Chamber and committees

My final question is on a subject that one or two people have touched on, which is related to the aftermath of Brexit—labour shortages. I do not know who would like to come in on that, but there is clearly a connection between the two things. Perhaps we could begin with Beatrice Morrice.

Does Davy McCracken or anyone else have a view on that?

This question is for Beatrice Morrice to begin with. What is your feeling about the implications of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 when it comes to imports from outside the UK and what it means for Scotland’s ability to legislate in that area?

Do you think that that has had a deterring effect on new freelancers entering the industry? What can we do to try to overcome that? Do we need to rethink what we do to reassure young people who want to become freelancers in the arts that it is a thing that they can do? That might be a question for Matt Baker.

I am interested in what you have said throughout the meeting about rebuilding from the bottom up and the importance of small venues and small cultural activities. I do not want anyone to take this as criticism of Scotland’s large performing companies, but—given that we are talking about budgets here—does your position imply anything about the balance that will have to be struck in future between larger and smaller enterprises in the arts? Has Scotland got that balance right? Is there anything that you want to say about any of that?

I am interested in what was being said in that discussion about the impact on artists, as employees and companies and businesses. I am also interested in individuals, given how many artists or people working in the sector are self-employed. I would like to hear from Matt Jones, or others, about the experience of self-employed people during lockdown.

Much of what has been talked about so far, especially by the previous panel, has involved the necessary trade-off between the future of the environment and the future of what are sometimes fragile rural economies. This is possibly a question for Charles Millar—I am not sure. We have discussed how the areas that are currently actively fished comprise a minority of Scotland’s seas. What kind of change should communities in those areas expect in the coming years?

If members of the panel do not like the term “trade-off”, I am happy to use another such as “interface” or “co-operation”. You can see what I am driving at, which is how we manage that relationship. Incidentally, I absolutely accept what has been said about the need for change and what Charles Millar said about the need for winch monitors to provide data.

Elspeth Macdonald touched on this issue in the first panel—do you feel that there might be a better way of managing the process of designation in order to avoid confrontation, as has happened in some places, and is there more that we can do to move forward the process of community involvement in the management of designations? I am not making a case against designation per se, but are there better ways of doing it?

Notwithstanding everything that people have said about the need to invest in the future and a homegrown workforce, I take it that the panel would agree that there is an urgent situation that requires the availability of visas on an emergency basis. I am keen to know whether Tavish or Elaine or the other witnesses would support the UK Government taking such a measure.

In relation to that, the panel will know that, in many areas, especially island ones, some sectors are struggling to find a workforce at all, which has implications for how we work together on issues such as housing. We will not have a workforce, wherever they come from, if there is nowhere for them to live.

I thank the witnesses for joining us. I am not sure whether my question is for Ms Tavaziva or Mr Carson, but I want to hear your views on the long-running issue of spend in Scotland. We all welcome the fact that there has been more spend on big network productions involving Scotland, but are we not talking about two slightly different things? On the one hand, there is the part played by Scotland in big network-wide productions and, on the other, the discretion that the BBC in Scotland has to spend its money on the things that it feels to be important to it instead of putting that money into something else. Can you tease out those differences, and tell us where we are going with regard to the latter point about local spend?