Chamber and committees

When something is clearly a devolved issue, to what extent will you actively consult committees in the devolved legislatures in order not just to understand the politics of the situation, but to gain interparliamentary awareness, so that committee members can identify what the devolved tensions are in a formal way?

That is helpful. I will leave that with you and your committee to think about. When you compare our report with the Senedd committee’s report, you can see that there are a lot of cross-overs. There is quite a range of people on our committee.

I will follow up on that question with Huw Irranca-Davies. I was very interested in your committee’s report, because of the cross-overs with what our committee thought. I want to hear your comments on solutions for interparliamentary and intergovernmental relations. I will start with interparliamentary relations, because you talked about your committee engaging directly with counterpart committees. What are the key lessons for developing solutions in respect of devolution across the UK?

That is very interesting and helpful for our report. What about the intergovernmental solutions that you have suggested in your report? In particular, you mention two potential solutions—a formal dispute resolution procedure and an independent secretariat—to strengthen intergovernmental work. Were those proposals agreed on a cross-party basis in your committee?

Where is the disconnect, then? We received really strong representations from witnesses at last week’s committee meeting, which was backed up by the huge number of people who wrote in and by the campaigns that are being run. People are very worried about the loss of access to live performances.

From listening to the evidence and reading the submissions, it feels as though the decision cuts across four of the five key principles of the BBC charter. It seems to go in the opposite direction to the idea of the BBC working across the United Kingdom, which is meant to be one of the core principles of its operation. In addition, it does not deliver on the two high-level ambitions in the annual plan.

Do you think that the decision was not thought through? If there is no production on the ground, in communities in Scotland, it will not matter which radio programme the music is on: something will be lost. Has the BBC not thought through the detail? Is there any acknowledgement that the decision does not deliver what the BBC is meant to deliver as a public broadcasting company?

I take it that everybody agrees with that.

That is helpful—thank you.

That is helpful.

The BBC is also very big on digital and BBC Sounds. I am totally up for that, but there is still a need for productions that can be put on BBC Sounds. It feels as though the decision was not thought through.

You have talked about the impact on the core areas of education and accessibility. If the changes happen, it seems that there will be no pipeline through to live performance in pipe, classical and jazz, which are three key areas of Scottish musical culture. That is a critical disconnect. We will speak to the BBC next week. It would be useful to be able to reinforce the point that there will be a major impact on those three areas if that pipeline does not exist. Has that been acknowledged?

It is very good that you will give us that update on the recommendations—we do not have time to let you run through them in their entirety.