I responded to the NPF4 consultation, and I appreciate colleagues’ comments in the debate so far. I want to focus on two specific issues that the draft framework will have an impact on: vacant, derelict and abandoned sites, and permitted development rights.

Scotland has almost 11,000 hectares of vacant and derelict sites, which is equivalent to 20,556 football pitches, and, on average, people live within 500m of a derelict site. According to the Scottish Land Commission, if a person lives in an area that scores low on the Scottish index of multiple deprivation, they are more likely to live within 250m of a derelict site. Evidence that we heard in the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee affirmed that those sites negatively affect a community’s mental health and wellbeing and that people in those communities feel less safe and are likely to use the words “blight” and “eyesore” to describe those places. People take less pride in their home place when they live beside derelict, decaying or dilapidated eyesores, as the Scottish Land Commission has affirmed in its work.

I have sought to engage with communities and support them to see timely action taken to address those sites across Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders. Those sites include the former Interfloor factory in Dumfries, the George Hotel in Stranraer, the Central Hotel in Annan and the N Peal building in Hawick, which I visited yesterday. However, as the draft framework and the Scottish Land Commission have pointed out, addressing the issues with those buildings currently presents many challenges to communities and local authorities.

I welcome that the part of the draft framework that discusses the spatial principles for Scotland for 2045 states that they will seek to limit urban expansion into greenfield sites and instead will incentivise the reuse of brownfield sites for redevelopment. However, as noted by COSLA, additional financial constraints exist around utilising abandoned sites in that way, and it is often extremely costly for developers and local authorities to address them. For example, the former Maxwelltown high school in Dumfries cost around £250,000 to demolish before the site could be redeveloped.

I would like assurance from the minister that the Government will work with local authorities and developers to ensure that they are accessing vacant and derelict land funds, and that public funding will continue to be made available to redevelop the brownfield sites and eyesore sites that blight our communities.

I have been involved in the community in Eskdalemuir, the Samye Ling Buddhist monastery and the Upper Teviotdale and Borthwick Water community council. They are all concerned about the dynamic and target shooting activity in the area, where high-velocity weapons of up to 50 calibre are being fired. Those powerful weapons, which require skill and accuracy, can shoot ammunition up to two miles and are being used close by the Romans and reivers walkways, the Craikhope Outdoor Centre on the Borders side of the Borders way and the southern upland way. I share the community’s concerns over safety and the reported high decibel level of the shooting.

The shooting activity operates using a legal loophole. In class 15 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992, permitted development rights allow for a temporary use of land for a different purpose from its lawful use for up to 28 days in a calendar year. The only exemptions are for caravan sites or open air markets. I agree with the community that that is wrong and that shooting activity, particularly with such high-powered weapons and ammunition, should be subject to robust major planning that allows local voices to be heard. I would like to see that in the final NPF4.

I thank the minister for his engagement so far on the matter, but I ask him for a commitment that NPF4 will ensure that any proposal for shooting ranges and activities such as shooting be subject to a robust major planning application. Finally, I reiterate my two asks: to focus on tackling vacant, derelict and abandoned sites and to consider closing the shooting activity loophole in permitted development rights.

I thank Kaukab Stewart for securing the debate. Colleagues have outlined extremely well how benefit sanctions are inhumane, callous and cruel. They are nothing but a symptom of the UK Tory Government’s out-of-touch and hostile attitude to the people who most require support.

Sanctions have consequences. Evidence from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that benefit sanctions increase the risk of homelessness and put financial and emotional stress on families, which harms children. Ms Stewart described that in detail. Sanctions also cause health harms.

Tackling poverty and the cost of living crisis already have many challenges. We have heard about people choosing between paying their bills and buying food—between heating and eating. There is no evidence that sanctions work.

In 2018, I supported a constituent who had battled the DWP for three years before contacting me to receive the support to which she was entitled. I contacted the local MP, who is now the Secretary of State for Scotland, to help, because the DWP is a reserved matter. He offered no support, provided no help and said that he had full confidence in the DWP’s decision making. Because of the issues with the DWP and the extreme stress that that piled on her, my constituent sadly took her own life, leaving a young son and her partner behind. That directly links to what Alex Rowley said about suicide being linked to sanctions. It is a tragic case that simply highlights how the UK Government and the welfare system do not treat people with dignity and respect.

I will highlight the particularly negative impact of benefit sanctions on rural areas, including across Dumfries and Galloway. Rural transport is hugely challenging, particularly for people who are on welfare support and are more reliant on public transport to attend jobcentre appointments. Jobcentre appointment times do not coincide with rural transport timetables, but I have found the jobcentre’s approach to accommodating the needs of people who live in rural settings to be extremely inflexible. One person whom I supported was sanctioned and lost 100 per cent of his income because his bus was five minutes late.

That punitive approach appears to be continuing, now that face-to-face appointments have resumed following removal of Covid-19 protections. I call on the minister to work with the UK Government to consider the need for a flexible and person-centred approach to appointments for people across rural Scotland, and for not penalising people for living rurally. I welcome the fact that, in contrast, Social Security Scotland considers rural needs by offering telephone appointments and advisers who will even visit people in their own homes.

The Parliament and the Scottish Government are constrained because we do not have complete control over welfare; we cannot mitigate every measure that is foisted on the Scottish people. The only way to truly address the unequal, cruel and callous Tory welfare system is by Scotland taking its future into its own hands and becoming a normal independent country.

I mentioned rural areas earlier, and we are talking about digital inclusion and exclusion. We have found that people in rural areas have used digital access to have telephone or video calls for mental health consultations. Will we continue to measure that to see how digital access benefits people, with those in rural areas being able to see somebody? People should still be able to see someone face to face, because that might be the best way forward for some people, but it could be quite positive for people in our rural areas if they could continue to use NHS Near Me, for example.

That is good to hear.

I was also thinking about how we direct people. For instance, we have had some feedback that people go and see their GP and expect to be given tablets for their type 2 diabetes, for instance, when maybe a social prescribing programme could help reverse that condition. We saw that in the television programme “Fixing Dad”, in which Geoff Whitington, who weighed 20 stones, managed with support from his family to lose a lot of weight. What else can we do to show people that alternative pathways are adjuncts and are not necessarily class B rather than class A things? We have seen, especially during the Covid pandemic, how important it is to support people’s mental health by, say, getting them outside and walking.

I am also thinking about recruitment of GPs. The Scottish graduate entry medicine programme is unique to Scotland and was created as a collaboration between the universities of St Andrews and Dundee to support training of GPs. I assume that that is going well. This might need a longer answer than we have time for today, but I would like a wee update on how ScotGEM is going.

I am interested in social prescribing, too. The question is how we signpost folk to some of the services that exist. In this inquiry, we have focused on helping people signpost patients to additional third sector services using a local information service for Scotland—ALISS—which is the Government-funded local information system. At our previous meeting, we also heard about the resource that the Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations Council provides and the DG locator service in Dumfries and Galloway.

I am interested in hearing how we can enhance and give better support to ALISS and in considering how we direct people to mental health services. We have seen the benefits of men’s sheds, walking football, walking groups and other social groups that the third sector can help to direct people to. How do we support ALISS in signposting people?

I have a quick supplementary question. I understand that community link workers will be required to carry out different duties, depending on where they are working in a local authority or health board area. According to a freedom of information request that has been published on the Government’s website, there were 218 link workers in post at the end of March 2021.

I know that there has been a pandemic for two years, and that is why some of the data might not be as up to date as we would like, but there is a projected total of 323 link workers by March 2022. I am interested to hear the cabinet secretary’s thoughts on that. I reinforce the point that link workers might be doing different things across different health boards, and we should support the health boards to know their own area and to support their GP practices, whether they be rural or urban.

Thank you.

I am interested in how the regulations will be communicated to the local authorities and health boards. As a nurse, I know about the exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that lead to hospital admissions. A respiratory care action plan is now being developed and will then be delivered. Tomorrow, I am heading to Belfast to talk at a Border and Regions Airways Training Hub—BREATH—project event, which is about COPD causes, prevention and treatment. It is welcome that we have these regulations. How will they be communicated to our local authorities and health boards?

The programme has a particular focus on rural general practice.