Chamber and committees

I am interested in some of the comments that you made about a positive and pragmatic approach from the Prime Minister. You mentioned that you attended a meeting between the First Minister and the Prime Minister. At that meeting, there was a discussion that went to the fundamentals of intergovernmental relations and raised the elephant in the room, which is the independence question.

How can we look positively or pragmatically at the prospects for intergovernmental relations if the first request from the Scottish Government, which was to proceed with a referendum—the highlight of its manifesto—was dismissed by the Prime Minister, who told us that we should concentrate on different things? How easy is it to compartmentalise the different issues on which you must relate to the UK Government? If that fundamental request can be so readily dismissed—the First Minister said that a record number of 73 MSPs who support independence were elected at the election—what are the real prospects for intergovernmental relations?

You might have seen reports, Deputy First Minister, that the Prime Minister is said to have enabled his permanent secretary, the head of the civil service, to overrule or instruct other permanent secretaries in different parts of the UK Government. It is not clear whether that would extend to the permanent secretaries in the devolved Administrations, which would be a breach of the idea that he will not devolve above the heads of the Scottish Government. Has that given any cause for concern? I should note that I am not too sure about how devolution by default differs from subsidiarity, as we used to call it in the European Union.

It must surely be the case that the cabinet secretary—that civil service term is different from how it is used in the context of the Scottish Government—should not be able to overrule or instruct permanent secretaries such as the permanent secretary in Scotland, who works for the Scottish Government. If you can follow that, I would like to know if it has given you any cause for concern.

I agree with all the points that the convener made about the governance issues, which are being addressed, as the cabinet secretary said. I think that the committee will come back to that in some detail in future. However, I will ask about something that has concerned me over recent years. I understand Mr MacDougall’s point about HES responding to the reduction in grant in aid by increasing its contribution to its activities. However, for many years, there seems to have been a complete lack of enterprise or ability to exploit its assets.

One example of that is Clackmannan tower in my constituency. HES records that as open, but members of the public have not been able to get into it for years and cannot get into it today. I do not know how that qualifies as it being open. To be brutal about this, HES has so much at its disposal that it could monetise and exploit much more effectively by going after target audiences internationally and domestically, but that culture just does not seem to be there. Does the cabinet secretary agree? If so, are there any plans to try to address that issue?

It is probably true to say that, over time, the committee will become more aware of the difference between the situation for culture and that for other parts of Government, because the £100 million increase with a £50 million increase on top is pretty unusual for Government functions. It is different compared with what happened before the £100 million kicked in and with what happened in other parts of the UK. It is a pretty strong position.

As always, we have heard a fair bit of special pleading today. We have heard it from performing companies and you will hear it from various festivals and from rural Scotland. Previously, we have heard it from people representing the northern isles. However, it is true to say that figures from the Government and the previous cabinet secretary showed that the lowest expenditure was in Clackmannanshire. I am trying to think whether that was expenditure generally or just from Creative Scotland, but it was roughly—in fact, exactly—zero.

The need in Clackmannanshire is just as great as it is anywhere else. It is a semi-rural area. I have tried not to do special pleading on that, but I will add my voice to those others to say that coming to see an organisation such as Resonate Together in Clackmannanshire would be a good move to let you see for yourself what the landscape is like.

I will move on to my substantial point. I do not know whether this is exactly one for Screen Scotland, but you will be aware of the decision by the BBC to end “River City”. That has ended a source of employment for indigenous talent, such as sound technicians, camera folk, writers and actors. That constant presence was vital to the ecosystem of creative arts in Scotland, and it strikes me that the availability of such talent is probably quite important to people such as Netflix and Paramount when they are considering locating productions here.

I imagine that the Scottish Government would not want to be in the business of trying to ensure that there is a baseline of talent here, but working with Screen Scotland and others towards that aim could pay huge dividends. We already see huge success with movies being shot in Scotland, but having more substantial productions would be a huge benefit as well. Is that on your radar?

Yes. We spoke with Mr Mackie last week, and I mentioned this at the time. It has been a long time since I have studied constitutions and so on, but there does not seem to be any comparator with the architectural jumble, inadequacies and ad hoc nature of what is in place just now. Much of that was agreed: that certainly represents the outcome that the committee came to as part of its investigation.

Given that, and given some of the tensions that exist, does the Scottish Government have, or intend to get, a proposal on what the architecture should look like, ideally, to best take account of the devolved Administrations and other such aspects? For example, meetings only happen when it comes up the Prime Minister’s humph. Who actually sets the agenda? How much information is passed on afterwards? I know how frustrated ministers feel when they try to get a hold of certain ministers. It all depends too much on individual personal relationships, which is no basis for a proper functioning system.

In short, does the Scottish Government intend to put any proposal to the UK Government about what the architecture could look like, ideally?

Thank you.

I have just one question. First of all, though, it would be useful to hear any update you might have on Scottish Government involvement in Nepal and in what is going on there now.

In the previous two questions, the collapse of the UK Labour Government’s support for international aid has come up. I wonder whether that has, of necessity, changed the profile of what the Scottish Government does. I am interested in Malawi. You mentioned the First Minister going there and the profound effect that it had on him. One of your predecessors, Christina McKelvie, went there as well when she was doing the job that the convener is doing now, and she was profoundly affected by it. Although those visits will always attract the Daily Express and the Daily Mail having a go, I hope that they will continue to happen.

This is a bit like Colin Beattie’s question. It would be useful to know whether you have had to change the profile of support that you provide because it was adding to, or done in conjunction with, UK initiatives that have now been slashed.

My question relates to the point that you have just made. I will come back to intergovernmental relations in a second, but I would just commend to both ministers the legacy report of the committee in the previous session and our investigation into intergovernmental relations. It showed that, although, as the minister has said, personal relationships can be extremely effective, we cannot rely on them, because otherwise we will just have dead areas where there are no such relationships.

For example, we can think about how poor the relationship between the Scottish Government and the Secretary of State for Scotland is currently. You cannot just say that there is no way of underpinning a constructive relationship, so the architecture is very important.

09:15

Before I come back to that point, I would like to get the view of Stephen Gethins on two things. First, this week, Iceland voted not to continue discussions with the EU, so what is the Scottish Government’s response to that? Earlier in the summer, I was lucky enough to be in Boston and Rhode Island—just for a wee cultural visit that I fancied. Often, these discussions can end up being quite negative, but what is the Scottish Government doing, positively, to capitalise on the enormous good will and soft power created by the conduct of the tartan army? Dismissing that or not capitalising on it would be criminal, so what is the Scottish Government doing in relation to that? I have seen that exchange programmes, bagpiping initiatives and all the rest of it have been starting up, but what else is the Scottish Government doing or thinking about doing? What are your views on the Iceland vote?

On the point about Boston—I included Rhode Island in my remarks because many of the Scottish fans were there—it would be useful to have a written account. The impact of that is a fairly intangible thing, and it can be lost very quickly. I would like to have something in writing, so that I know that it is being properly capitalised on.

Of course, I should say that my constituency has more whisky in it than any other constituency or any other place in the world—it does not make it, but it stores it.

I go back to my original point about intergovernmental relations, and I appreciate what you said about the work that is being done in Brussels. The point that I was trying to make is that, although personal relationships are, of course, important and can be very effective, we cannot rely on just those. There must be an architecture and a structure that allows negotiations and discussions between the Governments. In the past, we have discussed what role this committee might have in relation to that. For example, UK Governments are increasingly exercising powers in devolved areas, so where does the scrutiny come from? If a matter affects devolution, where is the scrutiny of this committee and other committees exercised?

I know that some of this will come under the Deputy First Minister’s remit, but I want to get a feel for whether work is going on to look at those structures, which are pretty appalling and often observed more in the breach than anything else. Is the Government looking at those structures in a formal way, or is that just happening on the basis of discussions between individual ministers?

I very much agree with the convener’s comments. I have a couple of things to add, for the benefit of the clerks, about what I am interested in. The inquiry on intergovernmental relations was perhaps one of the most interesting inquiries that our predecessor committee held. As the convener said, even though members of the committee had very different political standpoints, I think—although I do not want to speak for others—that we all agreed that it was a bit of a mess. When you discover what is going on underneath the two Governments, you find that the architecture is a mess, so I think that the issue deserves further scrutiny. I would be interested in that.

I know that this will be heresy to some, but I cannot say that I am particularly interested in the EU law tracker stuff on alignment. I find it very dry. We have to know what is happening in the EU, but I think that spending a lot of time on that is perhaps not the best use of our time. A more focused approach, including in papers that come to the committee, is far more beneficial to me as a member, because, with the tracker, it was sometimes just a huge splash of information—sometimes you got 150 pages with two days to read it all. Local government would be appalled at such practice. I have made that point in the past. I think that focused papers are very useful.

I agree on the point about AI. In fact, I would go a lot further than the convener. This is only my personal point of view, but I think that AI is of such importance that I would be willing to break with the idea that we should have no more commissioners. There is a very good reason why we should not have any more commissioners, but a commissioner for AI is an idea that I would be willing to consider. AI is a huge issue that raises many questions and opportunities, so it would be very useful for us to have an eye on it.

In the previous session of Parliament, we had a big discussion about Historic Environment Scotland. There are a lot of problems with HES, which the Government has tried to respond to, but it is our duty as a committee to give HES further scrutiny to make sure that it is running as it should. There have been huge problems there. It is a vitally important and, I believe, underused resource, so making sure that we keep on top of HES is very important.

Nipping back to AI for a second, the new mandate of the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities—the congress that I have just been asked to stay on—has already started. It is just the UK that has a later mandate because of the way that local elections worked out. I have a report going to the October meeting, so I am grateful for the committee’s support in being able to pursue that. The congress covers AI to a very large extent, not least in relation to disinformation, the protection of minors and so on, and we could usefully learn from some of the stuff that it does.

However, my views are very much coloured by what the committee has discussed before, and I am keen to hear which areas new members think that it would be useful to explore.

09:45