Chamber and committees

That takes me on to what happens next, once you have supported people to either stay safely or to move. In such a fast-moving crisis, it must be incredibly difficult to provide support on the ground. I am not sure who the best person to ask is but, after the immediate support and the disaster appeal, where do you go next?

It was right to mention right at the start that there are lots of other crisis situations in the world that have less publicity. How do you ensure that you have investment in the right places with all the local organisations and that the raft of expertise is available on the ground? How do you make that work, and what more can we do to support you in that process, whether it is getting our constituents to donate or working on the strategic relationships on finance with the Scottish Government that you have referred to?

That is helpful. As well as the immediate humanitarian crisis, as a couple of you have mentioned, there is also the issue of rebuilding afterwards.

Your comments about what we hope is the significantly changing picture with regard to visa regulations reinforce the unanimity of the committee’s belief in the need for intergovernmental working on issues, the case for which has been made very powerfully this morning.

I want to follow up on two issues, the first of which is that of seasonal workers, which Mark Ruskell and Fiona Hyslop commented on. The importance of that issue came through powerfully from the Ukrainian consul general. There are 6,000 to 7,000 of those workers, who are very widely geographically spread—they are located in the Lothians, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Dundee and Falkirk.

It is critical that the local authorities and the voluntary sector in those areas gear up, because it is clear that there will be a demand there, and across Scotland, from people applying to come here. As you have acknowledged, the Ukrainian consul general said that their ambition will not be to come here as permanent refugees. They very much want their stay to be short term. I point you to the evidence that we took earlier, which was very specific and helpful.

I have a point to make about work with employers. We have talked about what our local authorities and third sector could do, and I hope that we can agree on the need for us to use our soft power as a country. Gordon Brown has been talking about war crimes and working with lawyers on that. I met him to talk about that yesterday. There is also work that could be done with employers and companies in Scotland. I make a plea to the Government to think about what more we could do there, whether by enabling staff or companies to donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee, or by assisting with access to work visas, where companies are looking for those.

Is there more that we could do to encourage employers to do more? I noticed that Skyscanner advertised and reached out to Ukrainian workers to work in its sector. I know that it is a fast-moving situation. For weeks, we have lobbied the Government about local authorities and visas, but it feels as though the situation in that regard might become more real, and those are some practical issues that I hope that the Scottish Government will pick up on.

You have given us some points to go on. Thank you.

Yes, it does answer the question and the point that you made about business support for the creative sector in particular, given the circumstances, is something that comes across quite loudly. In response to Jenni Minto and Maurice Golden, you referred to the disconnect between the ambitions and the reality. That is definitely something that is worth us reflecting on.

I want to follow on from the first two sets of questions from Jenni Minto and Maurice Golden. On the one hand, it is clear that there is quite a lot of support for the principle of social prescribing, with very good experience on the ground showing that that works. On the other hand, as Maurice Golden has mentioned, there is a lack of multiyear funding, which means that organisations cannot develop the connections with the health sector to enable people to be recommended. Equally, the organisations cannot plan ahead and guarantee that there will be fair work. At previous meetings, we have heard evidence that Covid has knocked the creative sector for six because it has become a hand-to-mouth existence for freelancers and people have had to move out of the sector.

What do you recommend as a way to kick-start that, given that we do not have the networks and the funding? Is it to get money and a commitment to multiyear funding in place? What do you advise us to ask the Scottish Government to do now to start to get the mechanisms in place?

It has been good to hear about where we could get different funding streams from. One of the things that you mentioned in your earlier evidence is the principle of local infrastructure projects. Could you say a bit more about the concept of the per cent for art scheme and local investment, and could you say how you would make sure that that reaches local communities so that they influence what money is spent on, rather than that being, as you described it, something in the middle of a roundabout?

Yes, and that means that Governments have to think and plan ahead and be much more strategic. As you have observed, it is year 6 from leaving and we are not at that point yet. Professor Menon, it was interesting to get your take on what different future Governments might do on alignment—about whether they might choose to align on most issues and then potentially innovate in areas where they are prepared to put in subsidy and Government investment. You gave the example of solar panels to Maurice Golden and, presumably, Governments could invest in other renewables, but they have to be strategic and think long ahead and put chunks of central Government money in to kick it off.

That is a useful insight. Maybe there could be something like a kick-start fund to get things going. We could then think about the three-year funding that you talked about to enable longer-term investment and ensure that care and safeguarding issues are picked up so that we are not making people with mental health issues more vulnerable.

Diana, do you have any insight into how we could make this happen and kick off that approach?

In a way, we probably need both, because prevention is as critical as supporting people once they have had a crisis or incident.

I draw colleagues’ attention to a good report that was published this week that highlights the work of the Whale Arts project. It is about mapping cultural dispersal by the Edinburgh festivals. A point was made earlier about spreading investment so that it is not just in Edinburgh and Glasgow but, even within Edinburgh and Glasgow, the social barriers to accessing culture are huge.

We very much need to pick up the evidence that we have just heard, convener.