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Absolutely.

Absolutely, and it should follow the process all the way through. I think that it was Tony Cain who identified that issue, and I have been having conversations with officials about how we take that forward. The housing land audit guidance is important, because I understand that, at the moment, everybody does that in a different way, which makes adding it all up at Scotland level difficult. The first stage is to get everybody on the same page and then, exactly as you have said, we need to be able to identify what is happening at different stages of the process.

One data point that I have—and this is not from official stats; it has been pulled together from approximate data and is slightly historical, as it is from 2018-19—is that land that has been identified as being suitable for housing could accommodate approximately 390,000 units. That is a significant number, given that we are doing only 20,000-odd completions per year. That is how much is in the pipeline at the early stage. We now need to identify how much of that has gone through the planning process and then, as you have said, exactly where that is sitting and why it has not been taken forward to the development stage.

There will be a mixture of reasons for that. However, drilling down into the issue is absolutely critical to understanding how the planning process is supporting provision and where the bottlenecks are, if there are any, or whether the bottlenecks are elsewhere in the housing provision landscape and are to do with investment, skills, the attitude of developers, local issues or whatever it happens to be.

The data point is really important, because the data sheds light on where the hold-up in the process is and helps us understand a bit better all the different perspectives that people are putting into the mix at the moment.

The age profile of brownfield land, as well as the age profile of land that has been approved for development but which has not been developed, is an important part of this. We absolutely need to understand that and have as much detail as we can get on the age profile by local authority area.

Anecdotally, I know that some brownfield sites can lie around for a long time and then come into use for various reasons, either because funding becomes available for remediation, or because technology moves on, or whatever. I frequently drive past the meat market site in Glasgow, which has now—thankfully—been developed after many years of lying vacant. Age is a factor, but just because land is old, that does not necessarily mean that there is no scope for it to be developed.

There are a number of different things in there. It is early days. We will share that work; the monitoring framework will help to evaluate what is being delivered. In the NPF4, there is a requirement for an infrastructure-first policy and for 20-minute neighbourhoods. Those concepts are embedded in the planning document. Planners will consider the framework in relation to local development plans and planning approvals.

There is a range of things to consider when you get into infrastructure. With a brownfield site, you might be in an environment where there are local communities with local services in close proximity; with a greenfield site, it could be something that is brand new.

Local authorities would develop public service provision plans for schools and so on in relation to their assessment of need. I have had conversations with Glasgow City Council with regard to some communities on that point. Locally, we are working through what schools are available, how many more places they need, based on new housing development, and whether that means that there is a need to expand schools or that there is sufficient capacity already because rolls are falling elsewhere. The local provision is tied up with local capital budgets.

Private sector provision includes GPs, who have the scope to set up their practices where they want to, but also retail and leisure facilities and so on. It will come down to the commercial viability of a lot of that. We are not in a position to mandate people to set up shops in certain areas, but the provision of facilities is included in the planning assumptions in NPF4 in relation to infrastructure first and 20-minute neighbourhoods.

I do not know whether you want to go into more detail on that, Andy.

The planning system does not—and cannot—fix all those issues. You rightly identified that different parts of Government are responsible for the provision of different services. I do not think that we can get too much into that, because it is outside the scope of what we are talking about this morning.

Although I recognise the point that you are making, NPF4 has a focus on 20-minute neighbourhoods and infrastructure first, which are important in determining whether planning applications get taken forward. You rightly identified that, if challenges exist in other aspects of public service provision, be that in health or education, local authorities are tasked with the provision of adequate services in those areas.

I will hand over to Andy Kinnaird to go through the detail. I received a submission on that from officials in the past few days. We are looking at what the scope of that could be, and we are about to take views on a number of questions to do with how it should be levied, the extent of it, what it could be used for and a number of other factors. That is imminent.

The issue of the provision of data, which we keep coming back to, is important. We need to understand what land is where in the system and why it is not moving through the system. We need to know whether that is because of a planning issue or whether there are other reasons that mean that land in relation to which planning permission has been granted is not moving through to be available for housing stock. I think that that is probably the key area. We need to understand the planning provision data and to ensure that, as the policies in NPF4 are rolled out, they are able to support rather than militate against housing development, where that is appropriate.

We have touched on some of the issues. As more guidance comes through and more engagement takes place with bodies that are involved in the planning process, we will get more clarity, which will enable us to address some of those issues and to flesh out in a bit more detail what the policies mean for delivery.

Yes—the 25 per cent provision is in place, and you are right to reflect on the record, notwithstanding the fact that there are challenges in housing stock provision. If we look at the record of the Scottish Government, compared with other parts of the UK, considerably more houses have been provided per head of population in Scotland over the past number of years.

The answer to your question about levers—be they macroeconomic levers around interest rates, the ultimate provision of capital investment, or borrowing powers to address the challenges of affordable housing stock, in particular—is that they are controlled by the UK Government, because those issues are reserved.

Thanks for that. That issue is being addressed, and the work on compulsory purchase orders—as well as looking at compulsory sales orders—is part of the mix to give councils the tools and capability to do that.

There are also funding issues. I do not want to talk for the housing minister, because he will be looking at that, but it is about understanding where best to focus investment. I suggest that a combination of new build and bringing houses back into use is required.