Chamber and committees

For example, do you see a role for a future generations commissioner to take that very long-term view about wellbeing and investment, whether that is in culture or wider wellbeing?

The Scottish Government and local government are constrained in the tools that they have to raise revenue. One tool that could be available to national parks and local authorities would be a visitor levy. I am interested to know what your thinking is on that and how such a levy could be used to invest in cultural assets and visitor experiences. I imagine that, for example, the hundreds of thousands of people who visit Skye each year would probably not baulk at paying a couple of pounds each to support car parks at the fairy pools, better toilet facilities or investment in cultural heritage on the island. What is the Government’s thinking on that? In these straitened times, how do we get visitors who are enjoying Scotland to make that contribution to our communities in a way that can help them to thrive?

I was struck by the comments about sectoral conferences, and I note that Belgium has ministerial conferences. I am interested in that sort of wider conversation; I am not suggesting that we dilute the role of politicians and ministers, but a lot of the legislation that we deal with comes in the form of statutory instruments, which are very technical and are perhaps more for discussion between Government agencies and stakeholders, with agreements made before the legislation is introduced and gets near politicians. How does a wider approach or conversation that has politicians in the mix but which also involves civil servants, agencies and others work, and do we have it in the UK and across these islands?

Jess, do you want to go first?

Those have been interesting responses from you both on the prevention question. It is difficult to see, though, within the RSR, exactly how that preventative approach is being driven through. You talk about culture and about changing how public services are working, but it is hard to see a budget line shifting within health towards culture or wellbeing or whatever.

Is part of the issue about the timescale that the budgets are addressing? It is hard to show the impact of preventative spend within one year; it is probably very hard to show it within three to four years as well. Is there something about needing to take a longer-term look at this, as we have with wider strategies? How do we then frame that within the short-term budgets that we always have to look at, including the RSR?

It is great to hear how you are harnessing that energy from citizens. We can certainly learn from that here in Scotland.

I will also ask you about your sustainability goals, which I think have been in place for a long time now. How do those influence policy making? Do you have a sustainability framework that you apply to policies? How do those goals influence the individual discussions that politicians and others are having?

Thank you for that.

I will move on to another question. I was interested to hear earlier that you are a forester by background. Can you say a little more about how municipal forests are helping to achieve Freiburg’s net zero targets and to restore biodiversity?

I think that we would call them nature networks. They involve the restoration of nature at landscape scale. What role does the municipality have in that? Are there issues with land ownership if some landowners prefer traditional agricultural use of land, rather than rewilding or creating new, large-scale habitats?

I have a final question about the links to your work on forests. I see that you are doing a lot of work to develop biomes. I think that, in English, we would interpret that to mean nature networks.

I am sorry—yes, “biotopes” is the word.

Can you give a specific example of where there has been conflict between the sustainable development goals and how that was resolved? Is it ultimately for politicians to resolve that conflict?