���˿���

Esme Clelland, I want to ask you about concerns that have been raised regarding an overreliance on planning conditions to deliver biodiversity goals. You have argued that conditions are often not complied with and that enforcement seems to be relatively rare. Planning Democracy has also agreed with that point in evidence to the committee. Are conditions often flouted?

I think that I have covered everything that we needed to say, so I am happy simply to press the amendment.

Amendment 230 agreed to.

Section 56, as amended, agreed to.

Section 57 agreed to.

Long title agreed to.

When a complaint or some other trigger encourages officers to say, “Right. It’s maybe time to look at enforcement here,” do local authorities have enough tools at their disposal to force conditions to be complied with?

I want to pick up on the responses from Kevin Murphy and Hazel Johnson on 20-minute neighbourhoods. If we think about how they can be applied in rural areas, surely the policy is not just to build homes within a 20-minute radius of where things already exist; it is a matter of getting people thinking about what services and facilities are not in an area and about how to use planning to change that. Do we need to encourage local authorities to think differently? When there is a good place for housing in a rural area where there is a need for housing and people waiting for housing, instead of thinking, “There’s nothing within 20 minutes, so we can’t build,” should local authorities consider how to ensure that there are work opportunities and leisure facilities within 20 minutes?

Do you have any reflections on that, Hazel?

You used the word “monitoring” a few times, which takes me to my next question. Is a lot of enforcement not happening because there is no automatic scrutiny point at which officers and local councillors can ask whether something has been carried out and whether the conditions on which they agreed the application have come to fruition?

Yes—thank you, convener.

Bob Doris has been encouraged by the strength of support from stakeholders and members of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee for the homelessness preventions in part 5 of the bill, which will significantly improve our ability to prevent people from reaching that point in a housing crisis. I recognise that Bob Doris’s work and the work of that committee so far have already had a hugely positive impact on the bill and those it seeks to help. The timing of the introduction of new prevention measures is important, especially when homelessness services are stretched. The Christie report challenged us more than a decade ago to shift towards prevention and longer-term outcomes. However, unless we get better at preventing households from becoming homeless, it will be challenging to resolve the current housing emergency.

Amendment 230, on the commencement of part 5 of the bill, is informed by discussions with experts in the homelessness sector, particularly Crisis. Officers at Crisis have shared their recognition that duty bearers need adequate time to prepare for the new legislation, but they wish to ensure that implementation remains a priority for the Government. Amendment 230 recognises both those points and provides a three-year backstop for the commencement of the homelessness prevention provisions in part 5. The amendment would ensure that, if any of those provisions has not been commenced within three years, it will come into force. The inclusion of that backstop will help to reassure stakeholders that steps will be taken to implement the provisions within that period, allowing us to build on the good will from stakeholders in moving to more proactive homelessness prevention.

Amendment 230 allows time to work closely with stakeholders, including named relevant bodies, to ensure that any new regulations on the operation of ask and act—regulations that are supported by members of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee—are fit for purpose. It also provides scope to work with stakeholders on the guidance required and to identify training needs.

I know that effective prevention work is already happening. That includes the homelessness prevention pilot, which is supported by Scottish Government funding and which I understand will begin very shortly. It will help us to understand how ask and act will work in practice.

There is cross-party consensus that making homelessness prevention everybody’s business is the right thing to do, and we do not want to lose that positive momentum.

I therefore move amendment 230, in the name of Bob Doris, and urge members to support it.

Thank you. Does anyone else have comments or reflections on how to increase compliance or whether there is a need for a clearer point of action for checking whether conditions are being met?

The Royal Town Planning Institute has asked that NPF4 be made a dynamic document that would reflect and reference new advice and guidance. Do witnesses support that suggestion, and do they have any suggestions about how that could work in practice, particularly given that amendments to NPF4 are subject to parliamentary scrutiny and procedure?

Like you, I have had constituents get in touch and raise some pretty serious issues with factors. I am aware of many situations in which factors are simply stonewalling constituents, who are still having to pay the monthly fee.

Like Mark Griffin, constituents have raised the timescales that are involved. It can seem like an awfully long time to get a conclusion through the First-Tier Tribunal, and the factor, even if found to have breached the code, seems to be able to get back to what it is doing or join another factor board and start again pretty quickly. When it comes to consulting, you mentioned stakeholders and ���˿���. Will my constituents also get the opportunity to feed into the review?