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You are referring to pop-up shops, pop-up facilities and creative opportunities.

The question that comes out of that is what culture can do for planning and place making. The final question that I have been pondering concerns the local place plan process. From the way that you describe it, it seems that, at its heart, it is quite co-creative. In so, where are creative and cultural organisations in that? We look to planners and planning departments—which are underfunded, perhaps—to deliver the process, but is there a role for creative organisations in supporting planning charrettes and accessing and enabling the voices of young people and other disadvantaged groups in the process? Are there examples of a creative sector or creative groups in communities working with planners to assist in the local place plan process and help to create the vision? That feels like quite an exciting opportunity.

I am interested to hear how you think the dial has shifted since Covid and what some of the challenges and opportunities are. Looking around some of the communities that are close to me, I notice that high streets look very different now and shop spaces are opening up. During Covid, there was more discussion about the value of green space and we started to think about how streets could look different and how civic spaces could be opened up. I guess that there were some opportunities there, but cultural organisations are also facing into some headwinds. It would be interesting to get your views on how the post-Covid world looks a little bit different and the implications of that.

Is how we define culture and the creative sector an issue? Creative Stirling is a very creative organisation that works in the cultural space and the regeneration space, but its physical space is an abandoned high street department store. It does not occupy a traditional cultural venue and it works in a very unsiloed way to meet its various objectives, although it would probably go to Creative Scotland for funding. Is there a fuzziness in how the creative sector operates, how it accesses opportunities and spaces and, therefore, how it is planned?

Do you mean that that whole area—civic space, green space and interconnected spaces between communities—is about creative design?

In the middle of the cost of living crisis, the University of St Andrews is increasing rents in its student halls by 8 per cent. Students are at risk of being plunged into poverty as the university lines its pockets. Does the First Minister agree that a rent increase of that scale is completely unacceptable? Will he join me in calling on the university to reverse that decision?

We believe that those qualities are lacking in the recommendation today.

I thank members of the SPPA Committee and the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland for their consideration of this case.

As a former member of the committee, I recognise its important work in upholding the values and standards of this institution. The Green group therefore respects the decision that has been made by the SPPA Committee and the commissioner that my colleague Maggie Chapman breached the code of conduct, and we do not wish to reopen that decision.

However, we struggle to agree with the decision to impose a sanction, because it goes against the recent precedent set by the Parliament in dealing with omissions to declare a financial interest. Since the start of session 5 in 2016, the SPPA Committee has upheld five complaints against members relating to a failure to declare a registered financial interest, and only one of those resulted in a sanction.

In that case, the member in question had asked parliamentary questions on an issue in which they held a live financial interest and could have potentially benefited financially from the outcome. It was also the second time that a complaint was upheld against them on the same issue, the first time having resulted in no sanction.

In another more recent case, a member failed to make verbal declarations of substantial gifts from a lobbying organisation, but the committee concluded that

“the finding of a breach is sanction enough.”

The case against Maggie Chapman, however, relates to a previous employment that had long since concluded at the time that the item of business took place in Parliament, so there was no way that Ms Chapman could have benefited financially from the subject that was under discussion on that day.

I am concerned, because the decision sets a precedent for declaring past employment, suggesting that every member in the chamber remains financially tied to all our previous employers for an indefinite period. Imposing a sanction today also undermines the previous position that members are able to make their own judgment on these matters.

In another case, again in 2016, the SPPA Committee admonished a member but imposed no further sanction because

“it is a matter of judgment for the member on whether a registered interest is sufficiently relevant to particular proceedings to require a declaration.”

Yet in this case, the committee has decided that it was not sufficient for Maggie Chapman to use her own judgment, despite her clearly making no attempt to conceal her previous employment, which was declared in her written register of interest.

Indeed—but I have laid out the circumstances in which the case emerged and I do not believe that an incorrect judgment was made in that regard. Many members who are looking at that and previous cases that have come to the chamber will now have doubts in their minds about when it is and when it is not appropriate to declare a particular interest.

It is the view of my colleagues in the Green group that our colleague appears to be being held to a different set of standards than previous members who were found wanting in relation to much more substantial breaches, where direct financial interests were actually at stake. She is also not being given the benefit of the doubt, which other members have been afforded. The following quotation is from a decision in 2020: when a member had similarly failed to declare previous employment, the committee concluded that

“the complaint ... was not related to a matter for which”

the member

“could have gained any financial benefit and there was no attempt to conceal the information, which”

was

“made available on the Parliament’s website.”

Those words are equally applicable to Maggie Chapman’s case, yet she is now being sanctioned by the Parliament, and that is a departure.

In closing, if the motion is approved, it potentially has implications for all members. There will be an urgent need for revised and detailed guidance to members on what should reasonably be declared for inclusion in their declaration of members’ interests and clerks and the convener will need to address that in the weeks to come. We recognise how vital honesty and transparency are in the dealings of the chamber, but my colleague has been honest and transparent at every stage of the process. Fairness and consistency are just as crucial—

Will Alex Rowley give way?