Chamber and committees

Do you believe that the NPF4 supports the delivery of a gender-sensitive approach to planning? If so, how do you think that it achieves that? Do you believe that more can be done?

Good morning, minister; I have a couple of quick questions. As you will know, the Royal Town Planning Institute has asked that NPF4 be made a dynamic document that is continually updated to reference new advice and guidance as it is published. Can you and the Government do that?

My final question might give the witnesses an opportunity to sum up. How can the committee focus future NPF4 scrutiny to ensure that it targets areas of concern to communities and stakeholders? I will go to Clare Symonds first because she and I did a bit of joint work with an organisation in my constituency—the northern corridor community forum—whose views and thoughts are not often taken into account. The question is therefore particularly important to me. What can the committee do to make sure that communities feel that they are heard in the NPF4 process?

Good morning. Do the witnesses believe that NPF4 supports a gender-sensitive approach? If not, how might more be done to improve that?

As I am not in the room, convener, I am happy for you to go through whoever wants to come in.

This has been a very interesting first session on this topic. My first point is about custody being an outcome for people with addictions, which Kirsten Horsburgh spoke about. Rona Mackay and Ben Macpherson commented on it, too. However, rather than asking any more questions on that, I hope that the fact that there has already been a good discussion on that issue might lead to the committee doing further work on it. I would like that to be the case, because I completely agree with what has been said.

I was going to ask questions about staff, but Rona Mackay and the convener have already covered them. I was also interested to hear about the welfare considerations for staff who could be dealing with deaths in prison.

Another staff-related angle is the pressure on those who are working in the current context. It strikes me that your staff in prisons are dealing not only with a very vulnerable group of people but with organised criminals. When I think about prison staff, I always consider that they themselves are quite a vulnerable group, because organised criminals will go to all ends available to get their drugs into prison or wherever else. What support do you provide for staff to help them with managing the people that they might come into contact with? Do you have specific training for that, or is it more about providing support?

I can imagine. It sounds like you have quite good protocols and procedures in place for things that might happen in work. Is there any guidance in place for what staff should do if they are approached outside of work?

Would that information be reported to you?

I will mainly speak to my amendment 491. The amendment came about through a discussion with the Church of Scotland. I know that Willie Rennie’s amendment 452 came about through similar conversations and may be in a similar area—Meghan Gallacher has just highlighted some of that.

I thank the cabinet secretary for the constructive conversations. I confirm at the outset that I do not intend to move amendment 491; it is more of a probing amendment.

The amendment seeks to address the issue for a landlord who is not an individual, in relation to the proposed new section 51A of the 2016 act. The bill as drafted says:

“The Tribunal may consider in particular ... whether a period of delay in bringing the tenancy to an end would—

i) cause the landlord to experience financial hardship,

ii) have a detrimental effect on the health of the landlord, or

iii) have another detrimental effect on the landlord due to the landlord having a disability”.

Those provisions mirror the considerations that are contained in section 51A(2)(a). In the case of a manse let, the landlord may not be able to prove financial hardship, as they will still be entitled to rent during the period. The provisions in proposed new sections 51A(2)(b) and 51A(2)(c) could not apply to a landlord who was not an individual.

The proposed new section would enable the First-tier Tribunal to consider another detrimental effect on a landlord that is not an individual. For example, in the cases of manses, the detrimental effect would be that the house could not be used by the landlord for occupation by a person engaged in the work of a religious denomination as a residence from which the duties of such a person are to be performed. The detriment would prevent a minister who is called to the charge from being able to take up occupation in the parish if the manse is occupied. The example that was given to me when I met the Church of Scotland representatives was one in which a manse is used for charitable aims such as hosting refugees. Amendment 491 may be helpful in such a scenario.

I reiterate that I do not intend to move amendment 491. I am happy to continue discussions with the cabinet secretary and others ahead of stage 3.

That is a fair point.

I will come in, convener, if that is all right. All our witnesses have spoken about raising public awareness, which strikes me as really important. What are your views on how we might do that? Rather than repeating what you said earlier, perhaps you could tell us how you think the message can be put out there. I feel that it should be put particularly to young boys and men, who are clearly the target group, instead of placing responsibility for not engaging in such behaviour on women and girls, although they need to know about it, too. Everybody needs to know about it, as a point of public awareness.