Chamber and committees

It is a pleasure to speak in this extended debate. I congratulate Fergus Ewing, not only on securing the debate and getting this time in the chamber—and bringing some unexpected sunshine with him—but on the fact that so many members have taken part. That is encouraging and I have certainly learned a few things in the debate already.

When I saw that the motion and debate had been secured, I felt motivated to come and take part and listen tonight because of the work that I am doing with colleagues on the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee—Liam Kerr and Mark Ruskell are also members. We are currently running an energy crisis inquiry looking at what needs to be done in the here and now as well as at longer-term actions. We will report on that shortly.

I was struck by comments that we heard from the fuel poverty charity Energy Action Scotland just a few weeks ago. It said that, unless the UK Government and the Scottish Government take bolder action now, there will be

“a catastrophic loss of life”—[Official Report, Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 26 April 2022; c 23]

this winter. I think that that is something that is very much in the minds of all of us when we think about our casework—the emails from people reaching out to us for help and assurance. I come to this thinking very much about the cost of living crisis and how that interacts with the climate and nature emergencies.

The young people of Scotland very much keep our feet to the fire on this. It is a pleasure to be back doing school visits and hearing from young people. Before the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—I was doing a lot of that work. I have to say to all colleagues and all parties—I do so from the back benches; I do not get to speak in the chamber very often now—that we cannot just retreat to our party lines, our slogans and the usual banter. This is much more serious than any of that. We have to work together.

The Government has a massive job to do, as all Governments do, and the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee has a very important role to play. In that committee, we try to leave our party politics at the door in order to work together. We need more of these debates because, frankly, since COP26 finished I feel like we have gone back to our business-as-usual approach, and we cannot have that. Quite often, the very important issues, as we are discussing tonight, are left to members’ business debates when they should be given Government time and Opposition party time. Let us look at that.

As Douglas Ross mentioned planning, does he agree that we need to properly resource our planning authorities? There has been around a 20 per cent reduction in the planning workforce and some of the technical skills that we have heard about tonight are very important. Does he agree that we have to support local government?

Presiding Officer, I should have said at the start that I, too, may have to leave before the end of the debate. Thank you for your permission to do that.

I appreciate that update from the minister. It has been three months since we met my constituent Louise Caldwell to discuss progress. I am a bit concerned that the questionnaire has not gone out yet, but I hope that the work will be completed by June.

Is the minister confident that the Government will have compassionate miscarriage services in place in every health board by the end of 2023, as was promised? Will she join me in paying tribute again to Louise Caldwell, who has single-handedly brought the matter to Parliament’s attention and is in touch with thousands of women in Scotland who need that action now?

Over the past decade or so, there have been reforms to the planning system. We have seen that in primary legislation. There has been an emphasis on front loading so that there is lots of dialogue with applicants, developers, communities and planning authorities at the early stage. That is supposed to be the place where some of the detail can be thrashed out to ensure that the information is robust and reliable for everyone involved.

Is that part of the process working as well as it should? As an industry, are you reflecting on what more you could do to build confidence at the start of it? We know that planning has a difficult job to do in taking into account all sorts of competing interests. We also know that studies on, for example, biodiversity or flooding are expensive and take time. Could more be done to front load planning, and could you guys contribute to that?

You made an important point about time constraints. Perhaps I could come to David Hammond about those in a second. First, though, Morag Watson, you spoke earlier about community benefit funding, and you gave an example involving £900,000 of funds. Do you agree that there is an opportunity for such funding to increase? Could it perhaps plug some of the gaps that we see—for example, by facilitating capacity building and engagement both in communities and with public sector partners, not just planning authorities? As the committee has seen and heard during this inquiry, in the contexts of the role of local government on the journey to net zero, and of financing, we seem to need a cross-sectoral approach. Could more be done to make community benefit funding a bit more generous?

There are no questions left. It has been a long and interesting discussion.

I thank the witnesses for their contributions. In their opening remarks, Morag Watson and Stephanie Anderson talked about planning as a barrier to development and described a process that can be long and slow. To put that into context, do you have any up-to-date figures on how many applications are successful? The impression that I have is that we still have a pro-development culture in Scotland and the majority of applications are approved. Is that fair to say?

I imagine that we do not have much more time for this agenda item, but I wonder what advice was given to ministers on those issues, ahead of 1 April 2022. Did anyone foresee what would happen—that services would be reduced by one third a month after the move into public ownership?

Good morning to the minister and her officials. Thank you for your opening remarks, minister.

People who welcome the nationalisation of Scotland’s rail services want to see improved accountability and clearer lines of responsibility. On a point of clarification, although I welcome your intention to have good relationships with the trade unions, I noticed that the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers—the RMT—accused you in the press of lying, which was obviously not a good allegation to hear. It also said that “the buck stops” with you, minister. On that point of accountability, which is what we are here to look at today, how can the public be reassured that it will not be a case of officials and managers taking responsibility when things are going badly and ministers taking credit when things are going well? How can we be sure that the lines of responsibility are clear? How do we very quickly get to a place where trade unions, which I know you respect, have confidence in you and are not accusing you of lying, which was an unfortunate headline to see at this early stage of the project?

Are you saying that a disproportionate number of wind farm applications end up in public local inquiries compared to other developments?

In this inquiry, we have had a lot of discussion about skills, expertise and capacity in local government, and there is lots of good practice to celebrate. However, I want to pick up on the point that Morag Watson made about time constraints. My question is for David Hammond, although I see David Rodger on my screen.

David Hammond, you work in North Ayrshire Council. Clearly, demands are high on the time of officers across the council. In order to have the networking and engagement that we have heard about, how do we free up the time of local government officers so that they can engage in that work in a meaningful way, and how do we get to a place in which we pockets of best practice are not thought of as the exception—how do we cascade those practices across local government and the public sector, so that we can learn from the best and can improve?