Chamber and committees

Good morning. A couple of you have touched on the challenges of climate and net zero, but I want to focus on the issue a little more.

Obviously, we face hugely significant challenges around older buildings, newer buildings or, indeed, investment in replacements. Anne Lyden, you might want to talk a little bit about the Granton project, which has still not been given construction funding, unless there has been a change since you raised that issue in your submission.

The argument that is put around multiyear funding is relevant to pretty much every aspect of this topic, and capital investment, in particular, is difficult even to plan for in the absence of that long-term certainty. The lack of a capital funding stream specifically from Creative Scotland has been flagged up.

Can you tell us a little bit about how your organisations, or the wider sector, can even begin to grapple with the challenges of climate and sustainability in the absence of that long-term certainty? What kind of delivery model would be effective in giving you the ability to do that, particularly in light of the argument that the National Galleries submission makes that delaying decisions on projects such as the Granton one increases costs?

You would expect me, as a Green politician, to be a big fan of things such as Passivhaus building projects that will massively reduce carbon emissions and energy costs. However, reducing energy costs is also a good business choice for the long term. Such projects require capital investment, but as well as reducing carbon emissions, they will save money, particularly for energy-hungry buildings.

You have made the case that the Granton project is a multi-disciplinary and cross-portfolio project, as it meets health, education, culture and climate objectives. However, I think that a lot of committees would reflect on the difficulty, in good times and bad economically, of getting joined-up decision making for projects that will deliver multiple objectives for the Government, and that that can be a barrier to getting projects over the line. Has that been a major issue?

Do you think that the sector more broadly—beyond the areas where it is just a person with a mic—could tolerate the idea of some conditionality around public funding to drive up the use of circular economy approaches, so that they become the norm?

I think I feel a local visit in Glasgow coming on.

I will put my final question on this theme to Tony Lankester, because it is perhaps more relevant to the Edinburgh festival fringe and to other aspects of performance arts.

There are challenges around the approach of productions to the circular economy and to achieving sustainability by reusing resources. Many productions have a bad track record of repeatedly buying new and throwing away. Whether it is stage or screen, a great many productions in the sector could do a great deal better with regard to embedding circular economy approaches.

I recently met ReSet Scenery, which is doing its best to try to get people throughout the sector to reuse materials. However, that kind of activity is going on at a low level. Is there any element of conditionality on culture funding, as there is in some other sectors of the economy, whereby, if the Government is going to support something, it sets environmental standards and conditions and drives those up over time, so that something like the circular economy becomes the norm rather than the exception?

Can the other witnesses add anything about how your organisations and the sector are dealing with the net zero challenge, or what needs to change to enable you to do it better?

I will come in with a supplementary on that area, and in particular on the idea of a shift towards a prevention approach.

I take the point that you are describing PBMA for individual programmes, or how health boards or other parts of the NHS make their decisions about their budgets. However, it seems to me that that is not the bit that is missing in making a shift towards prevention. What is missing is a health impact analysis of the policy and spending on housing, education, criminal justice and all the other areas that are completely outside the processes that health boards or other parts of the NHS go through. Why are we thinking about it as a process that is internal to the NHS, when really the health determinants are everywhere else?

Thanks very much. One of the features of the way that budget scrutiny impacts on local government in particular arises from the fact that the United Kingdom Government sets its budget and the Scottish Government then sets its budget or publishes a draft, and, only after that budget has been passed does it confirm to local authorities what their individual block grants will be. However, before that happens, local authorities have to start coming up with their plans, particularly for a worst-case scenario. What generally happens is that most of those worst-case scenario plans make their way into the press and become hugely problematic, which means that politicians have to start saying, “No, we will not do that; it was only a suggestion.”

It seems to me that, however logical the approach that you are suggesting might be, whether in good times or bad times financially, the reality is that, as soon as a health board or any other body starts coming up with all the various potential options for disinvestment, the political and media scrutiny will make those options impossible. Is our political landscape capable of doing what you are suggesting?

Is any part of the Scottish Government’s guidance that tries to encourage that approach actually taking the process outside the NHS and trying to join the dots? Is that happening?

Convener, can I ask one final supplementary question?