Hansard

I am sorry—I will not take one just now.

The Musicians Union, in its briefing for today’s debate, rightly raised the issue of how money is allocated, saying that

“Increased funding must also drive the delivery of fair work for the creative industries, with funding for the arts providing a key mechanism to achieve this through more robust funding conditionality.”

Given the cabinet secretary’s earlier remarks, I hope that we make progress towards that point.

As Murdo Fraser said, the Music Venue Trust has raised concerns about the lack of support for larger music venues, such as the Voodoo Rooms, which is in the cabinet secretary’s constituency. As Murdo Fraser also highlighted, reassurances are needed regarding stronger safeguards after the scandal of public funds being wrongly awarded by Creative Scotland to the sexually explicit film project, Rein.

In yesterday’s The Scotsman, an article by Brian Ferguson summarised significant concern that Creative Scotland

“will be forced to spread the jam really thinly”

when funding decisions are made, because the cabinet secretary has wished for

“the maximum number of artistic organisations to receive the funding.”

Clearly, everyone wants more organisations to be supported, but the Government and Creative Scotland need to provide clarity on how the additional budget will affect organisations that have been on standstill funding.

For example, the highly successful Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock, which raised 70 per cent of its own income, is just one organisation that is looking for clarity and says that an uplift in its funding will be

“crucial to ensuring the survival of the Beacon for future generations and delivering their ambitions.”

That includes creating new posts, expanding its programme and supporting the work of emerging artists. My colleagues Foysol Choudhury, Colin Smyth, Michael Marra and Paul Sweeney will all raise issues relating to their local areas in their speeches this afternoon.

The Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee has recognised that “confidence remains low” in the sector because of that uncertainty, and trust still needs to be rebuilt because of the SNP Government’s actions. The sector has faced a constant cycle of promises followed by cuts. Despite the planned funding increase, cultural organisations cannot be fully certain that they will receive it, because promised funding has failed to materialise promptly in previous financial years, including the current one.

In December 2022, John Swinney announced a £6.6 million cut to Creative Scotland’s budget. In February 2023, after pressure, he reinstated it, but the very same cut was reimposed in September 2023. We heard more promises one month later, but in August 2024, Creative Scotland closed the open fund due to uncertainty over its funding from the Scottish Government. There were more than two years of the Scottish Government causing anxiety by doing the hokey cokey on culture funding, so no wonder that confidence remains low.

Indeed, it has not just been two years—there have been 18 years of overpromising and underdelivering by the SNP. We have a culture sector that is in crisis: festivals have gone, theatres have shut their doors, nearly 100 libraries have closed, historic buildings such as the former territorial army building in Paisley are being demolished, and children and young people are not getting the opportunities that they deserve.

To sum it all up, this week, just 11 days before Burns night, we were told by the Scottish Qualifications Authority that interest in our national bard, Robert Burns, is on the wane in our schools. The move to downgrade Burns from higher English is a slight on Scottish culture.

This does not look like a Government that values culture. People who care about Scotland’s culture sector should not have had to campaign so vociferously and fight to get the funding that was pledged to them, but they had to do that. When they do not have to do so, the Scottish Government can say that it values and supports Scotland’s culture sector.

I move amendment S6M-16092.2, to leave out from second “welcomes” to end and insert:

“acknowledges the scale of the crisis that the culture sector has been suffering over a number of years; notes that the Scottish Government has not held a debate on support for the culture sector in the current parliamentary session until now; welcomes the intention to increase the culture budget by £34 million in 2025-26, following the record budget settlement of £47.7 billion to the Scottish Government from the UK Labour administration; notes the observation by the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee that the culture sector’s ‘confidence remains low due to the lack of clarity from the Scottish Government regarding its priorities for the additional investment’, and believes that Scotland’s cultural communities must be supported to continue to develop and innovate in exhibition, performance and participation in Scotland’s artistic life.”