Chamber and committees

I am going to change the theme and talk about relevant authorities and the duties to produce plans. There are two parts to my question. Local authorities and health boards have been identified as relevant authorities that are required to produce good food nation plans but, given that most local areas are covered by a local authority and a health board, I am concerned that that will result in competing or contradictory plans for the same area. I agree with Stirling Council’s suggestion that local bodies should work together to produce a single plan, and I would like to hear your views on the idea of asking local authorities and health boards to work together to produce a single good food nation plan for each health and social care integration partnership area.

Has the Government identified possible criteria for deciding which other public bodies might be designated as specified public authorities in the future?

Thank you for that response. As a Highlands and Islands MSP, I really appreciate your acknowledgement that there will be different approaches.

I do not want to open up a discussion, but I find it interesting that you have linked the NPF4 with the sustainable development goals although no one has brought that up in any of our evidence sessions. That is sitting there. There are 17 important internationally acknowledged goals, and they seem to underpin what you are trying to do with NPF4.

I will move on. The draft NPF4 makes no direct mention—except perhaps within the sustainable development goals—of the needs of women, children or disabled people, and it does not mention how the planning system can help to remove barriers to their use and enjoyment of the built environment. Fiona Simpson said that there is going to be an equalities round table. Can you tell us more about how you might remedy that oversight?

I am new in Parliament, but my sense of the process is that we are considering a draft, whereas in other cases, scrutiny takes place once the Government has done its consultation work.

I ask my next question on behalf not only of the committee, but of stakeholders who are concerned about the process. I would love to hear from you an outline of the next steps in the process after your consultation closes at the end of March. At what point will the Scottish Parliament be able to engage in scrutiny of the revisions of NPF4? Can you give the committee an assurance that there will be time for those revisions to be scrutinised? For example, when secondary legislation is introduced, Parliament is given 40 days for scrutiny.

It is good to know that the work is happening. I understand that it is complex, but it seems that we really need to do it.

Graeme Dey has a couple of questions.

Thank you. It is good to have clarity about the process that we are all involved in.

I will move on. I have a few questions about the fact that a lot of this will be delivered at local level. Numerous stakeholders have voiced strong support for the Scottish Government’s intention, which is briefly outlined in policy 1, to move to a plan-led system. However, many go further and advocate for a public plan-led system, in which local authorities would have considerably more agency to shape their local communities and to manage land use more proactively. Do the minister and his officials believe that the draft NPF4 supports local authorities to do that? Will the minister commit to taking on board that ambitious but important objective, as voiced by stakeholders?

My next question is connected to that point. The way in which we use land is becoming increasingly complex, with growing needs and competing pressures. It seems to me that we are at a critical point in national planning, where we need to ensure that land is used for the right purpose. Not all land is the same—we have peatland, farmland, land that is appropriate for housing and so on. However, throughout this process, I have been struck by how limited our overall understanding is of land use in Scotland.

What work will the minister undertake to improve current land use mapping on a national scale to support those who work on spatial strategies, national developments and policies in the national planning framework? Although we are inviting planning authorities to take forward some of the work, we are also talking about things such as nature networks, where collaboration needs to happen.

I call Miles Briggs.

I notice that we are at time, but I would be grateful if you would stay with us for a little bit longer. I have a couple more questions that I am keen to ask, and the discussion has been useful for the committee.

My first question is on priorities. Several witnesses have asked for clarity on how developers and decision makers should balance or prioritise the four priorities that are set out in the national spatial strategy, the six spatial principles, and the development priorities that are set out in the five action areas and individual national planning policies. We took oral evidence from Christina Gaiger from the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, who argued:

“the document covers a huge amount of ground, and because not everything can sit in one place, we need a hierarchy ... there needs to be some sort of primacy amongst these policies to help people understand where the priorities themselves lie.”—[Official Report, Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, 25 January 2022; c 11.]

Do you intend to take forward the idea of a hierarchy?