Chamber and committees

Thank you, cabinet secretary. Mainstreaming across different portfolio areas is one of the themes that has come out of our budget deliberations. Have the round-table meetings identified any other themes or commonalities with regard to how cultural organisations might be supported, albeit within the budget constraints?

Please do not give anything away!

Thank you very much, ambassador. We have a tradition in the Scottish Parliament, which is a new Parliament—or, rather, a young Parliament—of inviting the presidency of the EU Council to attend the committee. It is something that we have done, but this is the first opportunity that we have had since Brexit to have a representative of the presidency in front of us. Therefore, we are very interested in how we can rebuild and maintain our relationships with the EU, especially given the Scottish Government’s commitment through the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 to keep pace with European developments. Do you have any advice for us as to how, in a different relationship with the EU, we can maintain our contacts and keep pace with developments in the EU?

Thank you. I will move to questions from my colleagues. I invite Ms Boyack to come in first.

On behalf of all my colleagues, I thank you very much for your attendance at the committee this morning. It has been really helpful to us. I hope that we can look forward to continuing to have the presidency come to our committee and that we can maintain those connections with the European Union.

I suspend the meeting so that witnesses can change over.

I give a warm welcome back to everyone. We now move to agenda item 3. As part of our budget scrutiny, we will take evidence on the culture portfolio spending for 2023-24. We are joined by Angus Robertson MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture. He is joined by Rachael McKechnie, deputy director of major events and themed years in the Scottish Government. Thank you both for coming this morning. Cabinet secretary, I invite you to make an opening statement.

Thank you very much for offering to do that for us, cabinet secretary.

I move to questions from the committee and invite Mr Cameron first.

Thank you. I follow up on the line of questioning that was pursued by Ms Minto and Mr Golden. It is about a cut elsewhere, cabinet secretary, but you have mentioned the production of “Mayflies” as an exemplar from BBC Scotland. However, much concern has been expressed in the media by people who are key to our festivals and cultural output in Scotland—Tommy Smith, from the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra; Nicola Benedetti, who now leads the Edinburgh International Festival; and people from our piping communities—about proposed cuts to BBC Radio Scotland’s output in classical, jazz and piping music. If those cuts go ahead, what impact would they have on the ability for emerging talent and excellent exemplars of leading people in jazz, classical and piping music to be able to showcase their work and ensure the future of those areas?

On that note, I thank the cabinet secretary and Ms McKechnie for their attendance this morning.

You opened by talking about Ukraine. I was lucky enough to attend the Nordic Council in the latter part of last year, and Ukraine dominated the discussions there. A few members are interested in that area. I bring in Dr Allan.