Gweithiogymuno, a llawer o agnod o'r 31 ddechrau Llyfrgell Cymru i ddechrau Eisteddfodol a Lyfrgell Cymru i 2023. Y Cymru fyddai edrych o gynhyrchu cyfnodau, os ydych yn cynhyrchu cyfnodau, ac mae ein gwasgfaen yn cynhyrchu cyfnodau yn cynhyrchu cyfnodau. Fy tro, mae'r cysylltu cyfnodau o'r cyfnodau eraith o godiol yn ôl o leisio'r cyfnodau o'r cysylltu gynghorwm hanfyd i gyfnodiau y Llyfrgell Cymru i ddefnyddio eu ddrach cofusio the Scottish Government's 2023 annual report on use of the Keeping Pace Power within the UK withdrawal from the European Union continuity Act Scotland 2021. We are joined this morning by Angus Robertson, MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, Accident and Adversion and Culture. With him this morning is George MacPherson, Head of EU Policy and Alignment at the Scottish Government and Lorraine Walkenshaw, the Scottish Government Legal Directorate. Can I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement? Thank you very much. On Europe Day on the 9th of May, I reiterated the Scottish Government's commitment to its European Union alignment policy and to providing further information to support the Parliament's scrutiny role on the subject. Government policy has not changed, even in face of the retained EU law act, with its divergent and deregulatory intent, we will continue to seek to align with the European Union where appropriate, and that means where it is possible and where it is meaningful for us to do so. The standards set by the European Union will continue to influence many of the policy frameworks and initiatives that we are developing domestically, and today I am pleased to provide evidence to the committee. The new annual report improves the transparency of ministerial decision making and increases the amount of information provided. This reporting includes our draft annual report on use of the power to align, as required by the UK withdrawal from the European Union Continuity Scotland Act 2021, laid in Parliament on 31 October. As you know, since the committee's response to last year's draft report on the continuity act, officials have been working to expand and centralise the process of managing and sharing information regarding alignment decisions. I want to thank parliamentary clerks for joint work with my officials so that we can provide the information needed by Parliament to carry out its scrutiny function. My letter on 31 October to the committee confirms the details of the extended approach that has been implemented starting in July. Our expanded reporting demonstrates the complexity of taking alignment decisions and the need for a proportionate approach in that alignment is not always possible as Scotland is no longer part of the structures to which much of EU law relates. We are also constrained by the limitations of the devolution settlement and, of course, the willingness of the UK Government to respect it. I would like to mention the independent research commissioned by the committee and carried out by Queen's University, and I agree with its core findings that, and I quote, the Scottish Government's commitment to align with developments in EU law has been largely upheld, and that, I quote again, there has been no significant divergence between Scots law and EU law. I also agree with the report's conclusion that minor technical divergence will accumulate over time. Mindful of this, the Scottish Government's approach includes careful consideration of on-going technical developments within the European Union, including via tertiary legislation as well as other instruments. That is illustrated in our expanded annual reporting, although this year's report only reflects the part of the year where our updated processes have been in operation. As outlined in my letter from 3 September, when Scottish Government legislation is laid in the Scottish Parliament, information will now be included in policy notes and relevant memoranda for bills to assist with scrutiny. In the future, our reports will cover a full year based on the same reporting period as that of the continuity act, namely from the 1st of September to 31 August. I welcome discussion between officials regarding the feasibility of sharing the tracker material produced by Dr Whitten in a time frame that would allow us to co-ordinate consideration of its conclusions within our analysis of current EU proposals. I hope that our revised reporting and those comments are helpful in considering how the Scottish Government is implementing its alignment policy, and I look forward to your questions. I certainly welcome the reports. It has been really useful to see the level of detail that we now have available to us. In your letter, you agreed with Dr Whitten's assessment in our EU law tracker report that a degree of diversion is at risk. That will likely occur cumulatively, potentially becoming significant in the future. Can you just expand on the challenges that the Scottish Government has in that respect? What would be the significant implications of regulatory divergence with businesses seeking to trade with the EU and in the internal market, including Northern Ireland? The first thing that I would say during this particular session is that we all understand that this is quite a technical area. We are all very grateful to have the support of committee advice, clerks and advisers. In my case, my civil service colleagues here are a wider team, so if any of them are wanting to illustrate the points that I am making in generality with any specifics, I would be grateful for any additions to it. The first thing that I would say is that we are seeking to remain aligned with the European Union where it is appropriate to do so. Using phrases like that, where it is appropriate, where it is possible, where it is meaningful matters, we are not in the European Union, so we are trying to find our best way, using a variety of different approaches, to make sure that we can remain aligned, working in parallel with the European Union. We will do that within devolve competence, and we will do that to implement measures that have demonstrable effect. There are areas that are unlikely that there would be demonstrable effect, and there are areas where measures relate to European Union organisations that we are not a part of, or areas where there is not a legal locus. That is why it is literally impossible to do 100 per cent of what the European Union is doing in its policy, because we are not in the European Union. Having said that, we are going to do everything that we can to maintain the standards of the European Union, its values and its strategic approach to things. We have a resource both in the Scottish Government here, but also in Scotland House in Brussels, and I think that a good number of the committee have been there, so I think that you know how competent the team is. In co-ordination, we are going to make sure that we are best able to provide to you and through you to the likes of business convener, an understanding of which legislation does have an impact and what we are going to be doing. I think that everybody in the committee understands the reporting mechanisms that have now been brought into train, so that one is aware when measures are being introduced, how alignment is going to be achieved. I think that we are in a much, much better place, and I am pleased that I gave the committee a commitment. There have been quite a few changes on the committee, so some colleagues may not have heard that. Having spent 10 years on the European Scrutiny Committee at Westminster, where every single week we were going through European Union proposals, and so I understand having sat in that chair quite literally what it is that you I think require to be able to be satisfied that you are able to scrutinise what the Scottish Government is doing in relation to alignment, but I think that there is an appreciation that this has the potential to be a massive undertaking, and so what we are trying to do is find a balance in reporting the legislation, the policy, the strategy of the European Union, and how we are seeking to remain aligned, so that you can apply scrutiny to what we are doing, but have a balance between something that is then unwieldy and too technical, where too much can perhaps be lost in detail, but to give you everything that you require. That is the first published iteration, and if there is something that you feel that you require more of, less of or differently, we are very open to hearing that. I know that my colleagues and the committee clerks have been working closely to make sure that we are providing the reporting method to a standard that is appropriate to you. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I want to move to questions from the committee. Let's go back to your point about what we would like to see more of. I will welcome the improvements to the report that has been brought in this year, but if I turn to Annex B, we have a useful table here. It talks about the title of the European law, the subject issue that is at stake, and then current alignment consideration. Under current alignment consideration from the Scottish Government, there are a number of statements here. It is either under active consideration or proposals under development. There is some indication of the direction of travel, but it does not really say where we are exactly within the policy process. If I take an example, a nature restoration law coming in at European level will establish a legally binding target. It says that it is under development in Scotland, but we know that that will probably be wrapped into the environment bill. I am just wondering to what extent we can get more clarity there. I think that it is partly in the context of common frameworks. We have obviously had issues around common frameworks in relation to deposit return scheme. There is an issue there around transparency. I feel that there is perhaps a little bit more granularity in terms of what the conversation looks like across the UK. Are there implications in terms of IMA? Beyond the general, we broadly agree with this and we are working on something. Is there more that could be put into that section to show the Government's working in terms of where we are at the moment in terms of alignment and what committee should look out for going forward? It might be this committee, it might be another committee. That is committee working in action, is it not? We are providing the context for the work that we are doing, so we are aware of those proposals. We are assessing those proposals. We are considering what it is that we would wish to do to remain aligned and what implications that might have in the wider context that Mr Ruskell has outlined. That leads to exactly those kind of questions being able to be asked. I cannot be psychic nor can my colleagues in knowing because it is a very long list and there may be something that is not tremendously interesting at all to anybody, but there may be things that for some members, given the variety of interests that you have, that these are really burning issues for you. Now that we have been able to highlight, here are the things that are on the docket, so to speak, that if you have follow-up questions and if you want to ask in writing or if there are things of such import that you would wish me and colleagues to give evidence, we can, but here is another aspect to this. The information that we are providing is also being done in such a way that the subject committees of the Scottish Parliament who have a particular locus in different policy areas can go, oh well these, for the example of Mr Ruskell has given. Those environmental considerations should be considered in the round by the Scottish Parliament Committee that deals with environmental and related matters. That is what we are hoping that this process makes easier. I do not think that it is for me to sit here and outline specific, in relation to specific bits of European legislation today, but what this is, the start-off, is the start of a process of giving you the opportunity to make sure that your committee colleagues and other committees are aware that there is this proposal, that proposal, that this should be looked at perhaps more closely, or you would wish more between evidence sessions us to provide you more as part of your work as a committee. If you feel that you require more information about that and how that then links together with other areas, I think that that is how the process is supposed to work. I think that Mr Ruskell is making the point. This is the point of this, which is to help you to have an awareness of what has happened and what we have done with that, what is currently being considered and what we know is coming down the track and we need to think more about it. I would hope that notwithstanding the fact that we are no longer in the European Union, there are still ways in which we can make our views known to EU colleagues around certain measures. Also, a little bit of horizon scanning is also quite useful in this record, and that is what I hope can emerge from this reporting mechanism that we will be able to do all of that. I think that just a slightly more granular information there would be good, because many of the boxes are just subject to further consideration. If there is something related to the PFG commitments or something else in there, or a particular common framework, that might be useful in just signposting it. I was also just going to ask about the decision that was captured in last year's report to diverge from the EU in relation to building standards for electric vehicles, car parking, I think it was. Just whether there is any kind of then backward look at those decisions. Obviously, that was a decision that was made, but is there a point where you go back and say, well, okay, is that working? What kind of progress are we seeing in the EU with the roll-out of electric vehicle charging at public car parks? Is that something for us to then reconsider? Once we make a decision, that's it. We diverge, thanks very much, or is it a point where you go back and you say, well, hang on a minute. In terms of keeping pace, was this the right decision? Is there a policy impact there? Okay, so I'll answer the second vision. I'll ask George Macpherson to come in on the first part and if he's got any subsequent things to mention relating to the car charging point. I think that that also is an issue where, in my mind, I really hope that our subject committees in the Parliament who have an awareness of what has come through the European Union institutions, how the Scottish Government has sought to align and then, as they would do with anything else, then ask themselves after some time, is this working as intended? That's how this is supposed to work. Now, if that's not working, then we need to work out why, but on something like that, that is where the scrutiny committee of committees are absolutely, that is at the heart of the responsibility of committee's work. If you don't have enough information, ask for it. If you want ministers to come and give evidence about specific measures, do that. In the meantime, if there are technical issues or subjects that lie very close to one member rather than the committee as a whole, again, please raise them with us and we will deal with that in the usual way. Sorry, George, I didn't want to... Thank you, cabinet secretary. What I would add to that is, obviously, it's quite a new process. We've only had a small number of months of information gathered centrally in which to produce the reports from. The Annex C, which currently identifies EU proposals that the Scottish Government is considering, and the view that we've reached on it so far in future years will be a full years' worth of reporting. Subsequent reports will contain, I would imagine, the current position in terms of those proposals. Looking back, you can compare the reports to see how that's changed over the period of time. Also, when the Scottish Government takes action to align with those particular proposals, then that will be captured in the report wherever it is most relevant. That's partly due to the fact that it's quite a new report. However, that particular proposal, I believe, will be captured in Annex C, as it's considered going forward. I said that it can then be referred back to. I agree with your comments at the start of your statement, about the work that the committee here and its clerks have done in terms of the EU law tracker, et cetera. I think that it is worth making the observation that this is Scottish Government policy and the committee's correct role is to scrutinise that. It should be the Scottish Government that is leading the way in the kind of work around tracking EU law, et cetera, and the committee should be reacting to that. I think that there is a slight sense that it's been the wrong way around previously. I think that we are beginning to correct that, but I would like to put that on the record. I welcome any observations that you have on it in a moment. I asked specifically about the appointment that was made in Dr Whitton's report, where we wrote to you on 14 September asking for your response. That is changes in tertiary EU law and measures contained in the 15 primary UK acts that make provisions in areas previously within EU competence, as well as provisions that otherwise arise because of UK withdrawal from the EU. I don't think that those were in the annual report. I may be wrong, but is it possible, either now or at a later date, for you or your officials to give an update on those two points? I will answer the first part of Don Cameron's question. There will be some updating on the second point of his questioning. On the first point, I absolutely acknowledge that, in the absence of a reporting mechanism, there is an imbalance of understanding, knowledge and information that the committee found itself in. From the first instance in which this was a subject of discussion with me before the committee, I have always said that I acknowledge that. I want to be as helpful as I can be and have always explained my own personal experience in having had to do this. I am coming from the other end of the spectrum where, every week, the European Scrutiny Committee in the UK Parliament had a sheaf of papers this thick. That was after a sift by four legal advisers, all of whom were former UK ambassadors. The volume of material that can be scrutinised is enormous. I think that the real aim in where we are trying to get to—this is the first attempt of providing a mechanism that should point to you all towards what we have done, what we are considering and what we expect to be coming down the line. I think that that is a really good start because where there will be areas where, once more information, one will be aware of the ground that perhaps you previously did not. I totally agree and I hope that we do get the balance right. That is why I say it again. If there is more than is required, less or things in a slightly different format, let us try to make that work. However, I hope that there is an appreciation that this is a very genuine attempt by the Government to work with the committee for the benefit of better lawmaking and scrutiny. We are open to any feedback about what needs to change in relation to that mechanism, but it is at a start. It is just starting, so I think that we can give it a chance to bed in and then have an iterative approach as we go forward. On the tertiary law points, George, is there anything that you want to add there? Yes, thank you. We do not differentiate in the reporting between types of EU legislation, so the tertiary legislation is captured in our reporting as well. For this particular set of reports, the reporting is, as we have said, for a shorter period, so there is not a direct read across in terms of some of the items that Dr Whitton has highlighted in her report because it was prior to us identifying and collating that information centrally. That is not to say necessarily that those items might not have already been considered, but we do not have the information for the periods that go out with the change in the process that we have now implemented. That said, I believe that we picked up most of the items that Dr Whitton flagged in her report. I think that the one that we did not pick up on is to do with how we aggregated the information. That highlights that there will always be differences in terms of how Dr Whitton identifies something as being relevant to devolution in Scotland and the Scottish Government's alignment commitment, and there will be a difference in terms of how that is looked at by ourselves. Obviously, next year's report will be for a full year. A direct read across will be easier to make. As the cabinet secretary said, and his opening statement, we would welcome discussions at official level at least around how we could potentially align better in terms of how we look at those commitments. Dr Whitton highlighted the point that the cabinet secretary did as well, and that is that the committee might want to think about speaking to subject matter committees about particular issues themselves, considering our co-ordination role in that part. That is very helpful indeed. I would like to ask a specific question about gene editing, and I do not want to get into the pros and cons of gene editing that I think it is appropriate for this committee to. I should also refer to my register of interests in terms of farming and crofting. It is quite an interesting area because it is potentially somewhere where Scotland could find itself as a bit of an outlier given that, in the UK Parliament and the EU, it has legislated to an extent to allow gene editing, and the Scottish Government has been opposed to it. I note in your report that you are now looking carefully at what the EU is doing. Can I ask what the current position of the Scottish Government is on that? I would have to furnish Mr Cameron with some advice from cabinet colleagues who have primary responsibility for that. That is where there is one of the dangers in having a report that has a myriad of listings of different legislative proposals. If one wants to pick one out of the hat and draw attention to one and ask questions, I want to be able to provide Mr Cameron with the answer to his question, but I am not in a position to do that. That is entirely fair enough. As an example, it is quite interesting that Scotland is diverging from the rest of the UK and arguably from what the EU is doing. As a specific example, that is quite fascinating. That in itself is a case. Mr Cameron is describing that in his own terms, which he is perfectly entitled to do, but it just seems to me an excellent example, as was the previous example in Mr Ruskell with an interest in environmental legislation, where my Government colleagues who have a responsibility in rural affairs or in the environmental portfolio area will be pleased to answer questions about those specific areas. I have always taken the view of someone who has worked very closely with European Union-related issues as a parliamentarian since 2001. That there has been a danger that things related to the EU are viewed by Government in general as being an issue that is dealt with by European colleagues, as opposed to understanding that these are central issues right across Government. That is why, to mirror the point that was made before, this is where I would be very keen, although it is your business to work out how you will impress on that with your other committee colleagues, that they take as close an interest on it. It is not to say that you cannot as a committee either convener, but I think that both of those examples, whether on the environmental or on the rural side of things, are things that now that we have been able to identify in the report as things that have happened, are happening or will be happening, that we maybe need to know more about it and need to be more conscious about that. I think that that is absolutely right. Cabinet Secretary, coming off the back, perhaps going back to Mark Ruskell's questions on areas where we have not aligned and then retrospectively considering that, I wanted to look at how the Government is defining that word of where appropriate in terms of alignment and the statement of policy. Of course, it says in a manner that contributes towards maintaining and advancing standards, protecting health and wellbeing, maintaining our international standards, none of which anyone would disagree with. I wondered if you could unpack a little bit of how the Government is interpreting that appropriateness and who is the final arbiter of that. I imagine that there are two principal reasons where it may not be appropriate to align. First is where we are bound by UK law and it would be therefore unlawful for us to deviate from EU standards. Secondly, perhaps where it might significantly disadvantage our citizens for whatever reason, either because we are trying to compete in an EU market but also in a UK market and so on. I wondered if you could outline that fully understanding that if we were a part of the EU, those questions would not even emerge if we would not have to define appropriateness. I have already said to the committee a little bit earlier that there are two particular constraints or realities around which our commitment operates. First is the reality of our devolved competence and then the wider UK structures. And secondly, whether European Union measures have demonstrable effect. So to take an example, which I think should be quite easy, is in a country where unless somebody can correct me, I don't think we grew olives or we don't have a wine sector as in a wine growing sector. Where there is European Union legislation on olive growing or wine production, that does not have an effect. So there are things which are just very obviously things that are within devolved competence do have demonstrable effect here and do not have a disadvantage and around those realities the consideration needs to be given as to what we are doing. Were we in the European Union then that would be entirely different because then everything is from a legislative standpoint and a treaty obligation, a requirement to ensure that one is fully integrating the entire corpus of EU law and we have already inherited 47 years worth of that in Scotland. I think that Ms Ford's point is absolutely correct that there is not a 100% read across, notwithstanding the commitment to remain aligned, but I think that for anybody who understands how the European Union works, the fact that we are now not in the European Union, that there are going to be areas because it does not have direct impact on us or because of the nature of the devolved settlement and how that then works, that there has to be, I mean if one wants to call it a caveat, then a caveat which is around appropriateness, possibility. I mean I've written down a few of these and that they are there for a reason, which is we are not going to be incorporating things that have no impact here or that the constraints are such that we cannot, but that shouldn't detract from the fact that in the main we are going to do exactly that which we've intended to do, which is to remain aligned. Is anything from a sort of administrative point of view George in terms of somebody's sharp end of making that decision? I think that there's a particular example in the report related to regulations around citrus growing. Scotland does not have a citrus industry, I think that's the only example that I've mentioned. So I suppose the examples that you've given are in a sense very common-sensical, they make a lot of common sense. Where might there be some dubiety? Is there, is the default to say that we align and therefore a case has to be made for not aligning and is that, do you take each one on merit and discuss that? Or are there any areas where there is above a grey area where the cabinet or government needs to consider whether there's an alternative rate? My default position is that we should, before we shouldn't, if that makes sense. The policy of this government is that we wish to see Scotland rejoin the European Union and to do so as quickly as possible. I look forward to publishing the Scottish Government's paper on this very subject tomorrow. Anybody who understands how European Union accession works is that there's a requirement for candidate countries to show that they are ready to join. In significant part that is because there is an alignment between candidate countries and the standards of the European Union. Us remaining aligned with the European Union is absolutely key to the speediest rejoining of the European Union, which is our stated aim. My position would be that we should be wherever we can seeking to align and there needs to be a very good reason why we shouldn't, but I think that Ms Forbes makes the point. In significant part it's just very common sense. I'm not aware, I will go away and I will refer to colleagues about this later, about where are there issues that may have been on the cusp of things, but that I don't have anything in the forefront of my mind that falls into that category. Will there be? No doubt, but I'm not aware of any at the present time that are of particular importance. I'm a wee bit conscious of time for if we could just try and be so slight in questions and answers that would be helpful. Mr Stewart. You've talked about the approach that the Government is taking, the competence, the effects and some of the scrutiny, and I think that those are all very valid in this process. Can I ask about how the Scottish Parliament's EU law tracker has supported the Government's approach to alignment and whether the Government has reflected on some of that, depending on when you've touched this morning about some sectors and some business organisations, and how they managed to co-operate in that process? That's a good question. There are quite a number of different sources that can be used as part of EU tracking mechanisms. Those are very common in Brussels. I think that everybody knows about the scale of representative organisations and embassies and offices. Scotland has its own capacity and representation there that can rely on all of that. I would hope that our process is as informed as is possible by those tracking providers that do so in the best and most useful way. The work that is conducted in the Scottish Parliament is an important part of that. I think that we will only know if we are missing anything as we go through a number of rounds of this reporting mechanism and where colleagues or the clerks or academics can then point to ways in which other tracking mechanisms have perhaps caught something or not and then work out whether we've been able to do so as well as we can. It is a major industry in Brussels to make sure that everybody is aware of what's happening. We will avail ourselves of the best information that we can, both there and here. As you will know from your own deliberations, there are some extremely talented academics and specialists in the field who work on this day and daily. They also form part of a wider ecosystem of flagging up what is happening, what's coming, the import of things. We just have to make sure that we're capturing all of that. One specific area that I can talk about is that Europe fit for the digital age has been discussed in the past. Scotland has ambitions about trying to ensure that it has the cultural, social and economic benefits of the digital society. That's already been talked about in the past. As I say, the ambitions that you have of ensuring that there is alignment across the sector and across the area, can I ask about the confidence of ensuring that we get that personal data and the law that requires that to be the case? My basic understanding of that at the moment is that there are still some complexities about trying to achieve that. It may be difficult to align some of that going forward, depending on the barriers and areas of difficulty that may be approached or may be received depending on where we can take that. That is a very complex area, and Mr Stewart is absolutely right to highlight that. I would say, however, that the European Union is one of the only bodies in the world with the scale and the heft to be able to come up with frameworks for some of these really big challenges, because they are a match for other trading blocs or for particular economic interests. We have to watch very closely what European colleagues are doing in this area, because for all of us who want the highest standards in these areas and others, we can invest some confidence that they will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting for us. It makes the case for why alignment is of import, quite apart from the sense of remaining aligned, so that when we return to the European Union, it is as seamless as possible. The digital area is exceptionally complex. I am sure that Mr Stewart saw the coverage of the recent conference hosted by the UK Government, which, unfortunately, Scotland was not present at on AI. Everybody is having to think about how we approach all of that, have the appropriate legal and other safeguards, and we will be working very closely with the European colleagues to make sure that it is fit for purpose here as well. I listen to the exchange between myself and Kate Forbes in the mention of common sense. I wonder if that makes the Scottish Government's minister for common sense. That seems to be a fashion these days to appoint such ministers. First of all, you mentioned about accession, which is often portrayed as solidifying alignment. However, it is also true, as with Maastricht, that it also solidifies divergence, as well as the Danish second homes that the UK opted out from the social chapter. I would be quite happy to see an update on that. If it was the case that the EU was proceeding with Jean Eddarton to see an update there, just to make that point, because we sometimes get the wrong impression of what alignment actually means. Given what you said about the UK Parliament and the volume of work and the resources devoted to it for legal advisers, I think that a fairly common academic assumption is that there was a real lack of genuine scrutiny beyond perhaps the House of Lords of European legislation. Are we not setting ourselves up here for trying to do far too much? You mentioned about trying to look across the whole scope. I might be this has been done already, because I am feeling new to the committee, but for the Government and the committee to agree what was relevant and thereby make it much more focused, as long as those areas that were not covered either this committee or individual members could ask for information on that. However, would it not be better to be more proportionate and focused on those areas more likely to be of interest to both Scotland and this committee, making it easier on officials, given the breadth of stuff that they could be doing? I could not agree more. That is the point that I have made prior to Mr Brown's membership of the committee, that there is a danger in saying that we require everything in its raw format, unprocessed, unassessed, without prioritisation, without the help of expert advisers or clerks or academics in being able to assess the importance of a regulation, a directive and so on. I think that having a sift process is a good thing, but having that operate in a way that can give individual committee members or different subject committees of the Parliament the opportunity in good time—there is the key factor in good time—to be able to influence the Government's thinking, and the legislative programme as well, because there may be legislative instruments that are at play, to be able to, for you as parliamentarians and as a committee collectively, to be able to discharge your responsibilities. I think that the injunction for proportionality is absolutely key in this. Will we get that right all of the time? Probably not, because of the volume of material that there is, but because of the way in which we are doing this, both looking back, looking at what is happening presently and what is happening in the future, one can, as Mr Ruskell's specific example on legislation, allow one to take evidence in good time to draw down more information and satisfy yourselves that you have done everything that you think is necessary and proportionate, and we are trying to do exactly the same. However, the fact that there is an open channel between officials and clerks of the committee is also very helpful, because we should not be satisfying your demands as a committee just from evidence session to evidence session. It should be on-going. You should be aware of things that are happening in the meantime. We should be aware, if you have specific issues where—I do not know, Mr Cameron's question was a good example of that. I wanted to know something about it, technical. I do not have that. I have a very big folder. I do not have information on that. I would like to be able to furnish that information, but if we can get that process working well, then questions will be answered, hopefully. However, if more information is required, it can happen in good time as part of your on-going investigations and inquiries as a committee? It is a distinction between the obligations that the Government has to be able to look across the whole scope of things, but between the Government and its committee, if you can get an agreed position where you have more relevance and less volume, I think that would be good. One last little point, just to say that you mentioned in response to Mark Ruskell the idea of how we talked to the EU ourselves—that is obviously the source of much of the legislation and so on. You might be aware that this Parliament's committee has a nomination to things like the CLARI, which I have been nominated to, or the proximity group, whatever it is called, to the committee of the regions. However, we will not have a member on that for many months to come, which I think undermines the committee, the Parliament's ability to have those direct conversations. I do not know whether it is proper to do so. I know that the committee clerks are working on this and whether the Government could try to prevail on the UK Government to make sure that it is speeded up as quickly as possible. We will do that. Mr Brown will report back. We have to use every routine that we can. We have many of you who have met Martin Johnson and members of the team in Scotland House, who are very capable of reaching both legislators and we are in a fortunate position. There is a Friends of Scotland group in the European Parliament, which crosses the mainstream political families in the Parliament. If there are members who are wanting to speak with colleagues in the EPP or in the party European Socialists and Social Democrats, the Greens and IFA for others, there are routes in through the European Parliament, there are routes in through the commission, and it is one of the reasons why we have conversations with other Governments, both at a federal and at a state level. We want to have open channels of communication, so if there are things that we feel that we should raise, we will raise them and not being present is a problem. None of those, though, is a substitute for doing what every other normal country does, which is to sit in the council of ministers and be part of the discussions about what is happening in the European Union, having a nominated commissioner from this country sitting in the commission of the European Union or indeed having our full complement of members in the European Parliament, making the laws which will impact on it. The only way to do that is to be a member state of the European Union, because sitting outside in the cold, which is where we are, means that we are having to find workarounds because Brexit has brought about a circumstance where we are no longer part of the decision-making structures of the EU, so we will try our best, but there is no substitute for the proper way of doing it. I thank the clerks and the officials for their work in producing these reports. I just wanted to follow up the questions from Kate Forbes and Donald Cameron in relation to the test in general that the Scottish Government is applying in terms of EU alignment. You mentioned earlier about where appropriate meaning where possible and where meaningful and talked about meaningful having no impact, but I think obviously in the course of this morning we have discussed an example of gene editing in terms of whether that would be desirable or not and issues raised by Kate Forbes about whether provisions could be actually in our national interests. In addition to whether it is possible or whether meaningful, you mentioned common sense there earlier, should there be an element or test here of whether the Scottish Government agrees with the proposals? Of course, absolutely. Perhaps there will be examples that come along where one does not. Again, it is a good illustration, Mr Bibby's point, of having an awareness of where these things come about. Members will be able to question me or colleagues about the thought process that has come to the stage of saying that this is why we are or are not or are unable to to proceed with things and the point is well made. That is why we are doing this, because it is about being as well cited as we can in the best, most timious way and then to be able to ask those very questions. I totally agree. Thank you. The final thought for me is also to put on record, as committee convener, the pranks of the committee to the officials, to our clerks, to our colleagues on spice and to Dr Whitton for her work in getting us to this significant progress that has been made to date. I will now suspend momentarily to allow officials to change over. I welcome back, cabinet secretary, and I just remind her that we have no flexibility in time in this and we have some other agenda items to get through this morning. We now move to our third agenda item, which is consideration of draft statutory instrument retained EU law, revocation and reform act 2023, consequential amendment Scotland regulations 2023. Following the evidence session with the cabinet secretary and his officials, the committee will be invited at the next agenda item to consider a motion for the committee to recommend that the instrument be approved. I remind members that Scottish Government officials can speak under this agenda item, but not in the next agenda item. I welcome back to committee Angus Robertson MSP, cabinet secretary, for the constitution at the innovation culture and supported by Greg Walker, retained EU law act management lead and David MacLennan, lawyer for the Scottish Government, and I can invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement. Thank you very much, convener. Good to be back. The instrument before the committee today is a technical one to update the devolved statute book for the new legal concept of assimilated law, which will become the new name for retained European union law under the retained EU law act. This change takes effect at the end of the year and cannot be prevented. Therefore, as a responsible Government, we want to ensure that there is maximal clarity in devolved primary and secondary legislation. This is the only SSI laid by the Government under the rule act to date, and the Government has no plans to use rule act powers to alter policy. The range of policy areas touched on in the SSI from aquaculture and fisheries to waste management shows the potential of the rule act to affect the full panoply of devolved competencies. The committee's recent report on how devolution is changing post-EU found that the rule act, like the UK internal market act, represents, and I quote, a significant shift in the constitutional landscape. I can assure members that the Government is treating the rule act as such. We are committed to protecting devolved interests in the management of UK statutory instrument proposals and where powers allow and it is appropriate to do so. We will seek to legislate in this Parliament and that is why we are bringing an SSI forward. We should touch on the report of the Delegate Powers and Law Reform Committee that is issued, which draws the instrument to the attention of the Parliament and the reporting ground E. In that, there appears to be a doubt where the paragraph 3 of the schedule is intra-virus. That paragraph amends the freedom of information Scotland act 2002, so that the phrase EU obligation becomes assimilated obligation. I note the position of the Delegated Powers Committee in their report last week on the SSI, but I remain of the view that all aspects of the SSI are within the enabling powers and are good law. I do not propose to withdraw and relay the instrument to exclude the necessary freedom of information amendments. Where out of date EU terminology stands on the statute book, it is appropriate that such cases are remedied and an appropriate legislative vehicle has been found to be at hand. I look forward to the committee's question on what is quite a technical subject, so I am delighted to be joined by the two leading experts in the field who will be able to answer any of the technical questions that you may have. I entirely agree with the position of the cabinet secretary. It is important from my perspective that the SSI is approved. If it is possible to answer this question, why was it an oversight to something that slipped through the net? I do not say that critically, because I know that things often happen. I will make the general point. Imagine if we were in a parallel world where the rule legislation, as had previously been proposed, were to have gone through. We remember that the sun setting arrangements had been brought in. Were we still to have been in that universe, we would have been sitting here talking about many, many, many SSIs and SSIs, and now at least we are in a more fortunate position that we are not. It is the case that there is quite a lot of reflection about whether those issues are touched on. It has been highlighted to me that there have been three recent cases where people have suggested that it might be relevant in relation to employment law or equality law, or indeed in relation to Rwanda, which is quite current, but the case is not. On the specifics of the measure, I do not know if David or Gregor want to add anything. I think that given the scale of the statute book and the challenge of EU exit, it is unsurprising that there may have been missed references in the statute book, but I hope that it gives members confidence that, in quite a large instrument, colleagues across the Scottish Government teams have been looking at retained EU law quite intensely for some time. There is just one line here. What the cabinet secretary said earlier, where we uncover anomaly, there may be a range of approaches that may be inconsequential and we leave it. There may be guidance or directions, non-statutory options, but here we felt that this was comfortably within the enabling powers, general consequential amendment powers, and that this legislative vehicle was to hand. I am not aware of any other anomalies, deficiencies like this, certainly as I think your briefing has made clear what were known as deficiency powers under the EU withdrawal act have now gone, but should any remaining points be addressed, it may be that there are other legislative approaches than rule act because, as the cabinet secretary has impressed, there is no appetite to use the wide suite of rule act powers that are now available to devolved governments. I perhaps invite my colleague David to say a little more about the fact that this has come to light and there has been no practical issue to date and that this is the appropriate approach to take now. Thank you, Greg. I guess that the key point with this instrument is that it is an instrument for updating terminology to reflect a new legislative landscape. Each of the terms and question have to be understood within the legislative framework with which they were intended. As an EU member state, there were obligations under EU law, which attracted the label of an EU obligation. When we left, the EU law became retained EU law and obligations under retained EU law became known as retained EU obligations. At the end of this year, under the retained EU law act, retained EU law will become known as assimilated law and so those obligations will of course become known as assimilated obligations. That is simply what this instrument and that provision of the instrument is doing. It is making sure that the right label is going to attach to the obligations and question, and that is why we remain comfortable that we are able to do it with the powers in the rule act. Are there any questions for other questions? There are no further questions from committee, so we now formally move to agenda item 4, which is formal debate on the affirmative instrument on which we have just taken evidence. Can I remind the committee members that they should not put questions to the cabinet secretary during the formal debate? Does any member wish to contribute? Does the cabinet secretary wish to add anything? I am not content with the statement that I outlined to the committee, thank you, convener. That concludes the debate, so cabinet secretary can ask you to formally move motion S6M-10876. Formally moved. Thank you. The question is that S6M-10876 be approved. Are we all agreed? Thank you. The committee is content to delegate authority to prove a report on the instrument for publication to myself as the convener. That concludes consideration of the instrument and thank you to the cabinet secretary and his officials for joining us this morning. We are just two minutes over time, cabinet secretary, so good morning. I want to suspend briefly till our witnesses just change over for our next agenda item. A warm welcome back. We are now moving to agenda item 5, which is to take evidence on the challenges of artists' mobility between Scotland and the EU. With a focus on the music industry, the session will inform our inquiry on the review of the UK-EU trade incorporation agreement, as well as our on-going input to the UK-EU parliamentary partnership assembly in advance of its next meeting in 4th and 5th December. We joined this morning with Sam Duncan, acting regional organiser of the Musicians Union, Alice Black, Scottish Live Events branch broadcasting entertainment communications and three theatre union Bechtu. Alice is joining us online this morning. Alasdair Mackay, chief executive of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the SNO, Ewan Robertson, board member of traditional arts and culture Scotland and Lisa Wittock, director of active events, who is also joining us online. Can I begin by inviting each of our witnesses to give a short overview of the challenges experienced by touring artists post-EU exit from your own organisation's perspectives? Could I perhaps begin with Miss Wittock? Hi there. Thanks very much for this opportunity. I'd like to just add that, in addition to being the director of active events, I also run showcase Scotland Expo, which is the export office for folk and roots music, so I'll be giving evidence in both capacities. I don't think that it will come as any surprise to the committee that the challenges since Brexit are increased. I think that it's also important to say, which will also come as no surprise, that in order for there to be professional musicians in Scotland, it's imperative that they earn an income outwith the borders of our country, because our nation is simply too small to sustain an income for professional musicians. Some of the main challenges are obviously in administration. The Carney situation is an issue, both financially and administratively for artists. Some varies widely in what its costs are, depending on the instruments and equipment that need to be listed in that. However, there is also a challenge with the actual border controls from Carney's. You have a random variant understanding of the actual officials depending on which airport you go through, and that can often cause delays and alarm from musicians operating under a Carney system. Customs is also an issue, and in particular that has seen a massive drop in earnings on merchandising for artists, because it's much more expensive to bring merchandising into the EU and to therefore earn from it. All of that is hitting artists during that perfect storm of increased costs and the challenges of the current income and economy that we're living in. Those are all challenges. Specifically within the Celtic and folk world, however, there's also a challenge within the booking of the artists, because if you and I are at a festival in Denmark, for example, or in France, and you want to book a Celtic artist, it's very easy for you to bypass Scotland and to go directly to Ireland to programme a Celtic artist. That is a challenge, and that's something that we've been working hard at to try and combat. It's also much harder for new artists to break through into Europe. I think it's slightly easier for the more established artists, but for newer artists it is much harder. That's partly because the promoters in Europe have less confidence that younger artists will understand the complexities that are associated with Brexit, and partly because quite frankly they don't have the financial backing to be able to undertake journeys into Europe for the first time. There are challenges within vehicle movement, and I'm hoping that my colleague Alice is probably going to expand more on that. I'm not going to talk about cabotage, which has been widely discussed. I'm going to talk about the issue of insurance. It's not even a Government implemented problem or whatever the language is. Essentially, if you are an artist and you want to hire a vehicle to go into Europe, the insurance in order to be able to hire that vehicle, being imposed by the higher companies, is so high that you cannot take a vehicle from the UK into mainland Europe. It's just preclusive in terms of those private insurance charges, and obviously that has implications for Green Turing, and it's something that needs to be desperately looked at. I noticed when I was reading the papers that there was some outline as to what support currently exists for artists, and I think I need to dispel some myths about that. MEGS, which has mentioned, is not actually a suitable fund for many artists. It is in fact a scheme where you are lent money, but you're given money, but you don't actually receive that money until you have spent it, and you have to then show your receipts. It actually forces artists into debt, and it's only really suitable for musicians that are supported by London-based record labels. It's certainly not suitable for the way that Scotland's infrastructure is set up. There is also the open funds that's managed by Creative Scotland, which, as everyone knows, is under increasing pressure, and it is by no means assured that artists will be supported to tour through the open funds. In fact, the challenges on that fund are so great that I think it's unlikely that many will be. The PRSF fund that is mentioned is actually only for showcasing, it's not for touring, and there is also the Made in Scotland Onward Touring Fund, which is only applicable to artists that have performed at any of the Edinburgh festivals. There is a national companies international touring fund, which of course is not applicable for any of the musicians, so whilst there are resources out there that can potentially help musicians, none of those are suitable for the independent musician. I think that that is a worry. I think that there are certain things that can be done, and I would invite questions after this because I'm trying to run through this as quickly as possible, and quite honestly I could be here for at least an hour. There are a number of things that can be done that are within the Scottish Government's ask, and one of those is to continue the discussions and dialogue around developing a music export office, which I think would alleviate many of those challenges. It's certainly for emerging artists if a promoter in Denmark is concerned about booking an emerging or new artist for the first time, if they have the confidence that a music export office is there providing the resources and knowledge for those artists, then I think that that would go a long way to helping that situation. I should add that when I say I run the export office for Scottish folk music, I would just like to point out that that is very part-time. So when I refer to a music export office, I mean a fully functioning and properly funded export office. I also think that in the shorter term something could be done quite quickly, and that is to set up a touring fund similarly either to Made in Scotland or to the National Companies International Touring Fund that is available to help artists throughout these times. There's a lot more that I could say. Obviously, I mean a cultural touring agreement and lobbying for that within the EU, but I understand that that is not within the give of a Scottish Government and is a UK-wide ask, but certainly a cultural exchange or a cultural touring agreement between the EU and the UK would go a long way to helping that situation. I think I'll stop there because there's quite a lot in there, but I would invite any questions and I'd be happy to add any more comments. We're going to have open statements from all the witnesses and then we'll move to questions. Lisa, I'll bring in Alice who's also online, thanks. Thank you. Much of the media attention around EU touring focuses on artists, but obviously for every musician on a tour there's several technicians, crew, producers, term, production managers and drivers who without them there would be no shows. Our members support the artistic vision and make it something that can be seen and heard and you have to talk about the two in the same breath really so you can't have one cannot exist without the other. Star, Scottish and UK technical staff are renowned for being some of the most skilled crew in the world. Many international artists used to begin their tours in the United Kingdom working with crews within Scotland hiring equipment and transport from the UK to take into the EU. Now that's become too complex and because of the 90-day rule of travel additional paperwork expense for the movement of goods, large number of artists and touring companies aren't travelling to the UK anymore and aren't hiring our crew and our equipment and taking that abroad. This also has a knock-on impact on venues and promoters, the equipment hire companies, the trucking companies and transport providers. We were the centre point of the live events industry but I feel like that's now changed and we're falling behind. The 90 out of 180 day rule for travel has a real impact on our members. We've had just personal stories of people being unable to holiday with their family because they're concerned about using up some of their 90 days and not having enough time left if they're offered a tour to be able to take it. It has an impact not just on our members but also on their families and yet a wider impact than just the financial aspect. I think what we would like to see is much of what Lisa just mentioned in terms of specific mention in the trade and co-operation agreement for cultural workers, a waiver for visas and for travel. I know that we've got a lot of bilateral agreements with specific countries within the European Union but that is complex, with different rules applying to different countries. For individuals and sole traders who are trying to navigate that, it's a lot of additional time they have to spend working all of that out. There's also carnets and there's exemptions for musical instruments. Are technicians travelling with, for example, a lighting desk and there's no exemption for that? Again, there's additional cost paperwork and time that people are having to spend now, which they didn't previously, in order to take the tools that they need for their job into the EU. I guess I can probably leave it there for now and take any more questions later, but I think that much of the impact on artists is the same for our members in more technical roles. As well as being a new board member for traditional arts and culture Scotland, I'm also a touring musician with a folk group, so I have direct experience of pre-Brexit and post-Brexit touring, so if it's okay, I would just give you a little bit of a snapshot of our experience. The main challenge is loss of bookings. In 2018, we had 37 shows in the EU. In 2019, we played 61 shows in the EU. In 2022, we played four shows in the EU. In 2023, we've managed to play 12 shows. Obviously, there are other issues going on surrounding Covid, but when we look at our other territories that we tour in, we're back to similar levels of concerts in the UK, and we've seen a slight increase in other territories such as North America. I've spoken to different EU agents that we work with, and they have reported problems in terms of admin. They've been finding that bands simply don't want to come and tour, so I know that that's a bit vague, but there's certainly a reluctance for those agents to engage with Scottish artists. It's becoming increasingly hard to make a profit due to rising costs. I think that it's important to mention that I spoke with another group, Skerrie Vore, who are a flagship Scottish band, and they've just completed a European tour, and they didn't actually break even on that tour. Again, rising costs, but one of the main issues with the rising costs was the amount of money that they were spending on their carny. There's also a lot of challenges surrounding merchandising. We've had reports of bands losing up to 72 per cent of online sales to the EU. Travel challenges in terms of missing flight connections, being held up at customs, and the implication that that has. There's, again, Alice mentioned time problems in terms of working with our families in the band that I play with. We have three of us who have young families, and if we have to explore other territories to work, it means more travel, more time away from home, and more costs, so that's certainly difficult. I'm probably just repeating a lot of what's going to be said and what's already been said, but I think that it's important to say that there is definitely a fabulous network of venues and promoters. There's a huge passion and demand for Scottish music and culture, but it's just becoming increasingly more difficult to access. There's an increased workload, increased expenditure and moving forward, I think that we just have to look to other territories, which is a great shame. I'll try not to repeat what's been said already, but the artist in the world will be doing 13 performances in Europe this year. Maybe I can just start by saying some of the challenges that existed before Brexit touring an orchestra from Scotland. We went to Salzburg three weeks ago with 110 musicians. There are so few flights out of Scotland compared to London. For example, we have to put musicians on multiple flights. We suffer from dynamic pricing models, so at the cheap end we might have a return flight to Salzburg for 300 quid. For the last 10 or 20 musicians, we're up at £1,000. That's just a geographical point, but that's a background to how much more expensive it is. Because we're almost always taking two flights to our first touring venue, unlike a London orchestra, which will travel on the day of its first concert, at 95 per cent of the time, we always have to travel a day before. We can't trust flight connections, we can't trust passport delays, as has been mentioned already. It's a huge factor. Now we've got 100 people through a passport control, which takes a lot of time. Even before Brexit, there were additional expenses to touring a Scottish orchestra as opposed to a London orchestra. On top of that now, we've mentioned carnies, we've mentioned cabotage. Let me just give you some detail. Cabotage costs us about an extra £15,000. That's bringing a lorry from Europe to Glasgow to Europe, back to Glasgow, back to Europe. Rather than taking our own lorry, it's £15,000 extra. Additional carny costs are about £10,000 for us now, for each visit we go to Europe. I do think that touring is crucially important for the national orchestra. I think that it has real reputational gain for the orchestra and for Scotland as a whole. Most major cities and most countries have orchestras that are flagship cultural institutions, and touring them is a crucial part of articulating what's happening back at home in your country. I do think that it's crucially important. One other background, I spent 23 years in a London orchestra and the Philharmonia orchestra. A London orchestra gets about 20 per cent of its turnover in public subsidy, that's independent of tax credits. In Scotland, we get nearly 40 per cent, sorry, that's much less than it used to be, but really London orchestras are able to build a business model where touring is an absolutely crucial income generator for them. I would like to think that the SRSNO can be in Europe enough that we can build a similar model, because if we're not in Europe enough, we don't build a reputation to get into the large halls to get the higher fees. The tour that we're doing in January 24, as opposed to the tour that we did in April 22, we're getting 14 per cent higher fees than we did. That's because we're committed to going to Europe, we're building reputation, we're building fees, we're going to bigger halls. I'd like that trajectory to continue. I think that eventually we could get to a point where touring was a key part of our turnover, but we're not going to get there unless we're in Europe often enough and we can't do that at the moment and break even. The international touring fund has been mentioned, and I'd like to say something on that on behalf of the national companies. We could not tour without that fund, it's absolutely crucial, but we have to tie down touring dates about two years out. For example, we will get some support for Salzburg in October, we'll get some support in January. That support was confirmed two weeks ago with us after we'd been to Salzburg, and after all our concerts in January are contracted. So it is invaluable, it allows us to tour, but it's so uncertain at the moment that I'm finding it difficult to commit to future European tours without some certainty that we'll have that funding. All our finances are so tight, as you know at the moment. Adding in a potential significant loss on touring is quite hard to justify. Maybe I can just talk as well about inward. We have always depended, to some extent, on European musicians coming to Scotland. It allows us to present an international season, it allows us to maintain a world-class orchestra, but I checked our numbers this morning and the RSNO has 108 British members, only eight European members now and one non-European member. I can tell you, compared to London Orchestra, that's dramatically different. That is partly the complexities of Brexit, the visas, the costs of visas, NHS surcharges, all the things that are additional, but it is also a funding issue that we now pay so much less than other UK orchestras and we pay less than European orchestras. If you could just compare it to a top sports team, a top football team, of course we need to access the European labour market to get the very best musicians to keep the national orchestra at a really international level and the combination of low salaries plus the increased complexity and costs of visa is making it extremely difficult to recruit outside of the UK and while at the moment I don't believe that that's had an impact on the level of the orchestra, I think it's inevitable that through time we will. Maybe I could say something in a more positive anecdotal note, I think there's a lot of negative feeling towards UK after Brexit and towards UK culture orchestras after Brexit. Everywhere we went as a Scottish orchestra we have been warmly welcomed and I think that's an important statement for Scotland to make and I wanted to report that back but we would like to be in Europe more, what I'm hearing again, almost everywhere we've been we've been re-invited to but what I hear again is we were surprised how good you were, I don't want anyone to be surprised by the level of culture in Scotland and the reason of surprise is because we're just not there enough and we're just not there enough because of the financial challenges of being there and these financial challenges have just increased after Brexit, they were already challenging before. I really appreciate the chance to come and tell you my woes but also to say just how crucially important I think it is that Scottish cultural institutions, bands, orchestras, theatres, opera houses are in Europe and we're letting people know just how good what's going on here is. The experience that we have as the Musician's Union is similar to that that you've heard already so I'll try not to repeat too much but again to give some context before Brexit the inquiries that we got from members from musicians about working in Europe were very similar to the inquiries that we still get about working in the UK, they were about contracts and fees, insurance and transport. The inquiries that we get now are about visas and work permits, often about carnets and it's because the majority of our members are individual musicians who are being asked to navigate incredibly complex systems that almost by default are not user friendly, they're not designed to be user friendly. There are added costs for our members with carnets and with visas, there is added complexity of being able to just go to work and make a living and that combination makes it for a lot of musicians not a financially viable option anymore to go and tour in Europe. This is music, a report from earlier this year said that 82% of those who responded to their survey had said their earnings had decreased, their European earnings had decreased, 65% were receiving fewer invitations to perform in the EU and 57% said it wasn't possible to take up invitations due to increased costs. I had a member in touch last month who was asking whether the fee they'd been offered for a gig in Europe was reasonable and by the time we talked it through we worked out they'd end up with about £50 and they'd be there for three or four days and that's just not viable. A lot of independent musicians before Brexit were learning their trade and adding to the richness of their practice by performing in Europe, by being able to go and perform with musicians who weren't from the same nation as them, to be able to experience different culture, different audiences and a different way of performing and that option is not open now to too many musicians. As a union to try and support our members we've created a new post which came into effect just after Brexit, we now have a head of international who leads on these issues and works with the International Federation of Musicians, which is effectively a union of musicians unions from around the world, who are able to lobby Governments in Europe, as well as us lobbying Governments in the UK and in the nations within the UK. That has got us somewhere but there's still a lot of inconsistency between the different nations and that really presents our members with challenges. We were really pleased to see the paragraph in the UK EU domestic advisory groups report on the 6th of November, which states a commitment almost or an understanding that a cultural visa waiver should be created for creative workers, which we've been lobbying for since Brexit and we've said, as Alice has mentioned, should include musicians but also music workers because without the technicians and the supporting roles it's really difficult for musicians to do their work. We support the UK music manifesto for music, which calls for a cultural touring agreement and for the music export office, which has been mentioned by Lisa previously. I don't want to take up time repeating things that have been said. I echo everything that's been said so far. I'm happy to talk further if members have questions. If I could ask the question before moving to the committee members. Myself and my deputy convener sit as observers on the PPA. This will be discussed at the PPA in December. I was also allowed to take part in a breakout session on touring artists the last time we were in London. My impression, rightly or only, is that they have a focus on emerging artists, which is an assumption that lots of them will be young people. I wondered what you thought of the demographics of the areas that you're working in. If that's a right priority or you think that it would make any difference at all to the larger sectors that you're all working in. If I go in reverse again, I'll go to you first on this one, Sam. Musicians emerge at different stages of life because we have different pressures and different priorities. We have members who are still in study and we have members who are past a retirement age. All of them face the same barriers. I think that the difference isn't necessarily around age. It's around the scale of support and infrastructure that's around you as a musician. If you're touring arenas and have production companies behind you and record labels behind you, you are better able to deal with those barriers than individual artists. The focus should be around scale rather than career stage or age. Maybe I can just say from personal experience when I left university there wasn't a job. I was a trumpet player. There wasn't a job in a UK orchestra for 18 months for a trumpet player. I had no additions to do. I had no opportunities to try and get a foot through the door, so I took the chance to go and work in Paris. It was very straightforward. When I came back to the UK, I got married and I came back as a freelance musician. A huge amount of my income was just by dotting over to Europe and playing for small ensembles in Europe. I wasn't an international artist. I was an orchestra player. The options that I took as a young trumpet player are so much more difficult now. Apart from anything, I don't think that an orchestra in Paris now would probably advertise in the UK for a musician. It takes a long while. It took me my first position in a UK orchestra. I was 28. I left university at 21, so I had seven years of trying to build my skills to a point where I could win a position in an orchestra. European income, European travel was a huge part of staying afloat until I had the security of a position in an orchestra. I think that for young people you need to be a fleet of foot. You need to give every opportunity that comes, and opportunities have diminished post-Brexit for young orchestra players. I think that there is an expectation that perhaps more established bands are in a stronger position to be touring in the UK, but my personal experience would be that that is not the case. It is even more difficult. We have been taking steps backwards rather than forwards of that. For example, our last tour, which was a 10-day tour in Germany, we had to cut costs in order to make sure that the tour was profitable. We were not able to take a sound engineer with us, which put our faith in engineering. First of all, we were not able to employ a music worker, so that impacted them. You are not giving the best portrayal of yourself on an international stage, because you are taking a chance. It is a difficult situation. It affects members of all ages and stages in their careers. It is a particular challenge for younger workers who can no longer enjoy and gain experience from touring the EU in the way that I did when I first started out in my career. It is a real benefit for people to be able to go and experience that and to bring back knowledge and skills to the industry in Scotland. It is also putting people off joining the industry, to be honest. In many technical roles at the moment, we have severe skills shortages. We need to encourage people to join the industry, and part of that is the experience that we get from touring the EU, which is no longer as easy as it used to be. People move. As we learned during the pandemic, lots of our workers have transferable skills, and they were able to move into other areas of the industry and work there. We have a lot of movement from people coming into the industry who may have been an electrician and want to become a lighting technician. That can be at any stage in their career and life. There are particular challenges for younger people, but it impacts everyone in the industry. I agree with what everyone has said. It is often quite dangerous to say that we are going to provide the solution by providing funding for young people. I see that a lot, but it is not strategic, and it does not actually deal with the crux of the issue. If you are a band—for example, in Scotland, you might be selling 1,500 tickets, but you have never played in France. You need to be able to access that market and to be able to build an audience there in order to have a sustainable career. I would say that there is a lot of investment, quite rightly so, particularly in Scotland in youth music initiatives. That is great, but without those young artists having their peers and seeing that there is a pathway to having a successful international career, they will not be inspired to take up careers as professional musicians. It needs to be a strategic approach, and you need to look at what the solutions are to each artist at each stage of their career, and not to assume that just because a band may have significant success in Scotland, that does not mean that they are safe as professional musicians. As I said, I think that a more rounded approach to looking at the challenges overall is what I would suggest. I start by agreeing with Alistair Mackie that it is absolutely critical that Scottish music is in Europe. We are all very proud of Scotland's musical culture and heritage, and it is key for everything else associated with Scotland's reputation. Your success in Europe has an economic impact, a social impact and a demographic impact. I think that the comment that Mr Robertson made is that scary board did not even break even, just to illustrate just how critical this is. We are only a couple of years post Brexit. I want to focus on what the committee can call for or can do to try and relieve some of the pressures that touring musicians are dealing with, apart from the obvious, which is reversing Brexit, which the committee cannot do single-handedly. There has been talk about funding and technical changes to the rules around transporting equipment, merchandise and artists into and around the EU, but I wonder what your answer would be to that. Where can we make the biggest, most impactful change in order to try and resolve this? Right now, it strikes me that it does not sound very sustainable. If, as I have said, the stakes are so high in terms of ensuring that you can tour, what is it that you think we, in our devolved capacity, could do that would make the biggest difference? You and your want to go first since I mentioned scary board and your evidence. I think that there is some kind of waiver on the carny, because that is definitely a cost that has just come directly from Brexit, so it is definitely something that we did not have to consider before, and it is a significant cost. All other costs are rising anyway, but if there was some kind of waiver system that could prevent us having to go through that, the time it takes, the confusion it causes and the money it takes, that would be fantastic. The carny is, I remember a trip back from Japan when someone put a hanky in the violin case, and the whole lorry was emptied because a hanky was not a silk hanky right enough, it was not on the carny. If there was some kind of value, so anything beneath, I do not know, £500 or something was not required, I do not know if that is possible, but it is the complexity of the carny, which takes so much time and money. I would love, I understand the cabotage, the exemption was not refused, I understand that it was not pressed for, and I do not really understand the politics of that, why we cannot retrospectively push to have a cultural exemption for the cabotage rules. We invested in a lorry that is a modern engine that has a low carbon footprint, and yet we are having to hire a haulier from Europe. We have no idea what that carbon footprint is at an additional expense, it is a nightmare. I wish I could give you a really compelling thing for this committee to do. I fear that the biggest problem to touring is the perception of complexity from European promoters and a general negativity towards UK post-Brexit, but what I would say is that it is even more compelling as you say that we should be in Europe because of that, to fight that, to fight for Scotland's reputation in place. I think that culture has a leading role to play. Brexit was such a huge hit for the music industry and touring. There is no mitigation that I could suggest. There are things that would help to make it easier, that would decrease our costs and complexity, but that is even more compelling reason to fight through and to get there more and more. A lot of the costs come from the administrative burdens and the fees that are charged around that for carnets and all the rest of it. The idea of music export office that is UK-wide is the aspiration, but I wonder if there is a potential to create one that serves Scotland and musicians in Scotland in the short term, to try and support musicians at whatever stage of their career in dealing with the bureaucracy that they are coming up against, to make sure that they are supported in that and have access to experts and potentially funding to offset some of those costs that are falling on them now that are not necessarily of their making, but they are costs that were not there before Brexit. So potentially is their capacity to create a fund that can pay for some of those costs for artists touring to Europe. I think that in the long term we will continue as a union lobbying for a cultural work visa and anything that the committee can do to lobby for that as well would be massively appreciated. But again I am not sure there are quick fix solutions, but if there is something that can happen in Scotland to support Scottish musicians we would be all for that. Hi, I'd just like to echo what Sam has said. Obviously the committee can lobby for waivers etc, but the question was what can the Scottish Government do now. In the longer term an export office, the Scottish music export office focusing on the specific needs of Scottish artists is ultimately the aim. I for one would prefer to see that as opposed to Scotland being consumed by a UK music export office because that worries me, so I'd much prefer us to lobby for a Scottish music export office, but in the short term, and I mean now, there really needs to be an international touring fund set up to help artists to be able to access those new territories. You and Robertson quite rightly said that due to the complexities and difficulties within Europe, artists are now looking to North America. North America is massively expensive to tour, but it's also very rewarding. It's always been massively expensive to tour North America, but that's not new. The complexities within Europe are new. I do worry that without intervention now there will be a lot more artists that leave the industry. Our colleagues in the more Indian pop world have spoken to me and said that there are many artists who have chosen to stop touring altogether. They're still releasing albums, they're still recording, but they're no longer touring because it's just not financially practical to do that. Scotland has a rich cultural heritage. We are seen as massively punching above our way in terms of the talent that is here in the country, but without intervention to sustain those professional musicians now, I do really worry about the future and I think that we'll see an increasing decline over the next two years, so I would urge the committee to take action now to reverse that. It doesn't need to be a huge amount of money. I welcomed the First Minister's announcement about increased funding for culture and arts and I would urge for some of that to at least be released now to deal with the pressing problems that artists currently face. Thank you, and Alice, final word. Yeah, I mean, echoing much what's already been said really, but you know, I think, yeah, I agree with campaigning for changes to the EU trade and cooperation agreement to include a free cultural worker permit or exemption and carny waiver and exemption as well, and I agree funding to support workers and organisations with the additional costs in admin, and because that's really one of the main barriers that I think the Scottish Government could help with, you know, continuation of the international touring fund, the national performing companies, supporting the festival expo fund, Creative Scotland. I know they support organisations and individuals touring internationally with their open funds, so, you know, I guess an increased level of funding to support the kind of international work that those funds, you know, help provide for would be great. You know, we recently had a five, a member had a five week tour cancelled because just because of the international artist got too nervous about around the issues to do with visas and carnets and decided to go with the German supplier instead, so, you know, it's just like, yeah, the impact of those things, I think, and campaigning around those issues would be would be a great help. Thank you. Can I begin, Mr Ruskell, please? Yeah, thanks. I'm interested in, you know, your campaign for a cultural touring agreement. I think Alice, you were just talking there about, you know, the TCA review 2026 and what progress, what discussions you can have ahead of that. I mean, are there other sectors that kind of link in with touring companies and musicians who are facing similar issues where you could potentially work together? And I'm just thinking about screen within the cultural ecology, whether there are workers, you know, working screen and other cultural sectors that are, you know, coming up against similar problems and how you might sort of build a case, I guess, from there. But should we go back to Alice on that one, no? Thank you, yeah. I mean, absolutely, you know, we have members who work across screen theatre and it impacts on all of them. You know, it's absolutely not restricted to just music. I mean, I was having a conversation with colleagues at the National Theatre and my day job is in the National Theatre of Scotland, partly, and also freelancing the music industry. And I was having a conversation with people at National Theatre GB and they were saying, basically, Warhorse, which was obviously one of their huge international touring productions, just would not be possible now with the additional costs and the restrictions on the amount of time they could spend in the EU and all of that. And if big operators with, you know, the level of resource capacity and staffing like National Theatre can't manage it, then, you know, how are the smaller companies and arts organisations I'm supposed to, you know? So I think it's definitely something that's felt across the sector. And back to, you know, we cover all of those areas, so we do, there is a lot of working together and discussion happening, but, yeah, so I think all of us working together to pressure for changes to this, you know, or a cultural visa waiver would be great, yeah. OK. Will anyone else like to come in? Yeah, Simon. Yeah, thank you. Just to say that our head of international, Dave Webster, sits on the advisory board of the independent commission on UK-EU relations, which is an organisation that released some reports on lots of sector in UK life. The most recent report, I think, was on manufacturing, so it's not just the music industry that's suffering, and by working with these cross-industry organisations outside of the creative sector, we're seeking to work and find the commonality, because, as you say, it won't just be musicians and those in supporting roles within the music industry who are facing these barriers, they'll be professionals across the economy really. And while our focus is on lobbying for that cultural exemption, because that will most benefit our members, and can either be done, we hope, as part of the TCA review or as an independent side agreement, we're also working with these other sectors to just make sure that the voice of music is heard, so that if there are larger moves going on, we're not missed out in that. Lisa, did you want to come in on that, Saul? Just briefly, oh, sorry, I thought I was muted, but I'm muted now. Yes, thank you for that. Just briefly, I do think that there are some issues that are common to across the sector. However, I would like to stress that the music industry, I do think, is unique. I think that, and I welcome the amount of investment that is there for Scottish Screen and for the film industry in general, I don't think that that is matched for the music sector. I think that we need to be careful to make sure that the individual challenges that the music sector faces are recognised because it is a different industry to Screen, so I'd just like to note that, really. Okay, noted. There's got a final question. The committee recently went to Ireland and we were hearing about the work that the Irish State does to connect with its diaspora, a lot of the cultural work around that. Are you seeing artists and workers who've got a family connection to Ireland applying for Irish passports? Is that a work around in terms of enabling greater access to Europe? A lot of musicians are trying to find a grandfather somewhere in Ireland. Apart from anything, you get three airports an hour quicker. So, yes, a lot of individual musicians are looking to see if they can get dual nationality. Okay, that's interesting. Any other thoughts on that? Again, we've had musicians contacting us to support them in that process. The other thing that I think is worth mentioning anytime we look at what's happening in the Republic of Ireland is the level of public funding for the arts, which is substantially higher than it is anywhere in the UK. That just makes a massive difference because it means that the sector can be better funded, that musicians in employed roles can be better paid, and we sit around the table and have friendly discussions about what pay should be for musicians, but we all know that there are challenges because of the level of public funding that organisations get. It makes a difference to how musicians can tour, either with organisations or as individuals, to have that level of public funding, which I think is the last time I looked was about £20 per head, which is, as I say, vastly higher than it is within the UK. I'd like to echo that. Certainly, there are numerous artists that are applying for Irish passports. That's simply just to make things easier in terms of touring in Europe, but the level of investment that culture Ireland has is absolutely phenomenal. For example, if you look at Germany, there are loads of German-Irish touring circuits, and they're funded. A lot of the travel costs are funded to participate in these tours, and they're very successful. They're brilliant at introducing new artists to new audiences. Ironically, some of the time, the artists that are performing on those are Scottish, but they're marketed as Irish artists. It's the same thing in the US. The massive amount of Irish festival circuits that are there and are all supported by culture Ireland do also present Scottish artists who the general public think are Irish. I don't think for one minute that this committee or the Scottish Government, or I wish that they would, but I don't think that the level of support that culture Ireland has directly from the Irish Government will be replicated by the Scottish Government, but I do think that it's a good model and it's a good way of looking at it. It's interesting because culture Ireland do not just have a responsibility for music, but they do have a responsibility for all the arts. They are able to take a strategic view as to what each art sector needs, and that relates back to the last question about similar struggles that the sector or professionals working across all art forms within the sector face. The culture Ireland model is definitely something that's well worth looking at. I think that looking at it but looking at it in a context of what's right for Scotland would be my suggestion. I'll be mindful of the constraints that we have as well. Thank you for the panel for your evidence and also for campaigning efforts on these issues. On the issue of a cultural touring agreement, not to mention that the Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Support has committed a future Labour Government to negotiating a EU-wide cultural touring agreement that would include Carnet, Cabotage and Customs. I appreciate the evidence that we're getting this morning, as there's an urgent need for action on this issue. In the meantime, you've laid out a lot of evidence relating to the impact that this is having on income, on career progression and a whole range of other evidence that you've highlighted from other organisations in relation to that. Do you think that there is a need for the UK Government to carry out a full long-term assessment of the impact of the current situation so that there can be greater recognition and agreement on the need to address this issue? I think that there are UK Government initiatives that need to help culture. Without the cultural tax credits, so many organisations in the UK would not be surviving at the moment. I think that there could be more things that can be done through the taxation system. Let me just give you one for example if we could work with UK Government to get employer's national insurance exemption for culture. There's VAT cultural exemptions for tickets, there's tax credits for culture. If the problem in this country is 90 per cent or I believe of cultural workers are self-employed, they don't have the security of employment because organisations simply can't afford to employ them. There are all sorts of anomalies that exist within culture. London orchestras are self-employed, they don't pay all the employer's add-ons. I'm in competition with them and as an employer I've got to pay employer's national insurance. I think that if we could model a system with UK Government, we could lobby UK Government to look at exemption for employer's national insurance it would bring more cultural workers into employment. Any financial gain from organisations could be recycled, so the treasury potentially takes on the same take. However, I think that there are things in the taxation system, as well as the subsidy system, as well as everything else. I don't think that any stone should be left unturned in looking at how to support and advance cultural workers. Just very briefly, I think that anything that we can do to assess the current situation would be welcomed. I think that an important part of that is also looking at the current situation in the whole. I think that we've heard from other witnesses today, and we know as a union that some musicians have left the industry because of the impact of Brexit, combined with the impact of Covid and all the other stuff that's been going on. Any assessment of the current situation has to find a way of recognising those people who have left and understanding why they've left, which is a really difficult thing to do, but to just take a snapshot of now risks missing an impact that has already been felt by the industry, which I think is a really important narrative alongside what musicians are facing currently. Lisa, did you see you want to come in? It's difficult to tell on the screen something. I think Alice wants to come in as well. I always welcome research, but I don't welcome research like the expensive action, because quite often research is used as a way of delaying any activity. I would say that in terms of the UK-wide situation, there's a lot of research that's already been conducted by UK Music and Live and the Agents Association. There's a lot of research out there already, so yes, I would welcome it, but not at the expense of delaying any intervention, which is urgently needed now. I think that Lisa covered off what I was going to say. Any more research to find the impact would be welcomed, but we can already see that it has had a significant impact, so what's needed urgently is action. We absolutely support what you were saying about the Labour Party position on the cultural touring agreement to include carnet exemptions and such, and that would be fantastic. Although more research is welcome, we can see that there has been a significant impact on the industry, and what's needed now is action. Thank you. You've given us a very honest but very stark this morning view of the industry that you will represent, and you're trying to maintain and sustain. Without some of the interventions that you're asking for, I suspect that the industry is at a tipping point for many of you, as to what could and might happen next. We've already touched on what might be required to try and get some financial support, and then possibly the timescale for visas for 9080 days. I know that's been touched on. That would give you some hope if there were some areas of that likelihood that could be managed and maintained. However, what other opportunities do you see if there are any in trying to challenge and equate where you want to see the sector go? At the moment, as I say, the sector is in a dire situation and needs all of that to progress it. Each one of you has talents within your own sector or field, and are you doing anything collectively together in trying to manage or progress or challenge? We have opportunities here to tackle government, but are there any within your own sector that are coming forward with potential solutions to try and see? I know that we've heard some of them this morning, and that's really encouraging. Are there others or are there ways, or when you're looking at other parts of the world as to what they try and achieve in a similar or different situation, what they do that we could try and marry into or we could try and support or even copy in some ways that they do, or does it have to all come from the government side of things and from the funding mechanisms that we can control here? Is that really the only opportunities that we have? I can talk about RSNO, but every organisation I know has been resourceful and entrepreneurial in trying to balance public subsidy with more commercial income. Let me tell you what RSNO is doing. We've invested £1 million in a facility in Glasgow that allows us to bed for film, television, video game recordings. I can tell you, Denzel Washington's last film, music was recorded in Glasgow, Sylvester Stallone's last film, music was recorded in Glasgow, with Kevin Costner in the building for five days. That's crucial income. It's not just income. It's putting Scotland's national orchestra in a global position. Anyone who goes to a cinema, anywhere in the world to watch these films, Scotland's national orchestra. However, I have to say that the reason that we can win these contracts are a game changer for us. The reason that we can win these contracts is because we've got a world-class facility and we've got an amazing orchestra. The reason that we've got that is because of Scottish Government support. That's what puts us in the game for that. Without that, we just wouldn't be competitive. We're talking about things that we could do with visa waivers or carnets. Those things are all important. I understand the funding crisis that we're all facing, but we get more or less the same government subsidy as 2008. We are on a cliff edge now.  If my colleagues from Scottish Ballet or Scottish Opera were here, they would tell you the same thing. We are running organisations that pay lower salaries than anywhere else in the UK. How long can we sustain the quality that we are if that continues? I know that that's a blunt thing to say, and I know that it's a difficult thing for you. I understand the funding, but I think that it's important to say it and not think that we can navigate this with entrepreneurial initiatives or with waivers for European touring. European is a really competitive marketplace for orchestras. If you want to get on the top halls in Europe, you are competing with orchestras from Berlin and Amsterdam. Those orchestras just have way more subsidy than we do. That allows them to go for less money with really great musicians. We are, I want to assure you, and the RSN is not alone. We are trying everything to try to generate more income and be more entrepreneurial. For us, it's film, television and video game schools are doing that. Any other ones want to add to that? Musicians are entrepreneurial. We, with Help Musicians, published a Musician census earlier this year that found that the average income of musicians from working in music is £20,700 a year. That's 43 per cent of those who responded reported that they earned less than £14,000 a year. Musicians sometimes, against their best interests, will make music for the love of the music. We think that they should be paid for their work and should be able to make a living. Sometimes the difference between being able to go to Europe and tour or not is whether or not you'll make any music from much. If you have to register for that in every nation you go to, that's a barrier to going and doing that. It makes it almost impossible. We work with UK Music, Live and with FIM, who I mentioned earlier, the International Federation of Musicians. We lobby through them on behalf of our members and we listen to our members and encourage them to come to us when they face these challenges so that we're aware, so that we can then come to places like this and report those challenges to you. I don't arrive here today naive enough to think that you in this committee or in this place will be able to solve all the problems that we've outlined but it's really important that we underline those things that you're already aware of and I'm sure you're already aware of much of what we've said today. We'll continue to lobby here and in Westminster and in Stormont and in Cardiff but we're working on behalf of our musicians and members with as many organisations as we can and we'll listen to us and we'll continue to do that. I'd just like to echo that. I think that the musicians are resilient and resourceful and certainly in terms of the Showcase Scotland Expo, we approach commercial sponsors, we approach PRSF, we look at every revenue stream that there is and I just do that as well but you know there is a cost of living crisis out there and the commercial sponsorship opportunities have waned drastically and they just don't exist in the way that they used to and I do think that the committee should look at you know if you were looking at establishing an international touring fund for musicians and I would just like to say that that does not exist at the moment, there are funds out there but just to reiterate that does not exist you know musicians are not able to access the majority of the funds that currently exist for touring but if you were to look at doing that it's not it doesn't need to be the situation that you're funding an artist wherever because you won't need to it's looking at providing that seed funding for the first two to three tours like of any nation by which time that tour will be commercially sustainable and that artist will no longer need investment so it's allowing the resources to be used in a strategic way that intervenes at a critical point in that artist's career. If you look at pre-Brexit a lot of artists didn't apply, most artists didn't apply to create Scotland for tour funding because they didn't need it because the cost of living crisis didn't exist, Brexit didn't exist and we didn't have that perfect storm of just coming out of Covid and the sector and the industry are still in recovery from that so I wouldn't want the committee or the Scottish Government to look at this and say oh this is this this needs to be something like you know every artist for the duration of their career is subsidised to go into international touring that's not what's needed is strategic intervention that is sensibly utilised to maintain the professional artists that we have and to ensure that we have a future of professional musicians coming through which is the bit that I'm really concerned about. Does anyone else want to come in I can't see Alice on screen so I don't know if she wants to come in or not. Yep thank you I'm going to come in I mean it's kind of you know I guess some of the other some of the other areas of the you know where we are struggling and I've mentioned already is skills shortages and some of the things that you know back to have been doing is looking at training vocational training for members and trying to you know skill people up to fill those skills gaps and helping colleagues with diversifying their income so you know if they work primarily in music you know training them to be able to work because there's so much cross-pollination of you know workers particularly within technical roles amongst you know theatres music live events and you know helping people with and screen as well and helping people with that however what we don't want to do is you know if people people should be able to have a career in music and that is their you know that is their career and but unfortunately at the moment due to this they're kind of having to you know try and get money from elsewhere as well basically but yeah I guess that's one of the things that you know we are doing is trying to help members with getting you know training and helping to fill those skills gaps and bring new entrants into the industry. I'm just thinking back to the Brexit debate there was two scenarios that were laid out one was that this was going to be sunny uplands full of opportunity and no regulation or very little regulation and on the other side it was said it would be an enormous act of self-harm and I'm getting a pretty distinct impression from the sector which of those two scenarios you feel is being played out and perhaps this sector more than any other shows the folly of cutting yourself off from a huge market right in your doorstep and it's really quite depressing to hear some of the stories about people that have stopped either their profession or performing or touring but I wondered two quick questions one is the extent to which these things were predicted and predictable if it was possible to know these things were going to happen or has some of the stuff become apparent subsequently to an extent so what kind of proportion if there can be a guesstimate of that for many member of the panel and the second question is a specific one for Lisa I was quite surprised and I'm new to this committee so maybe this is something everyone else knows but when you said that Scotland was too smaller country to sustain full-time musicians and if that's the case is there a cut-off in terms of country sizes where you can expect to be able to sustain full-time musicians and if there's any idea of what that cut-off what size of a country would be able to do that it's difficult to give you the size of a country but Scotland is a small nation so for example for a musician to sustain a professional income and I should say that as Alice Bowbyr had pointed out that's not just the musicians it's the infrastructures the agents and the managers that support them it's also the technicians that support them you need to be performing full-time you know more than most of the year you need to be performing full-time to sustain that income so within Scotland we really only have the major cities that are able to to resource artists performing and for artists to achieve an adequate level of income from those concerts you really only have the major cities that can do that and if you look at our festival circuit there are really not very many you know major major festivals out with the Edinburgh festivals which is not really music-based foreign musicians so it's imperative that artists are able to earn a living out with Scotland now in showcase Scotland's export we include exports to mean England Ireland and Wales because that is exporting our artists from Scotland but it is critically also the European market and Germany is one of the largest markets in the world for touring and for merchandising sales and our artists I mean you and Robertson indicated scary worst situation in terms of coming back from Germany recently they only just broke even so is it really really important to understand that musicians have to be able to to perform and sell albums outside Scotland in order to maintain a living and if you look at countries across Europe that are the same size as us whether that's Norway Sweden Finland all of those countries and their governments have a proactive approach to exporting their artists they have a music export office and they have music exports touring funds to support those artists in their certainly in their first ventures overseas because we're not the only nation in the world that is small I would like to say that I think as I said earlier talent wise we punch above our weight and currently our musicians are massively respected in Europe so we're not alone in our size but we are alone and that we don't have the same solutions as those other small nations have. Thanks very much and just for any member of the panel on the idea of what has I suppose become apparent since Brexit that was perhaps not predicted or predictable beforehand that's had a big effect. Perfectly predictable you know I mean to move freely in Europe as an orchestra it gave you immense opportunity as an individual that was predictable there are things like cabotage not achieving that exemption I think we all assumed that would happen and that that was a surprise the big things I think were predictable there's some small things that I think took us by surprise but can I just add something that's the size of the country I mean again for an orchestra we there's very few venues that are large enough in Scotland to host an orchestra historically Aberdeen Dundee you know these large cities it was a local council that promoted a concert and we got direct support from local council or we were hired by the council to present in their halls that's gone for us now so even within a small country the market for us has changed dramatically due to the funding landscape so it really is a perfect storm and again the one great thing about film television music is it's an international marketplace we're going into touring is an international marketplace these things are increasingly crucial to balance our budgets with recording you know we very often have an engineer a composer in Los Angeles and we are recording in Glasgow and we've got fast internet in the centre of Glasgow we've been very successful at doing that so there are things we can do to try and mitigate against the declining opportunity within Scotland but I would love us to be in Aberdeen as often as we used to be and Dundee as often as we used to be we want to be there it's just the support from local councils they simply don't have the finance to do that anymore I would really like to ask a final question but I'm completely out of time but my thoughts on just with Mr Brown's question is is it fair to try and compare Scotland as a you know a an on-state if you like in terms of funding and things or should we we should be looking to some of the you know the bass country Catalonia to some of the lenders to see what they're actually doing is that would that be a fairer comparison yes or no answers could someone double check the stat as I understand it the average European country but it's 1.5% of GDP into culture I believe Scotland puts 0.6 so it's not just the size of the country it's what proportion is assigned for culture and let me say this I think culture has huge economic value I think the cultural sector across it we are not quite good enough yet it articulates in that really clearly you know we've got digital outreach through education what is the economic benefit of all these kids we've got film scores coming in what is the economic benefit not just of the income in dollars but the reputational gain for Scotland that we're in major film tracks I think we need to do better on our side articulating economic benefit and I think we need to help persuade decision makers of economic benefit of culture I'm afraid I'm going to have to call on we have another agenda item and we don't have any flexibility in a on a Thursday because of FMQs yeah thank you all for your contributions and the written submissions that you you've also provided the committee with and thank you very much for that I'll close this session