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Agenda item 4 is the third of our five evidence-taking sessions on the draft of the fourth national planning framework—or NPF4, as we will probably refer to it for the rest of the morning. The focus of today’s session will be housing. We will look at local government issues next week, and we will hear from the minister on 22 February.

I warmly welcome to the meeting Tony Cain, who is policy manager at the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers; Andrew Fyfe, who is the chair of the Scottish housing with care task force; Anthony Aitken, who is vice-chair of the planning and development committee of the Scottish Property Federation; David Stewart, who is policy lead at the Scottish Land Commission; and Nicola Barclay, who is the chief executive of Homes for Scotland.

We will move straight to questions. If the witnesses wish to respond or contribute to the discussion, they should put an R in the chat box.

We have a range of questions to get through, and not everyone needs to respond to all of them. Our practice tends to be to direct questions to one or two people initially, but if you really want to come in with, say, a point that has not been covered, you are welcome to do so. However, I might have to cut you off; if I do, please do not take it personally—we just want to ensure that we cover all colleagues’ questions.

I will start off. I will direct my question initially to Tony Cain and David Stewart but other witnesses are welcome to come in.

Our focus is on housing. I am keen to hear whether the witnesses believe that the draft NPF4 will lead to homes being built in appropriate places to meet the demand across urban, rural and island communities in Scotland. If not, I am keen to hear the detail. Some conversations that we have had in evidence sessions have been quite high level and it will really help the committee in our scrutiny if we can understand some specifics of what needs to be outlined in the framework that would help to meet the demand.

Congratulations, Willie. I look forward to working with you in your new role.

It looks like we have agreement. I will move on

That will come up a little bit later.

I see that Tony Cain wants to come back in but I will bring in Graeme Dey, who has some questions. Perhaps Tony can come back in on them.

Anthony Aitken wants to come in on that.

Thank you. That specificity is really helpful. I do not see anyone else wanting to come in on that question, so I will move on.

How well does NPF4 link with other Scottish Government policy and investment priorities, particularly around housing? That issue was brought up in the previous session. There are lots of policies that are already in play, and in that sense they do not link, but this question is around housing. I will open this up for any of the witnesses to respond to, because some have not yet had a chance to speak. Have you noticed that a certain policy is linking well, or does the framework undermine or step over it, or not even acknowledge that it exists?

Thank you for that, Nicola. Tony Cain wants to come back in.

Thank you. Paul McLennan has a supplementary question on the same theme.

I am sorry to interrupt you, Meghan. David Stewart, Nicola Barclay and Tony Cain all want to respond. That was a popular question.

That brings us almost to the end of our session. We have a couple of questions that we will write to you about. One is on the consultation process and the other is to do with conservation and retrofitting, which we have learned are issues that have not been picked up well in the framework, even though we are about to embark on a warmer homes process.

I want to give you all a chance to raise any issues that have not been touched on or any specific improvements that you think we need to hear about. I am mindful of the time, but it would be great if you could tell us anything that you really want to convey to us.