It is good to be able to follow up the discussions that we had last year. I want to pick up on the opening comments of Iain Munro from Creative Scotland. You mentioned a number of organisations that you fund and the potential impact on budgets, because they have had cuts and significantly rocketing costs.

We need to look at the opportunities. We have raised things such as the per cent for art scheme and the tourist visitor levy, but they seem a long way off, as does social prescribing. What do you think the solutions are now? In the organisations that you mention—this was also mentioned in the SCAN submission—there has been a hollowing out, and a lot of artists and cultural workers have already gone. What is your advice on what we should say in our budget report?

I wonder whether Donald Smith wants to come in. You mentioned visitor hesitancy after Covid in relation to festivals, but there is also the cost of living crisis. What do we need to do more of to enable festivals to be more successful? We have already lost the Edinburgh Filmhouse and the Belmont Filmhouse, which is impacting on the film festival.

That is very helpful, because I do not think that that issue has been raised in the committee before. I know that there are issues about changing ticket prices as the date of an event gets nearer. You mentioned a ticket price of £60, and I have seen much bigger prices than that, and there is a question about where all that money goes. That has been really helpful in our thinking about the stark issue that there is not enough money. There has not been enough funding for a long time, but there will be a crisis this year and going forward—I appreciate that.

Is it possible to get a sense from Chris Sherrington of what kind of money we are talking about in terms of business rates? I think that he said that only 10 organisations got support but I presume that it is not a massive amount of money. The challenge is that, to go back to Donald Smith’s point, local authorities then have less income.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I have not been able to connect with the app. I would have voted yes.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I could not connect to the app. I would have abstained.

I appreciate that, Presiding Officer.

I mentioned that issue because it is up to members to decide what we want to debate. My view is that the choice of this subject is more about internal SNP strategic discussions than it is about the country‘s interest. Newspapers published before the debate told us that we would be offered a detailed blueprint for independence, yet what did the cabinet secretary do today? He gave us repeated interpretations of history from his perspective; he did not talk about the future. Once again, he offered us a false choice: the status quo or another divisive independence referendum.

Scottish Labour is not against constitutional change. Over our history we have advocated for and delivered constitutional change. We delivered the Scottish Parliament, which has been strengthened since its establishment. We have done that on a cross-party basis. We have been prepared to speak to people.

No. I have already tried to take one intervention.

I want to focus on the constitutional change that we would like to see—one that is different. We do not support the status quo. We want to empower people and communities. Co-operation is key: nations and regions working together as part of the UK’s redistributive union does not need a divisive referendum.

I will do.

There is a better future than the divisive binary choice that is already being highlighted by the SNP today. We want radical change. We want to give people powers to tackle the cost of living crisis.

The fact that we are debating this subject is a disappointment, but it is not a surprise, given the priorities of the SNP and Green Government. Let us look at what has happened over the past few weeks. Over the festive period, we had severe weather that caused significant disruption in many parts of Scotland and put massive pressures on our resilience services. In the run-up—[Interruption.] If you respect my right to respond to your opening remarks, cabinet secretary, please give me a couple of seconds.

The point that I am making, which is absolutely clear in the Labour amendment, is that this subject is the wrong choice for our first debate this year. We should be focusing on the NHS. In the run-up to new year, doctors in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde pleaded with the health board to declare a major incident, while NHS Grampian issued an appeal for all staff to come in. When the cabinet secretary referred to NHS Lothian earlier this afternoon, he did not acknowledge the long-standing deep issues of underfunding, the lack of capacity that NHS Lothian now has in an area that is increasing its population and, crucially, the lack of social care. Those were not issues that started during Covid. In fact, they were not even issues that began as a result of our leaving the EU—they were in place long before then. From repeated comments made by representatives of the BMA, we know that they are seriously worried about patient safety being put at risk every single day. I will not be the only member who has received repeated references of constituents who cannot get through to the NHS and end up going to accident and emergency.

SNP and Green members voted against Labour’s proposal to debate those issues today, and they opted for their number 1 priority, which is to debate the constitution rather than tackle the health and cost of living crises, which are getting worse.