Chamber and committees

Do you think that that has had a deterring effect on new freelancers entering the industry? What can we do to try to overcome that? Do we need to rethink what we do to reassure young people who want to become freelancers in the arts that it is a thing that they can do? That might be a question for Matt Baker.

I am interested in what you have said throughout the meeting about rebuilding from the bottom up and the importance of small venues and small cultural activities. I do not want anyone to take this as criticism of Scotland’s large performing companies, but—given that we are talking about budgets here—does your position imply anything about the balance that will have to be struck in future between larger and smaller enterprises in the arts? Has Scotland got that balance right? Is there anything that you want to say about any of that?

I am interested in what was being said in that discussion about the impact on artists, as employees and companies and businesses. I am also interested in individuals, given how many artists or people working in the sector are self-employed. I would like to hear from Matt Jones, or others, about the experience of self-employed people during lockdown.

Much of what has been talked about so far, especially by the previous panel, has involved the necessary trade-off between the future of the environment and the future of what are sometimes fragile rural economies. This is possibly a question for Charles Millar—I am not sure. We have discussed how the areas that are currently actively fished comprise a minority of Scotland’s seas. What kind of change should communities in those areas expect in the coming years?

If members of the panel do not like the term “trade-off”, I am happy to use another such as “interface” or “co-operation”. You can see what I am driving at, which is how we manage that relationship. Incidentally, I absolutely accept what has been said about the need for change and what Charles Millar said about the need for winch monitors to provide data.

Elspeth Macdonald touched on this issue in the first panel—do you feel that there might be a better way of managing the process of designation in order to avoid confrontation, as has happened in some places, and is there more that we can do to move forward the process of community involvement in the management of designations? I am not making a case against designation per se, but are there better ways of doing it?

Notwithstanding everything that people have said about the need to invest in the future and a homegrown workforce, I take it that the panel would agree that there is an urgent situation that requires the availability of visas on an emergency basis. I am keen to know whether Tavish or Elaine or the other witnesses would support the UK Government taking such a measure.

In relation to that, the panel will know that, in many areas, especially island ones, some sectors are struggling to find a workforce at all, which has implications for how we work together on issues such as housing. We will not have a workforce, wherever they come from, if there is nowhere for them to live.

As the cabinet secretary said, the bairns’ hoose concept has the potential to transform how children in Scotland interact with the criminal justice system. I would be grateful if he could outline how the plans will ensure that there is better access for children in island and more remote areas. I am thinking about my constituency, the southern part of which is separated from the northern part by 130 miles and two bodies of water.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its plans to introduce “bairns’ hooses”. (S6O-00136)

To say that our health and care services have been through an unprecedented shock in the past year and a half would be a triumph of understatement. We are all aware of the impact that the pandemic has had on those services in our communities.

As the cabinet secretary said, the health and care workforce has been instrumental in delivering an amazing vaccination programme since December, despite the numerous challenges that it had to overcome in the process.

Yes. Is that better? Good.

Families have often faced distressingly minimal contact with loved ones in hospital and care settings, staff have had to deal with the physical and emotional exhaustion of a year and a half from hell, and all of that is before we consider the huge stresses on staff of trying to treat individual people with Covid. I mention all that not as a platitude to everyone concerned, nor as a means of deflecting from the challenges ahead. This winter will bring with it some daunting challenges, not least of which, as other members have pointed out, will be dealing with the backlog of non-Covid procedures that clearly now exists.

The plan that the Scottish Government is setting out today is genuinely ambitious, with, not least, the billion-pound NHS recovery plan, the development of a national care service and the recognition of the needs of our care workers. The policy of ensuring that at least 10 per cent of front-line health spending will be dedicated to mental health is a major step forward in its own right, and the plan’s focus on providing alternative pathways of care to allow people to be treated more quickly closer to home will, I am sure, be welcomed. When fully operational, the national treatment centres will provide capacity for more than 40,000 additional surgeries and procedures across 12 specialties, including cataracts, and hip and knee surgery. It will mean recruiting an additional 1,500 staff to run the centres.

Standing still is not an option for our health and care services. The way ahead demands that we make changes, and there are many to be made. I have an island constituency, so I make no apology for asking today that those changes are island proofed.