Hansard

I am delighted to lead my first members’ business debate in the chamber on a subject of great importance not just to Stirling, but to Scotland and, indeed, to all of our constituencies and constituents. It is a success story, and something for us to celebrate, because we are all winners in this.

The film industry—the screen sector—is a success for Scotland. I modestly suggest that Stirling is at the heart of it—as, indeed, I suggest Stirling is at the heart of everything else—but we will all have constituents who work in the sector, and many of our constituencies might well have been used as film locations. Therefore, I will be happy to take interventions from members across the chamber, and I am very grateful to colleagues for supporting the motion.

I am also grateful for the interest that the motion has spurred from the sector itself. I have had a lot of interest, and great support, from Screen Scotland, Stirling’s own Broadcasting Scotland, Forth Valley College, the University of Stirling, the University of the West of Scotland, the BBC and Channel 4. There are a lot of players in this market, and the scale of the industry is significant. In fact, it is much more significant than people may realise—it is not just one company or one set of individuals; these are very mobile, global people who move around a lot. In 2023, the sector brought £718 million to the Scottish economy and 12,680 full-time equivalent jobs.

Many of those jobs are temporary, and many are mobile, which is why the industry often does not get the attention that I think that it needs, because the sector is growing apace. Scotland has a natural advantage in the sector. We are English speaking; we are globally centrally located; and we have tech and a talent pool of artists that most countries would give their eye teeth for. We have any location that people want—anyone who has watched “Outlander” will know that we can even do time travel. We have a spectacular advantage in the sector.

We are also investing in the future, and I think that, as a chamber, we need to focus on that. We have students across Scotland in 35 television and film-relevant courses at 12 colleges; 1,112 college students training for a future in the industry; and 915 students at five universities who are gaining the skills to take the industry into the future for Scotland. That is exciting.

Stirling really does have an advantage in the sector. We have all the talent that we could ask for and we are building for the future. At Stirling university, we have Dario Sinforiani and a fantastic communications, media and culture division that is turning out stellar talent such as Eilidh Barbour, Mark Cousins, journalist Shelley Jofre and Mark Daly. We have talent in spades, and there is much more to come. For four years in a row, Stirling students have won Royal Television Society programme awards. There is a very successful collaboration between Stirling university and BBC Scotland, which gives students experience in the real world to prepare them for real, and very lucrative, jobs.

Broadcasting Scotland, which is based at Stirling university campus and is no stranger to MSPs in particular, is doing fantastic broadcasting work and giving students experience. Of course, jobs in the screen sector are not only behind or in front of the camera. There are the painters, joiners, designers, sparkies, people moving things around, scouts, transport and catering. The screen sector supply chain is significant for all of our constituencies and all our industries.

Forth Valley College has a fantastic track record in all those skills. There is already talk in Stirling about greater tie-ups between Stirling schools and the college and the screen sector in general. There is exciting potential there; we have a significant pool of talent in the Forth valley.

The screen sector is a global industry. There is some criticism, particularly of BBC Scotland and Channel 4, about where things are made, but I am more relaxed about that. This is a globally mobile industry, and we need to make ourselves as naturally attractive as we possibly can be. I am less concerned about the brass plaque on a production company’s headquarters, and more concerned about where control is exercised from and how much money is spent. I want to see the maximum control, and the maximum money spent, in Scotland. The BBC and Channel 4 are already significant players in Scottish screen production, and I welcome that. I think that both could be doing more, but they are both doing significant good work and, bearing in mind that public money is involved, scrutiny of that will continue.

However, I want this debate to be about the wider picture. There are big players in Scotland and in the United Kingdom, but this is a global industry, and much of it is funded by private capital. We therefore need to make ourselves as attractive as we can by investing in the talent pool; supporting, fiscally and politically, the screen sector; and ensuring that we have an environment that welcomes that investment, however temporary or long term. That is a fantastic opportunity, and we will all benefit from having world-class facilities that naturally draw production to Scotland. The spin-offs from production in Scotland are massive. Stirling has a huge amount to contribute to, and gain from, those efforts, and I am really excited for the industry’s future in Stirling and in Scotland.

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