Seòmar agus comataidhean

Sarah-Jane Laing, you mentioned that the right-to-buy process is already under review. Is the bill competing with that? Should they be better aligned?

Yes. When landowners are looking to borrow money and go to the banks, would this provide uncertainty, because, in effect, things might be taken from them later on?

I thank the committee for the opportunity to come and speak to you today and note that the petition—like the one that you dealt with previously this morning—has been on-going for more three years and during the time of three First Ministers.

The convener mentioned the current consultation between the United Kingdom and Scottish Governments on proposals for electricity infrastructure consenting in Scotland. I fear that the direction that we are going in is the opposite to what the petitioner would hope for, and I think the proposals are an attack on local devolution and an attempt to ensure that electricity infrastructure projects, wind farms, pylons and substations are railroaded through against the will of local communities. Those dangerous proposals are basically Scottish ministers telling local communities, “We don’t care what you think; we’re going to push the proposal forward anyway.”

At present, when locally elected planning authorities object to proposals, that causes a public inquiry. The new proposals would change all that, so that an objection would trigger Scottish ministers to appoint someone to examine the application and to decide whether further evidence is required. The stated purpose of the changes is to speed up the consenting process, but that would undermine the voice of local communities who want to speak against detrimental changes to our rural communities, many of which are in the North East.

This seems more and more like a David versus Goliath scenario. Communities are finding it harder and harder to fight against proposals from energy generating companies because the legal costs make it difficult to fight generating companies, which have very deep pockets. The reduced timeframes that are proposed would make it harder for communities to fight, given that the generating companies have paid staff who can work to tight timescales. The erosion of decisions made by locally elected authorities will make it harder for communities to fight planning applications. It seems more and more as if the system is rigged against local communities. I understand that our energy system is changing, but those changes must be made with communities, not done to them.

We are in danger of destroying our countryside forever. When we look at pictures of our cities and see a place where a once-magnificent building has been demolished and some concrete thing has been put up in its place, we think, “How on earth did they get planning permission to do that?” In years to come, when we look back at what has happened to our countryside, people will ask, “How on earth did they get permission to do that?” It will be because of people, probably in Edinburgh, deciding that they know better than our rural communities.

I urge the committee to press the Government to ensure that our communities are heard, that we listen to those communities and do not press forward with some of these infrastructure projects. We might think that they are the right thing to do just now, but they will have a long-lasting effect that we will probably never be able to overturn.

Thank you.

No—I was actually just talking about onshore.

But does it enable a route to having separate policies from the rest of the UK?

I wish to follow on from Bob Doris’s questions and to work out how things could work in practice, Deputy First Minister.

Let us say that either the present Government or a future Government wanted to have a policy of having all power lines offshored or put underground, for instance. Would what we are putting in place through the SI make it easier for a Government to change the regulations to put that policy in place?

Hello, everyone. Do your existing roles represent any potential conflicts of interest, and if so, how might those be mitigated so that you can maintain an objective approach to your work and cross-sectoral support? Was that discussed at the interview panel?

Would bringing back that power not allow you to have a separate assessment, to align with the Government’s political priorities?

Thanks, convener. I will leave it there.