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Thank you. I will go to Fionna Kell.

Thank you for that. When SMEs come to you to express that challenge of delivering, is it about the usual things that we have started to hear over and again, such as the lack of labour and people with the required skills, as well as the material costs?

Ailsa, can you hear us? Did you hear the question?

No one has picked up that levelling-up fund business yet. It is something that is coming towards us soon.

Willie Coffey wants to ask a question about pension funds. I believe that Aaron Hill was talking about the need for a scale-up in that regard.

Good morning and welcome to the 22nd meeting in 2022 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. We have received apologies from Annie Wells and Mark Griffin. I ask all members and witnesses to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off during the meeting.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Do members agree to take in private item 3, which is consideration of the evidence that we will hear on the affordable housing programme during our pre-budget scrutiny, and item 4, which is consideration of our approach on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill’s legislative consent memorandum?

Members indicated agreement.

Those are very useful points.

I move to a question around place, which I will direct to Ken Gibb and Ailsa Raeburn. As we have started to hear, many communities in the Highlands and Islands have suffered historical underfunding and forced depopulation, which left them fragile and with declining populations. It is crucial that we support those communities and create ones where people feel ownership.

With that point in mind, and with the emphasis on the importance of place in the Scottish Government’s “Housing to 2040” policy document, is there anything that the Scottish Government and its partners need to do to ensure that new affordable homes are developed in sustainable places where people want to live and—I would say—developed in a sustainable way?

Ailsa, would you like to come in on that question?

We move to the next theme, which is progress on delivering affordable homes and balancing priorities. We have quite a few questions to get through, but some of them will be directed to specific witnesses.

Do you want to ask question 11?

We move on to our third theme, which is the scope for different ways of financing and delivering affordable homes and prioritising resources when capital funding is under pressure.