Chamber and committees

I will ask the final question, which is about perception. It has been mentioned that we are kind of jealous of Ireland and its opportunities. When we visited Dublin, we learned that it was opening its 131st mission. Our work has shown—this view is unanimous, I think, among the committee members who were involved in it—that the Scottish foreign offices and the work that is done by those international offices are of great value and very welcome, and that we want that. However, in the bubble that is the Scottish Parliament, we sometimes hear those offices described as “pretendy” foreign offices and a waste of money. Such rhetoric seems to come forward quite a lot in this bubble. Do you have any reflections on how those offices are perceived by your colleagues in Westminster?

We have exhausted the committee’s questions.

I will finish on a reflection about my visit to Taiwan a few years ago. I was completely unaware that a contemporary of David Livingstone had visited the island of Formosa. There was a museum in one of the hospitals, because he started medicine on the island.

I also visited Taipei 101. On the top floor, there was an engineering feats of the world exhibition, which included the Falkirk wheel. I had no idea that that was there. As a regional MSP at the time, I was delighted to see that. Sometimes we do not know what opportunities might be out there for us to build on Scotland’s place in the world from history and for the future.

Thank you very much for your attendance this morning, Mr Wishart.

Good morning and welcome to the fourth meeting in 2024 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee.

We have received apologies from Keith Brown. We are joined at committee, but not for the first time, by Jim Fairlie, so there is no need for a declaration of interests. Welcome, Mr Fairlie.

Our first agenda item is to continue to take evidence on the committee’s inquiry on the Scottish Government’s national outcomes and indicators relating to international policy.

We are joined by Pete Wishart MP, who is the chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee of the House of Commons. He will speak to his committee’s recent “Promoting Scotland Internationally” report. A warm welcome to you, Mr Wishart.

I will open with a question. Last December, the committee took evidence from a selection of the Scottish Government’s international offices. The lead official in Washington DC suggested that we should be thinking forward and engaging with culture and the diaspora in the US to talk about what Scotland does now. Within that, we are thinking about biomedical sciences, space technology, renewables and—it is close to the heart of the committee, because it is covered in our remit—the games industry. Your report touches on that topic. Are we making the most of the potential of the diaspora in promoting Scotland internationally?

I will open the meeting to questions from the committee.

I will bring in Mr Ruskell.

Sorry, but Mr Cameron has a supplementary following Ms Forbes’s question. Can I bring him in and then get back to you, Mr Ruskell?

Okay, Mr Fairlie?

I close the meeting.

Sorry.

There might be a little time at the end.

I call Neil Bibby.