Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer everyone to my entry in the register of members’ interests and declare that I am a serving councillor on East Lothian Council.

We know that cost pressures are coming through for the building of new homes, particularly in the past few months. How adequate are the recently reviewed Scottish Government grant subsidy benchmarks in allowing social landlords to build new homes with affordable rents? I direct that question to Stacey Dingwall, Tony Cain and, probably, Nicola Barclay.

I will expand on the issue of the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, which has been mentioned. The intention of the act was to empower island communities. Some of the feedback that we got from Highland Council was about the reduction of representation on islands such as Bute and Skye. What are your views on that issue?

The target is for 110,000 homes over the next 10 years and it depends on what comes forward in that time—it will not be 11,000 each year. Do you see that being impacted? If there are cost pressures coming through now and we are behind in the first year, delivery for the next four years will be increasingly difficult. Are you seeing issues for the next two years that will then make it difficult to deliver the 110,000 target in the latter years? Will we be playing catch-up?

Does anyone else want to come in on that question?

Thanks for that. My next question is more specific. Arran will be the only one-member ward in Scotland. Arran takes up 46 per cent of North Ayrshire Council’s land mass. What is your view on that specific issue?

I have a supplementary question about recruiting polling station staff. Does the training tend to be done local authority by local authority? My local authority has said that, two or three months before an election, it tries to recruit people. Does training take place on an on-going basis? Is that left to local authorities, or do you monitor that? That goes back to the issue about recruitment. We could encourage people to come into the process earlier, because they might not be aware of the process and what they need to do.

I want to expand on the point that Edward Mountain made. The report on the Scottish Parliament election mentions that, although

“43 per cent of candidates agreed that they were able to get their message across, the same proportion disagreed”

and that

“86 per cent of candidates said that the reduced opportunities for face to face campaigning as a result of the pandemic affected their campaigning ‘a lot.’”

I go back to the point about financing limits. Is further consultation taking place about them, with the next election coming up in May? Louise mentioned the work that Electoral Commission Scotland is considering. Is there an opportunity for consultation with political parties and the Scottish Government in that regard? Since campaigns can be short or long, what timescales would we consider? When would new limits need to be in place if we were to work back from May?

Andy O’Neill said, and we have already mentioned, that the election is likely to take part in a Covid-restricted way. Although restrictions might not be as severe as they were last May, it could still be a Covid election. If a review were needed, as Edward Mountain mentioned, what would the timescales be, even if it were just a one-off project to be reviewed afterwards, depending on the situation with public health? I just want to take a deeper dive into some of the answers.

My last questions are about the administrative challenges.

We have heard about the great job that administrators did in extremely difficult circumstances. Has there been any feedback from them, primarily about any difficulties that they faced and any additional support that they felt could have been provided?

The report mentions that around three quarters of returning officers referred to difficulty in recruiting polling station staff. However, that might have been a one-off with regard to the Covid situation. Has that been a difficulty before, and is it seen as a difficulty going forward?

My question around the restrictions that candidates felt has already been answered, so I will move on to digital imprints. Obviously, this was the first time that they were required. Will you tell us about compliance with the new rules and whether it was felt that they were beneficial to voters?

I put the first question to Andy O’Neill. The second one—about whether they were beneficial, what evidence we have looked at in that regard and whether there has been any feedback, particularly from voters—is probably for Phil Thompson.

The climate emergency has been touched on this morning—the convener has just mentioned it. The issue is what a green recovery looks like for communities across Scotland and what the role of local government should be in helping Scotland to meet its net zero targets.

I will give an example. I recently met representatives of the Existing Homes Alliance. It is encouraging local government to work with the Scottish Government to deliver not-for-profit delivery vehicles to deliver retrofit and generate affordable energy. A few weeks ago, the committee heard that the cost of retrofitting in Scotland would be £33 billion. There are obviously challenges in that, but there are massive opportunities, too, for local authorities and social enterprises—which have been mentioned.