Chamber and committees

I thank the minister for that useful answer.

One of my constituents is a mother of two boys who were diagnosed with autism by NHS Lothian some years back. She has told me about how she has watched her boys struggle to function at school and in society for up to six years. She took her boys to get a private assessment for ADHD, after which both were diagnosed and given the necessary support and medication. That has helped to transform their lives.

Will the Scottish Government agree to review pathways and guidance to ensure that health boards across Scotland are taking a holistic approach to the assessment of children? Will the Government also ensure that health boards review cases from over the past five years of children who have been diagnosed with autism to offer them a chance for an assessment for ADHD?

Gorgie city farm, which gives volunteering opportunities to disadvantaged young people and adults and provides a wonderful green play and learning space in one of the most urban parts of the capital, is due to close on Monday. The First Minister will be aware of the incredible value that that community facility provides, because she has visited the farm, which is one of Scotland’s last urban farms. What emergency support could be made available to help keep the farm going in an interim period? Will ministers also agree to meet me, the council and local campaigners to discuss a way forward to save the farm?

It is clear from the statement that the Scottish National Party, Green and Labour emergency rent legislation is rapidly becoming an unmitigated disaster. Scottish Conservatives warned MSPs that the impact would be destabilisation of the social and private housing sectors, but ministers pressed ahead anyway.

I very much welcome the removal of the social rented sector from the provisions, but the damage has been done. What does that mean for people who rent in that sector? Instead of an average rent increase of 6.1 per cent, they could have an increase of up to 11.1 per cent. The Government is driving rents up at the same time as it is saying that it wants to do something to help.

What has the minister given the private rented sector today? That sector is in the dark about its future.

I will ask the minister two simple questions. What assessment have ministers made of the legislation’s impact on private rental properties not coming to market? Here, in the capital, that is driving the housing crisis, and the situation will get worse as autumn approaches and student housing changes over.

The minister says that he has listened to and taken on board the pressures that affect the social rented sector; the same pressures apply to the private rented sector, and he should understand that. Given that, why will the cap and continuing ministerial powers over the private rented sector not negatively impact on the number of homes, on rent levels and on the number of people who can find an affordable property to rent?

I very much welcome that. To avoid unintended consequences of any policy that the Parliament introduces, it is important that the guidance does not result in a potential slowdown in the economy or in job creation. None of us would want that to happen.

We also want there to be a better focus in the planning system on the delivery of community projects and infrastructure. In Edinburgh, I have been campaigning to take forward the development of an urban greenway along the old Powderhall site. From the outset, NPF4 should have provided an opportunity to make it easier for communities to pursue planning applications for such developments. That has not really happened, and I would like there to be more focus on that. The minister said that he is willing to consider having more consultation on how we can transform that situation and give communities the opportunity to present their own plans for the development of infrastructure. I do not think that that has been captured in NPF4. The minister has touched on the issue and I hope that there will be more focus on it in the future.

The Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland and Planning Democracy have made it clear that we can deliver proper planning only by having properly resourced local authorities. I welcome what the minister said about planning departments and the funding of planners. However, the sad fact is that many planning departments are underfunded and understaffed at present, and their budgets have been allowed to be cut over many years. We can see the consequences of that situation. That must change, and I welcome what the minister said about that.

I do not think that anyone believes that the passing of NPF4 today will signal the delivery of the planning system that Scotland needs to meet all the challenges that communities currently face. The delivery of the plan will be possible only through system change, as the convener outlined in her remarks. NPF4 should be a key document that influences the Scottish Government’s decision making across all portfolios—most importantly, perhaps, the health portfolio—and that serves as a core for future policy development in Scotland.

The devil will always be in the detail. I hope that the minister will now work to deliver the critical guidance that industry asks for and communities demand, and that we can see the flexibility that will ensure that any potentially needed changes and fixes are brought forward as soon as possible.

I understand what the minister is outlining, but is he not concerned that there is no mechanism for fixing underdelivery in the land pipeline, and that NPF4 should have taken that forward? Will he commit to outlining how that will be monitored, because we need those homes.

Without wanting this to sound like an Oscar awards speech, I start by thanking the clerks of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee for their help and support during the passage of NPF4 through Parliament, as well as the hundreds of individuals, charities, interested parties and organisations that have provided incredibly helpful briefings and input in trying to improve NPF4. It has been a pleasure—I am sure that the minister agrees—to engage with all those people, who have a passion for our planning system and really want to contribute to the conversation on how to improve it.

From the outset, we, on these benches, have engaged constructively, and I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has made many changes. I specifically put on record my thanks to the minister for the positive approach to discussions that he has had, which has been—sadly—a refreshing change from how the Parliament sometimes operates. Indeed, in recent years, we have seen limited outreach from Scottish Government ministers following the Bute house agreement and the formation of a Scottish National Party-Green majority Government. I hope that we see a change in that situation after this new year. I put on record my thanks to the minister for how he has conducted himself during the passage of NPF4.

We all recognise the importance of tackling both the climate emergency and the nature crisis through our planning system. However, from the outset, I have called for the housing emergency to be central to the development of the new NPF4 if we are truly to ensure that Scotland’s housing needs are met in the future. As Homes for Scotland says in its briefing, it

“remains disappointed that the housing crisis is not specifically mentioned”

and is

“concerned over the seeming lack of ambition”

in NPF4

“to address it.”

It is most likely that housing—whether private or social—will be delivered in spite of NPF4 rather than because of it, with underwhelming minimum all-tenure housing land requirements doing little to drive forward the number of new homes that Scotland requires.

To date, we have seen a lack of transitional guidance, which risks causing considerable unnecessary delay to applications that are already in the planning system and to decisions on those applications.

The fact is that the SNP-Green Government has failed to address Scotland’s housing crisis, which is making it harder for people to get on the property ladder and get the homes that they need. The Scottish Government’s latest housing statistics, for example, reveal that housing completions across all tenures in Scotland are still below pre-Covid levels.

Why does putting the housing crisis in NPF4 matter? Today, there are 28,000 homeless households across Scotland—32,592 adults and 14,372 children are registered homeless. I hoped that NPF4 could help to address that situation and could ensure that our focus is not just on the climate and nature emergency, but also on the housing crisis. I do not think that we have achieved that, which is disappointing.

I absolutely agree with that point. A key aspect that needs to be addressed is that, given the additional costs faced by small-scale builders, many of which might not survive any coming recession, we need to look at the potential for more small-scale investments to be supported. I would like there to be a rural homes delivery agency to drive forward progress on the targets in the way that Fergus Ewing mentioned.

NPF4 has the potential to help to drive sustainable growth and deliver new jobs in key sectors, especially in the renewables sector, where we have seen a shift, which I welcome. However, I am concerned that the housing sector could be impacted negatively by NPF4, as Fergus Ewing indicated. I have outlined to the minister on a number of occasions my concern about future land supply. There is still no mechanism in NPF4 for fixing a land pipeline that is underdelivering if longer-term sites cannot be found to fill the gap. It is unclear how an underdelivering pipeline can or will allow further land to be found in the event that there are no deliverable brownfield sites.

I do not want to rehearse the arguments that I have made in relation to Edinburgh, but there is real concern that most development sites that we have in NPF4 and in local plans in Edinburgh are currently being used by viable businesses such as car dealerships. There are such businesses throughout the Seafield part of the city, which I represent. The sites in that area are allocated for housing, but there is no future development plan showing where those businesses are meant to go in order to allow those houses to be realised. Ministers must look at how that will be delivered.

Planning policy should be clear, concise and written in such a way as to not allow or result in misinterpretation. I hope that the minister has taken on board the key concerns that businesses have outlined in that respect. There continue to be concerns over a number of specific policy areas, including the inclusion of policy 27(d), which is unnecessarily restrictive and puts at risk future job creation. Although I welcome the comments that the minister made in committee about working to make sure that that policy is not misinterpreted, the guidance will need to provide clarity and must be sufficiently specific in order not to result in unintended consequences.

I agree with what Mark Griffin is saying about the numbers of homes, but the types of homes are also critically important. A freedom of information request by the Scottish Conservatives has shown that there are 24,000 disabled people on housing waiting lists. That is up from 9,700 in 2017. The types of houses need to change, and we have not really seen that in NPF4.

During his time as cabinet secretary with responsibility for rural affairs, Mr Ewing will have been aware of the need for new entrants to enter the sector, often to replace older farmers who leave farming. I feel that that issue has been missed in the national planning framework. Does he support calls for the Government to do more work on that?

Although I welcome much of what has been changed in NPF4, it is not acceptable in its current form, and therefore the Scottish Conservatives will not support it at decision time.