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We do what we can in the committee to help with that.

Certainly. With one drop into a busy curriculum, how do you get that follow-through? I have a sense that any young person who is concerned about the climate and nature emergency should go into planning because they could have a great effect there.

Mark Griffin has a question.

Those two questions were about climate, nature and biodiversity policies, but I will pull in a piece around rural house building. You have talked about community-led development and development in rural areas. I will bring in Donna Young on this as well, because of her Rural Housing Scotland hat. As far as you can see, are the policies supporting rural house building and the placemaking aspect, especially where there is a need to support significant economic and infrastructure development? If not, what needs to change?

Thanks. We have a couple of supplementary questions on the MATHLR. Mark wanted to come in; he is joining us online.

Your point about the need to relearn urban living is a good one. There are some great examples of that. Moray Council is leading on a very good example in Elgin, with a bit of town centre regeneration that will be mixed use. We also have a fantastic example in Dumfries, where there is community-led mixed use, including housing, in the Midsteeple Quarter.

Donna, what are your thoughts on the balance?

Thanks for bringing up that point. We definitely need to look at it with a wider scope.

Okay. We will take that idea away and look at it.

The committee previously agreed to take the next three items in private. As that was the last public item on our agenda for today, I close the public part of the meeting.

The next item is to take evidence on the committee’s annual review of national planning framework 4 from two panels of witnesses. On our first panel, we are joined by Catriona Hill of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, who is the chair of the Highlands and Islands Architects Association; Ailsa Macfarlane, who is the director of Built Environment Forum Scotland; Craig McLaren, who is the national planning improvement champion at the Improvement Service; and Jenny Munro, who is the policy and practice officer at the Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland. I welcome our witnesses this morning.

I remind members and those participating in the session that there are active legal proceedings concerning the interpretation of NPF4 policies and the interaction between those policies and existing local plans. Under the Parliament’s standing orders,

“A member may not in the proceedings of the Parliament refer to any matter in relation to which legal proceedings are active except to the extent permitted by the Presiding Officer.”

Although we do not wish the discussion and debate to be unduly restricted, I would ask members and witnesses to avoid referencing specific matters that are currently before the courts.

We turn to questions. We will try to direct our questions to specific witnesses where possible, but, if you want to come in on a question, please indicate that to me or the clerks. There is no need for you to turn your microphones on and off; we will do that for you. That is one less thing to think about.

I will begin with a couple of questions. I will direct this to you first, Ailsa Macfarlane, so you know that it is coming your way. We have heard calls for the Scottish Government to establish a hierarchy of NPF4 policy priorities, with the idea being that that would help decision makers and developers. Would you support the development of such a hierarchy and, if so, why?

Will you clarify that for me? Are you are saying that a natural hierarchy will emerge?

I picked up in Jenny Munro’s response something that I am experiencing with some local authorities in my region, which is that decisions are perhaps being made at a planning level but other departments are still doing things differently. We are now in what I think is called “No mow May”, when we are not supposed to be mowing anything in order to protect the habitat of a lot of insects and other wildlife that we share this patch of earth with. As I understand it, though, other departments are still getting out there and cutting things down. Perhaps there needs to be a mind shift in the general public, too, with regard to our wanting things to be tidy, clean and neat versus how things should actually look if we are to be a biodiverse and climate-supportive country.

Do you have any other thoughts on that?