Chamber and committees

You said that the market regulation has failed. What changes do you want to be made to improve matters?

We have heard that Ofgem is saying that, in the short term, if anybody is in trouble, they should just go to their supplier. Should there be some requirement for independent advice to be provided, rather than reference to suppliers?

You have also been outspoken about the unfair transmission charges. We have heard that those could have consequences. I am interested in your views on that. What changes does Ofgem need to make?

Do you agree with the consumer expert Martin Lewis that the potential move to changing the energy price cap four times a year suits energy companies rather than consumers?

Give me your views on Ofgem, please.

In relation to architects and designers, as opposed to planners, how do we best get that connection in a proactive way? What needs to be done professionally or organisationally?

We can see that happening in cities where there might be the scale to allow it. How can it happen in our predominantly small-town Scotland?

Does Adrian Watson have any comments about that?

Stephen—I saw you nodding there. Do you want comment on how we make this happen and what you think needs to be done?

I apologise for being late. At another committee, I was questioning a United Kingdom minister on the energy crisis.

Members have discussed international cases and considered the importance of good design in town regeneration. The witnesses have referred to that. We heard about Clonakilty in Ireland, which even has its own town architect, who is in a prominent and influential position. There are obviously resource implications.

I am struck by what I have heard. Towns are about people, not buildings. Who facilitates that common vision, which we hear about again and again as a theme? Do local authorities have the planning, design and development capacity that they need in order to do that?

If I dare be controversial, I will say that one of our submissions said that we probably need to have a hierarchy of towns that we work through, because not everybody will be able to do everything at once. We have heard about cities—Aberdeen and Glasgow have been referred to—but how do we do it for towns? Where is capacity needed? Central national support is necessary for some planning aspects. My home town—Linlithgow—has a really good local community plan for what the community wants, but planning authorities often have to react because they cannot be proactive, as Craig McLaren said.

What do we need in order to crack the matter? We want to make recommendations to get change.

I hear those points and I absolutely understand the need for more planners and better skills capacity. I take that as read.

Craig McLaren, what do we need to do to bring that together? What resources or skills would you like to see coming from national agencies? What would that mean for local communities? Do we need to have a hierarchy, or to prioritise certain towns, so that we can really embed work before we move on to the next town? Do we need a longer timescale?

Thank you. The culture investment in Paisley has been—

The petition is about post-legislative scrutiny of the 2012 act, and I am not sure that the committee needs to complete such scrutiny. However, as members will know from getting such cases—I declare an interest because, as I previously indicated when we took evidence from Registers of Scotland, I have a constituency case that relates to the subject of the petition—they are very severe when they arise. The issue is what happens when there are errors, the process for dealing with that and the number of complaints that are received about errors.

Now that we have a commitment that Registers of Scotland will provide regular updates, we should pursue the question of what happens when errors are communicated to it, how those errors are dealt with and, in particular, how complaints are dealt with. We cannot ignore the fact that all constituency MSPs will have had such concerns raised with them. The issue is about the title of a person’s house, which is fundamental. That is different from carrying out post-legislative scrutiny of the 2012 act.

I will pass back to the convener, now. A number of members have questions and I know that you have a tight deadline, minister.