Chamber and committees

On housing—the hot topic of the day, which I thank Alasdair Allan for bringing to our attention—the Government has a commitment to build 110,000 houses by 2030, 10 per cent of which will be rural and island housing, which is 11,000 houses. I want to ensure that we hold on to that figure of 11,000. We need to remove the 10 per cent requirement and just say, “We need 11,000 houses,” because, from talking to people, I understand that that number is not really sufficient. It would be great to look at the value added per house for an island community versus an urban area, in terms of all the things that we have been talking about with regard to depopulation, key workers and the whole-system effect on a community of ensuring that those houses exist. Do you have thoughts about ensuring that there is a commitment to building at least 11,000 houses by 2030?

I have a couple of supplementary questions. The first is about childcare, because that is connected to the workforce. Over the summer, I visited islands and I was at a meeting on the challenges around childcare at which there were critical public sector workers who had young children and who could not get back into the workforce. The challenge was that childcare piece. I am aware that the Scottish Government is working on childcare, but do you also take that issue on board in your thinking on the islands plan?

Great—thanks for that.

You mentioned the carbon-neutral islands initiative. I have met some of the project officers, who do incredible work. What they do is amazing. They really get down into the detail and are getting a lot of buy-in from the residents on the island. One thing that they raised with me was funding. There were two aspects. First, there was a bit of a time gap in which they did not know whether they were going to get the funding. I think that the funding was coming but, in some cases, there had to be a bit of bridging by the host organisations to fill that gap. It was fortunate that they had the resource to do that, but the point that was expressed to me was that that should not have to happen.

The other aspect is about having general long-term certainty. What is the long-term future of the carbon-neutral islands plan? People who are involved in the project raised with me the fact that not having certainty means that they cannot plan for their lives. They cannot even plan to have a family, because they do not know whether they are going to be in a job. That is challenging. I understand that funding for carbon-neutral islands lasts until 2026, and I do not know whether we can see beyond that. Obviously, the carbon issues are not going to go away. The communities in those pilots are just getting started, and there is quite a long way to go to fully understand what they need to do.

Do you have examples of that? I am aware of the nursery in Kirkwall, which involves quite a big amount. I could extrapolate that out to community wealth building, but a wind turbine that generates money would be a better example.

Obviously, one of the reasons why we have an islands plan is that the experiences and challenges of people living on islands are extremely different from those of people living in mainland Scotland.

We are aware of the great work that is happening through the island team being based on islands, which is very helpful, but last year we heard concerns from Argyll and Bute Council that the members of the investment panel felt “remote from the islands”. The SFT then updated the committee to say that only one member was based on an island. Could the cabinet secretary update us on the changes to membership and how the panel engages with local authorities and island communities?

My question is also about money in the budget. In the previous budget, £35.8 million was allocated to the agri-environment climate scheme—or AECS—while £485 million went to direct payments in pillar 1. That means that less than 5 per cent of the agricultural support-related services budget went to the scheme that is dedicated to tackling the climate and nature crises.

It is great to see that the Government has consulted on being able to cap direct payments, which would free up more money to support climate and nature measures in farming, but what can be done before the new framework is brought in to direct more public funding to public goods?

I understand that the framework will set that out and will provide the powers. When I visit farms and crofts, I hear about the need for certainty. We have a tricky situation: it takes time to take a bill through the legislative process, but we must take action sooner rather than later. I hear about the national testing programme, but it seems that we are still not hearing a message that brings certainty. People are getting stuck on the idea of the agriculture bill. Can we get payments in place sooner to move people in the right direction?

I am interested in the value-for-money aspect. It is great to hear of the number of projects that have been undertaken so far, but is the islands team working with the Scottish Futures Trust to look at the community wealth building aspects of these issues? Is there a focus on projects that have the potential to build community wealth? For example, if one island in an island grouping had a wind turbine but another could not have one, would work on community wealth building be done on the other island because it could not have a wind turbine?

For clarity, how many members of the panel are there now?

Good morning, and welcome to the 22nd meeting in 2023 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent and all other notifications are turned off.

The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take item 4 in private. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.