Chamber and committees

Thank you.

I thank the witnesses for joining us. I am not sure whether my question is for Ms Tavaziva or Mr Carson, but I want to hear your views on the long-running issue of spend in Scotland. We all welcome the fact that there has been more spend on big network productions involving Scotland, but are we not talking about two slightly different things? On the one hand, there is the part played by Scotland in big network-wide productions and, on the other, the discretion that the BBC in Scotland has to spend its money on the things that it feels to be important to it instead of putting that money into something else. Can you tease out those differences, and tell us where we are going with regard to the latter point about local spend?

My next question is related to that. Are there funding streams from the European Union that you accessed in the past but that you think you will not be accessing once you get back to touring? I am thinking of things such as the Creative Europe funding stream. Is that a major consideration for you when you are planning ahead?

You mentioned designations and working with communities. An issue that has arisen in the past, at least in some parts of the country, has been the move towards more local management of marine designations. That has happened in some places but not in others. Is the Government seeking to make real the local management of designations wherever possible?

A consultation is under way on the Government’s policy on islands bonds. I am sure that the Government will be open to what comes from the consultation. What scope is there to refine the policy to ensure that it meets everyone’s needs?

I appreciate your point that Brexit is not the only factor in all the issues, but I have had businesses phoning up to tell me that Brexit is a very big factor—one did so just yesterday—and I am sure that other members have had the same experience.

You make a good point about training. You will appreciate that, in some parts of the country, we are getting to the point at which there is no workforce to train because there is nowhere for a workforce to live. What can you do in your role as islands minister to bring together different parts of Government to ensure that we address that question, particularly in parts of the country where the second-home and holiday-let market is having a huge impact on the availability of places to live for anyone?

I know that you are aware of the issue of crofting law. It does not feature in this year’s legislative programme. Is any planning being done on what future crofting reform legislation might look like, given that we have a body of work—the attractively named crofting law sump—on the changes that might be made? Will that be made use of and considered by the Government?

You will not be too surprised to hear that my questions are all islands related. First, can you tell us anything more about plans for inshore fisheries and how they might affect fishing effort within the 3-mile limit? Obviously, this is an issue of great interest on the west coast.

I am not sure that they will be very localised, but they are on a subject that you will no doubt have heard me go on about before.

Cabinet secretary, you have talked with great enthusiasm, quite rightly, about the production of culture. I was interested to hear your views on the consumption of culture, in the sense of people’s access to and enjoyment of it. I am particularly interested in a subject that I have raised before. There is a body of Scottish literature that exists out there but, as academics and others point out, people in Scotland, compared with people in most other European countries, seem to have an abnormally small opportunity—although things are getting better—to get immersed in books, both old and new, that are produced in Scotland. I appreciate that you are not the education minister, but it would be interesting to hear your views about the promotion of Scottish literature.

Clearly, you will enjoy joint ministerial committees when you get an invitation to one. It sounds like you have worked out the format.

In your introductory remarks, you raised a point about some of the history behind what we are talking about. One of the reasons—it is not the only reason—that this Parliament is in existence is to ensure that decisions about spending and what we now understand to be devolved areas are made by this place and not by anyone else. What do you make of comments from Scotland Office ministers that, because they do not like policies in certain devolved areas, they might want to bypass that? There is a suggestion that spending decisions in areas that might be considered to be devolved might be better made by them or other UK ministers rather than by ministers here. How can the Scottish Government engage with UK ministers in a way that makes it quite clear that that should not happen?