Chamber and committees

Thank you. [Interruption.] Sorry—I am losing my voice. I will bring in Meghan Gallacher.

As everybody has finished their contributions, I thank committee members for their questions. Ms Casot, Ms Deighan, Ms Bell and Ms Lyden, thank you very much for your attendance. I close the meeting.

We will move to questions. Meghan Gallacher joins us online today, as you can see. I invite Mr Bibby to ask the first question.

Do you want to direct that question to a particular witness, Neil?

I move on to Mr Stewart, who has been waiting patiently.

Good morning and welcome the 19th meeting of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee in 2024.

Our first agenda item is to begin taking evidence as part of our pre-budget scrutiny of funding for culture. I am delighted that we are joined today by Lucy Casot, chief executive, Museums Galleries Scotland; Susan Deighan, chief executive, Glasgow Life; Leonie Bell, director, V&A Dundee; and Anne Lyden, director general, National Galleries of Scotland. I welcome you warmly.

I have an opening question before we move to questions from members. In last year’s pre-budget scrutiny report, the committee said that there was

“an urgent need for the Scottish Government to restore the confidence of the culture sector”.

In your view, has there been any progress? Who wants to jump in first? Perhaps we could start with you, Lucy—I am sorry to put you on the spot.

I move to questions from Alexander Stewart.

That was very helpful, cabinet secretary.

Finally, the review of the TCA will take place in 2026, as you said, so the committee’s inquiry is indeed timely. However, given the current trading environment between the UK and the EU, what challenges might our small businesses and SMEs trading in Europe face over the next two years?

Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I will now move to questions from the committee, starting with Mr Stewart.

Thank you for that, cabinet secretary. It is worth noting that I and the previous deputy convener, Donald Cameron, have attended frequent Parliamentary Partnership Assembly meetings and that a lot of the priorities that we have talked about this morning are also its priorities and have come up for discussion there, such as SPS, youth mobility, carbon trading and security. The PPA is, of course, the link between Westminster and the European Parliament and its MEPs. In that respect, I think that there is a shared interest across the UK, even if it is not being shown by the Government at the moment, in the priorities being set with the Commission.

Thank you for your attendance, cabinet secretary. I will suspend the meeting for about five minutes before we move on to the next agenda item.