Hansard

Like many others in the chamber, I welcome the debate. There has been a learning curve for a number of members. There has certainly been support for, as well as some focused concern from, different agencies that are charged with maintaining—if that is the right word—or managing our heritage. The debate highlights the asset that Scotland’s heritage undoubtedly is, but we must acknowledge the not inconsiderable barriers that will, if they remain unaddressed, restrict the access that the Scottish Government recognises should be comprehensive.

Last week, we debated the introduction of Scottish studies into the curricula of both primary and secondary school education. The programme should and must give all our pupils access to our history, geography and culture. It would be passing strange if the work of Historic Scotland, the national library and museum, the Scottish Council on Archives, Scottish Natural Heritage, the Built Environment Forum Scotland and others was not central to their learning.

When Patricia Ferguson made a plea for every organisation to be acknowledged, I had sympathy for the cabinet secretary because there are so many—each of us could mention many just in our own constituencies. They perhaps do not make the same investment in digital evidence as the example that we saw last night, but they provide the book of first entry, if you like, in recording social history at home.

The place of heritage in education is therefore not questioned, and indeed is not new. All the organisations have declared their commitment to their educational programmes in their manifestos and business plans.

My hope for the Scottish studies programme is that all those organisations and agencies become household names in Scotland and that we do not have to see a list of them because they are—as I think they should be—completely integral to life in this country. No one should be in any doubt about their existence, their purpose or their ambitions.

Patricia Ferguson raised a point that focused on the challenge to the Government. She gave the example of the Titian that was toured around Scotland. As somebody who lives in what is considered to be remote and rural Scotland, I know that there is nothing better than getting to come to Glasgow and Edinburgh. For a lot of people—schoolchildren and youngsters, among others—it is no longer unrealistic to find time to visit the central belt and Scotland’s museums. There is a limit to what can be toured around. Such tours should be part of a programme—outreach work is important—but we should not forget that people want to come to the palaces of art and the museums to see the artefacts, too.

I congratulate Clare Adamson on hosting the event in the Parliament last night at which a number of members were introduced to the wonders of the digital age. Being taken on a digital tour of a royal palace such as Stirling castle and the archipelago of St Kilda, which has been mentioned, and then, at the press of a button, zooming in on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, was amazing—and that is just the start. The Scottish ten project is one of a number of fantastic projects and, if we do our job properly, no one in Scotland will be unaware of it.

In addition, at the event we had ScotlandsPeople and ScotlandsPlaces making tracing ancestry accessible—and making it look easy, if only at the time. I think that we all found, among others, our great-grandfathers or great-great-grandfathers last night. Genealogy is a fairly recent tourist attraction and it is attracting ever-growing numbers. The tourism industry is always looking for new attractions, and this one is sure to run and run. The Scottish diaspora are still looking homeward, and they seem more determined than ever to search for family roots, which brings them back to find the tenements or crofts of their forefathers and foremothers. In Highland, we opened a multimillion pound archive centre in 2008. It is based in Inverness but has links and outreach to Caithness, Lochaber and Skye—all areas of clearance and depopulation at various times. It is well placed to attract our people back and help them to trace their roots.

So, both education and tourism could benefit enormously from the digital developments in our heritage industries, if I can give them such an unappealing generic title. However, there are barriers, about which concerns have been expressed elsewhere by the agencies. The biggest barrier in remote and rural Scotland is the lack of broadband, which has been mentioned by David Stewart and Jamie McGrigor. That is a potential barrier to a great deal and must be a consideration. I am not an expert on information technology—quite the opposite, in fact—but I know that, increasingly, education, tourism, business development and growth, cultural expansion, innovation and creativity are all moving onwards in digital time.