Chamber and committees

As the minister is aware, the traffic commissioner has a standard of 95 per cent for the punctuality of buses. Following a number of complaints, an investigation by Bus Users Scotland showed that only 88 per cent of some McGill’s Buses services in my constituency ran on time. However, I suspect that figure to be much lower, as my constituents regularly tell me that services are cancelled at short notice, that they are unreliable and that communication is poor. That impacts on people’s ability to get to work and access education and healthcare on a daily basis, and it often leaves people stranded late at night.

Can the minister outline the steps that the transport commissioner can take to ensure that McGill’s takes action to improve the levels of service that are so crucial to many of my constituents?

If the member believes that social housing is so important, why does he support the UK Government cutting the capital budget for the Scottish Government?

I completely disagree with Edward Mountain on the point about the Presiding Officer being the arbiter of answers and on the idea of treating MSPs as being in different classes with regard to whether they are obliged to take an intervention. That would just be wrong.

I am, however, more supportive of Edward Mountain in relation to some other issues around public participation. Concern has been expressed for a long period—maybe 40 years—and by all parties that MSPs or elected members and Governments are much less accountable than they used to be, because so much has been hived off or outsourced to bodies such as commissions and so on. It is counterintuitive, but does he think that that might possibly contribute to MSPs being less accountable?

On Jackson Carlaw’s point, if public participation is going to cost as much as it is, how does that square with what many of us agree is the proliferation of commissioners in the Parliament? The two things seem to sit at odds with each other.

I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer and for the progress and, indeed, the discussions that she has held with me on this issue. As she will be aware from my most recent correspondence on the matter, I continue to receive contact from constituents who are being adversely affected by noise and incidents at the prison. Unfortunately, the SPS would not attend a meeting with my constituents to discuss the situation on Monday night, which was subsequently cancelled. I understand that the SPS has agreed to attend a future meeting, but does the cabinet secretary agree that the SPS, which says that it wants to be “a good neighbour”—I believe it when it says that—should meet local people and engage with them on these issues as a matter of urgency, to address their continuing concerns?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress of the action plan put in place by the Scottish Prison Service to address reported concerns raised by local residents about HMP Stirling. (S6O-02631)

Will the member take an intervention?

I acknowledge that everybody in the chamber supports Scotland’s cultural sector and the fact that it is important to the economy and our lives. That includes in my constituency, where we have not only national cultural highlights such as the Japanese garden at Cowden, which is about a mile from my house, but innumerable creative businesses and two independent cinemas—one in Alloa and another at the Macrobert Arts Centre, which offers a fantastic and wide-ranging cultural and creative programme that goes far beyond simply screening films—as well as many other local creative groups that contribute immensely to public life. I think of the Dunblane museum, for example, and the Leighton library in Dunblane, which was the first purpose-built library in Scotland.

For that reason, I was pleased to hear the First Minister’s announcement last week that the Scottish Government will more than double its investment in Scotland’s arts and culture sector with an additional £100 million of funding over the next five years. That is an immense vote of confidence in our culture sector from the Scottish Government. It is merely a small additional bonus to hear all the whingeing from the Opposition parties, who seem to be far more concerned about such an announcement than they were about the culture sector before the announcement. I thank the Labour Party for taking the time to show its appreciation for the commitment in its motion, which notes

“the announcement made by the First Minister on 17 October 2023 to more than double arts and culture funding over the next five years”.

It was one of many positive announcements from the SNP conference in Aberdeen last week, and I look forward to the Labour Party supporting more of those positive announcements.

I mentioned that there are many creative organisations in the culture sector across my constituency. In our politics and society, we can often be guilty of underestimating the value of culture and the arts and focusing purely on the economic value that we know they can contribute. It was always true, but it became particularly notable during the difficult pandemic, that regardless of any economic input to or output from the culture sector, culture and the arts are an essential part of the human experience. It is essential that we recognise that as a Parliament.

Although funding is extremely important for it, I note that there are bigger-picture constitutional considerations when it comes to Scotland’s culture and arts sector. Those are not mentioned in the motion. One of the greatest upsets to Scotland’s culture and arts sector in recent years has been the changes that Brexit has represented for Scottish artists. I know that the Tories hate to mention it or have it mentioned, but the artists know that to be the case, especially those who seek to tour and sell merchandise in the European Union. I am aware that some progress has been made on that, but any agreement that the UK has with the EU or individual member states is absolutely no replacement for the freedom of movement and the free movement of goods that were enjoyed by Scottish artists across the continent prior to Brexit.

If we are serious about supporting Scotland’s culture sector, we should also be serious about addressing those constitutional issues. I note that Angus Robertson’s amendment to the motion rightly makes that clear. I cannot think why the Brexit parties do not want to mention the issue at all, given how important it is to the sector.

Another way in which Scotland promotes our distinct culture and arts offering is through the Scottish Government’s international presence. Although I note that the Labour Party has been supportive of Scotland’s international ambitions in the past, the recent muscular unionism that has been on display from the Labour Party indicates that it would fall in line behind the Tories to quell Scotland’s international voice if it was given the chance to do so. I therefore argue that it is very telling that the Labour Party has chosen to omit any mention of any constitutional issue from its motion.

While the SNP Government is taking action to support Scotland’s culture sector by doubling funding over the next five years—I very much welcome the Government’s announcement—it is clear that the current constitutional arrangement does Scotland’s culture and arts sector an immense disservice, and I urge all members to consider that when they make decisions on how best to support Scotland’s culture and arts sector in the future.

I support the Government’s amendment.

Would Maurice Golden acknowledge that 13 years of austerity economics has had any impact on public services in Scotland? Also, can he point to one instance in the past 16 years when the Tory party has proposed an amendment seeking more funding for culture?

I have one final question. If we accept, as some of us do, that we have had 13 years of austerity and reducing budgets and that a largely fixed budget is apportioned to the Scottish Government depending on what happens elsewhere in the United Kingdom, we can see that those 13 years are really starting to have an effect. As I mentioned earlier, one thing that we heard from the organisations last week was that the increasing costs are sitting alongside relatively standstill budgets.

In addition to the assurance that you have given that nobody will receive a cut—it is really important to get that message out—will you continue to keep your eyes open and to focus your efforts on anything further that can be done to help individual actors in the sector to deal with the extraordinary pressures that they currently face, not least in relation to energy costs, although we have also been hearing about talent loss, with talent going to London especially?

It will require only a yes or no answer, if the cabinet secretary can do that.

Of the members of the committee, I think that I and the convener have been here longest. In the 16 years that I have been here, I have never heard a proposal from an Opposition party to increase the culture budget.

As we are duty bound to look at other ways in which we could increase the budget, I asked the witnesses last week whether they could provide any evidence of that from comparative devolved areas. However, the examples that they provided—from Canada, Korea, Quebec and Catalonia—are not really comparable. If the Government has any information from other devolved areas, as akin to Scotland as possible, and how they do this, it would therefore be useful if it could provide that to the committee.