Chamber and committees

I am sure that members are reassured to learn that the Government will maintain an adequate stockpile of PPE. Will the Deputy First Minister reassure members that that stockpile will be refreshed so that no staff are opening out-of-date face masks and gowns in the event of another pandemic, and that we will use the time between pandemics—we must think of it in those terms—to ensure that there is an adequate mix of masks to fit all face types, genders and body types, so that we do not have a situation again in which a predominantly female workforce is unable to use face masks that are designed for men?

I will happily take an intervention from Stephen Kerr.

Stephen Kerr’s point is exceptionally well made. Within each of us, there is a fuse that is linked to a cultural explosion that needs to be lit at some point in our lives and, more often than not, that happens during schooling. I remember when I was first interested in theatre and the words of Shakespeare, and the war poetry that we learned in first and second year of high school. Those things stimulated in me a lifelong love affair with literature, poetry and the arts more generally.

It feels as though there has always been something of a rift between artists and the body that oversees them, which is Creative Scotland. There was a very public falling-out in 2012, and again in 2018, before the Government’s recent funding choices put the body in a very difficult position. Many artists will tell you that Creative Scotland is not always an easy body to deal with. However, like it or not, it is in effect the primary incubator for new artistic talent and cultural ventures in this country. It therefore needs to be up to scratch: capable of operating in the interests of the sector that it serves and open to making changes—adaptive and reasoning. I therefore absolutely wish Dame Sue Bruce well with her review. The review is in good hands and I encourage organisations and freelancers to tell her about their interactions with the body and what they need in the future.

We must always strive to ensure that those organisations, festivals and events that provide so much lifeblood to our towns and cities, are properly funded. We do not debate this topic enough, but I welcome the Government’s motion, which we will support, and I thank it for the time that it has afforded to the subject.

I very much welcome the motion before us today, which affords us a rare opportunity to debate something that seldom captures our attention in this chamber and far less captures Government time.

The subject comes before us on an auspicious day for the Scottish culture sector, given the assurances that can now be made about the future of the old Royal high school building a few hundred yards from here, which has moved a step closer to becoming a new national centre for music, thanks to a £5 million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Once considered a possible home for our reconvened Parliament, the building is now set to be filled with music, sound and activity—a far cry from the discordant clamour that we would have graced its walls with in the past 25 years if we had taken occupancy.

On a previous occasion when we debated a motion on culture, I spoke about how important the arts and the culture sector can be in supporting and unifying us during fractious and turbulent times—a theme that was captured very well in an eloquent speech by Maggie Chapman. Arts and culture provide a form of refuge, allowing us to shut out the outside world for a little while. They can also deliver a powerful message about the society that we live in or the society that we seek to be, making us think about different perspectives on issues. Theatres, museums and music venues can become a vital part of any community—a hub, and the beating heart of the community, be it urban or rural—and they can play an important role in our daily lives.

Despite how often we talk about the sector’s importance, however, it often plays second fiddle to other pressing concerns. Many aspects of public life do not get the time or the attention that they deserve in the debates that take place in the chamber, but it is important that we afford time to consider culture. Given the sector’s contribution to our country, our society and its economy, we simply do not give it the airtime that it needs.

As an MSP for Edinburgh, I have previously talked in the chamber about the Edinburgh international festival, the fringe and the other festivals that make our capital one of the most vibrant cities on the planet in the month of August. Millions of visitors descend on the capital each year, generating vital economic benefit, and many businesses depend on that vibrancy and the cultural injection that we get each year. The festivals are often seen as the jewel in the crown of Scotland’s cultural offering, with many renowned theatre groups, musical acts, dance troupes and comedians coming from all over the world to take part.

However, the beauty of the festivals has always been the lesser-known talents and the smaller groups that make up such a large part of the programme and the careers that it has launched—not least that of the renowned comedian Tony Slattery, who very sadly died today. As the executive director of the international festival, Francesca Hegyi, told me, the survival of the festivals is not inevitable, and it is often the smaller arts groups that sustain them, so we must sustain those groups. In recent years, they, like many others in the sector, have had to fight not just for attention but for funding. I was by no means alone in the Parliament in supporting the open letter that was sent to the Scottish Government last summer that appealed for the open fund to be reinstated.

Although I agree with much of the Government’s motion, I find it slightly galling that it does not acknowledge the Government’s role in the wider uncertainty that the sector has had to contend with over the past few years. There is a spectre of revisionism within its lines. Culture and the arts sector have undoubtedly been dealt a bad hand by factors beyond anyone’s control, but also, through the sin of omission, by the SNP Government. First, there was the pandemic, during which too many found themselves excluded from Government support programmes. That was followed by the cost of living crisis and the energy crisis, and the sector then had to put up with the Scottish Government messing it around. Money was repeatedly promised and then taken away, leaving people feeling uncertain and betrayed and unable to plan. We saw companies and artists having to change their plans to make time for lengthy, last-minute funding applications. It is hard for companies to pay the rent and hire the people they need for the productions that they wish to stage if there is a shadow hanging over the key funding programmes that represent the lifeblood of our cultural offering and our culture sector in Scotland. I hope that the Scottish Government will reflect on its actions and that the cabinet secretary will address that in his closing remarks.

Maggie Chapman’s amendment is very well pitched, as are her remarks about the conditions that are placed on asylum seekers—people who are seeking safe harbour in our country. Does she agree with the Liberal Democrats that we should change the conditions to allow, in particular, asylum seekers who have been here and waiting for more than three months to begin working? Many would do so with great enthusiasm, and would seek to repay the generosity that they have been shown.

I am grateful to the Government for bringing the debate to the chamber.

I begin with a reflection on my interests, as Maggie Chapman did. I am a proud product of immigration—not from Africa, as she is, but from the Pacific north-west of Canada. I am very grateful for the life that my mother has made in this country and I know that she is still grateful for the welcome that she has been given.

Liberal Democrats believe fundamentally that immigration makes our country stronger and more prosperous. Rather than demonising those who want to come here, we need to encourage immigration to Scotland. In fact, we need targeted measures to make that a reality, not only because of the positive contribution that immigrants make, but because all our demographic projections—we have already heard about some of them in the debate—suggest that Scotland’s population is in fundamental decline. We will see more deaths than births every year for the next 25 years. It is projected that there will be as many as 10,000 more by 2041. That is astonishing.

Population growth is therefore essential, because it underpins future economic growth and the sustainability of our public services. Immigration is essential for maintaining that growth, but it is also essential for sustainability of services. We need people to move here to plug the gaps in the Scottish workforce and to contribute to the tax base. Indeed, research consistently shows that those who come here for economic reasons pay more in tax than they receive in benefits—and by a country mile. Immigration and the economy are fundamentally connected.

A consequence of the hard Brexit that was imposed on us by the Conservative Government was the cutting off a source of labour for our farms, our care homes, our NHS, and our tourism and hospitality industry. Liberal Democrats are pragmatic and remorseless about building bridges and re-establishing our broken connections with our European friends and neighbours.

That is absolutely true. I raised that case at First Minister’s question time. We need to make Scotland attractive, and that means improving our public services. However, the Conservative Government cut the NHS off at the knees with the hardest of Brexits, which has meant that many people in the dental profession and in the wider healthcare force now have to relocate back to Europe because they can no longer live here.

It is not only Scotland that has its own specific needs—the same can be said for the other devolved nations and the regions of England. To that end, the Lib Dems want the UK Government to extend the participation of all devolved Administrations and the development of the evidence base for a UK-wide policy on work permits and student visas.

I feel duty bound to turn to some of the events of recent days. It has become increasingly clear that immigration is a new fault line in our political discourse and, increasingly, in our society. It is once again being used as a wedge by the far right to demonise large groups of people, many of whom have called the UK home for decades. That tactic is straight out of an old playbook, in which the actions of a tiny minority are used to stigmatise an entire group of people and inspire fear. Doing that has been on the rise in our politics for years, and now it feels dangerously normal, but we must never lose sight of how damaging it can be, and we must never be frightened to call it out. In fact, it is incumbent on all of us to call it out, wherever we see it.

I was so disheartened—but not surprised—to see in recent days that senior members of the Conservative Party, including the leader of the Opposition in London, have utterly failed to do so. Indeed, Robert Jenrick’s attempt to use the appalling actions of Rotherham grooming gangs for his own political gain, and referring to, in his words, immigrants from “alien cultures” was particularly shameful.

We have also become accustomed to the steady drumbeat of toxicity that is being fed to us via social media. All that is having a corrosive effect on our society and on how welcome or otherwise our migrants are made to feel. Not only is that type of politics disgusting, it is inaccurate, because this country is made up of different cultures that have come together during centuries and made this country the great place it is to live.

I am always grateful for an opportunity to lay out the Liberal Democrats’ pathway to reintegration with the European Union. That starts, unashamedly, with rejoining the single market and re-establishing connections through research, education and the free movement of goods, people, capital and services. Fundamentally, at the heart of every Liberal Democrat is that the country rejoin the European Union. My goodness—our approach to that is pragmatic, but it is remorseless.

To that end, we want the introduction of a UK-EU youth mobility scheme to boost the economy and allow young people to work here more freely. We also want the Scottish Government to provide a replacement for the Erasmus scheme—as has been done in Wales—so that students can benefit from that life-changing educational experience. For years, the Scottish Government has failed to do that.

We also need both of Scotland’s Governments to work together on immigration to ensure that rules are sensitive to the skills that are needed in every corner of these islands and in every sector of our economy. For example, there is a need to lower the barriers to people coming here so that we can fill the gaps in geographically sensitive areas, including rural parts of Scotland, remote places and islands. There are things that the Scottish Government can do in a wider sense to make those areas more attractive to live in and work in. I am talking about ferries that work, long-overdue broadband provision and safe roads.

I remind the chamber that, before being elected to this Parliament, I worked for eight years for the children’s charity Aberlour Child Care Trust.

To ask the First Minister when the Cabinet will next meet. (S6F-03675)

Before entering politics, I was a youth worker, and I vividly remember the first time that I saw a medical device known as a Tummy Tub. They are essentially buckets filled with body-temperature water, which simulate the womb in order to comfort babies going through withdrawal. They are needed because some babies are born addicted to drugs.

Since 2017, at least 1,500 babies have been born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, in which they show signs of drug addiction, such as uncontrollable trembling, hyperactivity and distressed crying. Aberlour wants to open more residential beds for mothers and babies—new intensive perinatal services. However, as things stand, all the funding for that ends next March.

Does the First Minister agree that those interventions require more Government money and more certainty? Scotland desperately needs world-leading drug services, because we need to stop people dying and because we need to do more to help those babies who spend the first days of their lives addicted to drugs.