Chamber and committees

Some of the reporting on this matter could be misleading or lead to misunderstanding. Under the policy, drive-throughs should go ahead only if they are supported by the local development plan. As we will all recognise, that will sit beside support for a range of policy outcomes on, for example, local living and 20-minute neighbourhoods, our ambitions for reducing emissions and car travel and, of course, other out-of-town scenarios. I am conscious of the issues that have been raised, and I will engage with relevant stakeholders and seek to provide reassurance and clarity on the policy intent and what it will deliver.

I highlight the status of strategic renewable electricity generation and transmission as a national development and the clear support for renewables behind the policy. With regard to the detail of your question, I will ask Cara to come in.

Absolutely. I was delighted to give evidence to that committee earlier this year, and I am grateful that the report has been published. I have not had an opportunity to consider it in full yet, with its having been published just this morning, but, looking at the headline items that were covered, it is encouraging to see such unanimous support for and recognition of the key and vital role that our town centres play for our communities and our country overall. That is reflected in NPF4, which sees our town centres and, indeed, our other local centres, city and commercial centres as key strategic assets.

I am sure that it is recognised throughout the work that the committee has undertaken in looking specifically at town centres—as was recognised in our town centre action plan, which we published earlier this year, and, indeed, as is reflected in NPF4—that there is no single lever that we can pull to address the challenges that our town centres face. It needs a collaborative joined-up approach. Planning has a huge role to play, and so does fundamentally reorganising and rewiring how our local economies work. Community wealth building—which we will have a lot more to say about in the new year—can have an important role to play in ensuring that our economies and local communities retain more wealth. That, in itself, will support vibrant and flourishing town centres.

On the general point about guidance and transitional arrangements, I refer to my earlier answer and say that we are committed to providing transitional advice shortly following a vote in Parliament, should Parliament approve NPF4. Guidance will be published alongside the regulations for the local development plans. That guidance will cover not only the process of LDP development but thematic guidance on how to reflect specific policies in LDPs.

I will be happy to reflect on any issues or concerns about specific guidance that are raised through the monitoring process and the engagement. Do you want to add to that, Andy?

I will take one question at a time. First, the Government recognises the centrality of housing. With NPF4, we seek to move the debate on from being one about numbers to one in which we focus on quality of place. A quality home does not end at the front door.

Specifically on numbers, having the minimum all-tenure housing land requirement—I realise that the committee fully understands that that is a floor rather than a ceiling—can help to provide greater certainty. However, it is also important to recognise the role that local development plans will play. As we work towards the introduction of the regulations that will commence new-style local development plans and accompanying guidance, I am committed to engaging with stakeholders, Heads of Planning Scotland and industry to ensure that there is clarity. That will play a key role.

I ask Carrie Thomson to address the question on triggers and issues of underdelivery.

Once we adopt it, we will take forward the process to provide that clarity. I reassure you that there will be a means of amending NPF4 at any time, once it is operational and the provision has commenced.

The term “community wealth building” may be new to some people, but the concept underlying it is not. Certainly, the key components are all well understood strands of work, many of which have had long-standing support from the Scottish Government and local authorities. Many of the key components are well established in Scotland, whether they are around sustainable procurement, supporting local businesses or localising supply chains, the retention of local assets and seeing more local assets in community ownership, promoting fair work and progressive recruitment practices, or, indeed, promoting more progressive models of ownership, be they co-operatives, employee-owned businesses or social enterprises.

Community wealth building brings a strategic lens to those individual strands in such a way that we can effect quite significant and radical change in how our local and regional economies operate. I am heartened to see the interest to date in community wealth building from across the political spectrum and, indeed, among stakeholders. I have had very positive engagement on community wealth building with, for example, the Federation of Small Businesses, and I look forward to more constructive engagement.

This is something that has real potential. It will not be an overnight fix: there are no magic bullets here to address all the challenges that our local and regional economies face. However, community wealth building has something of a track record in other areas: it is already delivering on the ground in Ayr, and, as more and more communities throughout Scotland adopt it, we will see the benefits of it. Spatial planning can have a key role in delivering community wealth building, which is why I am delighted that we have the policy in NPF4. Although I cannot say for certain that this is the case, one contributor has suggested that it may be the first planning policy in the world to have within it a specific community wealth-building policy. That is a demonstration of the Government’s commitment to advancing the community wealth-building agenda. I hope very much to have the opportunity to discuss that in more detail with the committee in due course.

I think that it is happening. I go back to the point by Professor Hague that I referenced earlier: we do not have a choice. We can say that it is a social imperative, an economic imperative or, indeed, an environmental imperative, but we do not have a choice. Climate change is happening. Yes, we have to mitigate, but we have to adapt as well. I think that we could all say that if we do not do that, the consequences will be incalculable.

We have put the climate emergency and the nature crisis right at the heart of NPF4. Policy number 1 runs through the entire vision of the document, but such considerations are not unique to Government. Every business and every local authority is having similar discussions. What NPF4 does is provide a clear direction in our planning system as to the action that has to be taken. Planning is uniquely placed to help us to address the climate emergency because of the power that it has to direct, in a coherent, considered and rational way, the types of development that we need to see to meet these strategic challenges.

Further, given the timescales within which planning operates, there is no overnight fix or quick cure. This will take sustained work. That is why we have set out a vision to 2045 in NPF4.

I highlight last week’s evidence from Scottish Renewables, which recognised the significance of our renewable energy policy in NPF4; indeed, it is at the forefront of thinking in a European context. It also recognised that protections for wild land already exist and are retained—and, in that respect, I would highlight as an example the percentage of wild land that we find in our national parks or national scenic areas.

I also point out that it is important to read NPF4 as a whole. Ultimately, decisions have to be considered on a case-by-case basis in conjunction with the development plan—including the local development plan—and the individual decision maker has to take all of those factors into consideration.

Do you want to add anything, Cara?

The answer to your first question lies in your second question. As I said in my opening remarks, we have arrived at this point through an extended period of work—there have been more than three years of work to get to this point—and the intention now is that the NPF4 draft, as revised, which is before the committee for consideration today, will be brought to Parliament for a vote. Under the legislation, a parliamentary vote is required before ministers can adopt. We will bring the revised version to Parliament for a vote, so there is no scope at this juncture for changes or amendments. To do so would be to effectively reopen the process and delay getting on with the work of implementing and delivering NPF4.

With regard to your second question, engagement, collaboration and partnership working are absolutely essential to the delivery of NPF4, so we have set out in the first iteration of our delivery programme how we will work with partners to help to achieve that. Of course, the delivery programme will be reviewed after six months, and I am grateful to those who have already offered comments about what changes they would like to see and what additions they would like to see in the delivery programme. We will engage on that, and, of course, as I referenced in my opening remarks, through our monitoring process we will be able to learn how the policies are delivering on the ground. We will begin to see how that impacts on the development of new local development plans, and it is through that process that we will then be able to evaluate the impact that NPF4 is having.

There is provision in the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 to amend NPF4. We will introduce those regulations next year, but, clearly, any changes to NPF4 would have to be evidenced and carefully considered. The priority and the focus now is on the adoption of NPF4, subject to Parliament’s agreement, and then its implementation and delivery, which will be done in a genuine spirit of collaboration and partnership working.