Chamber and committees

My question follows on from the questions from Ariane Burgess and Rachael Hamilton with regard to local authorities, health boards and other public organisations. Mr Burgess, as you mentioned, some local authorities already have plans in place, and one size does not fit all. Therefore, what flexibility does the bill give to public bodies to draft their own good food nation plans? I am very aware of consistency versus equality.

That is great. Thank you. I have read the bill and seen the terms “must”, “may” and “have regard to” every so often, so your answer is helpful.

How will the bill allow for the effectiveness of the public bodies’ plans to be overseen by the Scottish Government?

Thank you for coming to see us today. I will go back to Donald Cameron’s first question. My friend is a retired GP, and they would have loved to have been able to prescribe hugging a tree or going to a cultural event. However, there is a requirement to change people’s perception of what they will get when they go to a GP. In some respects, perhaps the pandemic has opened up different doors. I had the privilege of attending an art show in Oban that resulted from work that people had been doing throughout the pandemic. There are ideas sprouting up throughout Scotland, and I hope that we, as elected people, and the Government can expand on them.

Cabinet secretary, I will go back to something that you said in your opening statement about the vibrancy of the screen industry in Scotland. There are studios in Leith and Glasgow, the BBC is across Scotland and there is Channel 4. I am interested to know how the budget will support skills in the industry and locations across Scotland, including our wonderful scenery?

I look forward to the sequel.

As you know, I represent Argyll and Bute. We need to think about getting some of the spend and the skills development outwith the central belt and to consider how colleges and universities could support that skills development. You are right to say that support is needed in every area, from make-up to set design to floor management and so on.

A lot of the evidence that we took stressed the importance of culture outwith the central belt, which Donald Cameron touched on. I was heartened to hear your comments on that. I want to underline how important small community groups and museums are for what they add to the community and for their role in bringing visitors to the area. That should not be forgotten in the Scottish Government’s budgeting process.

I was asking about the difference between the islands, which you have touched on. I was also asking about the difference between local authorities—the fact that there are island-only local authorities and blended local authorities—and about the age range of the people who were surveyed.

As we have such a huge panel, I will direct my questions specifically to Douglas Cowan and Ailsa Raeburn. Ailsa has just referenced the way in which particular communities work and other people have given different examples. That is one of the big positives of the size of the panel.

On sustainable economic development, I am interested to know how you tailor your support to different types of islands. We learned from the survey that not every island is the same. Jura has been referenced a couple of times. It has had a very strong community action plan and is now at a point where everyone is working, so it needs volunteers or some kind of support to move it to the next level. How do you tailor support for different islands and types of business? There are three sectors: the public, private and community sectors. How do you support the different types of businesses in those sectors?

I agree with you about the effort that communities put in. We have learned from the Covid pandemic that, if funds can be made available more quickly and easily, that gives us better value. Thank you for making that point.

I am interested to know more about the idea of 20-minute neighbourhoods in the Government’s plan. I think that Artemis Pana has some research on that, as might Derek Logie.

Exactly. Does Philip Raines want to come in?

I thank the witnesses for attending this morning. I am interested in how you have grouped the islands together. I live on Islay, one of the Argyll isles, and I know that even those isles have different subsets of islands, with islands off islands, islands linked by bridges and islands linked to the mainland by ferry. Have you been able to get different evidence or information from those groups?

I found the differences between, for example, mainland Orkney and its smaller islands quite stark, and I wonder whether we are missing a wee trick here, given that the Argyll isles are separate from the mainland. Do the differences between blended and island-only local authorities come out in the evidence?

Finally, with regard to selection of the panel, I note that the youngest involved were 18-year-olds. Given that, in Scotland, people can vote from the age of 16 and that young people have a lot of strong views about things, I am concerned that we are missing out on a huge area of evidence. Do you have any plans to expand the criteria for selection?

I will ask Ruth Wilson to start off and then move to Philip Raines. Perhaps Jonathan Hopkins can answer the question about the criteria for selecting people.