I am going to let Liam Sinclair and Gavin Reid in. Three members—Michael Marra, Patrick Harvie and Liz Smith—have not come in at all, so we will have to move on after Liam and Gavin have spoken.

Clearly, it will contribute—it would be a worry if it did not—but it is about the level of contribution and impact on growth.

Okay. Lastly, near the bottom of page 29 of your report, well below chart A, it says:

“UK and global productivity growth between the early 1990s and mid-2000s was likely boosted by rapid increases in trade as a share of GDP. UK trade intensity has stagnated since 2008, and we expect it to fall in the coming years due to the recent resurgence in global protectionism on top of the enduring effects of Brexit. This is set to weigh on productivity growth”.

The report goes on to say, in the final paragraph of page 46:

“Weak growth over the medium term reflects a more restrictive global trade environment as well as the ongoing impact of Brexit, which we continue to expect to reduce the overall trade intensity of the UK economy by 15 per cent in the long term.”

What are the implications of that on the UK finances to the end of the forecast period?

Alistair Mackie, did you want to come in on that point?

To be fair to the performing companies, the impact assessment report goes some way towards doing that, because it emphasises the proportional importance of community engagement, for example, as I mentioned earlier, relative to the big performances in the cities. There is a proportionally greater benefit to going out to smaller places and engaging with schools and so on.

I want to move on, because we are running out of time—we have only about 15 minutes left and I want you all to have a minute or two to round up.

Despite all the talk of reduced funding, the Scottish Government still provides 46 per cent of the overall funding, so the public sector and other sources account for about 60 per cent of funding. Around £8.8 million comes from ticket sales. That makes the sector vulnerable.

The assessment says that although only one in seven tickets is sold to people who live outside Scotland, of which around half are from England and around half are from the rest of the world, those sales brings in about a quarter of the GVA. Are the companies considering placing more emphasis on attracting people from other parts of the world—even if it benefits big hotel chains—to come to Scotland and to enjoy the arts while they are here?

For example, when the committee visited Vilnius, I went to the ballet. We saw that they have built a new opera house and they are building yet another massive concert hall in the middle of Vilnius. They also have a facility for their orchestra. They are going big on the arts, so to speak. That must be to attract people from overseas, because I would not think that they would have a core audience in the city to sustain that.

What your views are on that? Although the public sector will always be critical to your long-term survival and sustainability, what else can be done to boost that, other than the Scottish Government, local authorities and so on providing additional funding?

Who wants to kick off with any of those issues?

I will let Liz in. We have only about 10 minutes—

Hold on. Before you say that, I want to let folk know what is happening.

We will have about 10 minutes following Liz Smith’s comments, so I ask our guests to think about what they would like to say in winding up. I will give you all an opportunity to make a final contribution. Our next evidence session is with witnesses from the Office for Budget Responsibility, and I can see that they are staring at us from the public gallery, so we do not want to keep them waiting too long.

Have a think about what you want to say to wind up. We never got on to freelancers, so somebody might want to talk about that, because there is an issue about the ratio of permanent employees to freelancers.

We will probably come to Scottish Opera, which, as it highlights is extremely successful around Scotland. Although we might be talking about four singers and a piano player in the production, support staff will accompany them, too.

One part of your submission that I found interesting dealt with the funding scenario for RSNO. It talked about the ratio of economic impact and wellbeing impact and there was a suggestion that a £3 million increase in your funding, should that transpire, would—relatively speaking, although not in total—actually provide greater returns than a £5 million addition. Why is that the case?

Alistair, we started with you and we will finish with you.

Thank you very much. I think that that has certainly been taken on board by me and my colleagues.

We have 25 seconds left of the evidence session. It behoves me to thank the representatives of Scotland’s five national performance companies for coming along today. Thank you for your excellent contributions and a really interesting discussion. I look forward to seeing you all again soon.

I call a five-minute break to allow for a changeover of witnesses and a short break for members.