled.
Is the minister aware of the extremely successful Aberdeen international youth festival—of which, I should declare, I am trustee—which has welcomed more than 700 talented young musicians, dancers and actors from around the globe, including some from Aberdeen, every summer for the past 31 years? Will he consider visiting the festival, which this year runs from 4 to 14 August and finishes just before the Edinburgh international festival starts? We would like to give the festival more publicity outwith north-east Scotland.
I put on record my appreciation of all festivals that have such a long history. If my diary permits it and I am in that part of Scotland at that time, I will consider visiting the festival. The Word festival is another development in Aberdeen. The range of writers and creative thinkers that that involves presents an ambitious programme.
That gives me the opportunity to acknowledge the work that many folk throughout Scotland do to develop festival ideas. In the past month or so, I have visited the Shetland folk festival and the fèis Rois movement. Those represent two different ways in which traditional music and performance have encouraged young people and adults to work together, benefited the local economies of Shetland and Ullapool and made a difference. At the heart of those organisations is not just a festival, but excellence and quality. I re-emphasise that the Executive is committed to excellence and achievement, rather than to mediocrity, as some people have suggested in the print media recently.
I draw attention to our success in developing the commitment to holding the Ryder cup in 2014. Putting on one of the major golf events on the sporting calendar will promote Scotland internationally. We will have the opportunity to build up from that with our commitment to the clubgolf programme for nine-year-olds, to ensure that we create a benefit for the wider Scottish community in addition to the experience of the event and the legacy that that will leave.
One key message is that events and festivals can build capacity and skills, as I said. We need to ensure that those skills and that capacity are developed in the next few years. As for the role of EventScotland, the key events agency, I say that recently, it has developed, with the city of Glasgow, the Piping Hot festival, which will celebrate our traditional culture and present that internationally, which is important. EventScotland will support large and small events. That is why a budget has been set aside for examining different ways of supporting events. The organisation's key strategy is to work with existing agencies and existing local leaders—particularly local authorities—to address concerns.
In conclusion, I say that Scotland has an excellent track record of creating and hosting world-class events and festivals. We have some of the very best that the world has to offer. At the heart of those is a commitment to the centrality of excellence and achievement that the First Minister and I share. If we can continue to ensure that people participate in and have access to events and festivals and that the end product is always excellence and achievement, not only our cultural world, but our general economy will flourish, and Scotland will be the better for it.
I move,
That the Parliament recognises Scotland's excellent track record of creating and hosting world-class events and festivals; recognises the great benefits that events and festivals can bring throughout Scotland, such as boosting our economy, promoting the international profile of Scotland as a place to visit and in which to live, work and invest and encouraging Scots, particularly young people, to participate in sport and culture; welcomes the success achieved by EventScotland in its first year of operation in realising the potential of Scotland as a world-class destination for events, and congratulates the many organisers of festivals throughout Scotland in their success in getting communities involved in these festivals and attracting visitors to Scotland.
The minister said nothing with which I would seek to disagree. On the SNP benches, we normally dispute the requirement for motherhood and apple pie motions. In this instance, it is fair to say that it may be important for us to acknowledge, as a country, the importance of events and festivals. We also need to recognise and accept that they do not just metamorphose on their own and that, on occasion, familiarity breeds contempt. Those of us who reside in the city of Edinburgh, for example, seem to take for granted that there will be an Edinburgh international festival or an Edinburgh's hogmanay. We think that somehow or other everything will be all right on the night. Clearly, a considerable amount of work goes into such events and it is only fair that it be acknowledged.
The minister is correct to say that Scotland is doing well. We have a duty to talk ourselves up when we are doing well, but although we are doing well, we can certainly do better. The minister is also correct to acknowledge that we have to compete globally for events, many of which are competed for not only within the United Kingdom but throughout Europe or globally. To achieve and build upon success, as we have done to date, we must not rest on our laurels, but consider how we can add to and improve our product.
It is important that the duty to sell Scotland is not seen as something for the national tourist board alone but for all of us in Scotland; the minister touched on that at the end of his speech. It is most certainly the duty of parliamentarians and the national Parliament. It is our responsibility to talk up Scotland, to give credit where credit is due and to take action where necessary to ensure that we can improve on our record.
It is also important that we congratulate those who have done the work in that respect to date, as the minister did in his speech. It is clear that festivals and events act as significant draws to local areas and to the nation as a whole. It is also clear that they provide substantial income and added value and that they contribute to the culture and vibrancy of communities, cities and Scotland as a whole. We have to build on and act on that.
In the global age in which we find ourselves—in which travel is much easier—it is important that we acknowledge the tourist trade's recognition that the destination is no longer enough. Instead, tourists now look for a purpose that will take them to a destination. Simply to sell Edinburgh as a wonderful city with a castle is no longer adequate when tourists can travel just as cheaply—in many instances more cheaply—to Prague or Tallinn. It is not enough for us simply to say that we have wonderful Highlands and Islands when tourists can also easily access South Island in New Zealand. In a world with cheap global connections, it is not enough for us simply to say that we have great destinations: many other cities, communities and countries have equally wonderful destinations and assets to sell and promote.
In many instances, we have to provide an additional reason for tourists to come to Edinburgh: they will not come simply because it is a majestic city with a wonderful castle, but they will come because of the fantastic festivals that are now promoted throughout the year. Tourists will visit Glasgow not only because of the city, but because of the international piping festival, which allows people the benefit of visiting the city with an added something special that might take their fancy. We have to look to our laurels and recognise that vital aspect.
We must also recognise that not all events and festivals relate to arts and sport and that business tourism also falls into that category. We must consider not only the success of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre and Glasgow's Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, but that of Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. The Scottish National Party recently held a meeting at AECC and I know that the minister attended the 2004 VisitScotland expo that was held in that wonderful facility. Venues like EICC, SECC and AECC are competing for business events not only with other venues in Scotland, but in a global marketplace. We have to add value to their efforts.
Clearly, many events are not mounted on such a grand scale as those that go on in Aberdeen, Edinburgh or Glasgow, nor are they sporting or artistic events such as the Edinburgh festivals or the European champions league cup final that was brought so successfully to Glasgow recently. Many such events take place in small communities. As Nanette Milne mentioned in her reference to Aberdeen international youth festival, in towns and villages throughout Scotland, significant events take place that add considerable benefit to their localities. I am thinking of book festivals—one of my Green colleagues has lodged a motion on the Wigtown book town festival. Events such as that give added value and we must consider them.
Clearly, Scotland has to aspire and to have ambition. The minister was correct to comment on that. Just because we fail once does not mean that we should not try again. I know that we will have to take a raincheck on whether we proceed for Euro 2012, but the fact that we missed out on our Ryder cup bid means only that we must persist and try again. Edinburgh lost out in the Heineken cup, but it has to try again; I hope that it will succeed. Certainly, the same thing happened with the rugby league challenge cup. Further efforts will be made, even though the bid that was submitted last year was unsuccessful.
We must recognise that there are limits. There is a general perception in athletics that a population of 4 or 5 million—not for a nation, but for a city—is required to host grand prix athletic events, so there must be realism in what we bid for. No one would suggest that Scotland should seek to host the Olympics. In the global world in which we live, the Olympic host nation must be of a certain size. Even with co-operation between Edinburgh and Glasgow, the Olympics will remain outwith our league, but that does not mean that we should not have aspiration and ambition.
Our major criticism relates to EventScotland. Why is that organisation needed, given that such matters were previously dealt with successfully by Glasgow City Council, the City of Edinburgh Council and tourist boards, local or national? We believe that in many instances the stumbling block was a lack of funding. Let us abolish EventScotland. It may have been introduced with a worthy intention, but our tourism industry has just undergone a review in order to slim it down from numerous area tourist boards to a VisitScotland that will allow us to focus and market Scottish tourism. We do not require a plethora of events. We were doing well under the old regime, but we could do even better under a new one that would allow local, national, public and private bodies that have the incentive to do so to bring in and maximise the benefits of arts, business, communications and other events.
The stumbling block for Scotland is the question of affordability and accessibility. We need to add value to the efforts of those who wish to host events successfully, but we must make our country affordable and accessible. Given that we face spiralling costs, we must acknowledge that our major problem is the high pound, high VAT and high fuel prices. We should acknowledge and build on the success that we have today.
I move amendment S2M-1341.1, to leave out from "welcomes" to end and insert:
"notes the success of the festivals and events throughout Scotland over many years, created and contributed to by a variety of organisations, whether central or local government, national or area tourist boards or private or public bodies; notes that the impediment to further success has been a shortage of funds and that the creation of an additional and unnecessary tier of bureaucracy is not the solution, and calls for the abolition of EventScotland and the creation of an event fund for appropriate organisations and bodies to access in order to continue and build upon the success to date."
When first I saw the motion, I thought that the Executive simply had too much parliamentary time, because this is the third motion on the tourism, culture and sport portfolio that is self-congratulatory, goes nowhere and is irrelevant to the real issues that the arts face.
I do not want to belittle the importance of festivals. I hope that all members in the chamber will sign the motion that I have lodged congratulating Wigtown on its international festival, which starts tomorrow. I draw members' attention to my registered interest in respect of Wigtown.
I have been involved in several festivals and know their importance. However, it seems that with the motion the Executive and the minister are ducking the real issues that face the arts in Scotland. We have a crisis when Scotland's leading writers are attacking the minister and the Executive's arts policies. On Monday, Ian Rankin appeared on a nationwide broadcast on Radio 4 to attack the minister. He has also written in the Holyrood magazine. Gradually, Government is encroaching on the arm's-length principle for arts funding. There is debate about whether Scotland's arts community and writers should formulate Scotland's arts policy and determine the future of Scotland's arts.
Does the member believe that the minister has no role in the arts in Scotland, given that the budget for arts organisations comes from the Executive? Does he think that we should fund people ad infinitum, regardless of cost?
The Scottish Arts Council was set up separate from Government to fund arts organisations. It is that council's responsibility to administer arts funding, and it does that job well.
The other issue is Scottish Opera. At First Minister's question time, we heard briefly that there has been a leak that undermines the powers of the minister and Parliament. If it is true that there has been a leak, we are in the worst of all worlds, in which most of the professional opera singers in Scotland are being sent either to the dole or to London.
Scottish Opera's youth wing, which is arguably its most accessible and successful part, is being hived off. There is an enshrined principle that Scottish Opera is the only arts organisation that may overspend and mismanage its finances time and again—it has been bailed out 20 times in 40 years. We all receive large mailbags about those issues, so we should be debating them now.
The importance of festivals is not an issue. Their importance is accepted by everyone, so I submit that the subject should not occupy two hours of parliamentary time. There are other, more important arts issues that we could be discussing.
People who are involved in voluntary arts up and down the country organise arts festivals from January to December, and they continually say, "Politicians should listen—this project needs funding, and it is just as important as Scottish Opera". We should be having this debate.
As I said, I am not belittling the importance of festivals. I have been involved as the chair of—
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. We have spent some minutes on the Green amendment, but the member has not referred to it at all. He seems to want a debate on Scottish Opera and the Scottish Arts Council. I do not recall that the Greens opposed the business motion to debate the matter.
Mrs Marwick, the member made several references to festivals, which are mentioned in the motion that is down for debate. How he allocates his time within his six minutes is his business. I take it that you will donate a minute of your time to allow Mr Ballance to complete his speech.
If I may, I will complete my speech.
I fully recognise the importance of community festivals in particular, and I pay tribute to the enormous contribution that hundreds of thousands of people make by organising such festivals, which almost inevitably benefit their communities.
However, on my amendment, I urge caution with regard to national events, which are not always thoroughly beneficial. In an excellent article on the MTV Europe music awards in The Scotsman, Louisa Pearson commented:
"Like any good party, the proof of the pudding will be not in how much people enjoy themselves on the night, but how long they reminisce about it afterwards."
It is not just about the number of people who come along to a one-off prestige event, but about how many of them come back on the national stages. We know that festivals are worth £203 million to Edinburgh's economy, but we do not know how much of that stays in Edinburgh's economy. The bigger national events can bring environmental and social disbenefits, such as problems with litter, which must also be considered. My amendment calls for something to happen, and I ask members to support it.
I move amendment S2M-1341.2, to insert at end:
"further notes that EventScotland's mission statement encompasses environmental as well as other benefits and that the Scottish Executive's major events strategy, while mentioning sustainability and affordability, places these items 11th and 16th respectively out of a total of 16 priorities, and calls on the Executive, through bodies such as EventScotland and VisitScotland, to work to ensure that environmental and community benefits are not given a lower priority in the quest to attract prestige events."
It might be helpful to members who hope to speak in the open debate if I advise that I have to cut the time allocation to five minutes, although I will continue to award six minutes to the opening and closing speakers.
This morning, a learned Edinburgh gentleman commented to me that the motion is all verbiage and that it is the sort of thing that makes people ask what the Scottish Parliament is for.
However, it would be wrong of me to be churlish. We should celebrate this case of Daniel coming to judgment. It seems that, at last, we have a Labour Government that says that culture is a good thing—the First Minister said so in his St Andrew's day speech. He said that culture should be at the centre of everything. It may be that the considerable section of the Scottish public that loves opera is now questioning whether he was sincere in that statement. We wait with bated breath to see how the future unfolds for our beleaguered national opera company—that award-winning company that now faces downsizing and a loss of jobs. It is high time for the First Minister and the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport to take responsibility for the mess that Scottish Opera is in.
What is obvious is that, despite all the words of support, the Executive's approach to improving culture—and the tourism that goes with it—is fundamentally flawed. The Executive's strategy and review-led approach means constant interference and restructuring, which impedes progress. Last week's letter in Scotland on Sunday that was signed by 55 of Scotland's leading cultural figures said:
"There is a void where the Executive's arts policy should be."
That puts the matter well. I hope that the Executive takes note of that statement, because many people in the arts world are beginning to despair.
The Executive's approach to culture and tourism always consists of glossy brochures, state-led strategies and new organising bodies, which are all paid for with public money that could be better spent on events on the ground. Government involvement should be confined to enabling, encouraging and, possibly, to advising on methods; Government should not be involved in content or artwork.
The Conservative party is proud of Scotland's great record of holding successful major events and festivals, but the fact is that most of the main events, such as the Edinburgh festival, the Edinburgh tattoo, the royal highland show and the open golf championship, came into being and flourished long before the creation of EventScotland. I suppose that it was inevitable that the launch of the Executive's strategy would entail the establishment of a new body of that type, because the Executive is so fond of them.
Rather than create bodies such as EventScotland, why does not the Executive take advice from the individuals who have been successful in promoting events in the past? For example, there is Ricky Demarco, who is giving a half-hour broadcast this afternoon on American television to sell the Edinburgh festival. Members should note that the American television people did not ask EventScotland; they asked Ricky Demarco. It is not surprising that they went to him, because he has experience of putting on thousands of theatre plays, concerts, performances and exhibitions and of organising funding internationally from 40 different countries. He has been doing all that for 40 years and his contribution to the Edinburgh festival is legendary. Are people of his calibre and experience advising EventScotland and, indeed, are they advising the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport? It does not appear that they are—more is the pity.
Festivals and events are extremely important all over Scotland and are becoming more so all the time, as world tourism grows by more than 4 per cent a year. Among the special things about festivals and events are the benefits that they bring to the communities in which they are set. That applies to big international festivals and events such as the Edinburgh international festival and the Edinburgh fringe, and the royal highland show, which promote Edinburgh and Scotland around the globe. It also applies to the smaller festivals, such as the new year ball game in Kirkwall, which is a hilarious football game between two ends of the town; Up-Helly-Aa in Lerwick, which is a celebration of Shetland's nordic heritage; the riding of the marches, which takes place in several Borders towns; and, of course, the numerous highland games, which take place throughout the summer all over Scotland.
There is also the annual Gaelic mòd and, this year, the Lochaber festival of Scots and Irish gaeldom, which are vital to encouraging and supporting Gaelic culture. Two other important events this year will be the Scottish food fortnight, from 18 September to 3 October, and Scotland's countryside festival on 4 and 5 September. Those events are aimed at promoting Scottish food and drink and encouraging understanding of countryside issues. I congratulate the Scottish Countryside Alliance for organising them.
I want to highlight the fact that festivals often occur in provincial towns or rural areas outside the normal tourism season. The mid-Argyll music festival is a good example. I know it well and it is a remarkably well-organised event that is held in Lochgilphead in March. The festival highlights many sorts of music, poetry, dance, choirs and ensembles, and has a big competition for school brass bands. The festival brings many visitors to Lochgilphead and Ardrishaig and it has become a famous event. That kind of festival, which celebrates traditional music, brings to participants self-esteem and confidence, an increase in personal skills, the benefits of participating and interacting in groups, the pride of belonging to a group or choir, opportunities for an increased social life and the glory of achievement.
There are far too many other festivals for me to name, but they should be supported because they are expensive to run; for example, there are travel and accommodation costs, facilities hire, obtaining finance and recruiting organisational and administrative skills. All that takes a great deal of time. How do we quantify voluntary time in terms of cost? The events are genuine examples of people-led culture; they have nothing whatever to do with Executive strategies and require no Government intervention. The Executive should use its money for funding festivals at the grass roots, instead of setting up more quangos like EventScotland.
I apologise that I will shortly have to depart the chamber, but I must attend a meeting that is intended to facilitate the operation of the Parliament next week.
I support the motion and I welcome the success that we have had in attracting international touristic events of various sorts, but I want to concentrate on the effect that events and festivals have on Scots. Other members have highlighted the importance of such festivals to our tourist trade, so I will not replicate what they have said, but I think that we need to give more thought to the value that they have in brightening up life for Scots.
We perhaps suffer seriously because of Calvinism. I am a member of a church that is supposed to be Calvinist—although I am certainly not Calvinist in many ways—but I think that Calvinism has had a heavy effect on the Scottish character. There is a feeling that enjoying oneself is not really on, so people conceal that by getting totally drunk. Policy should aim to create happiness. To use a cliché, it should aim for the greatest happiness of the greatest number. People sneer at that, but I think that it is a good aim.
En passant, I point out that Mr Ballance's speech focused entirely on the arts. I am a vaguely arty chap myself, but life extends far beyond that. Festivals also promote good food—as Jamie McGrigor mentioned—and sport and enjoyment of all sorts. There is life beyond Scottish Opera—for God's sake, can we not shut up about it and wait till there is an announcement? At that point, we will be able to argue about whether we have a good deal or a bad one.
I want to concentrate on the effect that all these festivals and events have on Scots. For example, the Edinburgh festival is successful at attracting many tourists, but the great majority of the people in the audiences have EH postcodes and live in the travel-to-work area around Edinburgh. The same is true of the fringe and of the big events in Glasgow and Strathclyde park. Such events attract many visitors, but they play an important part in the life of our people locally.
As other members have mentioned, we have many good local events of all sorts—Jamie McGrigor listed a good number, so I need not mention them all as well—which are often the one opportunity that people have to show their contribution to the community. At such events, one sees groups of wee lassies doing drum majorette stuff, which is really good for them and for the community and makes their parents and grandparents very proud. We should encourage that sort of activity much more than we do.
As well as having events that are based on cultural activity, such as celebrating Rabbie Burns—who is one of our more successful industries—we can base events on sport, by encouraging people to play golf here, or on the heritage industry, by having mock battles outside castles or reinvigorating industrial activity in the way that has been done at New Lanark. We can also have steam railways running, as they do at Bo'ness. I think that the Highland games and other festivals have already been mentioned, but we could also have environmental celebrations that encourage people to become interested in the environment.
We should perhaps have parties to attract exiles, whether they are merely from England or from places such as New Zealand. Attracting such people back is an industry that has huge potential. While watching the dress parade in New York in which the First Minister did his best to promote Scotland by wearing a slightly futuristic kilt, I had a long conversation with a lady who was one of the organisers. She was very enthusiastic about Scotland, but I was struck by the fact that London was the nearest she had come to visiting Scotland. She should have visited here repeatedly and we have failed by not having been able to get her to do that. We need to attract the exiles by having good activities for the local people.
Such activities need not require huge amounts of support. Making modest funds available to help local festivals—just £1,000 here or there—could make all the difference to them. That might allow them to get best value from their activity by promoting and publicising it and getting people to come and take part, whether they are local or not.
We have to stimulate our communities. Local activity gives people work to do in advance and they can enjoy the day itself. If we stimulate communities in a modest way, we can get good value from our investment in public life and in tourism. We will get tourists to come by enjoying ourselves in our own communities. I hope that we will not forget the Scots when we worry about attracting tourists.
We now go to the open debate. I ask members to keep to tight five-minute speeches.
I welcome the debate; it should be used as an opportunity to reflect on the importance of major events and festivals to Scottish life economically and to our cultural life.
It has been taken for granted by some members that we should bag the fact that festivals are good for us and move on to something more exciting and more interesting. However, we should reflect on how festivals can be used as an economic tool in transforming economies. Consider the impact of the Glasgow garden festival. It had a huge impact on Glasgow's perception of itself; it led to a lot of economic development and it helped Glasgow to make vital economic transitions to become a new global city. The same is true of festivals in Edinburgh.
It does not surprise me that last weekend The Observer mentioned Edinburgh and Glasgow as the top two destination cities for people in the UK. We should celebrate that in this chamber. Edinburgh and Glasgow have achieved that, as Kenny MacAskill said, not only by being good destinations, but because of long-term investment in the culture of both cities. There has been proactive and strategic use of festivals to promote those cities, not only to people who come into them but to the people who live in them, to transform their feelings for and confidence in their cities.
It is not possible to list the many events that Edinburgh had last year—there were 50 of them. Everybody knows about the Edinburgh festival fringe, the Edinburgh international book festival, the Edinburgh international festival, the Edinburgh international film festival and the Edinburgh jazz and blues festival, but there have been 50 events in total in the past year. Such events are really important to the city—they generate approximately £200 million a year.
In response to Chris Ballance's comments about the MTV awards, I point out that a detailed analysis of the impact of the MTV awards was presented to the City of Edinburgh Council this week. The analysis not only examines the impact on the city but considers what type of people came and where they were attracted from and includes hard-headed thoughts about where the city needs to go on future awards ceremonies such as that.
There is analysis of how festivals take place. As Frank McAveety and Kenny MacAskill said, they do not take place by accident; they are part of a long-term strategy. In Edinburgh, the Labour council has had a long-term strategy to promote Edinburgh as a city of international scale to get all the cultural and economic benefits that come from that. It is about promotional activity and it is about developing the city's infrastructure. Co-ordination between the City of Edinburgh Council, the local tourist board, the local enterprise company and all the local tourist industries around and about the city has been critical to that success.
I hope that the minister will give a reassurance in his winding-up speech that the very welcome reorganisation of the local tourist industry will not be allowed to disrupt the superb momentum that has built up in the city—particularly in relation to the future of the Edinburgh convention bureau.
Success is not built only on marketing the city; it is also built on developing our cultural strengths. There have been years of investment by central and local Government. I do not think that the Tories' comments about Labour's commitment to the arts were fair. For the past 20 years, the City of Edinburgh Council has consistently invested in the arts. It has invested not only in big flagship projects, but in community arts and in developing the ability of young people to develop their artistic potential.
We need to support not only the flagship cultural icons. We must also underpin support for innovation and creativity in schools. That is why I welcome very much the reference to young people in the Executive's motion today. We must give young people the opportunity to get involved in arts in the future, to use the arts facilities that are available and to take part in the festivals that are on now.
It is also about investing in the future. We should not take it for granted that we will always have the festivals that we currently have and that they will always continue. For us in Edinburgh there are key issues about the public transport infrastructure and about developing a strategy to replace the Ross bandstand—if the minister would like to devote a minute of his final remarks to the way forward on that matter, I would be delighted.
The new national theatre is also coming along. That should benefit the whole of Scotland and should enable our producing theatres to take their productions around the country and abroad.
There is a lot more that we need to do, and it is a question of leadership at both local and national levels. That is why I welcome the fact that we have EventScotland. If we are to be a country that thinks big on arts, tourism and festivals, we must back up that big ambition with practical work. It is not about bureaucracy; it is about co-ordination, focus and putting in the resources to make it happen. Only this week, the City of Edinburgh Council has decided to set up an events unit because it recognises that doing things on a wing and a prayer and trying to be supportive are not enough. We have to be focused, develop a strategy and look to the future. The Executive's motion sets that out and we should support it.
The success of festivals throughout Scotland is a reflection of people in our country celebrating their lives. The small festivals that make up the bulk are the ones that most people take part in. It is probable that more people take part in festivals than take part in football and many other things like that; however, the kind of funding that is available for festivals is not nearly what it should be.
This month, I have appeared at fèis Rois as a participant. I have also dipped into the Ullapool fish week and done some walking in the Caithness walking festival. Such small festivals attract people from other countries to take part in something that local people are themselves celebrating. I do not need to declare an interest, but I was an organiser of the Highland traditional music festival for more than 20 years. The problem is that festivals are usually run by volunteers who run out of steam eventually—or get elected to Parliament. Money is needed to back up the volunteers' administrative efforts to allow the festivals to be sustained and to allow the volunteers to do more creative thinking and less of the drudgery.
However, the fact is that that money seems to be being used to fund the superstructure of the arts. Our amendment talks specifically about EventScotland, which has a chief executive on a salary of £95,000 although it has not yet even published a business plan for staff, administrative costs and so on. People in many parts of the country will look at that kind of money and think about what £95,000 could do to help sustain a hundred festivals around the country. Thanks to the Scottish Arts Council and careful discussions over the years, greater amounts of money have been given to festivals, but it has not been nearly enough to sustain many festivals in the face of today's cost increases. The question of whether EventScotland should exist is something that my colleague Kenny MacAskill has argued about. I do not know whether we need it—in fact, I think that we should probably abolish it.
When we project our culture into the tourism market and onto a bigger stage, VisitScotland has an important part to play. However, I am sorry to say that it is not always as professional as it should be. For example, it has a policy called "A Soundtrack for Scottish Tourism", which is about promoting traditional music. Yet, at the VisitScotland expo 2004, which was held in Aberdeen last month—which the minister called one of the best that he had attended and which, as one of the industry's biggest business-to-business trade fairs, he described as "a resounding success"—VisitScotland did not take the opportunity to present a full showcase of Scottish traditional music. A package was offered but was not, in the end, bought. I am afraid to say that the hospitality package that the participants from all around the world got was a stop-gap measure, not the best that could be provided, because VisitScotland would not pay a reasonable amount for musicians of the top quality. That is the kind of thing that we hear about, although people do not want to discuss it too widely. People feel let down by the fact that organisations in which people have very large salaries do not, in the end, reflect the culture of Scotland.
It is on the culture of Scotland that I will finish. The motion gives no inkling of a strategy to project the best of our Scottish culture abroad. For example, will any part of the year of Highland culture be sent on tour around the world? It would be great if the minister could spell out such a strategy. We have to take a can-do approach to sending out cultural ambassadors, because that is a part of selling Scotland. I suggest that many people come to Scotland for our traditional culture because it can be found only here and they take that message back to their own countries and more people come here. It is important to get the strategy right and I hope that the minister gives us some answers.
In speaking in this debate, I will highlight three events that are taking place in Ayrshire this summer and note the benefit that they will bring to the Ayrshire economy and to Scotland's economy as a whole.
The open golf championship will come to Troon in my constituency, and I hope to see many members there as it promises to be a terrific event. I particularly look forward to seeing the minister there. Apart from the pleasure that it will bring to the tens of thousands of visitors who will visit Troon, the championship will be watched by millions of people worldwide.
Many will not know that the open championship began at Prestwick in 1860 and has gone from strength to strength. In addition, with Turnberry just 20 miles down the road, South Ayrshire has three championship courses within a 20-mile radius of Prestwick airport; that is a huge and unique asset that we must promote and exploit. However, that can happen only if adequate transport links are developed and maintained in South Ayrshire.
According to an independent assessment, the 2003 open, held at Sandwich in Kent, benefited the local economy by £17.6 million and created 1,300 full-time equivalent jobs. I hope that this year's event at Troon will benefit the Ayrshire economy by around £20 million. Not just the restaurants and hotels will benefit from the championship; all Scotland will receive a boost through the promotion of our unique and identifiable golf courses.
Also coming to Ayrshire in 2004 is the world bowling championship, which will be held at Ayr's Northfield bowling complex. That event will also publicise Ayrshire's attributes. Ayr will also be the centre of the Burns an' a' that festival, which starts on 28 May. I hope that the many Burns enthusiasts in the Parliament—I think particularly of Cathy Peattie—will visit that definitive celebration of Burns's life and work.
However, none of those events is staged without cost. It is only reasonable to consider the cost in relation to the benefit. Obviously, as world-class sporting events, the open and the world bowling championships will bring international tourists to Ayr. However, gentle questions have to be asked about the Burns festival, which received £630,000 of public funding last year and cost more than £800,000 to stage. Indeed, it has been calculated that every visitor to the festival cost £42 per head, and the festival still has some way to go before it can be regarded as a stand-alone event. That said, it is money well spent because it promotes Ayrshire's cultural heritage, builds local self-esteem and develops our tourism product range. We must continue to support the event, still only in its third year, in the belief that it will some day become an international, self-financing festival.
With the impending demise of Ayrshire and Arran tourist board, we must now consider what will take its place. In Ayrshire, there is an organisation called the Ayrshire and Arran tourism industry forum, which has more than 100 business members who have in the past developed tourism initiatives in Ayrshire. The AATIF has long been overshadowed by the tourist board, but it is a practical and working model of what must be in place to develop and promote market-led tourism in Ayrshire. The organisation, comprised of local business people, developed three of the four products that were referred to recently as major successes by the chief executive of our local tourist board. I believe that that business model should be encouraged and developed as the hub system announced by the minister in his review of tourist boards.
Will the member give way?
I would rather not if Mr Purvis will forgive me. I am short of time.
I believe that local people taking local decisions about a product in a market that they know are more likely to be successful than the top-down approach offered by VisitScotland and EventScotland. A local organisation is more likely to promote and develop the local tourism package that is so necessary to real businesses in our tourism market. EventScotland means more quangos, more glossy brochures and more state-led strategies, and they are not the answer for Ayrshire or Scotland. A grass-roots, practical, pragmatic and bottom-up approach is much more likely to succeed and grow our tourism market. I urge the minister to consider the working model in Ayrshire as the way forward for Scottish tourism.
I am pleased to participate in the debate, which has been slightly bizarre at times, not least the contribution from Chris Ballance. On one hand, he asked why all the prominent artists in Scotland are criticising the Scottish Executive and, on the other, he said that the Scottish Executive should stop Scottish Opera overspending its budget. I argue that those artists are critical exactly because the Scottish Executive said to Scottish Opera that enough was enough and that the gravy train that has gone on for far too long must stop.
Way back in 2000, a committee of this Parliament said that the national companies had to fulfil their roles within the budgets provided by the SAC and not commit themselves to activities in expectation of future increases in funding. That has not happened.
The Tories stand up and say that we could continue to fund Scottish Opera with a blank cheque. Perhaps that is their rationale, but I think that we should debate how much money Scottish Opera should get and, once the budget has been set, everyone should have to operate within it. That should apply to Scottish Opera in the same way that it applies to anybody else.
In 2001, the Scottish Arts Council commissioned the Jonas report, which showed that Scottish Opera was losing about £1 million a year. Surely it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that, after three years, the company will be £3 million or £4 million down.
Huge structural issues are involved. I have been involved in the debate since 1999 and whenever anybody criticises the way in which the structure and operation of any of our national companies are handled, they are deemed to be philistines. I am prepared to be called a philistine if that is what it takes to sort out the problems.
When we last looked at the figures, we found that 46 per cent of the total SAC budget went to the four national companies. If that is the kind of structure that we want, that is fine. However, we need to debate the matter, because people up and down the country say to me continually that the funding that goes into the national companies is not justified in terms of output compared with what they do in their local communities. Those people are asked to limit their artistic expression because of budgetary constraints, yet people in Scottish Opera have told Parliament that they cannot be limited by budgetary constraints. That is simply unacceptable.
I was brought up in the Borders where festivals are commonplace. Local communities come together to organise their events, not just to celebrate their history, but to look to the future. The festivals attract people from all over Scotland and the world. We have similar events in Biggar and Lanark in my constituency. In one day in June, the Lanark lanimers day festival attracts to the town 3,000 visitors from all over Scotland in a celebration of the past and the future. It is a huge cultural celebration.
I say to the minister that there is merit in the question of how such festivals get support. They do not get the kind of support that other large organisations receive. As part of his cultural review, I hope that the minister will ask the commissioners to look seriously at the contribution that such events and festivals make and at how we can continue to support them at a local level.
My colleague Sarah Boyack showed how important Edinburgh's festivals have been to that city. My colleague Pauline McNeill will tell us about her night at the MTV awards and how important that has been to Scotland.
In my final minute, I will talk about the under-21s rugby world cup because it provides us with an excellent opportunity. It shows what can be achieved through partnership, not with the Scottish Executive alone, but with the governing body and the local authorities in Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Borders. I hope that we can assess and evaluate how that event goes and how it manages to showcase our younger rugby stars. We must look at how it manages to encourage more young people and visitors to watch rugby, because it will provide us with a platform for having another go at hosting the senior rugby world cup in years to come. I will be grateful for the minister's comments on that.
This important debate spans every community in Scotland from the smallest to the largest and I hope that, through it, we can begin to redirect funding to where it will have the greatest impact in our local communities.
I am delighted to be able to be parochial this afternoon and to talk about the greatest arts festival in the world, which is right on our doorstep. Indeed, outside the door of this chamber, we can see the tell-tale signs of scaffolding being erected on the castle esplanade, cobblestones being moved around a bit and people in cafes encroaching on our streets. The time that is equally dreaded and anticipated by Edinburgh's population is fast approaching when we welcome visitors from around the world to our city.
As we have already heard, there are so many festivals in Edinburgh that, depending on the literature that we read, we do not see the same number written down twice. We have Easter festivals, summer festivals, the international festival, the fringe, the tattoo, the book, film and jazz festivals and—obviously—the Christmas and hogmanay festivals. Edinburgh is a year-round festival city.
Largely because of that, Edinburgh has a worldwide reputation. Generally speaking, our festivals are a great success story for the city and for Scotland. Last year, for the first time ever, the fringe sold a million tickets, half of which went to local people. Five hundred thousand visitors fill our hotels, bars and restaurants and, overall, Edinburgh's festivals generate more than £200 million for the Scottish economy and promote Scotland within the UK and around the world.
As Donald Gorrie pointed out, the festivals also play a crucial role in introducing Scots young and old not only to our own culture but to the culture of the world. I welcome many of the recent attempts that have been made by the festivals and by others to take ballet, opera, theatre and music into local schools and operations such as the north Edinburgh arts centre. That centre is doing extremely good work in my constituency without, I have to say, any assistance from the Scottish Arts Council.
There is a real appetite in Edinburgh to get involved and City of Edinburgh Council and many commercial sponsors have risen to the challenge. However, the city cannot afford to be complacent, which is why I welcome the establishment this week of the council's dedicated events unit to manage the development of its events strategy; to assist existing events; and to provide a one-stop shop that will make it easier for promoters, organisers and partner organisations such as the Scottish Executive to find out what is going on in Edinburgh and to get involved in it.
I also welcome the Executive's commitment to supporting and developing major events through the establishment of EventScotland. Indeed, we should be sharing expertise to ensure that we can attract many of the events that members have mentioned and to develop better links between those events and our wider strategic priorities in marketing Scottish tourism and business.
The Executive has rightly supported and assisted Edinburgh's events and festivals in several ways. It gave a certain amount of funding for the MTV awards and has allocated money to national museums, art galleries and transport projects. However, although Edinburgh has been highly successful in this respect, last year's hogmanay festival shows what can happen when things go wrong. Indeed, they can go disastrously wrong, because the whole world is watching.
I would like the Executive to assist Edinburgh further in several ways. First, on a very parochial point, I hope that it will help to find a new site for the royal highland show to ensure that it is not lost to this part of Scotland. After all, it attracts 150,000 people every year.
Secondly, I ask the Executive to allocate extra funding to Lothian and Borders Police. It costs the council £200,000 to pay for the policing of the hogmanay festival. Thirdly, on infrastructure pressures, Sarah Boyack has already mentioned the Ross bandstand and we also need to upgrade the city's sports facilities for the 21st century. Fourthly, a number of national and local events and festivals around Scotland are experiencing insurance problems, which is causing some of them to go to the wall.
Finally, I ask the Executive to consider whether councils such as City of Edinburgh Council that rightly invest council tax payers' money in events and infrastructure elements that benefit the whole of Scotland—for example, the EICC—can be given greater support to do so either directly by the Executive or through the new tourism framework.
I sincerely welcome this debate on festivals. When I first saw the motion in the Business Bulletin, I thought that it presented a great opportunity for the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on the Scottish contemporary music industry to highlight what that industry contributes to the economy, particularly through music festivals. Unlike Chris Ballance, I realise that the debate presents a great opportunity.
It is to their credit that the First Minister, Frank McAveety and previous ministers have indicated that they believe that music festivals are important to Scotland and that they have attended many such festivals. I endorse the vision of Scotland as a world leader in being a destination for events and festivals. That is not a trivial matter.
The benefits of the MTV Europe awards have long been recognised and talked about. The event was an important economic activity and it is refreshing to hear that the enterprise network, which secured the event, believes that the music sector is important to enterprise. Because we have shown the world that we can stage such an event, we are now confident enough to argue that other events should be staged in Scotland. The minister is aware of my attempts to follow up on the First Minister's desire to bring the Brit awards from London to Scotland and many other awards ceremonies, such as the Ivor Novello awards, should rightfully take place in Scotland. I make special mention of the tartan clef awards, which the minister might attend later this year. We could make more of the fact that that is a Scottish event, because we have a vibrant music industry in Scotland. Perhaps we should also have our own event.
Ministers must recognise that festivals are not just important for the economy, although that is important. Festivals are also an expression of passion for music and culture. They demonstrate that Scotland is a place where people are passionate about their tastes and they are important to many music fans. We must recognise that the credibility that Scotland gained from hosting the MTV awards means that we will host more such events. I congratulate City of Edinburgh Council on its organisation of the event; the council received a special award from MTV Europe for hosting the best ever event. Creativity contributes to the nation's economy, character and vibrancy. Donald Gorrie is not wrong when he says that there is a need for enjoyment and happiness. Perhaps our slogan should be "a smart, successful, happy Scotland".
T in the park is one of the most successful music festivals in Scotland and T on the fringe is part of the Edinburgh festival. Some 65,000 people attend each day of T in the park—I see my colleague Irene Oldfather nodding, because she is a music lover and has attended that important event. For the first two years that T in the park ran, the event did not cover its costs, but now it is one of the most successful events in Britain and 30 per cent of its tickets are sold to people outside Scotland—they are mostly bought by people in England.
Promoters tell me that some issues must be tackled if we are to continue to promote these important events. One issue relates to the policing of major events; there is too much disparity in the application of fees. The industry is complimentary about how events are policed, but fees should be applied more evenly. It would be helpful to consider how policing costs might be standardised for events as they are for football matches. Organisers also call on the Executive to acknowledge the nature of the events industry and to consult them properly about its plans in relation to its recent review of the security industry.
We need to consider venues in more detail. Scotland needs more appropriate venues. We have seen the SECC's plan for a 12,500-seat auditorium that will put Scotland on the map and enable it to compete with major cities in the United Kingdom. That is important; we already lose out on numerous events because we do not have the appropriate venues. I hear that plans for the forthcoming Simon and Garfunkel concert are suffering for that reason.
Some members have ventured into the debate about the proposed new cultural commission. I have stayed away from that issue, which requires another debate. As a devolutionist, I support the concept of national companies such as Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet and the national theatre and it is important that those companies are of high quality. What we do in Scotland is important. However, my support for such companies does not negate my desire—or that of any member—to broaden out our definition of the arts. We must challenge the notion that such companies represent the only concept of the arts. Ken Macintosh and I have argued for four years that the cultural strategy should broaden its scope to include the music industry as a legitimate force in the arts. I acknowledge that the Executive has now taken that idea on board. Let us get the balance right. This has been a good debate and I will welcome further debate on the cultural commission.
This afternoon, I want primarily to highlight the outstanding work of the Edinburgh people's festival, which has not been mentioned so far. However, before I do so, I have to say that I detect an overemphasis—both in the motion and, to some extent, in the debate—on the purpose of arts and cultural festivals in Scotland in boosting the economy, promoting tourism and providing investment opportunities for commerce. Where, in the words of 10cc, is the celebration of "art for art's sake"? I welcome Pauline McNeill's remarks, which rightly redressed some of the balance, because it seems to me that too much of the debate has been about the "money for God's sake".
What cultural and artistic festivals add to the cultural life of Scotland is immeasurable. It goes way beyond any balance sheet or profit and loss account of this hotel chain, that international brewery, or restaurants and shops in our tourism and catering industries. We have to emphasise that in this debate.
Would Mr Fox not agree that the jobs that are created are very important and that, for many areas, the major providers of jobs will be hotels and so on?
Of course I agree with that point, but it is the one point that has been reiterated time and again in the motion and in the debate. In my opinion, the cultural side of the equation has been left untouched.
On a more positive note, I welcome the congratulations that the minister offers in the motion to our arts festivals and the people who present them. As the minister knows, an arts celebration is running in this city between 6 June and 12 June. The Leith festival is a community arts festival that has been reborn in recent years, as have others. I take this opportunity to wish Mary Moriarty, John Paul McGroarty and the team at the Leith festival every success.
I grew up in industrial Lanarkshire which, like much of Scotland, had gala days in every town and village in the summer. Such memorable days were often the gateway for youngsters like me to enjoy a wider interest in the arts as we grew up.
I hope that events such as the Leith festival abound and flourish all over Scotland but, in the time that I have left, I want to concentrate on the Edinburgh people's festival. A decision was taken by the 1945 Labour Government—a radical, visionary and popular decision—to establish the Edinburgh festival. The festival was to be an international celebration of the arts, to raise the spirits of a war-weary population who were emerging from the second world war and who were aware of the privations that still endured. It was that Government's visionary idea that led to the Edinburgh festival that we see today.
For many critics, the problem with the Edinburgh festival of the late 1940s was that it fell into the hands of those whom the late great Hamish Henderson once famously described as the "Edinbourgeoisie". The community celebration, which was meant to be for the people and by the people, was lost to a much more expensive and elitist alternative. In 1951, Hamish Henderson, Ewan MacColl, Joan Littlewood, the miners union, trade unions and labour organisations—the critics of the festival—decided to organise the Edinburgh people's festival. Time does not allow me to elaborate on the great success that the people's festival achieved, but it is fair to say that it went beyond the wildest dreams of its originators. In the end, it was not the failure of the festival that killed it, but the cultural poison of McCarthyism in the early 1950s.
I am glad to say that, in 2002, the Edinburgh people's festival was reborn. That year, a certain David Sneddon sang in the Jack Kane centre in Craigmillar, three weeks before winning the BBC's "Fame Academy". Last year, the festival ran for a week—with a world première of a play in Woodburn miners welfare; a comedy night; a celebration of the contribution that Edinburgh's Indian and Pakistani community has made to the city; and many other events. The highlight for me was the flyting—the debate—that took place in Wester Hailes, on the subject of "Whose culture is it anyway?" The line-up included Paul Gudgeon, who is the director of the fringe, Richard Demarco, who has been mentioned before, Joy Hendry, Tam Dean Burn, Tommy Shepherd, Robert Rae, Angus Calder and Kevin Williamson. Despite the last-minute apologies of Irvine Welsh and Paul Laverty, it lived up to its billing. It was a fantastic evening of arts, celebrated with gusto in an atmosphere of enlightenment, experience and improvement. This year's festival runs from 7 August to 14 August.
The Edinburgh people's festival is unashamedly not about boosting the local economy or promoting the city's international profile; it is about celebrating something that is much more valuable—our common humanity. Its continued success will be measured by the extent to which it includes and involves the communities of the Lothians. I am enormously encouraged by the support that the festival has received; in particular, I thank City of Edinburgh Council for the support that it has provided and the minister and his staff for helping to develop the people's festival in the years ahead.
As well as Celtic connections in Glasgow and ceilidh culture in Edinburgh, Scotland has festivals in Aberdeen, Glenfarg, Moffat, Girvan, Orkney, Arran and Linlithgow. In fact, there are far too many to mention. Scotland has famous festivals every weekend—and I am not just talking about T in the park.
Festivals are organised by voluntary organisations, local authorities and local partnerships of businesses and enthusiasts. From spring to autumn, there will be a festival somewhere in Scotland every weekend. "Exploring the tales of the Misty Isle and its hinterland" is the title of the Skye and Lochalsh storytelling festival, which is being held this week. Earlier this month, the Highlands and Islands music and dance festival in Oban celebrated its 21st birthday. The fact that that clashed with the Shetland folk festival and big in Falkirk shows what a wealth of events we have. Sometimes choices have to be made.
It is that wealth of cultural tradition that brings so many visitors to Scotland. They come to see the land of Robert Burns, not just in its historical context, but as part of a living tradition. No truly Scottish event is complete without its complement of cultural heritage. Even our pop festivals have a Celtic fringe. However, we are not always quick, or slick, enough at selling our country on its greatest strengths. Too often, we offer a caricature of Scottish culture rather than the real thing. We must look beyond the lucky heather and the tartan dolls if we want to project Scottish culture on the world stage.
VisitScotland must promote Scotland as a country that is rich in cultural capital. It must promote not just the big events, some of which are on the website, but the broader sweep of local events and festivals. If VisitScotland does not promote Scottish culture, who else will? It should give pride of place to the products of Scottish culture in all that it does. The same goes for Scottish Executive initiatives. I hope that the cultural commission will take on board the importance of nurturing our indigenous culture.
Scottish culture is uniquely rooted in our experience as a people—it is a people's culture. We want to share our culture; it is a diverse mix, but it is our mix. If we want our culture to prosper, we must grow our cultural capital. That means supporting and promoting the events and festivals at which Scottish culture flourishes. The traditional arts must get a fair and equitable share of any support that is provided. Scottish arts should no longer be the poor relations.
The debate has been important. I hope that we will return to examine exactly what the cultural commission will involve and will have an opportunity to explore the importance of our arts, including our traditional arts, in Scotland.
I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate. I want to highlight the importance of some major events to the economy of Fife and Kinross.
I am told that the open golf championship brings around £25 million to the Fife economy. I am glad that, next year, it will return to its spiritual home, St Andrews. Shops, hotels and ordinary homes all benefit economically. I believe that more than half a billion people throughout the world watch the championship on television. We are fortunate that St Andrews is part of the cycle that ensures that the open is brought to Scotland three out of every five years. I apologise to John Scott for my next remark, but it is true that, as all great golfers know, winning the open in St Andrews is that bit more special.
Fife and Scotland have been late in realising the potential for golf tourism—in spite of the fact that we in Fife have more golf courses per head of population than anywhere else in the world. We can learn many lessons from Ireland's marketing of its golf industry. St Andrews is a success despite appalling transport links and poor road, rail and air links and we must do much better for our visitors than we are currently doing.
Pauline McNeill has already mentioned T in the park, which is an example of a major event that results in huge benefits for the local economy. I have been told that it has been estimated that £2.5 million is pumped into the economy in the town of Kinross alone. I pay tribute to my colleague Bruce Crawford who, as leader of the SNP-controlled council, was instrumental in bringing T in the park to Kinross in the first place.
It is not only the T in the park weekend event that brings benefits—the weeks of preparation beforehand also bring benefits. Roadies, scaffolders and other essential workers who put together the festival site fill the hotels and bed and breakfasts in Fife and Kinross. Of course, youngsters make money for weeks afterwards clearing litter from the site. I have been told that a healthy tent-recycling industry has grown up around the site, thanks to people leaving behind tents, which are then sold on by enterprising youngsters. I have also been told that, in Fife, a person is a bit daft to buy a new tent, as there are plenty just after the event every year.
Scotland has a lot going for it. It has beautiful scenery and friendly people—as the minister said—but our weather is not all that it could be. However, apart from last year, the weather has been no barrier to the hogmanay celebrations. Scotland and Edinburgh have successfully marketed themselves as the place to bring in Ne'erday. Therefore, if the event is right, the weather is not too important.
We must build on the success of events such as the open, T in the park and the hogmanay celebrations. Scotland is rich in important dates in the winter, no doubt because our ancestors believed that we needed something to cheer us up and get us through the long winter months. Last year, I spoke at a Burns supper in Markinch. Alex Salmond was also there to speak. He made a brilliant suggestion that, because we are so rich in such dates, we should market a winter celebration of Scotland. It could start on St Andrews day, run through hogmanay and end on Burns night. It should be a celebration of Scotland and all that is Scottish. That is a great marketing opportunity. All that we need now is for somebody to take it.
Kenny MacAskill opened the debate for the SNP by arguing that EventScotland should be abolished. I disagree. We need a proper events strategy in Scotland.
Margaret Smith and Sarah Boyack said that we seem to have a festival almost every day in Edinburgh; we also seem to have a festival every day throughout Scotland. We need a strategic approach. I welcome the fact that there is a lot of good discussion in the major events strategy about how to get the maximum out of events. It is recognised that there needs to be a strategic approach to help identify infrastructure gaps
"and assist in the proper planning of new facilities to avoid the creation of ‘white elephants'."
That is welcome. The fact that there is a commitment to spread the benefits of events to areas throughout Scotland is also to be welcomed.
The member mentioned the numerous events and festivals that take place in Scotland. Why is a body such as EventScotland needed to overmanage events and festivals when they have been managed perfectly well in the past?
A proper strategy is needed because we must recognise that events can bring benefits as well as disbenefits to communities. Infrastructure problems are mentioned in the major events strategy and there are problems with too much litter and problems that are caused for communities, such as Tiree, that have fragile infrastructures. They may have world-class waves and therefore may attract surfing events, but infrastructures get overstressed if events happen in the wrong way. That is why we need an overall strategy and why I welcome the commitment to an events strategy in Scotland.
We must recognise that that strategy cannot be predicated on cheap flights, which are an unsustainable form of transport. Any tourism or events strategy that is based on the continuation of cheap short-haul flights is a very short-term strategy. We must have a wider vision in respect of how to get people from outside Scotland to events using sustainable forms of transport.
I am pleased that much mention has been made of the benefits of local and community events. Those events have a huge potential that is often unrecognised because too much attention is paid to the super events, such as the MTV awards. I was pleased at the mention of the Edinburgh people's festival and the Highland traditional music festival. I would like to mention Edinburgh's Beltane festival, which is organised by the Beltane Fire Society. It is a wonderful event that is the highlight of my Edinburgh festival year. At its height, the event has attracted 15,000 people to the top of Calton hill. It is a volunteer-led event to which huge contributions are made by hundreds of people. They make the event work and provide a wonderful spectacle for the people of Edinburgh. The festival has often faced an unsympathetic set of authorities and I am pleased that a more enlightened attitude has been adopted by the City of Edinburgh Council. As the Beltane festival is a community-led festival, it is an important addition to the festival circuit in Edinburgh. I very much congratulate all the volunteers on their work in putting together such a spectacle. We should support more community festivals, which bring huge and often unrecognised benefits.
Having talked about one of the more alternative festivals, I will now talk about one of the most mainstream events that Scotland is likely to hold in the coming year: the G8 summit, which, rumour has it, will be held at Gleneagles. The amendment in Chris Ballance's name talks about "environmental and community benefits". We have to recognise the major concerns in the communities around Gleneagles about the impact of that event, and every effort must be made to minimise the event's impact on those communities.
We also need to recognise that thousands of people will be coming to Scotland to express their legitimate right to dissent, demonstrate and call into question the actions of the G8 members. It is vital that we recognise that there will be a need for infrastructural support to cope with that. We need to recognise the legitimacy of that alternative event and to allow the proposition that there is an alternative model of economic development to that which is pursued by the G8 members to be given its proper space.
I welcome the fact that there is an events strategy but, as Chris Ballance's amendment recognises, we need to recognise that community benefits, environmental considerations and diversity—in terms of both the types of festival and access to those festivals—must be central if we are to have a proper events strategy for Scotland.
The minister said in his opening speech that it is not in our character to boast about our successes in relation to hosting major events, but that we should do so. Accordingly, I am glad that my colleague Margaret Smith boasted of her city's success in that regard. We should be proud of our success and we should celebrate and promote our events.
Last year, when I made my maiden speech in this very hall, I said that I was proud to be a standard-bearer for my constituency. As a constituency MSP in the Borders who will soon be attending the Penicuik hunter and lass, the West Linton whipman, the Melrose crowning, the Innerleithen Cleikum, the Selkirk and Lauder common ridings, the Gala braw lads gathering and the Peebles Beltane—which, I assure Mark Ballard, is Scotland's real Beltane, although I am not decrying the Edinburgh Beltane—I know that local festivals have an important role in binding together a community, in celebrating values that we need to cherish, such as civic and community pride, respect and responsibility for others, and in recognising our history, heritage and where we have come from.
The common ridings have national significance, but we must recognise that they are organised and supported by local communities and celebrated in local communities. However, Selkirk common riding—which is Europe's largest equestrian event and involves 600 riders—has an international resonance. I recognise the commitment and support that local government and the Scottish Executive give to its organisers. Other parts of the UK can learn from us.
In an excellent speech, Karen Gillon reminded us that more needs to be done to support equestrian events. I would like the minister to discuss with Executive colleagues the creation of an equestrian unit in the Executive, which would increase the significance of such events, and others, at the heart of the Government.
Members have mentioned the importance of the city festivals and discussed the growth that they have experienced. Donald Gorrie, Margaret Smith, Sarah Boyack and others talked about the Edinburgh international festival, whose ticket sales increased by 12 per cent in 2003. Edinburgh festival fringe tickets are sold in this hall where we are meeting. I have queued for tickets for fringe events with friends who have visited from around the world. Is it not appropriate that this debate in our national Parliament is taking place in a building that is at the heart of the Edinburgh international festival?
Ticket sales for the Edinburgh international book festival are up 15 per cent and fringe ticket sales are up 21 per cent. Those are success stories that have a financial value of £200 million, as Sarah Boyack said. There is also good news for our capital's galleries and museums, which have had significant investment in recent years and in which more investment will be made. As we can see when we walk down the Mound, exciting projects are under way.
The major events strategy that the minister described has several areas that its agency, EventScotland, will prioritise. Among those are events that showcase Scottish culture and sport; events that have an intrinsic appeal to Scots, as Donald Gorrie said; events that stimulate pride in the local population; and events that are available, achievable and affordable. As far as I am aware, the priorities in the list are not in any order, so I am a little surprised that the Greens' amendment says that some matters are given greater priority than others. Local events are linked with national events.
I was disappointed by Chris Ballance's speech, in which he said that we should not debate the subject. Jamie McGrigor took up that depressing theme. As when the SNP and the Tories said on Tuesday that they did not want to debate children's hearings, that does the Parliament a disservice. People who attend common ridings throughout the Borders—including those in my constituency, in Euan Robson's constituency and in Karen Gillon's constituency—will be pleased that we are discussing problems such as measures for road closures, the increasing cost of public insurance and attracting English visitors across the border to see the wonderful celebrations.
We must ensure that the new tourism hubs, which will be positive for Scotland, have effective service level agreements that are negotiated with local businesses—John Scott called for that—and with communities.
Donald Gorrie asked us to consider the wider aspects of non-arts-only festivals and common ridings. The common ridings take us back to the violent past of the reivers and the skirmishers across the debatable lands, but the standard bearers whom I will take pleasure in meeting and the children who participate in the local festivals give us all an example of civic pride and respect for fellow citizens. Those events benefit tourism and jobs, but they also make our communities happier. That is why the debate has been positive and has done the Parliament a service.
It was perhaps unfortunate that
"a blast o' Janwar' Win'
Blew hansel in on"
the nation's first EventScotland event of the year, so that the hogmanay party in Princes Street became non-event Scotland, as Margaret Smith was right to say. The jury is still out on EventScotland, weather apart.
As Jamie McGrigor said, Conservatives are proud of Scotland's record on hosting major events and cultural and sporting events. The Edinburgh international festival is a classic example of such an event, as are many other events that are attracted to the capital city, as Sarah Boyack, Margaret Smith and others said. However, we in the Conservative party are sceptical about any attempts by the Executive to define or implement culture. In that direction lie the public relations howlers that the Executive has perpetrated on arts matters in recent weeks. The publicity gaffs over Scottish Opera threaten to become a full-blown soap opera.
I have some sympathy, therefore, with Chris Ballance's view that the Executive has lost the confidence of many in the arts world. Although the minister's hip black tee-shirt on the beach at Cannes this week was not quite the sartorial disaster that Jack McConnell's pin-stripe kilt was in New York, that kind of token luvvyism is scorned by the very people whom it is supposed to impress.
The minister said, rightly, that we have a great product here in Scotland, but the question is whether we are marketing it as well as we should do. Kenny MacAskill rightly drew attention to the global nature of the competition that we face. The minister and John Scott talked about the forthcoming open golf championship at Troon, as did Tricia Marwick. I am sure that it will be a great success, as will next year's open at the home of golf—St Andrews.
However, those great events have little or nothing to do with the Scottish Executive. In golf, as in other areas, the Executive's approach to cultural tourism has meant much fanfare, grand claims and soundbites, but little follow-up and no apparent overall strategy. Does any member remember the golf strategy that Henry McLeish launched back in 2000, which was supposed to be about promoting Scotland's less-famous golf courses? In a survey of golf clubs and centres in mid Scotland and Fife, which was conducted this January, three key questions were asked. In response to the first question, which concerned the success of the strategy, 90 per cent of the clubs and centres said that it had not made a blind bit of difference. The second question concerned the training packages that were to be implemented to help clubs to market their business strategies: 82 per cent said that they had not heard of the packages. The third question asked whether the views of clubs on the development of the sector had been sought: 84 per cent said that they had not.
The Executive's approach seems to be geared towards the headline-grabbing big events and not towards the grass-roots initiatives and expertise about which the Executive has less understanding and for which it undertakes less promotion. I pay tribute to the thousands of local festivals across the country, which were mentioned by members including Cathy Peattie, Donald Gorrie, Rob Gibson, Pauline McNeill and others. They were absolutely right to do so, because people put a huge amount of effort into those local events. I commend one such local event to the minister—the proposed twinning of Lower Largo in north-east Fife and the Chilean island of Juan Fernández, or Robinson Crusoe Island as it is now known. That is an excellent example of such grass-roots initiatives.
The journalist Daniel Defoe was so inspired by the tale of Alexander Selkirk, the 17th century explorer who hailed from Lower Largo and who was marooned for four years and four months on a Pacific island, that he used it as the basis of his great adventure story "Robinson Crusoe". After a lot of hard work and a long campaign by the community council in Lower Largo, the official twinning of the two communities will take place on 10 September, which is the 300th anniversary of Alexander Selkirk landing on the island—I hope that the minister will put the date in his diary. I pay tribute to all of those in Fife and beyond who have put together the detailed programme of festivities.
Those celebrations in north-east Fife exemplify the potential for other places in Scotland that are associated with historical figures such as Robert Burns, who was mentioned by John Scott, to do the same thing. There is the potential for places not only to host major events and festivals, but to demonstrate the capacity for communities to work together to showcase their history and to make a significant contribution to tourism in Scotland.
I wish the people of Lower Largo great success in their Robinson Crusoe event in September. I look forward to the minister being there in person—with or without his tee-shirt—to lend the Executive's support to the event. Certainly, I intend to be there.
Not knowing the place personally, but given that it is an island, I assume that the Chilean island of Juan Fernández is not the place that the last train continually seems to go to.
Although the motion might have been dreamt up to fill the last two-hour slot, it covers many important issues. Many members have mentioned the importance of festivals and events for their areas—and, indeed, for their press releases tomorrow. [Laughter.] I shall do the same later on—just watch me. The rather anodyne nature of the motion means that I welcome my colleague Kenny MacAskill's amendment. I hope that even those on the Government benches who will not bring themselves to support the amendment can at least agree that it gives us an issue to debate.
The main point that Kenny MacAskill made was right: we need events to add value to our tourism, to differentiate our tourism products from those that are to be found in competitor countries and to grow an important part of our economy. I make no apology for saying that this debate is about growing the economy. We need to look critically at the structures that are in place and to ask whether they can deliver what is appropriate to or efficient in meeting that aim.
In an early intervention, there was an indication that we might go down an interesting and controversial side road. Chris Ballance tried to get the minister to discuss the merits of the Red Army and Tibetan independence but, alas, the minister did not rise to that challenge. Perhaps in his summing up we will get an answer to the question.
Chris Ballance eventually got on to the Green amendment in the last minute of his speech. His position seemed to be that events such as the MTV awards were of dubious value because they seemed to create a lot of litter in Edinburgh. On that basis, we will not hold many international events or festivals in Scotland. The one favour that the Green amendment does us is that it refers to priorities 11 and 16 of the 16 priorities—which are not numbered in order—in the original major events strategy document that the minister's predecessor launched. Any strategy that has 16 priorities has perhaps 11 priorities too many. The Executive needs to identify what is important and what is just added verbiage.
The Greens are in difficulty when they criticise the strategy. Air travel has been mentioned. Many of the important, large events depend on air travel so that people can come here not just to participate in them but to see them. We know that the Greens are basically against air travel, so they have a real problem that they were, perhaps, trying to avoid.
Will the member give way?
I am about to respond to a point that Mark Ballard made in his speech, so his name will be mentioned, at any rate. He said that he opposed Kenny MacAskill's amendment because we need an events strategy. No one is arguing that we do not need such a strategy. The argument in the amendment is that we do not need a separate events organisation to deliver an events strategy. If there were a different organisation for every strategy that the Executive has delivered or launched in the past five years, there would not be enough people in Scotland to man them.
Much of the rest of the debate rose above the banality of the motion. Most speakers concentrated on festivals and culture, instead of taking a wider view of the motion, which referred to all events, including sporting events. Margaret Smith raised the interesting issue of the insurance that is increasingly needed for events. That burden falls disproportionately on voluntary organisers of small events in many areas of the country. The new disclosure regulations create a similar problem in many areas for events that involve young people, especially children.
Jeremy Purvis briefly mentioned another burden that bureaucracy places on events—that of road closures. Here comes the local press release. In Dumfries and Galloway, we have had particular trouble with road closures. Sanquhar and Kirkconnel lie on the A76 from Dumfries to Kilmarnock, which is the only route through those towns. On festival days, parades go up and down the road, which has to be closed as a result. Previously, the local constabulary was happy to close the road for the hour that was required in each direction, at no cost to anyone. Everyone involved would have a great time and visitors would enjoy themselves. Now a ridiculous cost is being forced on local voluntary organisers, who do not have much money and do not raise huge sums from those events.
We received the assurance that the Minister for Transport would not implement in the Borders the guidelines that operate in Dumfries and Galloway. As the member should be aware, those guidelines have been replaced by a consultation on a national approach to road closures. The previous guidance indicated that an advert must be placed in a national newspaper, which placed crippling costs on local organisers. That provision has been replaced by a requirement to advertise in a local newspaper—something that the organisers would do in any case. Euan Robson and I have achieved a significant step forward. The member may wish to redraft his press release, if he has already written it.
I am sure that I will give due credit to the Liberal Democrats in my press release, as I always do. I am not saying that nothing has changed, but there is still an issue to be addressed. We have a ridiculous situation in which the diversion around Sanquhar has to be advertised even though it takes so long that it would be quicker for the lorries to wait for the end of the parade. Perhaps we made a mistake by dealing solely with the Minister for Transport; perhaps we should deal also with the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport. I look forward to corresponding with him in the future.
Donald Gorrie is no longer here—he said that he had to go—but he said that he is a Calvinist and a bit arty, and he went on to say that we should all be happy.
Of course, many speakers mentioned the festivals in their areas. I am grateful to Sarah Boyack, who pointed out that Edinburgh has 50 festivals but did not list them all, but Jeremy Purvis went a fair way towards listing all the festivals in the Borders.
Several members went off at a tangent and into the debate about Scottish Opera. Although I think that they hijacked the motion unfairly, they showed that there is an appetite throughout the Parliament for that debate, and I think that we need to have it in the near future.
I will conclude, to allow the minister time to respond to the many points that have been made. It is clear that events and festivals are important and that they need to be an integrated part of our tourism product. The promotion of events needs to be integrated with the promotion of tourism, but we should slim down our structures and make them more efficient, as we are doing with VisitScotland. We certainly should not create more quangos to do jobs that can be done well by existing organisations. I do not think that the case for a separate events organisation has been made, although there is a case for an events strategy. I therefore ask members to support the SNP amendment.
I will try my best in the time that is available to address many of the points that members raised in the debate. If members wish to pursue issues after the debate, I am happy to try to respond formally.
I disagree with the SNP amendment. Herod gave the newborn more time than the SNP is giving EventScotland to demonstrate its worth to tourism or the wider benefits of events in Scotland. EventScotland has made a difference; we can already see some good examples of events that would not necessarily have taken place in its absence. We have hosted the European cross-country championships, the climbing world cup, the champions league final, the mountain bike world cup, the world gymnastics cup final, indoor and outdoor international athletics meetings, the world curling championships, and the PGA European tour golf events. Because we have EventScotland, we have a greater capacity to address the co-ordination of issues such as licensing and policing, and we have a genuine opportunity to move forward. I do not think that the SNP amendment is sustainable, following analysis.
On the broader issues, we have the capacity to work with agencies to celebrate what they do well and to grow further what is already there, and that is something that we want to move forward on. Many members rightly touched on local events and festivals, from the islands to the Borders and from north-east Scotland to our major cities.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will develop my point, and I will let the member intervene in a moment.
Events and festivals have their own characteristics and they should not be diluted by any of the national agencies or partners involved. We should recognise that their character is driven by local volunteer capacity in some cases and by local authority commitment in other cases.
Will the member take an intervention?
I said that I would allow Alex Fergusson to intervene.
On the subject of less well-known events in Scotland, has the minister decided to accept the invitation to open the fledgling wickerman festival in my constituency? The festival has an increasing reputation for quality, and he would be welcome.
I note with interest that my social calendar has been expanding dramatically as the debate continues. If I go to the event to which Alex Fergusson referred, I hope that, unlike Ted Brocklebank earlier, he would accept me in an Armani suit, co-ordinated with a George tee-shirt.
Members raised fundamental issues about events and festivals during the debate. I am delighted that many members from all sides of the chamber recognise that, as well as celebrating art forms, festivals—both small and large—have an impact on community confidence and bring social and economic benefits to local areas.
Will the minister give way?
Can I develop some points? I will try my very best to allow an intervention later.
Some of the debate strayed into much wider areas; certainly, some of it was about our general policy on the arts and culture in Scotland. I felt that much of the debate was contradictory. Some members argued that we should direct and shape the development of the arts much more directly, whereas others argued that we should use a light touch or should not intervene at all.
The reality is that the culture commission that the Executive has established will provide for the wider arts and culture debate to be generated and aired properly. That could be done through a novelist such as Ian Rankin or a back-bench MSP. Alternatively, a newspaper editor could be desperate enough to create a motion and circulate it around artists and then claim that the result was a news story. Of course, the newspaper editor omitted to mention in Scotland on Sunday on Sunday last that the original idea came from him rather than from the arts community. I note with interest that that motion, or open letter—and its e-mail version—was about celebrating excellence and avoiding mediocrity. I was privy to the original e-mail and I was disappointed to find that it contained two substantial spelling mistakes. Therefore, it did not live up to the aspiration of excellence that it was trying to comment on.
We believe, as do people throughout the country, that we can create from both small and large festivals something that can genuinely transform people's lives. Art for art's sake can also transform people's lives—it can make an important contribution. We want to celebrate both impulses. Our position has been falsely caricatured in the recent past, and we have been told that improving access to the arts will not achieve excellence. In fact, John Wallace, from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama said to me only last week that by increasing the numbers of participants in traditional music in the academy and in other colleges, he has dramatically improved the quality of the work that is being produced. Some of our best performers in traditional music are the equivalent of performers in other forms of music. We Scots should celebrate that.
On the old debate about the importance of our national arts companies, it is a caricature of our approach to claim that it is mediocre. The Executive has made a commitment to a national theatre, which would not happen otherwise. We made a commitment to provide £17.5 million to create capacity for young people in Scotland to explore art as something that can transform their lives. Such commitment does not show mediocrity; it shows excellence. Members who believe that a commitment to celebrate our traditional languages—for example, through Bòrd na Gàidhlig and the forthcoming Gaelic bill—does not show an ambition for Scotland in which we celebrate small and large aspects of culture in the belief that they can all make a difference are not debating the point but trying to create something that it is not the point at all.
The cultural commission will have the chance—
Will the minister give way?
I want to make this point clearly because a number of people have had a pop at the First Minister and me in the recent past.
James Boyle, who only a year ago expressed concerns about our commitment to the arts and culture, will chair the cultural commission. To appoint him to that role is not the action of an Executive that lacks confidence in what it is doing; it is the action of an Executive that wants to interrogate the issues by engaging with the arts community and arguing points honestly and openly, not by caricaturing the debate as being one between high culture and low culture.
I am in good company, because Jenny Lee was attacked 40 years ago, when she became the Minister for the Arts, for wanting to open up the debate about what happens in the arts. Sir Alan Peacock, who is not a natural political ally of mine, said that when we want to address the issue of how we fund arts organisations, we will be accused of philistinism. In the recent past, Cathy Jamieson and I have been caricatured in the newspapers, which claim that we have a class-based approach to the adoption of policies—nothing is further from the truth. What is class based are the caricatures of people like Cathy Jamieson and me. Because we come from a west of Scotland background and because of the way we sound, we are told that we have no contribution to make to the arts, or we are accused of not making a contribution in our previous roles.
I was previously convener of the arts committee of Scotland's largest council, which invested more in the arts per head of population than any other local authority in the United Kingdom. When I became leader of that council, the same caricatures were made in relation to our library strategy. However, that strategy has transformed the library service, increased usage of libraries and made a genuine difference to communities. Even under budget constraints, our council supported the Tron Theatre Company and The Arches theatre through their difficulties. We also provided support for a range of other issues. I will take no lectures from people who claim that we have no commitment to arts in Scotland.
Worst of all, some of the attacks that have been celebrated in the chamber have been Tory inspired. Despite a former Tory leader's claim that there is no such thing as society, I believe that the arts play a cohesive role and can help to create a sense of society. However, that same former Tory leader also claimed that she read the novels of Frederick Forsyth, as if that should be the high point of a person's consumption of culture and fiction.
The real issue is how we change things for the better, so let me make some key points. Several members raised important issues about the role of traditional culture and how we celebrate that. Let me make it clear that I believe that fèis Rois and the many other traditional music events across Scotland have a genuine role to play in making a difference to our cultural infrastructure. They are as excellent as any other art form.
Minister, you have one minute. Members, please make less noise.
Our commitment to other types of music and other art forms was raised by several members. Pauline McNeill asked what support we are giving to contemporary music. We are dealing with that through a number of discussions, both formal and informal. Similarly, the role of major developments, such as the festivals in Edinburgh, was mentioned. Again, I continue to have dialogue with many of the agencies about how we can make a difference to those developments.
Festivals and events make a difference. They say something about who we are as a nation, so we should never compromise on their quality. We need to support our national arts companies, but it is wrong to claim that, in endeavouring to provide that support, we should not ask searching questions about how resources are managed and how they make a difference.
We want a cultural infrastructure that celebrates both the high and the low. It should celebrate the achievement of the performer or the artist and recognise the role that they can play in genuinely making a difference to our future. The culture commission's role will sit alongside, and synchronise with, that of our events strategy. That will allow much more interrogation and critical examination. By doing that, we will genuinely be able to make a difference.
This Executive need not apologise for the investment that it has made in events or for the massive commitment that it has given to culture through the cultural strategy. There is much more that can be achieved. Instead of brickbats and personal attacks, we want a cultural infrastructure of which we can all be proud. We want to build an infrastructure that people can consume wherever they are, no matter where they come from, what they believe in or what their past is. Ultimately, we want to ensure that Scotland is a nation in which culture is at the very heart and centre of what we do and believe.
I urge members to support the motion.
As the debate has finished early, I suspend the meeting for just over one minute.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—