One specific area that has been discussed in the past is a Europe that is fit for the digital age. Scotland has ambitions of ensuring that it has the cultural, social and economic benefits of the digital society. Your ambition is to ensure alignment across the sector and across the area. What confidence can we have about assuring personal data and about the law behind that? My basic understanding is that there are still some complexities in achieving that and that it may be difficult to align some of it, depending on the barriers and areas of difficulty that may be approached or received.

The debate provides a welcome opportunity for the Parliament to set out its vision for embedding culture in our communities. An effective place-based approach should empower communities to create cultural projects that meet their own needs. In a culturally diverse place such as Scotland, that raises the question of how we can best meet such needs.

On that question, there was broad consensus on what good practice should look like. Dumfries and Galloway Council perhaps put it best when it highlighted that effective cultural participation means allowing cultural projects to develop from the bottom up, rather than from the top down. In essence, it should be for communities to decide which cultural initiatives they would like to see, instead of governing bodies deciding that for them.

Community-based cultural organisations are a key part of achieving that objective. Throughout its inquiry, our committee heard evidence that organisations that are embedded in communities in the long term are far more effective at engaging. Ultimately, cultural engagement is a long-term project, and the way in which we engage with communities should reflect that.

We know that funding for such organisations is crucial. The culture collective programme has provided important funding for numerous arts projects across Scotland, which is to be welcomed. As of last month, that funding has ended, so a key recommendation of our committee’s report is that the Scottish Government should set out whether any further funding will be provided. I note the cabinet secretary’s comments, made over the past few days, on how such funding will be approached, and I have no doubt that the sector will embrace that. However, we must consider what we will do for the future. Following the Scottish Government’s recent U-turns on cultural funding, now is not the time for even more financial uncertainty for the sector.

Our committee also called for a more innovative approach to the funding of the culture sector in general. Although the evidence on whether community-led culture projects should be funded separately from professional arts organisations was inconclusive, it was clear that more flexibility in the funding system is needed. On that issue, the Stove Network highlighted that the current system forces community-based culture projects to compete for funding against differently structured projects, which sometimes causes conflict. Creative Lives described how cultural funding streams are most effective when there is scope for flexibility between different projects. Several stakeholders were clear that multiyear funding settlements could play an important part in any potential funding reforms.

The Scottish Government should listen to what the sector is telling it on the issue, because it understands how things should be managed. It wants the Government to take its concerns on board. It is time for the Government to come good on its talk about potential reforms. The sector has reformed itself, and continues to do so, but it wants the Scottish Government to be supportive of the reforms that it has suggested and which could be worked on collectively. I look forward to seeing whether that will happen.

Another key theme of the committee’s work was on community assets. Potential cultural venues include many spaces such as village halls, libraries and churches in our communities. Throughout the inquiry, the committee heard about various potential threats to many of those cultural assets.

Sometimes, communities feel under pressure to rescue venues that are at risk, and many have taken on such venues. It is a large responsibility for community groups to acquire venues, but it is only right that they should be empowered to do so with an understanding of the circumstances.

The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill was passed back in 2015, and organisations have been working to ensure that it is applied. The power in relation to community asset transfers has been in effect since 2017, but there is still much to do to ensure that communities benefit from the potential of such transfers. Community groups are often fully aware of their legal right to acquire assets but, in practice, many groups are still finding it a little bureaucratic to take assets on board.

Some public bodies are still focused entirely on the monetary value of assets, and cultural shifts are still required to take full advantage of such assets. It is important for the Scottish Government to work together with councils to ensure that the process runs as smoothly as possible.

Since the 2015 act came into force, there have been 225 successful asset transfers. There is great cultural potential, but we must look at how to maximise that in our communities.

It is clear that the Scottish cultural landscape faces many challenges. It is also clear that that landscape is of great importance to many individuals and communities the length and breadth of Scotland. The landscape has many potential benefits for communities to harness, and they want to be empowered to do what they can. It is important for the Scottish Government to understand the logistics of that and work closely with partners, organisations and councils in a collective way to embrace the community culture that is vital for many individuals and organisations.

I hope that the Government will approach in good faith the recommendations in our committee’s report and will commit to playing its part in protecting this vital sector and the vital assets that communities have, because our society depends on that. Scottish culture is recognised the world over. Communities have a part to play in that, but so does the Government.

More than a month ago, the Scottish Government promised Creative Scotland that it would not be left out of pocket by the reinstatement of a 10 per cent cut in core funding. Creative Scotland is desperately looking for assurances, and rightly so, as thousands of jobs are on the line. Will the cabinet secretary guarantee that his funding commitment to Creative Scotland will be met?

As Mr Swinney recognises, we attend similar meetings. However, as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has said, it is now providing enough visas to meet the sector’s workforce needs, and there have been, and continue to be—

Six thousand workers have come to Scotland each year through the scheme. Many of them have come to areas of Fife and Perth and Kinross that fall within the region that I represent and the constituency that Mr Swinney represents. The scheme has been key to addressing some of the labour shortages.

The SNP likes to blame those shortages on Brexit, as it has done many times before. In reality, however, the problem is not specific to the UK—we have seen the same problems across Europe, where many countries are just as badly affected.

It is not surprising that the Scottish Government would rather talk about solutions that do not deal with the detail or with what we are trying to achieve. It talks only about the problems that are being created, which it always maintains lie at the door of the UK Government.

Time is moving on, so I will conclude. Those points demonstrate the biggest problem with the SNP’s new paper: it talks about what Scotland cannot do, rather than what it can do. The Government’s new strategy rightly talks about the importance of making Scotland

“an attractive and welcoming country”.

However, the mistake is to think that it does not have the powers to do that already. It has those powers. It is time that the Government, instead of complaining about the powers that it lacks, used the powers that it has to make Scotland the attractive, dynamic destination to live and work in that it truly can be, given the potential that it has.

I support the amendment in the name of Donald Cameron.

It is disappointing that the release of yet another taxpayer-funded independence paper has led to valuable parliamentary time being taken up today when we could have been debating issues that are priorities for families in Scotland, for example. However, the fact that the debate is taking place will not be surprising to anyone who is familiar with the tactics of this Green-SNP Government. I will be supporting the amendment in the name of Donald Cameron.

The SNP’s latest independence paper follows a familiar pattern of highlighting certain challenges facing Scotland. It then blames them on the current UK Government and pretends that the problems would go away if it only had the powers of independence.

We have seen this all before. Back in 2013, in the independence white paper “Scotland’s Future”, the SNP claimed that Scotland needed a points-based immigration system. It also claimed that it wanted to reintroduce the post-study work visa and that there were not enough international students who were able to choose Scotland as a place to study. Ten years on, we find that the UK has a points-based immigration system, the post-study work visa has been reintroduced and the number of international students at Scottish universities has increased by more than 40 per cent.

As we have heard today, total net migration is now double what it was a decade ago.

We have heard, and we continue to hear, from the SNP what its hopes and aspirations are, but the people of Scotland have chosen not to make those decisions. As I said, the SNP can continue to bring forward papers and try to smokescreen the situation, but the people of Scotland do not want independence. We will continue to see independence not be a priority for the people of Scotland.

Given all that, the new paper talks about what the SNP would like to see. The paper contains no talk about what has been achieved to date. The obvious truth is that the paper is less concerned about finding real solutions to real problems and more concerned about stoking political grievances. We have seen those political grievances many times in the past.

Not yet.

Time and again, the Scottish Government’s new paper talks about the problems and claims that they would all be fixed if only it had the powers that it does not yet possess. For example, the paper talks about the importance of seasonal workers. Indeed, it highlights some of the challenges that have been happening—we know that permanent UK residents make up about 11 per cent of seasonal agricultural workers. The UK Government is, and has been, tackling the issue by bringing in the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. That started as a pilot and it brought thousands of individuals to us. The scheme was then extended—

Eventually, Mr Swinney, but not yet.

The scheme was extended to 30,000 workers in 2021, and to 40,000 in 2022. For 2023 and 2024, the scheme has been extended to 55,000 workers, depending on the demand.

I give way to Mr Swinney.

Good morning, gentlemen. I want to ask you both about the effectiveness of the external engagement between Governments. Professor Paquin, you have mentioned that there is a Westminster-type environment in Canada, as a result of which you have to co-operate and work together to pursue your international engagement policies as individuals in your communities. How do you manage to be effective on both sides? What are you trying to achieve in your areas—that is, in Quebec and the Basque Country? Does the national Government work with you or are there tensions and difficulties in trying to achieve what you want? Do you believe that the system is working well for both of you, or not?