Chamber and committees

What is the Government’s assessment of the effect that the Miller Homes Mossend ruling will have on the number of developments that are being brought forward and approved?

Is the court’s decision to treat MATHLR figures as a target rather than a floor having any bearing on Government’s thinking on using those figures going forward?

I will move on to a different subject. The level 4 budget figures for planning state that the planning budget line has fallen by just over 40 per cent, because

“Capital investment in digitally transforming planning services has been reduced.”

What impact will that budget reduction have on what we hope to see in the digital transformation of the planning system?

My final question is on the Scottish Government’s proposed new national outcome on housing. I think that a consultation closes tomorrow on the review of criteria for amending NPF4. How will the proposed new national outcome on housing and the declaration of a housing emergency by the Parliament and the Government feed into that consultation on the review of NPF4?

Thank you.

Are you in a position to say whether there are any plans, through the assessment of that decision, to review policy 16(f) of NPF4, even as an interim measure, given that the data that the pipeline has been assessed against is out of date? Until the new local development plans and the research that backs them up come into force, are there plans to review policy 16(f) in the interim—if there are any early signs that the ruling is choking off development?

What progress has been made on the delivery of the 18 national developments? I know that it is still early on, but do you have any concerns that the delivery of any of them might be off track?

Finally, will this be a bigger issue as we move from five-year to 10-year LDP cycles? An almost nine-year-old document that includes sites that have not come forward during that period now has no safety release mechanism. Will that cause a bigger problem?

Good morning. To kick off, the Miller Homes Ltd v Scottish ministers case decision came through on Friday. Do members of the panel have an indication of whether that decision means that NPF4 and the planning system is working as we would have expected? Does the decision throw up any issues related to how developments will get approval between the introductions of different local development plans? I will go to Craig McLaren first.

I come back to Kevin Murphy to expand on the industry’s response to the decision in the Miller Homes Ltd v Scottish Ministers case on 3 May. How do you understand the impact of that decision on approvals on viable sites over the next few years, until we see LDPs being drafted and implemented?