Chamber and committees

Finally, the budget shows that 12 per cent of local government’s budget is from in-year transfers from other budgets. That is £1.5 billion, which is significant. Will you set out in a bit more detail what the make-up is of that £1.5 billion? What proportion of that spend is directed spend and what proportion can local government spend freely, on whatever it sees fit?

At the time, and in subsequent years.

Good morning. All 32 directors of finance wrote to Scottish ministers and set out what they felt were more than £1 billion of additional budget pressures on local government for 2023-24. Cabinet secretary, have you and your officials had the chance to meet the directors of finance to discuss the assessment of the make-up of that £1 billion and to compare it with the budget allocation for next year to see whether the allocation meets the pressures that they set out?

As well as setting out the £1 billion budget pressures, the directors of finance set out what they felt the impact of not meeting those pressures would be, which is services reducing or stopping, or staff numbers going down. We have seen examples of that with local authorities starting to produce their savings packages, some of which have been pretty severe. What assessment has been made of the 32 savings packages that are emerging, and what the impact will be on other public services such as health or social care as a result of reducing the services that were previously provided by local authorities?

Year on year, has consideration been given to increasing the allocation to local government to allow it to increase the provision of allotments or community growing spaces?

I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests, as I am the owner of a private rented property in the North Lanarkshire Council area.

In November, the minister reiterated that the freeze legislation is temporary and can be extended only for two further six-month periods. We know that landlords are already preparing increases to be introduced once the freeze ends. The ONS said that, by November, private rent increases were at their highest level since the office started collecting data in 2012. The long-promised rent controls need to seamlessly dovetail with the end of that legislation.

Can the minister commit to ensuring that the housing bill passes and that the controls are introduced in time for the expiration of the provisions in the legislation? Although the moratorium on evictions continues, our monitoring information shows that the tenant hardship grant fund has only £2.5 million left and that 11 councils have spent the entirety of their funds. What does the Government plan to do to review that fund, so that tenants who are building up arrears through the evictions moratorium do not face a cliff edge when that moratorium also expires?

To ask the Scottish Government what the average cost to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service is of non-attendance at court hearings by all parties. (S6O-01750)

NPF4 is a vitally important document—not for Parliament or Government, but for the communities, local decision makers and businesses that desperately need long-overdue detail about how planning will work for the next decade.

I echo the thanks for the considerable input from stakeholders—especially the communities most affected by the planning framework—that has got us to this point, as well as for the work of the committee clerks, the minister and officials.

Organisations such as the RSPB, Homes for Scotland, Heads of Planning Scotland and Scottish Renewables have welcomed the significant improvements since the first draft. The revised draft delivered necessary improvements to structure and readability, and to the clarity and consistency of policies and the flexibility around them. As we set out at committee, the original draft was not the greatest. The committee concluded that

“there are still elements of NPF4 that could be improved”,

that a cross-Government approach to implementation is still found wanting, and that a decimated planning profession lacks a pipeline to deliver on the ambition in the framework.

We have heard reports that one of our higher education institutes will be ending its undergraduate planning programme, which will leave only a single higher education institute in this country with a planning school. If that comes to pass, that will put even more pressure on the pipeline of planning professionals.

Our most fundamental concern is that the framework does not do enough to tackle Scotland’s housing crisis. The fact is that we need to build more homes, because our housing crisis has got worse since the previous framework, not better.

We need to build more homes that are warmer, safer and more accessible for an ageing, changing population in which people are living alone in greater numbers. That needs to be done while balancing the views of local people and protecting our natural and existing environment.

Homes must be built in greater numbers, because too few have been built for years now. Under the previous Government, an average of about 24,000 homes were built each year by both the private and social sectors. Despite the Government’s ambitious affordable housing supply programme, barely 18,000 new homes a year have been built since the previous framework was introduced.

In my opening speech, I said that NPF4 is not the finished product. I made it clear that we will give our approval at decision time but will look for the minister to make good on his commitments to deal with the issues that we feel are outstanding. We still do not have the confidence that we should have that the framework will be enough to end the housing crisis that is gripping our country, which is particularly affecting young people, who are largely ignored by the HNDA figures. We think that fewer starter homes that families can rent or purchase as their first home will be built as a result of their being ignored in those figures.

In his speech, Miles Briggs alluded to the fact that, this morning, the Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland issued its verdict on NPF4. It welcomed the framework but said that success depends on there being planners to do the job and that new resources to support the delivery of NPF4 are required, and it gave the stark reminder that planning department staff have been cut by a third since 2009. Speaker after speaker in today’s debate has hammered home the fact that those cuts have consequences.

The waiting time for the processing of major housing development applications, of which there are not enough to tackle our housing crisis, was an average of 54.3 weeks last year. That number has spiralled in a way that is probably inversely proportionate to the number of staff we have in local authorities to deal with applications.

The institute says that planning authorities are overstretched and that

“significant upskilling of the planning workforce”

is needed. It says that the delivery programme, which is still wanting and needs to be made fit for purpose, should include

“a comprehensive skills and resource strategy”.

According to the RTPI’s research, the profession already has a stretched pipeline and more than 680 entrants into the sector will be needed over the lifetime of the new framework. Given the 49 unfunded duties for local authorities, which could cost almost £60 million over the same period, planning departments are creaking at the seams. That will have a huge impact on the delivery of many laudable ambitions that we support and would like to come to fruition.

I have asked the minister about that in the past. He told me that he is working closely with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and Heads of Planning Scotland to make sure that there is a common understanding of the pressures that planning services face. Fees have increased, but it is the opinion of planners that they do not stretch far enough.

I echo the points that were strongly made by a number of members about progress on promoting and protecting our natural environment. The extent of nature depletion in Scotland over recent decades has been frightening, so it is right that priority is given to the nature and climate crises throughout the document.

Many speakers welcomed measures in that regard. The RSPB has also welcomed the measures and thinks that the framework can deliver positive effects on biodiversity. However, the RSPB has outstanding concerns about a key area: the wording of policy 4(b), which relates to European sites. If the issue is unresolved, the RSPB thinks that there could be significant risks for our most important protected sites for nature; it thinks that the wording should be tightened.

I have had representations from West Lothian Council, which expressed concern that its local nature reserves, which have statutory designation under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, are not included. Given that such sites will be key nodes in the make-up of nature networks and delivery of the 30 by 30 target, that should be rectified.

The proposed natural environment bill presents an opportunity to bring in a legal requirement to enhance biodiversity. In England, the Environment Act 2021 has established targets and created a step change in attitudes to and action for biodiversity in planning and construction.

As I said, NPF4 is by no means a finished product. There are outstanding issues to do with guidance and monitoring and there is a need for a proper delivery plan and resources. Scottish Labour will approve the framework at 5 o’clock, but we look to the minister to deliver on his commitment to deal with the outstanding issues. He has his work cut out.

Absolutely. That is the point that I made about the changing demographics of this country. We have an ageing population of people who are living alone more and more, and we do not seem to reflect that change or the needs of our disabled population when planning the houses of the future.

The NPF4 document does not offer a great deal of comfort to the 180,000 households who are on a waiting list for a home or the 30,000 households assessed as being homeless or threatened with homelessness last year.

One element of the housing market is that, since the previous framework was approved, the number of homes that are empty on a long-term basis has grown by 12,000—so 12,000 more homes have been taken out of the property market. If we include second homes and short-term lets, we find that 3 per cent of homes are not being used for their primary purpose—that is, for people to live in—so we have to build more to compensate for that.

The lack of housing is an issue that my constituents in Central Scotland raise week after week. They see the connections when policies such as NPF4 are launched. They see that the housing crisis seems not to be given the recognition that it deserves. They see family homes lying empty. Homes that their sons, daughters, nieces, nephews or friends could be living in right now are going to waste.

Much is made of 20-minute neighbourhoods in the framework. That is an admirable objective, but my constituents want homes near their support networks and families, who can help with childcare or drop in with some messages or for a quick catch-up. That is what makes things easier for people and makes for a better quality of life.

When the revised draft was published, I asked the minister why the Government had dismissed concerns that the all-tenure housing targets are based on historical, secondary data, which was gathered through the housing need and demand assessment process. The process is not robust or evidence based. It is estimated that up to 86,000 households, particularly households of young adults who are still living at home but want to get their own homes, have not been counted. They might be concealed households, living in their childhood bedrooms, or overcrowded households, in a home that is too small for the adults who live in it. The crucial point is that such households are not counted unless they are both concealed and overcrowded. That leads to a huge undercounting.

It is estimated that about 1 million households are uncounted in England, so the problem is not unique to Scotland. However, it is a problem that we have not addressed. The Government asserts that the HNDA tool is the optimum tool at its disposal and that the minimum land requirement is simply a minimum, with planning authorities expected to go beyond those numbers. However, it ignores the fact that the numbers are treated as targets. The result is a lack of robust data, which means that inappropriate developments can be driven like a horse and cart through local development plans.

We will support the motion on NPF4 at decision time, but we are clear that it is by no means a finished document. We look forward to scrutinising the transitional guidance that the minister has committed to produce.