Chamber and committees

Thank you, Sophie. Mike Burns would like to come in as well.

I will continue with another question and will start with you, Mike. If others want to come in, please indicate so in the chat function.

The committee has heard from others that the proposed national care service is a disproportionate solution to address some of the challenges that you have all laid out this morning. I am keen to hear your views on whether legislation is needed to bring about improvements. Is there another way in which we could approach needs in a more joined-up way and do the things that you have discussed?

I will try to bring in Henry Simmons again. Henry, can you respond or add anything from the Alzheimer Scotland perspective on the problems with the way that social care is delivered and the postcode lottery piece? Do we need to legislate to bring about the improvement?

Thanks very much. I move on to questions from Marie McNair, who joins us online.

Thanks, Marie.

Minister, I have a question on your point about everybody having a role in success of this. The climate and biodiversity are at the forefront, and there is a need to move to a spatial strategy, which you mentioned earlier and which you have also mentioned in the past. I would add that maybe we are also facing a spatial squeeze. We heard something about that in relation to Edinburgh in Miles Briggs’s questions.

In the development of NPF4, do you have a sense that sectors that are involved in development—housing, for example—understand that they may need to change their business models? What I am starting to see across all my work in Parliament is that, in the need to respond to the climate and nature emergency, business models need to change, and we have to move from how things are being done now. We really need to consider how we will be doing housing and everything else 10 or 20 years from now. Do you feel that that collaboration is really happening in the sectors that will be putting in our infrastructure?

I can see that NPF4 will be the core curriculum for all the new planners that we will be bringing on board. You have said a number of times now that it needs to be read as a whole, minister, so it will be a central document.

I call Paul McLennan.

Thank you—that is very helpful.

Andy Miller has indicated that he would like to come in.

Thanks very much. We will move to questions from Willie Coffey.

I want to come back with a supplementary to you and Stephanie Fraser, because you brought up the fact that legislation already exists. Andy, you have just talked about the cost of bringing in the national care service. We have existing legislation, we have reports from Audit Scotland and aspects of existing legislation have not been acted on. I would love to hear a little more about why you think that that has not happened. Is it to do, in part, with a lack of funding?

Nobody has indicated. Thanks, Miles.

I say again that members should direct their questions and allow the panel to indicate that they want to come in on that question. Please, everybody, keep your questions and responses succinct. We move to questions from Marie McNair, who joins us online.