First, as others have done, I thank Joan McAlpine for bringing the motion to Parliament and allowing us all the chance to celebrate collectively the work of Robert Burns and his impact on our culture and economy.

This debate is framed around the impact that Burns has had on Scotland’s economy but, as Ms McAlpine and other speakers have mentioned, we remember not just how that impact operates but also how it came to exist. Burns is, as sometimes needs to be emphasised at this time of the year, a poet with an output at least as important as anything written by anyone anywhere in the 18th century world. It is an output that more than stands the test of time. If his only work were “Tam o’ Shanter”, so ably performed by John Scott, Burns’s reputation would be assured, but of course he wrote much, much more.

Burns wrote powerfully not just as a Scottish patriot but as a man passionately interested in internationalism, in the French revolution and in American slavery—something that is demonstrated, to pick one illustration, by a letter to Elizabeth Kemble, the well-known actress renowned for her performances in anti-slavery plays. His anthem “Auld Lang Syne” is sung the world o’er, from Times Square to Sydney Harbour and, as Ruth Maguire has said in setting the record straight, he also has a special importance to the people of Irvine.

It is Burns’s sense of the importance of liberty for individuals and for peoples and his sense of humanity and responsibility for one another that prevail today—and all from a man who would most probably have found himself in prison if he had too explicitly suggested that he might have the right to vote. The Robert Burns humanitarian awards are one way in which the Scottish Government seeks to reflect that legacy. It is a truly international legacy, as Emma Harper, Stewart Stevenson and many others have emphasised tonight. Working in partnership with BEMIS—empowering Scotland’s ethnic and cultural minority communities—the Scottish Government has provided funding to support the multicultural celebration of Robert Burns that other speakers have referred to.

Burns is also an icon of Scotland. As Ms McAlpine mentioned, that has a direct impact on our economy and our tourist industry. What some would call the Burns cult is itself part of our national culture. It began in Burns’s own lifetime and the first Burns suppers were scarcely after his lifetime. Burns was a celebrity and a rock star, as well as a thinker and a poet, and we overlook that at our peril.

At times in the 19th century, admittedly, the Burns cult may have got slightly out of hand. Long before the widespread celebration of Christmas in Scotland, at least one artist sought to depict the “nativity” of Burns in messianic terms, and some exhibitions on Burns’s life in the past have at times resembled reliquaries. I have an early childhood recollection of visiting Alloway and seeing, among other things, some of them of questionable relevance, a sock believed to have belonged to Robert Burns.

I think that Scotland now makes a more concerted effort as a country to share with the world Burns the man and the poet. We also do a pretty good job of explaining just what Burns has meant for the Scots language and musical tradition. All that and more is now evident from the hugely impressive Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, which was supported by an £8 million grant from the Scottish Government, and in 2016 attracted more than 140,000 visitors to see its world-class collections.

That capacity to draw people to Scotland is truly significant economically, and the Burns season is important not just to our butchers and distillers but to our tourism industry. Likewise, homecoming 2009, which celebrated the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, attracted some 72,000 additional visitors to Scotland and generated net additional expenditure of £53 million. I agree with John Scott that we need to ensure that the undiscovered jewel that is the south-west of Scotland is discovered by more people and that Robert Burns is at the heart of that.

Events such as the big Burns supper in Dumfries and Galloway have gained worldwide recognition and attracted talent and visitors from across the world. As Ms McAlpine mentioned, that gem among pubs that is the Globe Inn in Dumfries is truly worth celebrating in its own right.

Willie Coffey mentioned the huge impact that Burns has had on the economy of Ayrshire. In 2017, around 62,000 people attended the eight events that celebrated Robert Burns, which were funded from Scotland’s winter festivals. Burns night 2018 is gearing up to be an even bigger and better event.

On occasions like this, there is sometimes the temptation to fear that there might be some truth in MacDiarmid’s observation—made, no doubt, after hearing a bad immortal memory—that

“A’ they’ve to say was aften said afore”.

With a number of speakers, many of whom represent places in Burns’s life, speaking eloquently today, we hope that we have confounded that expectation and have managed, as a Parliament, to lay another modest stone on the cairn of Robert Burns.

Meeting closed at 18:15.