Chamber and committees

Thank you.

I know that we do not have a lot of time, convener, so I will shortly pass back to you, but it would be interesting to hear from Freiburg in the future about the planning workforce, because we have questions about that workforce in Scotland. We have had a reduction in our planning workforce, so it would be interesting to see a comparison. In the interests of time, however, I will pass back to you, convener.

Maybe Liam Kerr wants to bring forward his own members’ business debate to get into that issue in much more detail. Tonight is about solar energy and, clearly, we need a robust plan for that. We need to get on with it, as the opportunity has been spelled out to all of us.

We have to look at where we are seeing pioneering work already. The solar farms in North Ayrshire, which have been pioneered by Scottish Labour, have not really been mentioned tonight. Hopefully, that work will continue and that innovation and good practice will be shared throughout Scotland. The work in North Ayrshire ties in nicely with the community wealth building agenda that we heard about in the chamber earlier. I congratulate Councillor Joe Cullinane on that work. It is pioneering and it also helps people with their energy bills.

There is groundbreaking work out there but, when I look at my emails and at what people are getting in touch with me about, I see that they do not want business as usual, That is why we had a digital day of action on Friday to stop the Jackdaw gas field. Liam Kerr is happy to see the Jackdaw gas field and the Cambo oilfield approved, but we cannot continue like that.

We want to see more democratic control of energy. The system in the market has completely failed. When we heard from the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets in the committee inquiry recently, we found out that there is just no protection for consumers. We all know that we cannot continue as we are. We need to work together during the transition. I know that I am out of time, but I took a brief intervention. The points about planning, skills and so on are very relevant. The message that we are hearing from our constituents, young and old, is that the future is ours to create, and we just have to get on and do it. The time to act is now.

To ask the Scottish Government when the scoping exercise into the availability of specialist services within national health service boards for miscarriage and unexpected pregnancy complications will be completed. (S6O-01120)

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?