First, I give a huge word of thanks to organisations across the north-east of Scotland for contributing to the public consultation for the international culture strategy. Contributions from organisations such as Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Deveron Projects and Peacock Visual Arts were vital to the strategy’s development.

The international culture strategy sets out a

“vision ... for the Scottish culture and creative sector to be globally connected with the means and opportunities to achieve its international ambitions and potential”.

The Scottish Government’s existing international infrastructure will be a key element in delivering on the aims of the strategy, and we will work with our international offices and other networks across Scotland, including those in the north-east, to build on their existing cultural activity in order to understand where opportunities exist and how to enhance them for the culture and creative sector.

Creative Scotland provides support for a number of festivals in Dumfries and Galloway including the Dumfries and Galloway arts festival and Wigtown book festival. In 2023-24, Creative Scotland provided £107,000 to Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival from its open fund. Creative Scotland also supports Wigtown Festival Company, which delivers the Wigtown book festival and the Big DoG children’s book festival, with £86,000 per year. It also provides £100,000 per year in support for The Stove Network, which runs a programme of various festivals and events, including the Nithraid river festival.

Between April 2021 and March 2024, Creative Scotland invested more than £3 million in individuals and organisations with a Dumfries and Galloway postcode through its open and targeted funds.

The Scottish Government recognises that the ability to tour and work internationally is vital to many creative professionals, and it is deeply regrettable that the United Kingdom Government’s decision to leave the European Union has made such activities significantly more difficult.

A key area of action of our international culture strategy will be to mitigate those impacts. As part of the strategy, we will work to push the UK Government and the EU to support visa-free arrangements for touring artists. In addition, we will work with the sector to explore new ways to support international mobility.

Touring is also a key element of cultural export and exchange activity in the sector. Therefore, we will also undertake a feasibility study on the development of a support service for cultural export and exchange that would help to support international touring and other international activity.

Will the member take an intervention?

Before I respond to the points raised, I thank all members who contributed to this afternoon’s debate, which I think has been positive. I also thank all the cultural organisations and individuals from across Scotland who contributed to the development of the strategy.

The knowledge and expertise of those working in our culture and creative sectors is, as ever, invaluable in ensuring that the proposals that we take forward have the interests of the sector at their heart. That is exactly what this document is—it is a product of co-operative working between the Scottish Government and the cultural sector.

As I noted in my opening speech, creativity is critical in finding new ways to build international partnerships and in building on our international cultural links, which is a priority for the Scottish Government. We remain an open and outward-looking country where people from around the world can come to enjoy our wonderful and unique music scene. We want our creative professionals and organisations to be able to take their work to audiences and markets around the world and to build those partnerships.

Our culture is informed and inspired by our global connections. The experience and knowledge gained by travelling to other countries is important, but the skills that are developed through collaboration and special friendships deepen that understanding. Those principles underpin our international culture strategy.

The starting point for this work was always the needs and interests of Scotland’s cultural and creative organisations and professionals in their international engagement. The development of the strategy was informed by in-depth consultation and engagement with stakeholders throughout the sector, drawing on their knowledge and direct experience of the impacts that international activity can have and the barriers that exist to developing it.

As we work to deliver the strategy, we will continue to collaborate closely with stakeholders to ensure that activity under it reflects their priorities and that there is joint ownership.

Unlike Meghan Gallacher, I have the ambition to promote Scottish culture internationally as well as domestically. One way to do that is by introducing a support service for cultural export and exchange. I think that Ms Gallacher has now had two or three opportunities to confirm whether her party would support that, but we still are none the wiser.

The issue of Creative Europe has also been raised and has yet to be answered. Neil Bibby wanted to intervene earlier. Perhaps he will now clarify whether an incoming Labour Government will accede to membership of Creative Europe.

Today is the first opportunity that we have had since the Easter break to note some significant developments in relation to culture. I begin by taking the opportunity to thank everybody who did so much to promote Scottish culture in the run-up to and on tartan day, which was marked on 6 April in the United States of America and Canada, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society and the Lyceum, among many others. I also put on the record my sincere condolences following the recent untimely death of Scott Williamson, the New Zealand honorary consul to Scotland.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to open the debate on the Scottish Government’s international culture strategy, which was published on 28 March this year. I know that all members of the Parliament will recognise the importance of our culture and creative sector to our communities, society and economy, and that they will also recognise the importance of international activity to those vital sectors.

The ability to collaborate across borders is key to developing opportunities for our creative professionals to make our culture and creative sector more diverse and vibrant and to reach new audiences and markets. Although that makes the sector stronger internationally, it also supports the vibrancy and diversity of Scotland’s domestic cultural scene and helps us to contribute to global dialogue on some of the key challenges of our time.

For the first time, our strategy will set out a strategic approach to those issues. Although we have supported the sector’s international work, the strategy will seek to maximise its potential and take a coherent approach.

We are starting from a strong position, notwithstanding on-going challenges. Scotland’s deep and rich culture and creativity are recognised across the world, and the culture and creative sector is respected internationally for its creative output and for the approaches, business models and ideas that are inherent in the sector.

In recent years, the sector has faced a range of challenges that have had a particular impact on its ability to carry out many international activities. The restrictions that resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic meant that creative professionals were, for the most part, unable to tour and exhibit as they had done previously. Those restrictions have been compounded by the increase in costs that we have seen in recent years. The Government continues to work to support the sector to recover from those impacts, including making a commitment to invest at least £100 million more annually in culture for the financial year 2028-29.

However, those efforts have been further hampered by the on-going impact of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. The UK Government’s decision to leave the EU has put in place a range of barriers to international activity in one of our most important international markets. Creative professionals now often require costly visas or work permits to carry out activities such as touring in the EU, and they face extensive customs requirements for moving equipment and merchandise. In addition, the loss of access to key EU programmes such as the creative Europe programme has not only impacted funding in the sector but removed an important means of facilitating cross-border partnerships and collaborations. Although we have taken action to mitigate those impacts, including through the funding of the Arts Infopoint UK mobility support service, the failure of the UK Government to negotiate favourable agreements for creative professionals with the EU means that extensive barriers to international activity remain.

Our approach aims to ensure that international engagement is a key element of sectoral recovery from recent challenges and to support its long-term development and resilience. It is in that context that the Government is committed to developing our international culture strategy to maximise the sector’s international potential in a coherent manner.

The overarching vision of the strategy is for Scotland’s culture and creative sector to be globally connected and to have the means and the opportunities to achieve its international potential. It also envisages that the sector will further contribute to Scotland’s cultural, social, economic and environmental wellbeing through its international activity.

To achieve that, the strategy sets out three strategic outcomes: first, to support an innovative, more sustainable and economically stronger culture and creative sector; secondly, to develop an internationally connected and diverse culture and creative sector that contributes positively to people and communities; and, thirdly, to enhance Scotland’s international reputation for culture and creativity, including our response to global challenges.

I just heard from a member on the Conservative front bench the concern that the Edinburgh festival fringe might not be able to continue. It is that kind of playing up of concerns that I do not think is helpful for the Edinburgh festival fringe—or any other festival, for that matter. There is no matter of dispute that the culture sector here—and indeed, in many other countries—has been going through a period of extraordinary distress over recent years.

I know that we are all committed to seeing resilience and recovery in the sector. To that end, wherever colleagues from different political perspectives have particular views on where extra funding might be sought or where other interventions might be secured, Mr Bibby knows that my door is open to them. I look forward to suggestions from members on both front benches in the course of today’s statement. I would be interested to hear what specific commitments and suggestions in general they have.

Forgive me, but I have already given way twice. I want to make a bit more progress until it is clear how much of my time remains, but I will happily give way to Mr Stewart if my time allows.

I turn to the issue of international mobility. Mobility underpins activities across the culture and creative sector. It allows creative professionals in Scotland to take their work to other countries and their counterparts from around the world to come to Scotland. A key area of action for the strategy will be efforts to mitigate the barriers to international mobility that have been put in place by Brexit, including working to push the UK Government and the EU to support visa-free arrangements for touring artists and working with the sector to explore new ways to support international mobility.

Mobility is, of course, a key element of cultural export and exchange activity in the sector, but cultural export activity goes far beyond that. In 2021, exports from the sector stood at £3.8 billion, driven by an extensive and diverse range of activities that were supported by both commercial and public organisations. It will be necessary to build on that success by developing connections, providing platforms and supporting organisations, all of which will develop the skills and capacity to work internationally. We will therefore undertake a feasibility study into the development of a support service for cultural export and exchange. It would be good to hear from other parties whether that is an initiative that they would support.

Our screen sector is one of our most valuable assets in cultural exports, so we also work with Screen Scotland and our enterprise agencies to seek new opportunities abroad to support and grow the screen sector.

On cultural reputation, as I have already said, the strategy also considers culture’s role in how we as a nation respond to global challenges. Culture Counts, in its response to the public consultation on the strategy, said:

“The strength of Scotland’s cultural reputation brings us a voice in international dialogue far beyond our size.”

That demonstrates the international impact and success that our cultural and creative sector already has, while showing the value that it can bring and why we must build on that.

There is no escaping the fact that international cultural engagement, and the travel associated with that, has implications for our work towards Scotland being a net zero contributor to greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. However, culture can also help to bring new perspectives and ideas to discussions about how to tackle climate change. Scotland’s culture and creative sectors are already showing leadership in schemes supporting environmental sustainability, including as part of the green arts initiative, which supports Scottish arts and cultural organisations to reduce their impact on the climate and environment. Historic Environment Scotland’s work to protect heritage from climate impacts is also world leading and can influence others in their approach. The Scottish Government will engage with work that seeks to develop environmentally sustainable models for international cultural engagement and will consider what steps can be taken to support organisations to assess and balance their environmental impact.

The strategy also recognises that culture has a unique and important role to play in addressing historic injustices. In 2024, Scotland has a strong international image and the desire to be a good global citizen, but we must recognise that our country has not always played a positive role. Cultural connections can seek to address, understand and recognise our role in historic injustices, including slavery and empire. For example, some objects were acquired unethically by Scottish collections in the past and some institutions have recently sought to address that through restitution of those objects. The empire, slavery and Scotland’s museums project, which is co-ordinated by Museums Galleries Scotland and sponsored by the Scottish Government, has published recommendations for the Scottish Government about addressing the legacy of historic injustice. As part of that strategy, we will support the implementation of those recommendations, including championing the development of bespoke national guidance for repatriating objects that were acquired unethically.

At this stage, and given that I have a little time, I look to Mr Stewart, offering him the opportunity to remember the question that he wanted to ask earlier.

I think that Alex Cole-Hamilton and I agree on the possibility of the United Kingdom’s rejoining programmes such as Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe. Does he agree that Creative Europe would be a tremendous organisation for the UK to rejoin? Is his party committed to doing so? We did not get any clarification from the Labour Party on that simple and straightforward question.