On the cross-party group on the Scots language, at the end of 2012 there was a discussion about the aims and future work of such a group. In the period leading up to 2007, many issues had to be campaigned on. In general terms, there are still many more, which are laid out in a statement of principles that was drawn up in the group in 2003. However, since the accession of the minority SNP Government and then the majority SNP Government, some of the key campaigning issues have been addressed. For example, the Scots Language Centre, which is mainly online, and the Scots language dictionaries have been directly funded by the Government, whereas before they were at the mercy of the Scottish Arts Council. Doubts about whether they fitted into an arts portfolio were laid aside by that, and those important things are now directly funded.
The census in 2011 asked for the first time a question about use of the Scots language. We campaigned for that for many years; indeed, I was a member of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee that dealt with the orders in Parliament to create the questions in the census, along with other items. At that time, there was hostility from some members of the committee to having a question asked about Scots, but it was passed by the majority, and that took place successfully. It established a precedent to establish the role of Scots in our country’s life. It should also be said that the ministerial working group on the Scots language has set out a number of aims, which are starting to be achieved.
The work of a cross-party group in the Parliament is therefore truncated by the fact that the Government is responding to many of the issues that were campaigned for over the years but were not achieved until after 2007. The original ideas of the cross-party group have become less relevant. Because people have taken a view that there are things that the Government is applying, the campaigning zeal of the cross-party group is less important, and a role for any future campaigning is unclear. The group received more support from members of the governing party in particular, and less from the Opposition parties, which did not give it priority in the way that the governing party did. The cross-party nature of the group has therefore ended.
We have attempted—with outside help—to service such a group, but we have not yet asked people again whether they are prepared to support it. That is partly because we are not clear exactly what should be done, but we are also clear that there has been little support from the other parties to make the group a cross-party group.