Chamber and committees

Agenda item 2 is an evidence session on local government, housing and planning, as part of the committee’s work on priorities in session 6. We will take evidence from a round table of witnesses. ?I welcome Craig McLaren, who is the director of Scotland, Ireland and English regions at the Royal Town Planning Institute;? Clare Symonds, who is the chair of Planning Democracy; Stacey Dingwall, who is the senior policy manager at the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations;? Callum Chomczuk who is the national director of the Chartered Institute of Housing;??Ellinore?Folkesson, who is the national chair of Living Rent;?Nicola Barclay, who is the chief executive of Homes for Scotland;? and Tony Cain, who is policy manager for the?Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers.? Thank you all for joining us and for the information that you have provided to the committee in advance of today’s meeting.

Before we move to questions, I will give you a little guidance on how we are going to work the session. Members will ask a question and, if they remember, will direct it initially to one or two people. If witnesses want to come in on that question, they can type R in the chat box, and we will bring them in.

I will run through the themes so that witnesses are aware of them. We have quite a mixed panel, so it might be that some of the themes do not necessarily pertain to an individual witness’s area.?

Theme 1 is housing, which will focus on tenants’ rights, homelessness and housing quality. Theme 2 is the funding and resourcing of planning departments. Theme 3 is the Scottish Government budget. Theme 4 is planning in general. Theme 5 is net zero emission homes. Theme 6 is sustainable communities and place making. That will make you aware of where we are going on our journey this morning.

I invite Elena Whitham to start with theme 1.

It is clear that there will be a lot of pressure on planning departments over the next 10 years, and it would be good to set a good course at this point and ensure that they are well resourced. I see that Ellinore Folkesson would like to come in on this point.

Thank you so much for that. We will have to close the evidence session there. Clearly, we could spend a lot of time getting into more detail. What I am really taking away—as are my colleagues, I am sure—is that getting national planning framework 4 right will be very important, as will be issues around house building, the supply chain and skills. Many other things will be also important, including the big question that seems to be hanging around everywhere: what is “affordable”?

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

We do indeed have a few questions, and I will start with some on Boundaries Scotland’s recommendations. Do you think that reducing council representation in remote rural areas such as the north and west Highlands will be detrimental to repopulation efforts?

What has come to light through our taking evidence has been interesting. It seems as though there is a common factor between Highland Council and Argyll and Bute Council. North Ayrshire Council said that it was very happy with the outcome, but both Highland Council and Argyll and Bute Council have a large mainland area and islands, and given that remote rural areas on the mainland are facing the same challenges that face island communities, the question that has arisen is whether remote mainland areas should be treated in the same way as islands are treated when changes in democratic representation are being decided.

Willie Coffey would like to ask a question and is joining us virtually.

Willie has had connectivity issues all morning; we seem to have lost him. We will have to move on. That is a converse example of what you talked about earlier, Deputy First Minister. Thank you for responding to our questions.

The result of the division is: For 0, Against 7, Abstentions 0.

Motion disagreed to.

Are members content to delegate to me signing off of the report?

Members indicated agreement.

Agenda item 10 is consideration of two Scottish statutory instruments. Members have no comments; do we agree that we wish to make no recommendations in relation to them?

Members indicated agreement.

We move into private session.