Chamber and committees

As has been alluded to, international negotiations are going to have an impact, just as the changed landscape post-Brexit is having a wider social impact on fishing and other rural communities. I know that a number of members are keen for the committee to look at that in the future. How will negotiations impact on the delivery of the JFS’s policies? Can you give an example of how those negotiations will determine our ability to implement those policies? That question is for Professor Harrison in the first instance.

On the back of your statement, cabinet secretary, will you say something about what the process of developing the joint fisheries statement has been like from the Scottish Government’s point of view? Does it say anything more generally about the relationship between the four Administrations? Could the process be changed or improved in the future?

As has been touched on, regional inshore fisheries groups play an important part in developing fisheries management plans under the JFS. Do you see the role of RIFGs changing? If so, how might it change, and how might that be supported in future? I put that to Helen McLachlan.

My question is for Duncan Dornan, although, if he can speak for the culture sector more widely, I ask him to do that.

There has been quite a discussion about what “place-based culture” means, and we have had some evidence give a definition of that:

“Place-based working is a person-centred, bottom-up approach used to meet the unique needs of people in one given location”.

That was from the charity Iriss. What do you understand that to mean? How do we genuinely celebrate local culture—local contributions that can be made to cultural life? I am not, I hasten to add, as I have done before, making a case against money going to national companies or anything like that. In budgeting terms, how do cultural institutions get that balance right?

In mentioning the wider world, you lead me nicely on to the other issue that I want to ask about, which again touches on budgeting. Scotland is presently preparing to welcome people from Ukraine—we hope—in the coming days. Do cultural institutions need to start thinking about how to celebrate the culture that those people will bring with them and how to involve people in that community in the work that you are already doing?

My only other question is for Mr Robertson again. Visitors to Scotland often comment on the effect on their wellbeing of being able to see Scotland’s natural environment, historic buildings and so on. One would think that there must be huge potential for health and culture to work together to utilise the resource that is simply Scotland itself. Of course, there are many people who either do not know that those opportunities are there for them or who know that they are there but cannot afford to visit places around the country. Is there more that can be done to try to break down some of the barriers that, in some cases, might be caused by deprivation?

Mr Yousaf, you have talked about breaking down the barriers between silos. This is something that has come up in the committee before when we were talking about budgets and the relationship between health and culture. Of course, apart from the department that you run centrally, there are territorial health boards. Do the messages about working across these barriers get through to health boards? What can you do to ensure that they are thinking about culture? What is the culture of culture in health boards? Given the pressures that they are under, how can they accommodate some of these ideas?

I have another question for Jane Salmonson. We have talked in the past about the convening power of your fund and the Scottish Government to bring others to the table in Scotland at times such as this. Could you say a bit more about whether there is scope in this emergency for that to happen and to get the most out of the sums of money that you are distributing in terms of bringing others into the conversation?

To build on a question that Mark Ruskell asked, this morning we had a conversation with the consul general of Ukraine, who made a very impressive contribution. One thing that came through loud and clear was the pressure on the consulate to provide information at a time when the UK’s policy on the matters that you have described has changed and continues to change.

Looking back, post-Brexit, we provided information to people in communities in Scotland, who realised that although the Scottish Government could not sort out the problems that the UK Government was responsible for, it could provide information. In our earlier session, we asked whether there was anything that could be done to provide a single point of contact for information, particularly for the community of Ukrainians in Scotland. Would the Government be able to work with that community and its consulate to find ways to do that?

On another theme, you mentioned the multiplicity of needs that people will have when they arrive in Scotland. One of those is that people may arrive with a variety of medical needs but may not have medical records because of their situation. How can we ensure that the national health service is in a position to support people who find themselves in that unusual situation?