Chamber and committees

Thank you. Donald Cameron has a question.

I thank everyone for their involvement in what has been a long but really helpful session. I again thank the witnesses not only for their attendance, but for the submissions that they sent in beforehand.

Thank you all for those opening statements. I will move to questions from the committee. I invite Donald Cameron to start.

Okay. I will go to Kate Forbes, because she has a supplementary question

We have some supplementary questions on that topic. Mark Ruskell, do you have a supplementary question, or is your question on a new topic?

I thank the cabinet secretary and his officials for joining us this morning. We are just two minutes over time, cabinet secretary, so it is a good morning.

We will take opening statements from all the witnesses first of all and then move to questions. I will bring in Alice Black who is also joining us online.

I now suspend the meeting momentarily to allow officials to change over.

As there are no further questions from the committee, we will move to agenda item 4, which is a formal debate on the affirmative instrument on which we have just taken evidence. Cabinet secretary, do you wish to add anything?

I have a question before we move to questions from committee members. I and my deputy convener sit as observers on the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, and this will be discussed at the PPA in December. I was also allowed to take part in a breakout session on touring artists the last time we were in London. My impression—rightly or wrongly—is that there has been a focus on emerging artists and an assumption that lots of them will be young people.

Given the demographics of the areas that you work in, is having such a focus the right priority? Will it make any difference to the larger sectors that you all work in? I will go in reverse order this time.