Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Committee

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee 14 December 2023

14 Dec 2023 · S6 · Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee

Item of business

National Outcomes

Christopher Thomson Watch on SPTV

I hope that you can hear me. We have six in-year objectives in the US office. Some of them, such as enhancing reputation, are not entirely measurable, as we have touched on, but most of the objectives have measurements against them. We also have three in-year on-going deliverables. We have things that we measure that we want to be better at but, given the nature of the relationship between the US and Scotland, to paraphrase that presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid”, for us. We do a lot of work in trade and investment. The annual report highlights the investment that has come into Prestwick through Mangata, which is a US investment that colleagues and I have been working on for years. Those things are hugely beneficial. We see the difference that it can make to people’s lives in Scotland to see those jobs come in. I am hopeful that there will be a fairly chunky announcement in the new year, once we have that confirmed with another inward investor. Those things make a real difference, and ministerial visits and diplomatic work really support that. Our SDI colleagues have told us that some investments have come about only because doors have been opened by Scottish ministers visiting the country with us. They get access to people who they would never have had access to before, so you begin to have conversations that you would never otherwise have. For example, this year, because of Mr Arthur’s visit, which was to talk predominantly about community wealth building, we were able to meet the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. That might not sound like an incredibly exciting thing, but Illinois is the 17th biggest economy in the world and the Lieutenant Governor brought her directors for economic development and investment into the room, which meant that I and our trade and investment specialists could be in the room. Conversations have developed from that, and we are hopeful that they will lead to Scottish companies exporting to and engaging in the US and US companies investing in Scotland. Those are the big focuses for us. However, we also look at what we can do in terms of culture and our diaspora. I have engaged with diaspora and cultural organisations that have received huge amounts of grant and scholarship funding through the US. I cannot always draw a straight line and say that that is directly because of me but, this week, one such investment came about directly because of an introduction that we made in the US. That will put tens of thousands of pounds into cultural organisations in Scotland. I feel really good about those things; that is what success looks like for us. There is lots more that we can do. The US is a country of 330 million people and, right now, my office is three people, so we can definitely do more, but we have had brilliant wins so far. It is a mix of things that cannot be measured and things that can. I go back to what Kat said at the start. Some of it is just about the stuff that you know is doing good, and that is what we spend our year doing.

Search Hansard contributions

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee 14 December 2023

In the same item of business