Chamber and committees

Does anyone else have any thoughts around NPF4 and how it is contributing to rural revitalisation so far? I know that we are on a long journey, and that it might be too early to tell.

Catriona Hill wants to come in. Pam—do you still want to ask your supplementary question?

There are three more questions, but I have a quick supplementary question on that. Would a cadastral system be useful?

Yes—absolutely.

Who wants to pick up that question? You do not have to go through all 18 of those. It might be a very early stage for that.

That might be something that we can look into, as well. Active travel is a network, and it has a budget. It would be interesting to understand how that is progressing.

I have a final question about the national outcomes. Last week, the Scottish Government proposed a new set of national outcomes, including a new outcome for housing:

“We live in safe, high-quality and affordable homes that meet our needs.”

Earlier, our panellists spoke about the difficulty in aligning the various national policies. Could a new overarching national outcome for housing help with that alignment? To what extent does the delivery of NPF4 already connect with the existing national outcomes—for example, on communities and the environment? That is a small question to end. Does anybody have any thoughts about a new national outcome for housing?

Exactly.

We have come to the end of our questions. This is the first of a number of sessions that we will have on national planning framework 4, and it has been very helpful. Thank you very much for joining us.

I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

I welcome our witnesses on our second and final panel this morning. I apologise for starting quite a bit later than we anticipated, but we had a good first discussion on the national planning framework with the previous panel.

We are joined in the room by Kevin Murphy, head of planning at Homes for Scotland, and Ailsa Raeburn, chair of Community Land Scotland. Online, we are joined by Tony Cain, policy manager at the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers, otherwise known as ALACHO, and Donna Young, co-ordinator at Rural Housing Scotland. I welcome you all.

We will try to direct our questions to a specific person initially but, if you want to come in, please indicate to me or the clerks. Donna and Tony, you can do that by typing R in the chat function and we will bring you in. There is no need to operate your microphones—we will do that for you.

I will start with a question for Kevin Murphy. How have house builders changed their approach to development in light of the policy priorities set out in NPF4, particularly with regard to climate change and biodiversity?

I will throw that question to Tony Cain as well.

I do not know whether you were watching the previous evidence session, which was more focused on the planning side. When you apply for permission, is there any evidence that the planning authorities have changed their approach because of NPF4?