Chamber and committees

Thank you. We will move on to questions from committee members.

Mark Ruskell has a brief supplementary on the world championships.

I do not see any indication from members for further questions, but I have a final question to ask the cabinet secretary. In your answer to Ms Minto, you mentioned libraries. As Ms Boyack said, we attended the cross-party group on culture and communities last night and heard from one of the cultural arm’s-length external organisations in Scotland about the support that its library staff gave to elderly people, who they knew would be in isolation, and how they were able to continue service by doing things such as moving the bookbug programme online for younger members. Can you give us a bit of information about the support that you are giving to libraries and their future in the recovery?

Under item 2, the committee?is invited to agree to?consider?reports on the UK internal market inquiry and the inquiry into the Scottish Government’s international work in private at future meetings. Do members agree to take those items in private??

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you for your time this morning.

I see an indication of a final question from Ms Boyack.

That concludes our consideration of that agenda item. I thank the cabinet secretary, Mr Wightman and Ms Sizeland for giving us their time.

We move to questions from committee members. I invite Dr Allan to begin.

Good morning, and a very warm welcome to the second meeting of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee in 2022.

Our first agenda item today is budget scrutiny. On 9 December 2021, the Scottish Government published the Scottish budget for 2022-23. This morning, we will take evidence on the budget in relation to recommendations made in the committee’s pre-budget scrutiny report. I welcome to the committee Angus Robertson, Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture; Scott Wightman, the Scottish Government’s director for external affairs; and Bettina Sizeland, deputy director of culture and historic environment division. I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. It certainly seems a happier new year now that we know that indoor events are due to continue in Scotland from next week and we can see the culture sector starting to recover a little.

I will open with a question about the mainstreaming of culture, which was a main thrust of our pre-budget report. In your letter to the committee before Christmas, you said that you were starting “a series of conversations” with your Cabinet colleagues to

“identify areas of joint collaboration ... to inform ... the multi-year Resource Spending Review”.

Can you update us on that and on any outcomes that might be forthcoming?