Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you very much, convener, and good morning, committee.

I echo the convener’s thanks to everyone who has, to date, contributed to the process of getting the draft NPF4 to where it is, and I thank all those who are participating in the vital scrutiny work that is under way, and which will continue as we move towards the close of the public consultation at the end of next month.

I am very pleased to be here to talk about what will be an important document for shaping the future of the Scotland that we want to live in. I said when we laid the draft NPF4 last November that it signalled a turning point for planning. We are facing some major challenges across our communities and as a global society; we need to stand up to them.

In the draft NPF4, we advocate a change of direction in how we plan our places, through putting climate and nature, a wellbeing economy and Covid recovery at the heart of the new planning system. We know how much planning matters to people, and we understand the really important and positive role that it can have in facilitating the development of good-quality places that help our communities to thrive. However, strong leadership will be needed in order for planning to fulfil its potential and negotiate that turning point.

NPF4 will need to be approved by the Scottish Parliament and adopted by the Scottish Government. That can give it real strength of purpose. I want us to work together to share the vision for Scotland on its journey to net zero by 2045, and to make NPF4 the very best that it can be.

I am conscious that the committee has heard a lot of interesting and quite detailed evidence from a range of witnesses over recent weeks, and in its earlier call for views, so I would like to take a few moments to share some general thoughts, in advance of the committee’s questions.

The committee has already heard from the chief planner about the wealth of engagement that has helped us to develop NPF4 to this point. We have done that using a genuinely collaborative approach. We have welcomed the considered input from many people, and we are continuing that collaboration in how we engage on the draft framework.

I am heartened that much of the feedback gives broad support for the direction that we have proposed for NPF4—the need to focus on climate and nature and on Covid recovery, and to think differently about our places.

We are hearing requests that we revisit the drafting and get the detail right, including calls for much more precise definitions and specific wording to be added. We need to ensure that NPF4 provides a sound and reliable basis for decision making, so I will listen to what people are saying and what they are offering as drafting suggestions, and I will work with my officials to ensure that we get it right.

I believe that we should have confidence in our planning system and in planners to apply their skills and expertise and to do the right thing in the long-term public interest. Choices and decisions that are made in planning are often not straightforward, and they are certainly not a tick-box exercise. Planning policies need to be read in the round; planning involves weighing up many matters and reaching balanced and reasoned judgments. That is what planners are good at, and their skills are needed now more than ever.

Some questions have been raised about the national spatial strategy, including the boundaries and priorities in the five action areas. The draft NPF4 acknowledges that

“Each part of Scotland can make a unique contribution to building a better future.”

That is about the big picture and a vision of our country as a whole, although we have to bear it in mind that spatial issues do not neatly follow administrative boundaries.

We have worked collaboratively with planning authorities to understand regional priorities, particularly through their work on indicative regional spatial strategies. Ideally, we want to foster a shared vision that people can easily relate to, and to understand the priorities in the different parts of Scotland. We can look again at the action areas and at the relationship between the national spatial strategy and the policy handbook in order to further consider and clarify their respective roles in decision making.

There have been requests that there be, throughout the NPF, explicit name checking of, and cross-referencing to, other policy documents, but it is important to bear it in mind that the NPF is a long-term strategy that will have a statutory role in decision making, so we must be careful not to cross-refer to a range of documents that might not have the same lifespan, thereby causing policies to become outdated. That risks causing confusion and uncertainty. I can assure the committee that we are strongly aligned with other policies and strategies—for example, the strategic transport projects review 2, “Housing to 2040”, place-based approaches and our land-use strategy, to name but a few.

We will continue to collaborate on the drafting of NPF4, while bearing in mind the fact that views may vary on points of detail. We will also think about where additional guidance can help to deliver the intentions in NPF4. Some of that is already in progress: for example, the guidance for preparing local development plans—on which we are also consulting—and for biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions assessments.

Some stakeholders have been calling for a capital plan, as the committee has heard. NPF4 is not a spending document, nor does it need to be. It will be delivered by a broad range of partners, public and private, so delivery will need to align with wider plans and programmes, rather than itself being a single programme for capital investment. When it is finalised, NPF4 will come together with STPR2 to guide the next infrastructure investment plan. The Scottish Futures Trust is working with us to develop a shared delivery programme for the final version of NPF4. The delivery programme needs to be agile and to be built up over time, rather than being a fixed and static document.

I know that there have been concerns about resources in planning services. I recognise those concerns, so I have been working with the high-level group on planning performance on how we can position and empower planning services to confidently lead the change that is needed for our places.

The committee will be aware that, earlier this month, I laid regulations that substantially increase planning application fees, thereby increasing the funding that will go to planning authorities. That will happen from April.

However, fees tell only part of the story. There is real value in good-quality planning. Compelling and inspirational plans can help to deliver on so many public objectives for which it is worth joining up funding streams and in which it is worth investing. Understanding the value that planning adds makes it a service that is worth supporting.

I will bring my initial comments to as close by stressing that I find this an exciting and crucial time for planning in Scotland. We face challenges, but we also have a great opportunity to reinvent our view of what planning does and to transform how we see communities, our environment and the places that we call home. I look forward to the questions that will follow and the interesting discussion that we will have today as we work collaboratively to shape a robust finalised NPF4.

Of course, with any secondary legislation we will conform to standing orders.

There is a continuing process of engagement. We have the public consultation and the work that Parliament is undertaking, and a range of community-based engagement is taking place as well. I would be happy to bring in Fiona Simpson, if the committee would like to hear more detail on that.

Our aim and ambition are to be in a position to bring back the finalised NPF4 for Parliament to consider before the summer recess. NPF4 differs from previous NPFs in that it requires Parliament’s approval before ministers can adopt it, as the legislation says. NPF4 will be adopted only if Parliament approves it. As I said in my opening remarks, that provides added strength, which is important given that, unlike previous NPFs, NPF4 will be part of the statutory development plan.

With the convener’s permission, I ask Fiona Simpson to outline the extensive community engagement work that we are undertaking to support consultation on and consideration of the draft NPF4.

Yes, I do. It is important to recognise the flexibility in the concept: a 20-minute neighbourhood will perhaps be applied differently in a densely populated built-up urban area than it would be in a more sparsely populated rural area. Different approaches will be taken.

The measure ties in with a lot of other policies, such as infrastructure first, which is policy 8. It is about ensuring that people have quick and reliable access to the services and facilities that they require. We can have in our minds a concept of what 20-minute neighbourhoods look like in relation to our own environments, but it is also important to think of such neighbourhoods as a lens through which we look at planning and as a way of thinking.

I go back to the earlier point about the need for flexibility. The concept of such neighbourhoods will have different applications in different areas. It will be for planning authorities, through the LDP process, to determine how best the concept applies to their area.

An important opportunity comes from the approach not just being top down. The need for increased consultation in the new LDP process and local place plans will give local communities an opportunity to feed in to and shape the vision of a 20-minute neighbourhood for their locality.

That is an important point. I respect the fact that it is entirely for the committee to determine how it wishes to proceed with scrutiny. I am happy to appear before the committee at any time to discuss NPF4.

The consultation closes on 31 March, and I appreciate that parliamentary scrutiny of the draft will wrap up in the next couple of weeks. There will be a window of opportunity for further discussion before a final vote.

I ask Fiona Simpson to talk about how consultation and scrutiny feed into the final version and about the statutory requirement to demonstrate how we have listened and engaged.

So far, the general feedback about the direction of travel has been very positive. A lot of the interest has been in the detail of the language. We still have to wait for the public consultation to conclude. As Fiona implied, it would be premature to suggest what level of engagement will be required when we publish the final draft. I want to achieve maximum buy-in and for everyone to feel that they have an opportunity to contribute and comment. I reiterate that I would be more than happy to appear before the committee prior to the final vote in Parliament.

As you will appreciate, we have been closely following all the evidence that the committee has received. Clearly, there will be shared views about the goal that the language is trying to achieve, but disagreement over whether that language is the most effective way to achieve the goal. Other critiques will be offered when there is disagreement over the substance of the policy. There is a qualitative difference between those two types of commentary, and I am open to hearing both.

Fundamentally, we now have a shared ambition about what we want NPF4 to achieve. Notwithstanding wider views, I am particularly interested in the specialist technical commentary on whether the language achieves the policy intent. We are looking at that point carefully, and it will be fed in through the scrutiny process that the committee is undertaking and through the public consultation.

However, we have to see this in the round. With 35 policies, 18 national developments and six spatial principles, the framework has to be read in a holistic way; there is, so to speak, no one policy that you can fully understand without relating it to all the other policies. Moreover, the national planning policy handbook opens with six universal policies under the theme of sustainable places that form a lens through which all the other policies have to be read. In that respect, I particularly highlight the second such policy, which relates to the importance of the climate emergency.

There is therefore a need to look at this holistically, but I very much want to hear the detailed commentary on the language that is used to ensure that we get this right. As I have said, we are very keen to listen to comments and will consider in detail all the submissions that we receive through the public consultation and the engagement process.

At the heart of that, you are posing a set of profound questions, Mr Coffey. Local authorities have at their disposal powers to make amenity notices. A huge number of factors are at play. Planning is a lever but is not one that we can just pull to produce an immediate response—it takes time. That is why we have to focus on town centre and city centre living. For example, when we get people back into an area, we increase demand, which incentivises economic activity, which can incentivise uptake in the occupancy of units. Several different factors will influence that. However, local living is key.

We are also trying to focus development back on to our town centres using a brownfield-first approach. As we discussed earlier, there are other levers to consider such as permitted developments, use classes and reforming compulsory purchase—we will take that forward later in the parliamentary session. They all have roles to play.

At the heart of regenerating our town centres is town centre living. We are already seeing proposals for that in different localities across the country and on different scales. There are particular policies in NPF4 that can seek to stimulate more people going into town centres and persuade against development outwith town centres and on the edge of towns, but it will need a long-term approach. No lever that we can pull will have an immediate effect. A place-based approach must involve engagement with local communities.

That is why I am consciously not trying to suggest that there is some grand plan and that a minister can come in from on high, implement that and solve all the problems of a particular local community. There is a job in supporting and providing the framework within planning, providing resourcing, and providing the tools for planning authorities where they require them, whether that is in updated CPO powers, PD rights or masterplan consent areas, for example.

The key thing is to get more people living in our town centres and empowering those communities. Local place plans have a huge opportunity as vehicles for doing that.

Fiona Simpson might want to add to that.

That is an excellent question; I am sure that we could dedicate the entire session to discussing 20-minute neighbourhoods. One question that is often raised is how the concept of the 20-minute neighbourhood, which we immediately think of as being applicable to a densely populated urban environment, is applicable to a rural environment. Ms Gallacher raises another important question regarding what we do with our existing infrastructure.

First, we have to be aware that there are limits to what planning can do. Planning often has a strong focus on new development, in particular when we are setting out a spatial strategy to 2045. However, I highlight policy 30 on vacant and derelict land, which involves taking a brownfield-first approach and spatial principle (d), on conserving and recycling assets, which is one of the principles that inform the approach of our spatial strategy.

We have a specific suite of policies around centres, including the policy on town centre first assessment and policy 27 on town centre living. Policy 31 on rural places also captures the concept of the 20-minute neighbourhood. However, it is also important to look at the broader suite of measures that we are taking forward beyond NPF4, as part of planning reform. I referred earlier to the phase 2 review of permitted development rights, which creates another opportunity to simplify the planning system and to expedite some of the modifications and retrofits to which Ms Gallacher referred.

I also refer to my earlier answer to the convener regarding land assembly and compulsory purchase, and the forthcoming implementation of masterplan consent areas, to exemplify the range of levers that we will have at our disposal to help communities move towards, and adapt to, being 20-minute neighbourhoods.

Planning has a role to play in 20-minute neighbourhoods, but our approach in that regard is not limited to planning. The committee will be aware of the importance that STPR2 gives to 20-minute neighbourhoods and the infrastructure that is required.

I do not know whether Fiona Simpson wants to add to that.

As I said, our aim is to bring back a finalised NPF4 for Parliament to consider. I return to the point that it will ultimately be up to Parliament to decide whether to accept or reject NPF4. In the spirit of moving planning from conflict to collaboration, so that we work to get things right upstream and so that we front load things, I am working so that, when we bring back NPF4, it will strike the balance between the views that we heard in the consultation before the draft was published and those that we have heard in the consultation on and scrutiny of the draft. However, it will ultimately be for Parliament to decide whether to adopt the finalised NPF4.

I will make one point: we are talking not about targets but about minimums. It is really important to bear that in mind.

I ask Fiona Simpson to come in.