Chamber and committees

I will bring in Neil Bibby.

Donald Cameron, do you want to come back in?

As we are back on funding, I will come back to Lori Anderson, given her earlier wish to comment on it.

Mr Bibby, did you want to come back in?

I am conscious of the time, and there are two more members to come in. David Watt, do you have thoughts on that question?

I am conscious that we have run right up against our time. If there are no more questions, I thank everyone for coming along for the evidence session and for your written submissions, which have been helpful to the committee for today’s session.

Good morning, and a very warm welcome to the 26th meeting in 2023 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee.

Our first agenda item is pre-budget scrutiny of the 2024-25 Scottish Government budget. We have two panels of witnesses for this evidence session. First, we are joined by Iain Munro, the chief executive of Creative Scotland, and Isabel Davis, the executive director of screen for Creative Scotland. A warm welcome to you both.

I will begin. We had a supplementary submission from Creative Scotland yesterday, which outlined the proposed £6.6 million reduction in the grant aid for 2023-24. Our understanding was that that reduction had been reversed, but that cut has now been reinstated. Mr Munro, can you outline what impact that will have on Creative Scotland?

I will go straight to questions from committee members. If anyone would like to come in, please indicate as much.

Does anyone else want to come in on those points, or have they been covered by Fran and Chris? It seems that they have.

Mark, if you have covered your theme we will move to questions from Keith Brown.

I am looking to see who would like to go first.

David—can I force your hand?