In The Enemies of Jake Paul, Shane Dawson interviews Nick Crompton and Nick Crompton kind of out slogan Paul as being a terrible brother for what he did with Alyssa Violet, who's Jake Paul's ex. And this is actually a question I get quite often, which is kind of surprising, but not surprising. But anyways, anyways, now is the perfect time to discuss this. What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about helping you to improve your mental and emotional well-being. And part of that is relationships, whether it's with family, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, whoever it is. So if you're into that, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. I have been doing mental health reviews of all of the Shane Dawson episodes. So anyways, yes. So part four just came out and I livestreamed it. I already put up a video and I'm going to talk about the ethical thing about Katie a little bit later in kind of a different way, because one of the viewers actually had a very interesting comment and it was something I didn't think of. But anyways, so when Shane Dawson is interviewing Nick Crompton and kind of asking and, you know, Nick said that some of these things were fake, you know, the pranks and everything. So Shane asked, you know, is what happened with Alyssa Violet fake? So those of you who don't know or didn't watch the new Shane Dawson episode, like I don't keep up with the Paul brother drama or anything. But Alyssa Violet was dating Jake Paul and then she left or Jake kicked her out or whatever. And then Logan started seeing her and they made it very, very public.  So what I was talking about in my intro, I get this question a lot. I get it from younger people a lot. Like is it wrong?  So before I dive into this and how Logan is a more awful person than I thought he was before, spoiler alert, I want to talk about, you know, there's going to be a lot more conversation. I think Nick Crompton even mentioned it, there's going to be more conversations like is Shane going to sympathize with Jake Paul is Shane going to make Jake Paul look better or like a good person. And I don't know, that's still up for debate. But here's my opinion on it. I think, I think Shane's learning a lot in this process. He's learning a lot about mental health and a lot of it is hindsight when he's going back through his videos, but he's learning more just because the community was outraged about episode two.  He might just be a bad person. You don't always need a diagnosis to be a bad person to have a poor moral compass. And I think Shane's starting to realize that, like, you don't always have to label somebody a sociopath or narcissist. Like, that's the biggest problem. And like, I'm so glad that I have so many new subscribers and some of my videos are getting views, like, because like, man, like, just the way that people are just throwing around this stuff, like I watched Keemstar's video for like, I don't like Keemstar. Anyways, he starts like throwing out sociopathal left and right. I'm just like, Oh my God. But anyways, I hope that Shane's learning through this process that some people are just jerks. Some people are just insensitive. You know, I would say most of Jake Paul's problems are because of his ego. You know what I mean? I don't think that it's a mental illness. I think a lot of it has to do with ego, and I'm also going to touch on the family dynamic in a second. So anyways, as far as Logan Paul hooking up with Jake's ex, Alyssa Viola, like, what a scumbag move. Like what a scumbag move. Like, I already thought Logan Paul was a terrible person. Like, when I was watching on my live stream, like, I like the one of the one of the major things aside from, you know, him doing this to his own brother. The fact that like Logan made this video in his dear Shane response video, he's like the children, the children, your young, impressionable audience, the children.  And I'm not one of those dads. Like I have a nine year old son, but like Logan is just a hypocritical D bag. I didn't want to say the words. I didn't know if like YouTube would get mad about, but I think I can use the word D bag. So let's call Logan for what he is. He is a D bag. He is a bad person. He's not a good person. All right.  Now, as far as the whole thing with Jake Paul, like, man, like, this is something that I can't stress. Like this is just the best relationship advice I can give you if you're going through a breakup. Or if you have this weird idea, like should you get with your friends, X, whether it's your friend's ex boyfriend or your friend's ex girlfriend, whatever it is, like, just remember this, never forget this, this will get you through the single times. Are you ready? There are over 7.6 billion people on this planet. Okay. Half of them are the gender that you prefer. And if you have a different sexual preference, maybe there's even more. All right. Like, it just blows my mind. Like, there are so many options out there. Like, why would you do that? Why do you get why do we get so attached to this one person? Right? Like, I get it. Like, I know we have emotions and feelings. I'm not telling you to just totally disregard your breakup. But more so, like, when you're in that dating phase and you get really attached to somebody, maybe you went on a date or two days or you guys had a great conversation, and then they ghosted you or they left like, when I was in my single days, like, I just had to remember, like, this is just one person, just one person, like there are so many other people, so many other people out there. And maybe that person was bad. And like, this is why I make videos about borderline personality disorder, because I get that I get that insane, intense, strong attachment to people. Like, just because you don't just like somebody like you fall in love with somebody, right? But like with with Logan's deal, I don't think it was these intense emotions. I think it was just a D bag move. And like, that's awful. Like, so let's talk about you because like, those of you who are new to my channel, I don't make these videos to spill tea or talk about drama. I do it to help you. So if you're in these situations, here's my advice for you. If it is a friend, if it is a friend, screw that friend. Alright, until that friend comes back and apologizes, like, sincerely, like really sincerely. I don't think that's cool. And this is just my opinion on the subject. If you are a friend, like, just don't just don't do it. There are so many other options out there. I get this question from young people again, like, there are so many other options.  Now when it comes to Jake and Logan Paul, I was thinking about how I was going to phrase this.  When I was watching the family of Jake Paul, I'm just like this entire family is messed up. They need family therapy, like they need to work through some stuff. Because you know, this is different than a friendship. This is his brother. You know what I mean? So there's always going to be that that thing, that thing that's there. And it's going to take some time to work through it.  I really don't like how he influences so many people. And anyways, they all need to get together. Like Greg Paul, he's a hot mess too. Nick Crompton talked a little bit about that. And what I was talking about in my live stream is the way I see Greg Paul is I mentioned this like I've been around sports dads, sports parents, if you will. And it's insane. It's like this thing where they try to live vicariously through their child. And in Greg's situation seems like he started out with sports. But then when his children blew up as like the celebrities on YouTube, Jake was on Disney, like Greg's just trying to get in that mix. He's saying, oh, you're doing the thing I never could. And there's all these other like things going on with Greg Paul, as far as like some underage possibly and some tapes and things like Greg Paul is a hot mess as well. So again, I mentioned this in my family of Jake Paul video, like it's a reason. It's probably a reason why Logan and Jake are so messed up. But it's not an excuse. It's not an excuse. These are grown men. These are adults. They need to go get help. Like if if Jake and Logan and you know, just the entire family just want to heal, they're gonna have to work through this. And I recommend it with some kind of licensed professional. Maybe Katie Morton. How great would that be? Family therapy with Katie Morton. That'd be great. I don't know if she ever does like family therapy. Probably I think she like prefers individual sessions. Anyways, that would be great. But I don't know, Jake's always always going to have an issue with Logan until until some serious amends happen. And you know, maybe maybe it has happened behind the scenes. I don't know. I don't know, but they might have just swept it under the rug. So the last thing I'll say, I want to give a shout out to one of my new loyal subscribers, organic flatbread. So in the last video I talked about is what Katie Morton is doing ethical. And that video was all speculation. I have some people already freaking out of my comments. By the way, if you listen to my disclaimers, I love you. I want you to know that I love you so much.  But that's a whole that's a whole another story. All right. Anyways, so one of my new subscribers, organic flatbread. She left this on the one about ethics and Katie Morton. So she says, I'm someone with an extensive history of mental health. If I'm looking at it from Jake's point of view, I'd be upset if I was being investigated without knowing. So especially as someone who has difficulties with being honest, if you genuinely are trying to be honest and open and find out these quote unquote friends have been sneaking behind your back, could be traumatizing to how you perceive people. I see what he's trying to do. But in all honesty, I feel like Shane's making a spectacle of mental health and I don't like it. After this, everyone's going to assume every time someone does something crazy, it's related to mental health. This is not breaking the stigma. It's ensuring that people like me who have a fear of talking about these things never get help when we seriously need it. When they are doing what they are doing is not only unethical, but it's dangerous for those young and impressionable and those who struggle with mental health. So I want to focus on the trust issues. I agree and disagree with some of the mental health stuff. I don't know. I'm just an optimist. I'm glad that people are talking more about mental health. So I won't dive too much into that aspect. I totally understand what she's saying, though. I want to make that very clear, organic flatbread. I totally understand what you're saying. So basically, what I want to touch on is part of what they're worried about is Jake not being real. And Jake, Nick cropped and mentioned that Jake's not really going to tell the truth or open up unless you're in, unless you trust you. I get that. I get that. But as a result of success, I'm sure Jake has been screwed over a million times. But then what Logan did to him? Like, man, if you can't even trust your own brother, right? Like, if you can't even trust your own brother, how are you going to trust other people? And I plan on making more videos about trust issues because I've had a ton of trust issues. And it's something that we all need to work on, especially like what organic flatbread was saying. Like, not trusting people, it keeps us sick. You know what I mean? Like, we're afraid to open up and we're afraid to talk about mental health. We're afraid to seek help because we have trust issues. So I think that was a great point. Like, you know, Jake might have a lot of trust issues, and that might be why he puts up fronts or he tries to keep people out of distance. But anyways, I don't know, that's going to tie into the next video I do about the cult of Team 10. I have some things to say about that and friendships and relationships. But I want to hear from you all down in the comments below. Like, what are your thoughts about Logan getting with Jake Paul's X? Like, I'm curious of your thoughts. If you have any experience with one of your friends doing this, like, were you okay with it? Like I said, this is just my opinion. Were you okay with it? Like, how did that go? I don't know. But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up.  Make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And if you would like to help support me in sending out a message of hope, make sure you click on that little Patreon icon right there. You can do it for a dollar a month. All right, thanks so much for watching. I'll see you next time.


a substantive response doctor mcleod first of all though it's just a quick reflection on mr gibson's comments in relation to who is the community that's probably a three day conference in itself but um to kind of fly the flag if you like for community land owners they do represent their communities because they are elected bodies that have constitutions and are accountable through the members of that community in relation to who gets voted on to the trust or the board and they have to represent their community in that context so that's an accountability mechanism it's a kind of transparency mechanism a democratic mechanism that doesn't exist in some other types of land ownership in scotland certainly in private land ownership in some instances and others too so that's a really important critical point for community land ownership per se the other point you made was around development and challenges to that i think mr simpson mentioned that as well in relation to drags on development critical thing here i community land scotland would suggest is that when we're talking about development we're talking about sustainable development and that's about getting the balance right between the economic social and environmental aspects of that and the classic and forgive me for going back to this but i think it's important that one of the best most effective examples of where these tensions exist and why it's challenging for for communities in relation to getting that balance right is around concepts of wild land and wild land mapping because in effect you have quite often a process where a designation or a kind of label is being given to a part of a landscape which is artificially constructed which is basically moved human engagement out of it and that has significant implications for how people and communities actually engage with the landscape within that context so when we're thinking about development opportunities yes they have to be sustainable and yes they have to reflect economic growth and environmental sustainability and kind of social cohesion but the balance needs to be right in terms of that and part of that process is about realigning we would argue from community land scotland's perspective and from to continue the wild land example thinking about how we can rebalance that and now recall in our submission to actually introduce and have ministers having regard to a map of no longer existing human communities in terms of where they are sits very nicely or very appropriate we would argue at least in terms of these debates and conflicts and challenges around sustainable development so we'd certainly advocate that being on the face of the building certainly within policy as well and you're right to take your opportunity to come back to today the wild land because you may not get the opportunity elsewhere within a kind of vastly speedily shrinking evidence session Dr. Inge? Yes, I think from a planning democracy perspective communities are often portrayed as nimbies it's a very useful label because it dismisses them as having a fixed position and a fixed set of interests which are unchangeable and which are opposed to everything and it reflects an adversarial planning system we do have a planning system that's adversarial and it's adversarial because of the discretion at the end of the process largely which means that speculative development applications come forward and I put forward and people react to that but in our experience people are far from having hugely fixed nimby interests in people care about the future of the places where they live and they want to stake in the future of the place where they live. Nimby is not a useful label in that regard it's a way of dismissing people and a way of dismissing the responsibility of the planning process to engage in a process through which people explore how development needs of various kinds can be met for the future and that's the kind of the positive proactive idea of planning which has been talked about a lot today needs to think seriously about how it can achieve those kind of things so I think there's a real problem there which reflects kind of a planning system which has got very entrenched in its positions. I think the other point that I would well two points actually one an example of where that sort of entrenched device of planning comes up a lot in the work of planning democracy is around repeat applications where developers can come back onto the same site with applications and applications refused within a couple of years they're able to come back with the same application so community goes through a whole process of mobilising around something which is oftentimes out with an agreed development plan is refused and then it comes back again and again and again and developers can win a war of attrition if they're well resourced against communities and in that situation it's no wonder that people step back and become very opposed to an anti-development which they feel has been done to them instead of with them and these are kind of examples of why we have these kind of position taking in the planning system which something needs to be done about. The other point I come back on is the competitive disadvantage point which I think has been bandied around a lot around a pure rights. I think again I would say that's a blunt instrument version of ERA argument if you really think that Scotland's competitive competitivity will be disadvantaged by having a second look applications that are out with the terms of an agreed development plan then Scotland's competitive rests on a very thin basis and I don't really believe that that argument stacks up particularly strongly when you think about applying it in that kind of a restricted way. Okay, back on the councillor, you mentioned about councillors as well and it's a discussion that I've had with councillors and I think it was agreed with the Edinburgh councillors who asked for a right of appeal because they found that the imbalance of one party having the right of appeal and the others means that their decision making was kind of being biased towards the person who had the right of appeal because they've got a right of appeal so the council don't want to make those sorts of decisions in case this developer brings an appeal and I think they wanted it because they wanted it to be able to make stronger decisions and be empowered to make a decision that could go contrary to what an applicant wants but not to have the threat of an appeal and the cost that that brought with it. Thank you very much. A couple of questions further on this, Andy Wightman. The Edinburgh example that you've just mentioned, of course, is Edinburgh seeking to restrict the applicant's right of appeal because it wants to have the final say in a sense in what application takes place. I noted that West Lothian council, in their written submission, also said that they believe that the right of appeal should be removed where a development proposal was significantly contrary to an up-to-date development plan and it restates that position, which it made earlier. I'm just wondering, you know, we have a number of instances and I think members have all had correspondence about these in recent weeks as well. Where we have land that is in a local development plan that is zoned as use A. For example, an application comes forward for it to be used for use B. That is rejected because it's not in accordance with the plan. The applicant appeals, it goes to the DPEA, they uphold that appeal and then ministers come in and overturn it. Can I suggest that the ambition—and Petra talked about undermining plan-led systems, the ambition to have a plan-led system to have upfront engagement is undermined by the ability of applicants, not third parties but applicants, to appeal decisions that have been well made, well formed and formed on the basis of a local development plan? In that sense, could some of the tension and some of the cynicism of the system be removed if we substantially remove the applicants' right of appeal, which, as Petra said, initially was only meant to last 10 years. I would love all of you to answer briefly, it would be great if all of you to answer. Very briefly, I think we are on a journey just now and often what's been said is that the current system doesn't work as well as it should and could have done but we are in a new kind of era, we are seeing a new kind of bill being proposed with very very different mechanism and we want to strengthen them. I think we can, this is now an opportunity to make it even stronger, to have the local place plan even stronger and yes, to look at the current appeal system in its entirety and I think that's quite important and I'm sure from an alliance point of view we will be making further comments on that. Okay, thank you. Any other comments? If you can ask a question, not make a comment on someone else's question, just like what he's just. I just want to go back to both the West Lothian and also to Edinburgh because I think this is actually a journey that we're seeing now in terms of local authority exerting a little bit more power. Okay, if it chimes with you what the question was, you might want to put that on the record and were deputy leader would like to come in and explore some other matters, Ian Cook? To go back to the point I made earlier about sort of trying to address proceeding equality in the system that for us it is about the principle of equality and making that kind of quite obvious and transparent so how it's done I think is probably less important than actually addressing it. Dr Inch, Clare Simms, don't want to put words in your mouth but I'm not immediately by faith to see you probably agree with the comments that Andy Wightman has said as you want to put anything else on the record before we go to work. I have a suggestion would be to restrict both to restrict the existing right of appeal and to expand the right of appeal for community. One thing that I think planning democracy do feel is that there is a purpose to an appeal system in terms of testing, scrutinising and potentially improving decisions and to lose that entirely potentially is not a good thing. Okay, thank you. Monica Lennon. Thank you. Well, we've covered an awful lot there. So I think we started to touch on a rights-based approach and Petra was talking about young people and I know we might take Evan from Cliffhague at a future session that will go into that but we're still even today talking about the community as a third party so I wonder if that and it's also a bit of a barrier. Petra, if we can go back to the review, you've talked about the alliance past, you're on the review, you're on the localaments national park authority, so you're wearing lots of hats but when you were on the review and you were doing that scan of looking at European practice and so on, what hat were you wearing? Was that a pass hat? Right, so in terms of the 800 live cases that you have, I take it as an annual average, you've got 1,000 inquiries, the people that pick up the phone and well, I still think of you as planning aids but as past, the people who call on you for advice and support, what are their views, what sort of consultation have you carried out with them and who are your stakeholders? So I don't think they're necessarily stakeholders. I think there are people that have come to know about the planning system often very late in the day, they may have come across a planning application from the neighbour or they have come across a development that they don't want to see. It's very often a very reactive, I don't want to have this happening, can you talk me through. So sometimes the advisor will then assist them in terms of understanding how the system works, understanding perhaps it's actually too late because it wasn't a local development plan, so there's lots of different arenas. I should say that in many cases it is just actually understanding that for the first time there is a system, such a planning system and I find it really hardening that there are so few people that know about it and that we're still having to field these kind of calls because people are not involved early enough and that's why I think redressing the balance to bring people into the debate is so much so crucial so that we have a true place plan that works for everybody. Early on you said that the review panel didn't make a recommendation on putting the purpose of planning into statute and perhaps that's an omission because you're now in your past omission saying that there should be a statutory definition of planning. You're now saying that we need to have a debate and look at appeals. Rather than to have a debate, do we not need to get this right in terms of the bill and the three tests that you'd set down about an equal right of appeal or equalising appeal rights could exacerbate conflict, it could undermine early engagement and it could undermine the plan-led system. Other witnesses have talked about the journey of a planning process, whether it's on a development plan or on an actual application. For those of us today who have talked about how we get to a point where the integrity of the development plan is taken seriously, I would say that allowing applicants in to come in at the end of that process and just lodge an appeal anyway if they don't get the decision that they like. What does that actually do to strengthen the plan-led system? Surely if people are not in favour of introducing equal rights of appeal for people who live in an area and have to live with the consequences of a decision for many years, should we not be looking at curtailing the appeal rights open to applicants? I firmly believe that what we should be doing is opening up the process so that everyone comes into the discussion about where do we put our 20,000 and 50,000 affordable homes, in what location do we have them, bringing in the elected members, bringing in the various community groups, bringing in the developer to having a discussion that is adult and that is democratic. That's what we need right from the start. In terms of the recommendations, the panel was asked by the then cabinet secretary, a particular remit, to look at renewing the planning system, reviewing the planning system and also look at innovation around housing. So these were the areas that we looked at. In terms of community engagement, I think there are so many different communities out there. They have very different views. Bringing them all together is actually really, really important now. I think that's where we are right now and that's where you have the opportunity to create a planning system that is really fit for the next 20, 30 years, however long it takes. Can I just come to planning democracy on that? What you've put forward in your submission isn't just an open-ended right of appeal, it's attempting to be proportionate and setting down criteria now. I think that what Patrickine is when the former cabinet secretary commissioned a review, the remit wasn't to look at the whole scope of planning, it was very much about delivering, about housing. Is that a bit of a missed opportunity? Or do we still have time to get this right? I'd like to think that there's still time to it, right? We have a draft bill which needs to be worked up. I think that there's a lot of concerns about the content of the draft bill. We've said that we don't think that this debate has been particularly well-held, particularly around equal rights of appeal. The Government was very quick following the panel's report to launch its 10 commitments in response to the panel's report, one of which was a negative commitment not to pick up era. That was effectively an attempt to close down debate. As we said, we feel that that's been driven largely by the concerns of the development industry and others that are based on this blunt instrument interpretation of what an equal right of appeal is. Petrus aspirations sound fantastic about getting people involved early, getting agreement, all that front-loading stuff—that really matters. My concern is where are the mechanisms that are going to make this happen? People have been saying that since 1969 in the Skeffington report. That's 50 years of good intentions that haven't yet materialised. What is there here that is going to substantially change and challenge that? It recognises the nature of the planning system that we have, which is the nature of the discretion, the gap between the plan and the decision, and what that means for the ways in which decision making operates. I don't see that sort of analysis anywhere in the discussion. I think that that's a serious flaw in the analysis and understanding that is underpinning the bill. Just a final point. My understanding is that the plan and democracy are completely volunteer-led. You don't really get any public funding. It struck me looking at some of the submissions that community engagement is not always a bottom-up grassroots thing. There's a lot of people who work in PR, who work in other organisations, who come in and do community engagement. I picked out one submission that was from the Burnham to Ballin Lug, the A9 community group. In particular, they talked about PASS, which had been brought in to act for Transport Scotland, but they talked about PASS outsourcing the design and distribution of communication. Social media was led by an agency in Edinburgh. There seems to be an awful lot of people who have a stake in the status quo, which is about doing community engagement to communities, which maybe picks up on Graham's point about people feeling that planning is done to them. Again, is there a view that those processes, particularly on PAN and people come in and do this Saturday morning and here's a chance to come in and inform the process? Do people feel that that is a big tick box? I think what I might do is I might give Petra the opportunity to respond to that. Can we second Petra? It's a specific consultation response that we've had. It's specifically about the role of PASS, and I think it's only appropriate to give Petra the opportunity to respond to that. There are a couple of questions that we really need to ask for completeness in this bill. Members are itching probably to close the session for a comfort break. Once Petra responds, I'm going to do a couple of mop-up questions briefly, and we're going to have to close this particular session. I'm afraid Petra. I want to respond in writing to the committee on this particular allegation, because they're very serious, because they are misleading and they also have no facts. I will write to if the community allows me to write to them and share with you the letter that we have written to the community. Since I was reading it, I'm not saying you are, but the letter is absolutely factually incorrect. Please write to us on that. What has been said to our public record by an individual submission? That doesn't make it true. It just means that they've said that it would be very, very helpful if you could correspond with us in relation to that. The other point that you mentioned about how we strengthen the system is an opportunity to make sure that the local place plan is a democrat expression. I have real teeth and I have given the right kind of endorsement in the local development plan. Petra, you're still up here, because one question we did want to ask to planning in Scotland, which I think has passed but is only fair to ask, has been said that there could be a benefit in creating a statutory duty to involve young people in the planning system to achieve a lot. How can local authorities prove that they've met requirements to take forward those duties? That's something that's passed or particularly passionate about. You've put it in your submission opportunity to make some brief remarks in relation to that. I'm going to come to Dr McLeod in a second about one of your suggestions as well, Petra. I do think that there's a deficit between the people that are currently involved in the planning system and the very many young people that are not engaged. We are seeing an opportunity, especially if we talked about community councils, ageing community councils, needing that sort of renewal. We're currently working in a school in the borders over a four-year period to bring young people into the planning system, understand the place agenda, work with community councils and development trust. It's a very new way of doing things called bridging the gap. I think it's vital that young people and their voices are heard, because A, they live longest with the decision that we are making as adults, and B, we have, I think, neglected to some extent to look at that sort of longer-term plan that young people need. So the duty was there because already you have signed up or Scotland has signed up to the convention of the UN Convention of the Article of the Rights of the Child. So it's in there and if you can find some mechanism, I think that will also change the debate. Because let's be honest, young people have a great fun capacity to think out the box. Thank you for putting that on the record. Dr McLeod, a lot of the debate has been squeezed out some of the comments that I feel maybe you were hoping to make here today. We were going to ask a little bit about Community Land Scotland's view about your proposals aimed at encouraging resettlement of parts of rural Scotland and explain why you think that this would be a desirable objective for the planning system. I think that you have very impressively managed to squeeze some of that in along the two plus hours, but this is your opportunity to put a little bit on the record before we suspend in relation to this session. Dr McLeod, thank you very much, convener, for that opportunity to do so. We have touched on some of this already, but I think it's well worth reiterating that. We in Community Land Scotland see that there's a kind of pressing and compelling case to think about alongside some of the issues that are being covered in the bill ready to think about issues of resettlement and repopulation of parts of rural Scotland that had previously been populated and had been settled. Part of that is very much driven by ideas of the social cohesion of rural Scotland itself and ideas of sustainable development within that context. It's really about getting that balance with regard to addressing some of the challenges that exist in existing communities, but also thinking about how we can restructure that around where communities might aspire to exist and to be and how that might benefit them in terms of their quality of life, in terms of how they relate to the environment, in terms of their economic development opportunities. We see this idea of repopulation and resettlement and the duty that we're calling for for Scottish ministers to take account of that, the desirability of that, as a relatively modest but important development with regard to thinking about, to get back to the earlier question, what the planning process is for and how rural Scotland thrives ultimately as well. We very much advocate that and would like to see, certainly if the committee thinks some consideration of that in your report, if you think it's fit to do so, we would advocate that. But also on the face of this bill and also in the wider policy framework. We've also called upon for a particular stand alongside powers, if I can put that terribly inelegantly, in relation to how to actually do that. Around Scottish Government and other authorities having regard for resettlement and repopulation and the powers that might entail in terms of potential compulsory purchase powers and other aspects of that. We've also as well very importantly from our perspective and our members perspective called for the production by Scottish ministers of a map of no longer existing communities. That's important in terms of some of the issues we've alluded to already with regard to the relationship between people and landscape and where wild land and people's ideas of sustainability sit within that. We see that as an important complementary mechanism in terms of helping to shape decisions around planning and sustainability in a real context. Clare Simmons, hold on to that thought, because the session is about to even longer still. I'd like to note that it's now been a two-hour, four-to-five-minute session, I think. We're trying to maximise the opportunity to put things on the record. Mr Wightman's indicated that there's a specific question that will give you the opportunity to answer. I'm going to let Andy ask that question, but this will be a last opportunity, I'm afraid, to come back and brevity will be expected and anticipated, unfortunately, in relation to that, including the asking of the question, as important as it actually is. Mr Wightman. Thank you, convener. I just want to ask about the national planning framework and strategic development plan. There's big proposals to change the status of the national planning framework that it becomes a statutory part of the development plan. I'm wondering about your views on that. It was introduced as a light-touch spatial expression of ministers' policies, and it doesn't have much scrutiny in this place. The second is on the strategic development plans. They are proposed to be abolished, and yet the Scottish Government's review in 2014 said that the system wasn't broken nor it's potential yet fully optimised, and we've had evidence from Clyde plan, for example, who've been working on this for 40, 50 years, and very much supporting the idea of strategic development plans. Any thoughts on the national and the strategic? If you don't have many thoughts, don't feel obliged to say it, as a convener says, we're tight for time. And also, if you've got many thoughts and you want to give us a flavour of those thoughts and write to us afterwards with more substantial views, please do that as well. So let's start with planning democracy. Either Dr Inge or Claire Simmons, please. Well, I had a point to make about inequality of arms, but, yes, well, I think we've already said about national planning framework and that we think it should be a national level document and not incorporated into the local development plan. I think that's all we would want to say about that. We feel that the strategic plans have not really had time to bed in and to lose them at this stage might be a bit premature. Regarding the inequality of arms, I would just like to say that the developers can put in repeat applications, they have the luxury of time and money and resources and understanding of planning system that communities don't have and they can appeal. When I started campaigning for equal right of appeal, I was quite surprised at how the kind of reaction that I was getting against it. Over time, I've come to realise that it's because there are another form of people. We talk about Nimbus quite a lot, but I'd just like to put on the record that I think that there's another form of people called dimviz. Development is in my vested interest and we have to be aware that those are the two people, that's what we're playing with. Developers will come in to defend themselves, I'm sure, and give their comments on equal right of appeal what they believe the impact will be, but thank you, you should have taken your opportunity and you did, to put that on the record. Dr McLeod, I think from Cymru's perspective, the key issue is to make sure that the national planning framework and the levels of policy and governance that fit together and work for communities and the sustainable development of Scotland. We're calling, as we've said, without rehashing it, to broaden out the vision thing for planning and how that fits and our proposals as documented and you've read, hopefully, to propel that forward. Thank you, Ian Cook. My absolute favourite witness right now, Mr Cook. The removal of strategic development plans, I think we made that recommendation. It's to allow greater focus on local plan making, allowing authorities, especially now with city regions, to work together much more nimbly, because we felt in the past there was a lot of delay partly because the lack of working together cohesively. I think also, again, coming in line with the new bill, let's focus on yet another big document, but actually on spatial strategies and delivery. Delivery is one of the things that got lost in the mares of plan making in Scotland. We've had so many plans. In terms of the MBF, I think the national planning framework is absolutely vital. We also have argued that it should be discussed at parliamentary level because it is an expression of interest of what society in Scotland needs and wants. I think a great alignment with housing would be very, very important. The infrastructure should be discussed at that level and, hopefully, on a regular basis. Cascading it down, the local development plan should be done in a local expression of those needs, which brings into the local place plan. Having a system that neatly fits up and down, and everybody knows what is expected of the different parts. I think that everyone has a fair crack at the whip this morning. I'm putting on record over nearly three hours now, so I'm going to start off with a thank you. That's a thank you to the witnesses that have been waiting incredibly patiently for the next evidence session. Before I finally thank you and suspend just some housekeeping when we do suspend, we'll suspend to 12.05 and we'll run that next session to 12.45 and that will be the committed business finished for the day. I just thank everyone for giving evidence this morning. We'll move to our next panel at 12.05 and we'll briefly suspend. Welcome back everyone. I'm still on agenda item 1, but we've moved to panel 2. First of all, before I do the welcome, I apologise on behalf of Fiona Ellis, business support manager of DF concerts and events, Mike Greave, owner of the sub-club and board member of the Nighttime Industries Association, and Mick Cooke composer. They have fallen by the what is now a red weather warning. I understand across both east and through central Scotland towards Glasgow. They send their apologies, but we are delighted to have with us today Beverly Whittrick, strategic director of music, venue trust and Tom Keill, director of government and public affairs, UK music. He actually came from further afield, I understand, to attend today, but the planes were running if other things weren't. I also thank you very much for your patience. That was a substantial and lengthy initial session, but unfortunately it just had to be, given the range of things that we were discussing. We're much more focused in this session and I think that it's only reasonable to allow either of you to make some opening remarks. Mr Keill, thank you very much for giving us the privilege to talk to you today about this very important issue, writing to the music industry. I'm Tom Keill. I'm the director of government and public affairs for UK music. We're the umbrella body for the commercial music industry across the UK. We're quite a globally unique organisation in that we bring together the live music industry, the recorded music industry, the creators, the music publishers and the collecting societies. I think that there's many other organisations in the world who are able to bring all those kind of effectively disparate bodies and bring them together under one footing. The value of the music, we do a lot of work on data and research into the music industry. The music industry's economic contribution is something like 4.1 billion to the economy and in terms of generating exports that's 2.5 billion and we employ 140 thousand. Those are UK wide figures, but we do also report on Scottish specific figures. Scotland has an immense contribution to the music industry. Just last year we reported that Scotland, music tourists coming to Scotland spent in a region of £334 million to the Scottish economy. That's £212 million to concerts and £123 million to festivals. 1.2 million people came to Scotland to go to live music concerts and events and music tourism sustains 4,000 jobs in Scotland. As an industry body, we're always looking at areas where the industry can be strengthened. One area of particular focus for us as an organisation has taken place in the last 10 years is the concerns around venue closures, particularly in the small end and the grass roots level. We calculate and work with partners such as a music venues trust. We estimate around 35 per cent of venues closed in the UK during that last 10-year period, so effectively we're a third down. That is a matter of great concern. There are many reasons as to why venues may close. It could be licensing, it could be business rates, it could be just changes to business, but I think that one of the main things that we've noticed over the years and the trend is actually planning issues becoming a particular concern. Whether it's through the rise of gentrification in certain areas and new developments taking place and the costs that are associated with that, planning disputes can threaten a venue's existence. We've campaigned for something called the agent of change principle, which derives from Australian law originally. I think that they had some success in achieving that initially, but we've campaigned for that in recent years. Effectively, that puts an onus on those coming into an area, those new businesses that are coming into an area to take responsibility for the impact that they are making. It puts an onus on the right to first occupancy, I think that it's sometimes termed as. It's a very strong and robust position that we hope to get to. We've made some substantial progress in England and Wales, and we're delighted by the announcement last, I think that it was about 10 days ago or so now, in terms of the Scottish Government and what it's committed to in terms of changing the planning framework and the policy documents. That said, I think that there are areas where it maybe can go further, where the agent of change and the planning law can be strengthened in even greater detail, which perhaps we can come on to. I think that that's my initial opening remarks, which I hope is helpful to the committee. Beverly, do you want to add anything to that before we move to questions? Absolutely. In contrast to UK Music, Music Venue Trust is a small and extremely focused organisation. We are a charity whose aim is to work specifically with what we term grassroots music venues, and by that we mean the venues whose core purpose is to put on live music with the intention of developing new artists and connecting them with audiences. We're not talking about places that have music as an add-on to the other business models of selling alcohol or food or other things. We're talking about venues whose reason for being is they believe in music and they want to share that music and develop new artists. We see grassroots music venues as the research and development department of the UK music industry, and as such, we believe that their sustained operation is incredibly important to the whole music industry but also to their social, cultural and economic value, which I'm delighted to see has already been registered in the letter from the planning minister and the fact that the Scottish Government absolutely recognises that. A lot of the work that we do is in partnership with organisations such as UK Music and the Musicians Union, and one of the main things I'd like to do is draw attention to the UK Live Music Census, which has just been published. It's a UK-wide report led by the University of Edinburgh, and it's collected statistical evidence to support a lot of the anecdotal evidence that music venue trust has worked with in the past. Two of the key statistics are that one third of venue survey respondents in their online survey identified planning and property development had a negative impact on them in the last 12 months, and nearly a third, a 29% of venue respondents said that noise-related complaints had had a negative impact in the last 12 months. That goes together with the extent of the closures that Tom's already mentioned, to emphasise how very serious the threats are to the sector and the need for action now in order to sustain that important role. Thank you to both of you for those remarks. We'll open up with some questions, initially, from Graham Simpson MSP. Yeah, thanks very much. I must be honest, before we had the deluge of correspondence on this issue, it wasn't really where it was an issue, but it clearly is. First of all, if you could just explain very briefly what the issue is for you, what the problem is, and then we'll go on to discuss the bill, which is what we're here to do. One of the key issues, one of the biggest challenges with the grassroots music venues, is that they have historically operated in isolation. We were formed in 2014 and started to build a collective voice for the venues, and prior to that, venues had very much operated in their local community, but with little reference to each other, or to larger venues or other parts of the music industry. The other factor that has helped to create this stack of challenges is that, in many instances, grassroots music venues are not recognised formally as cultural venues. Many local authorities perceive them to be businesses. A lot of them focus on the fact that they are licensed premises over their cultural contribution, and, therefore, a lot of the time, the way they are approached and worked with is as if they were a bar or a nightclub rather than a cultural venue. What that's meant is that they face harsher licensing regimes, higher business rates, perhaps more scrutiny from the local police than other cultural venues. One of the core pieces of music venue trust mission is to try and gain recognition so that cultural parity between grassroots music venues, theatres, art centres, galleries and other spaces is recognised as contributing to the cultural life of the UK. Can I just add to that, in terms of the particular problem that the agent of change is trying to address? You've got a situation where a venue might have existed for 10, 15 years, existing quite co-existing with other businesses in that area, you then have a situation of a new build development or a change of use situation happening, and what happens is that that creates problems for that venue because as soon as you develop residential accommodation and we all want places for people to live, as soon as you actually develop that, then you have a potential situation of leaving them vulnerable to noise complaints issues which then can threaten licences, and I think that's in many ways a crux of the issue where we're calling for agent of change because actually essentially it means that responsibility is then given to the developers or whoever is actually the person making the change to actually help with things like sound proofing, putting noise numbers in and those types of issues. I think that's the crux and I think that's, as I said, because there's been a lot of developments in recent years, I think that's where it's becoming an increasing problem, that's where some of the trends come in. Thanks, that was certainly my understanding. I think Beverly, you raise an interesting point but it seems to be more licensing based and we're looking at planning today. You've seen the letter from the planning minister who said that he would tackle this through the national planning framework, which I presume you're happy with, but in terms of the bill which we're scrutinising, is there anything that you think should go into the bill yet over and above the national planning framework? On the particular letter and the recent commitments from the Scottish Government, they are very welcome. I think that you have to read them in combination with obviously the intentions behind the bill, which is actually bringing the Scottish planning policy within the framework itself. That in itself strengthens that considerably and I think that if you have a new version of that document where there's explicit commitment towards agent of change, I think that would be really important. I think you're right to ask the question about where other areas where policy could go within planning and how that could help and improve the situation for music venues. Some of the areas which we're thinking about is about whether you could actually require developers themselves to complete a noise impact assessment, that's something that we maybe have looked at too. That would sit quite nicely alongside the agent of change commitments that have already been introduced. Another suggestion, which has actually been developed in Wales concerning the Womanby Street development in Cardiff, when they committed to agent of change, they also committed to look at something called committed to enterprise zones or local development plans and that's effectively looking at areas of cultural significance and trying to protect them and create a framework that they can have protections, particularly long-standing cultural areas. I think that that's two areas in particular where we think the bill itself could be further strengthened too. Additionally, we could actually have a duty on planning authorities themselves to actually prevent unreasonable consequences. Essentially, that would be a form of agent of change and maybe take things slightly further along but it would maybe put it on an even greater statutory basis than the recent commitments effectively create. If I may add something to that, the cultural issue that I raised, yes, it does go into culture and it does go into licensing. However, there is a statutory right for the theatre's trust to comment on any planning application in any part of the UK that impacts on an existing theatre building. We have no such right at the moment to comment on any planning application that potentially impacts on a grassroots music venue. Now, if Scottish Government were minded to consider that as a step forward, it would be a trailblazing measure that doesn't happen anywhere in the rest of the UK but it would be a very definite planning measure that could be taken that would have a real positive effect on the protection of grassroots music venues. How would you define what a grassroots music venue is? We do have quite a robust definition that's now internationally accepted. It's something that talks about not only the intent of the business but also the physical infrastructure of what they have. As I say, it's about a place that exists to promote artists and has the correct infrastructure to do that rather than being a pub that puts music on to attract other people to come. So, there is a checklist. There is actually a definition that could be applied to assess whether a place that is being affected actually is a grassroots music venue. For example, in King Tuts in Glasgow, which has been subject to three planning applications in the last five months that have an impact on them, King Tuts is a world-renowned music venue that develops up-and-coming artists and enables audiences to connect with them. I get King Tuts. I have actually been there. It was a long time ago, of course. I think we want evidence of that but we'll let it go just now. No, it was actually to a gig convener. Clearly, it is a music venue first with a licence. I understand that. Can I tease out? You can't speak about live planning applications or what have you, but can you give us an idea about the type of... I'm just trying to sense a little bit what we mean about their King Tuts subject to three planning applications. What does that mean for that venue? Can I unclear what it actually means? What it means for the venue is that we have, within our network, tried to promote a model where, if venues become aware of planning around them, they immediately try to find out more information about that and notify what's called our emergency response service so that we can assess whether, if those developments go ahead, it is likely to lead to noise complaints in the future and, in the instance of King Tuts, very similar things on Womenby Street in Cardiff. The developments are largely residential. I believe that there was a hotel as well, and the concern when there are proposals to develop residential accommodation or accommodation where people will be living or staying overnight is that, in an area previously where the other activity was daytime and the venue was one of the only things happening at night, you're now faced at trying to find the balance between differing needs in a nighttime economy. Across the whole of the UK, we've seen many instances of music venues that thrived in a particular area of town because it was mostly offices and people left at 5.30. As residential accommodation is created in those areas, the nature of the area changes and you get a conflict between the people that like the vibrancy of the area but want it to be quiet in their home. Obviously, we all understand that because people will have a right to good quality housing, but if you move to an area that had a nighttime economy, which goes back to the zoning issue that Tom mentioned, we believe that some sort of balance needs to be sought between enabling there to be a continued nighttime economy and cultural activity and well-built good housing. OK, thank you, but that's helpful. A number of members want to know in relation to this. Perhaps I'll confirm or otherwise whether they've been to King Tuts or not. I can confirm that I remember going in on several occasions, but I don't always remember leaving, so I can't confirm either way. Jenny Gilruth. I too have visited King Tuts at one point. I do remember leaving, yes. I think I was asked for an idea at the time, so that's how long ago it was. I'd like to drill down a wee bit on Graham Simpson's point, because he spoke about the cultural significance argument that you make in relation to grassroots music venues. You talked about that designation in practice and, in response to Graham's question, you linked it to the theatres, which have a statutory right to comment on planning applications because they are designated as areas of cultural significance. Are there any other benefits that you think might stem from having the same rule applied to grassroots music venues? Is there any other protection you think or action the Government needs to take to protect and promote grassroots music venues? That's a huge question. At the heart of our work is seeking for recognition of the cultural, social and economic status of the grassroots music venues, rather than seeing them as profit-making businesses. We do think that that could bring many benefits over time. Obviously, that moves into areas beyond planning as well, but it's just to do with the whole way that they're perceived and therefore protected. There are very few instances of people moving near to a theatre and complaining about the noise. There is one. Somebody has just moved in behind a West End theatre and is apparently shocked that there's a get-out in the evening and there's noise behind the theatre. That's the only example that I know, whereas across the country there are so many from people who move near a music venue and say, well, people leave late at night, or, oh, I can sometimes hear music. For some reason, the way that music venues are perceived means that that seems okay to complain about in a way that doesn't often happen for more recognised cultural venues. It doesn't tend to happen for concert halls, opera houses or theatres, so it's a repositioning that we seek, obviously for very practical things such as which bit of planning legislation applies, but also a more general cultural issue across the UK. Andy Wightman, I'm following Graham Greene's line of questioning here. We have the letter from the chief planner to planning authorities, and we have a statement of intent by the planning minister to incorporate the agent change principle into the national planning framework in future. Obviously, the national planning framework belongs to ministers, so we get very limited scrutiny of that. The Scottish planning policy is ministers again. They can change that, they can change it and they can break their promise. We may have a different government that doesn't implement it when the next national planning framework comes along, for example. What I suppose we're keen to hear is whether you think that that is sufficient and that deals with the question of introducing an agent change principle, bearing in mind that every application is always dealt with on its own merits, in its own circumstances and on its own facts. It doesn't guarantee anything. Whether that's sufficient and if it's not sufficient, what do you think we could put on the face of a piece of primary legislation that doesn't normally deal with this kind of question, because it deals with process, because the decision maker ultimately makes the decision? What could we put in? Specifically, you mentioned, above all, use classes. I'm looking at the Scottish use class orders, the 1997 order. There's nothing there on music venues as such. Do you think that there's an issue there that needs addressed? I think—sorry, I know that Tom has something to say, but yes, on that question very specifically, we have had many discussions with Governments in the various bits of the UK where, when policy is created, people said, well, within cultural venues we knew we meant grassroots music venues, but the space at the moment between what's intended by the person writing the policy and how it might be interpreted at local authority level actually is proving a real issue for our venues, in that it might have been intended to be seen as a cultural venue, but if you then get somebody in the local authority that doesn't perceive it as that, they can say, well, no, a cultural venue is a theatre. It's not a grassroots music venue, so the actual specifying actually, as has been done in the minister's letter, which was graded out of specifically said music venues and protecting these and recognising their cultural importance, that is something that we would very much like to see more of because it's very explicit and it doesn't leave room for interpretation. To go a little bit further on the interpretation question, I can give an example in England where a local authority very strongly supported a music venue that was being subject to redevelopment and this was The Fleece in Bristol and Bristol City Council told the developer who was converting an office block next to the building that they wanted to see non-openable windows on the side of the building that overlooked the venue and it went through Bristol City Council and this was all agreed. The developer then went to the planning inspectorate and said, by point of law, we don't actually have to do this, do we? Because it's not actually legislation, it's their recommendation and I know you don't have a planning inspectorate, but the mechanism is similar. The planning inspectorate agreed with the developer's lawyer and not only overturned the Bristol City Council decree but also gave Bristol City Council the expenses of it having been questioned, which has now made that City Council very wary about trying to support the venues further and there are currently six venues in Bristol that are endangered by development. My board member, who is a barrister, says that it's to do with the grey area between policy and legislation where absolutely it can be known what's intended by it but if there's wiggle room, if a developer has determination and money they can quite often find the space to say, well, I don't really have to do that, do I? Can I suggest, therefore, if that is the case in it, some of the parallels there may well apply in the Scottish case but I can't be sure, that given you have an opportunity now, we have a couple of months before we produce our stage 1 report, we need to be very clear as a committee about what it is that we can do, because we're not the Government, we're Parliament, we're making a law, what we can do to buttress the arguments that you're making if we think that it merits doing so. In that respect, coming forward with specific broad amendments, not the black and white letter of it but place a duty to place a whatever, because it's hard for us to get to grips with some of this detail, nevertheless it would be very unfortunate if we're to see a position where it was deemed that the guidance is good enough and we took that view and then a year down the line we see a music venue in Aberdeen or Glasgow being subject to the legal challenges you talk about took place in Bristol and everyone all said, well, I thought Parliament dealt with that and it obviously didn't so that's just an encouragement in a science, more than an encouragement, well entirely it's up to you obviously. In some respects, I think it's an opportunity for you to maybe tease out, is the legally binding nature of the new changes within the bill itself and to what extent that actually strengthens the statutory provisions. The announcement which took place in January in England was very clear in the Government's statement in England that the proposals would be legally binding and I think that's the real opportunity I think for this committee to maybe draw out, as I said, there is a potential to have an amendment around which actually places, as I said, an actual duty with unplanning authorities to prevent unreasonable consequences on existing businesses and that in itself I think could double up and support the recent policy announcements and help very much in that regard too and beyond that as I said I think there could also be commitments for developers to actually come forward and actually be a requirement particularly when they are bringing something forward which will impact on an area which effectively makes noise whether it's actually a speedway track or whether it's a music venue, it doesn't have to be a music venue, that they are actually then required to set out exactly how they plan to address those issues in terms of information that future residents etc would get into. I think those are maybe concrete areas where the bill could maybe be, amendments could be tabled and we would happily go away and look at how that can be addressed further. I mean you're coming to give evidence and we've had written evidence and that's it but there's a contra argument of course you could find a grassroots music venue that is on its last needs really not performing very well. You've got a very large redevelopment plan which is strongly in the public interest, the idea that a small failing business and obviously not on music venues but that happens could kind of hold to ransom, public development that is in the public and it would be something we'd be concerned about so get it getting this duty and obligation right and giving the appropriate discretion to planning authorities would be vital. You're agreed with that. I just wondered if we could look at a couple of other things. It was very intrigued to see that the music venue trust was talking about development plans back on the planning process again, could have areas designated areas of cultural significance. I'm just wondering what kind of advantages it would be to that and what the benefits of that would be. I'm struck when I look at that, I'm thinking about we were speaking for two hours about local place plans and just that idea of trying to work out who the community actually were in a local place in the first instance and in certain parts of Glasgow you think of the community as being a creative community as well as maybe a newly residential community that have arrived in an area or a new hotel that's open so areas of cultural significance what would the benefit of that being how do you think it would work? I think it's about defining an area not only for people that might choose to move their understanding the nature of that area but also having key parts of towns and cities that are seen for a focus for that creative activity. I know for example in Montreal there was a large redevelopment of an area where they specifically were creating an outdoor performance space and studio space for creatives and the accommodation that was built there was aimed towards people who work in the creative industries so that they would understand how that area operated and basically be comfortable with the fact that sometimes it would be noisy or chaotic or creative in a way that perhaps other members of the wider community might not feel so comfortable. In the UK this has come up specifically in Cardiff around the one industry area following the consultation with Welsh planning department Welsh Government planning department because there were a number of proposed developments on that street that did not take into account at all the fact that it's a main focus of the live music community in Cardiff not that most of those people live there but it is where people automatically go to if they want to see live music and there is now a piece of work going on there about protecting that zone for the cultural contribution it brings to the city and scrutinising any planning applications as to whether they enhance that or endanger it. That absolutely makes sense. Could there be a lot of unintended consequence around that if you had not everyone's days in a large urban area that's got their kind of creative or cultural places to go for their nights out where there's a range of venues there and you can pick and choose and you can go along. Some places might just have the one venue and it might not have started off as a venue for performance but more small towns and rural areas it might actually be the only place where you can do that kind of thing so could the unintended consequence be that if you're not in an area of cultural significance could it weaken the music venue? I think it's a real concern to make sure that if zoning or cultural significant areas are referenced that it's done on the understanding that that's appropriate for large towns and cities but not for the whole of the country. I absolutely agree that in many towns there will be one or two cultural venues and of course there's no zone they're just where they are. The vast majority of our venues are not purpose-built they're almost all conversions from something else into a music venue so the zoning is really an issue for major towns and cities rather than everywhere. I suppose the key question that I have to ask the other members in that we've seconded is do you think the proposal that the Scottish Government has made will impact on decisions of local authorities currently considering noise complaints against existing venues so at understanding the Scottish Government position is there's actually provisions there already but they'll be beefed up in a few months time and they've reminded local authorities of what powers they already have. Do you have any sense that local authorities will be watching any of this or it will make temp or some of the decisions they make? Communication that comes from the Scottish Government to local authorities is key really. I think it's obviously a pivotal moment with having a piece of legislation going through Scottish Parliament to make some changes and I think the recent changes have been well communicated last week and I think any further changes about this. I think if there are provisions that already exist in this place then I think that if they haven't been enforced previously then that represents to some extent a failure to communicate those adequately enough and maybe that's an issue for both industry and government and local authorities to work more collaboratively on how they can actually communicate those changes. It's certainly a question for us to ask the minister when he comes along. It's just one final question for me that Alexander Stewart has indicated, he wants to come in and raise a point. So agent of change, we are thinking about music venues, that's the core purpose of what they do, it's not an add-on so we serve food, get something with a guitar just to draw up some more business. Those are good venues as well but I'm just saying you're very clear about that. Should the agent of change principle be extended to cinemas, theatres, because once the principle has established the end decide which types of industry that applies to so how widely would you draw the principle? Music venue trust first started talking about agent of change which was in 2015. We were actually approached by a glorious array of different businesses and different people that one couldn't believe that it wasn't the law of the land already because it seems logical and two said well this is brilliant because it would stop this silly thing happening that happened to me and just to give you a couple of the examples of the sorts of things that came up there's a speedway track in England. There was a housing development very nearby that the street was called Speedway Close. People bought the houses and moved into it and immediately started complaining to the local council that they were being disturbed by the sound of the speedway track. The other example is the couple that we heard about who moved to a countryside village and immediately put in a complaint to the local council that the church bells were disturbing their peace having moved to the countryside so I think our feeling is that we are absolutely delighted that the minister has specifically referenced music venues in agent of change but we would see any policy or legislation about agent of change having ramifications for other applications and helping people that have something that exists being questioned by somebody that moves in and going I don't like that. That's very helpful, Tom Cule. Just to sort of build on what Beverly said as well I mean I think it's important to recognise this this bill concerns planning but there is a crossover with the licensing system and I think that's that that can't go sort of be forgotten about really because I think effectively there should be it should be more joined up in some ways the planning processes and the licensing process effectively decisions have been taken at a planning level and effectively there's a need to preempt what licensing challenges there might be further down the line. I think the House of Lords had a long standing inquiry in the last parliament looking into licensing in general and I think one of the recommendations they came out with was actually to bring forward more planning and licensing committees those decision making processes to actually take place in tandem much more and I think that's if that is within scope of this bill I think that could be certainly a very very positive move to look at how that could be maybe developed further to actually help some of the issues that we're maybe concerned with but I understand obviously this is purely a bill about planning and there might be issues for you for you around that. A particular opportunity to put it on the record of course we're drawing towards the close of this particular session that Alexander Stewart of course yes Alexander Stewart. It was it was similar to what you've just touched on I mean it was about the the practicalities of trying to ensure that the planning and the licensing is more aligned to doing and you've identified in the evidence you've just given there about having committees come together but what what other practical processes do you think that should be identified to try and alleviate some of the difficulties that have happened across other locations? I mean we've been talking more generally about how the music industry itself can work more collaboratively with local authorities with planners we've actually had success within London and in the sense that they've set up a music board which brings together a lot of those those issues so I think a lot of the I mean there's a there's an extent where you can actually how to what extent can you deal with actually some of these problems offline if you like how can you actually create structures which enables the music industry to have frank discussions with with planners and licensing people which they don't necessarily normally talk to in those kind of structures and how can you maybe develop that further and I think it'd be very positive if if that was developed in Scotland too to look at some particularly in some of the large urban areas such as Glasgow and Edinburgh who have very well developed music industries about how they can create those those kind of forums to actually enable some of those discussions to take place and then you don't necessarily have to get into a legalistic legislative problem you kind of hit things off at the early early point. If I might just add something to that I did a piece of work for city of Edinburgh council a few years ago looking at the inaudibility clause and at the time that involved quite a lot of discussions about how when someone complained to the council how that was handled and one of the things that struck me particularly forcibly was that the complainant was always considered to be the council's client and the noise maker was therefore the defendant and one of the things that that I stated in that piece of work was well it's almost like you've already decided who the guilty party is just by the way you handle that complaint and I believe there's a lot of room for reinforcing recommendations made through planning in the way that councils should then deal with noise complaints should they happen after that because it's not very helpful if you're not viewing it objectively if you're saying well that person complained so they must be right. Thank you. I think most of the key points have been covered but I suppose a couple of things. Tom you mentioned Australia in your opening remarks and the approach there is to having trained this into laws that would be good to get some more info on how that's been going in terms of the practical nuts and bolts of it. I know we can't talk about individual planning applications here today but I wondered what the experience has been of venues who are maybe having to make representations, buy in expert advice, perhaps undertake their own noise impact assessment so what's the practical side of that and what are some of the costs and we've touched on the synergy between licensing and planning. In Scotland councils who sit on licensing boards have to undergo training and set a test. The bills proposing the same for people who sit on the planning committee so I wonder if you have a view on that and lastly we spent a lot of time I know you were outside we spent a lot of time talking about rights of appeal and is that something that venues would have a view on who have been very involved in the planning process? Do they have a view on being able to make an appeal when something doesn't go their way? I will do my best to comment from a venues point of view obviously it's very disappointing that our venue reps weren't actually able to join us but I'll tell you what I know from music venue trusts side of things. The main thing to say is that letters from a local council are very scary to most people that own a music venue and the first thing they're likely to do is panic if they receive one whether it's a noise complaint or a notification of planning nearby because they already have a full-time job running the venue and doing other things and when asked to confront an extra challenge quite often they feel very unprepared for that and they feel like they don't have the time to do it. Music venue trust offers an emergency response service where any music venue within our music venues alliance network across the country can ask us for expert advice. We have a number of what we call our gurus that are planning, licensing, legal experts who will support with advice but obviously that can only go so far so yes there is a cost implication if it's a long journey to see through the case against a planning application. I think the other thing to say is when it's a case like King Tutts where there've been three developments that have come up in five months that's then a huge extra time burden as well as potential financial burden on a business that's quite poorly resourced anyway. A lot of our venues are run by very small teams and so the person that's having to get their head around the planning policy and what they have to do to respond and talk to the lawyers and what have you is also the person that's probably cleaning the toilets and rolling in the beer barrels and welcoming the band and so it's a it's a huge challenge for a small business to deal with an extra factor on top of what they already do and although we do try and offer support we are also a very small organisation so we're very stretched on the resources that we can offer so it is something that is better than it was a few years ago but it's still extremely challenging for the sector to try and cope with those external factors having such a big impact on their day to day existence. To pick up on the point about Australia, that burden that Beverly's described with the legal certainty in Australia have venues reported back that some of that uncertainty in that burden has minimised? I understand that the Australian situation has worked quite well. I think the one area where they may be having slight issues with is the fact that I think there is a sort of geographical limit applied to their version of agent, a change, so that it can only apply where there's a certain I can't remember off the top of my head exactly what that radius is but it can only apply in those circumstances and I think that has created some issues because obviously when you're dealing with noise that's sometimes quite hard to actually put how far that sound may travel and what the impact that may have on other areas and I think that's something that they're certainly looking into to want to improve it to actually make it more about the vicinity rather than putting an actual kind of jurisdiction distance measurement in terms of how the agent and change principle would apply in there. Just to pick up on your other point about the training aspect, I mean I think that certainly would be very important to have that take place I think the more that can be done for those working within planning institutions to understand those aspects of this would be important. One final point when it looks, it's useful to get the overview of what's happening across the UK so if we did try and tackle this through the bill, Scotland could be leading the UK in terms of our approach. Is there another opportunity perhaps through building regulations or building standards if a developer knew that there were certain minimum requirements in terms of retrofitting or even a new build that had to be built into the building process? Would that be another opportunity to tackle some of this if those obligations were codified in the building regulations? Would that negate the need to have it in planning legislation? I have to look into a bit more detail before giving a specific commitment now but I mean I think obviously the more tools that are available to government to actually achieve some of these things then I think the better. Can I just add that actually Scotland is already leading the way from the letter that the minister issued to local authorities that hasn't happened anywhere else in the UK to have such a strongly worded message direct to local authorities so Scotland actually is in the forefront already. Excellent, we'd be late to hear. That would be a lovely way to end this evidence session. Please capture that everyone. Thank you to both of you for giving evidence. Obviously the weather defeated is in relation to other witnesses but we're grateful for their willingness to make themselves available and for your willingness to wait for a significant period of time before having the opportunity to give your evidence. That concludes agenda item 1. Thank you for that. Please follow the work of the committee on this matter and we now move to agenda item 2, which is subordinate legislation. The committee will consider negative instruments 38, 39 and 45 as listed on the agenda. Those instruments are laid under the negative procedure, which means that their provisions will come in to force unless the Parliament votes on motions 2 annul them. I can tell the committee that no motions 2 annul have been laid and I can invite members to make any comments that they may have on the instruments before us. I don't see anyone wishing to make a comment in relation to that so I can invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to these instruments, are we agreed? Okay, thank you. We now move into private session as previously agreed.


7,004 Canadians were wounded in the battle that began here 100 years ago today. 3,598 Canadians died. This, from a population in 1917 of just 8 million. Think of it for a moment, the enormity of the price they paid. They were, for the most part, young men at the end of adolescence or at the beginning of the 20th. They were not professional soldiers, but they were well prepared to be trained for months. But despite all, they needed courage at a level that is difficult to imagine. These men were not insensitive to fear. They were human. They suffered from the distance, from fatigue. Their feet were sore, they were cold. But they continued to advance, to advance through the mud under the enemy shots. They were advancing, fighting like lions, just behind a powerful barrier of artillery. And they did not stop there, they fought until victory. There were strategic objectives, Vimy is an author. The place had been transformed into fortresses. They asked about brothers and sisters, and they wrote about their fellow soldiers. Those who'd fallen, those still fighting. Typical Canadians, they talked about the weather. The sun has been shining a couple of times this last week. This week reads a letter from William Henry Bell dated April 7th, 1917. The sun is a kind of a stranger here. Say, that cake you sent sure was fine. William Bell died at Vimy on April 10th, 1917. He was 20 years old. The burden they bore, and the country they made. Because this too, is why we're here. Why we remember? We're going to sacrifice their lives. These ordinary and extraordinary men. The British Dominion. They fought for the first time as citizens of a single and same country. Francophones and Anglophones. New Canadians. Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples. Coat-to-coat, united, here at Vimy, within the four divisions of the Canadian body. It's by their sacrifice that Canada has become an independent signator of the Treaty of Versailles. And in that sense, Canada was born here. Here. The sculpture entitled, Le Canada en deuil, represents the pain of a whole country. It evokes a devout affection, and also the thousands of Canadians who bravely responded to the call, as nurses, or by putting a critical support at home. But this monument is also symbolic of Canada's birth, and our enduring commitment to peace. As I look over the faces gathered here, veterans, soldiers, caregivers, so many people. I can't help but feel that a torch is being passed. One hundred years later, we must say this together, and we must believe it never again. Friends and honoured guests, let us hold to the grace of William Henry Bell. To the grace of the ones who stood by their friends through unimaginable hardship, through death itself. And who, in that offering, stood by their country and made their country in its beginnings. They were Canadians, and they were valiant beyond measure. Honour them.


I'd like to share one idea about managing water scarcity for food security, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa. The world's population has been increasing continuously and this has been translated into more mouths for food. And agriculture and food production needs a lot of water. Actually, right now, just for irrigation itself, they use about 70% of withdrawn water resources. And as a consequence, many rivers and lakes are drying up. So we are facing great challenge to produce more food with limited water resources. Then the question is where we should focus on to produce more food with per drop of water. Food production is not just for local consumption, it is also for international trade. At the moment, the international traded food accounts for about 15% of the total production. And international trade carries virtual water, which is the water used for production, during the production. North America and South America and Oceania are the major food exporters and also the virtual exporters. Asia and Africa are the major importers of food, also the importers of virtual water. In this map of water scarcity, as you can see, actually the major water scarcity regions are in the middle latitude of northern hemisphere. And in sub-Saharan Africa, there isn't physical water scarcity. However, in sub-Saharan Africa, yield, crop yield is very low, typically one third of the global average. And why it is that? We did a lot of studies on the factors influencing the yield growth in sub-Saharan Africa. And crop models are widely used for this kind of investigation. And coupling it with the GIS, we can do a large-scale simulation and find out what factors are important for crop growth. This slide actually shows one of our research result, which is simulated result for maize yield in sub-Saharan Africa. The total height shows the range of the yield. The red line shows the average yield of maize at this moment for the whole continent. And then the second bar actually shows if we increase the water supply to meet the demand by the crops, what will happen? It shows actually it doesn't have much impact on yield because yield doesn't increase much. The third bar actually shows when we increase the fertilizer supply to meet the demand of crops, and then you can see the yield jumps by a big margin. But the range is still very large because this means the range or the yield is unstable. And the last one, last bar actually shows that the yield is stable with water supply and sufficient fertilization. And here we want to show the technology and know how actually there, we know how to improve the yield. For sub-Saharan Africa, if we can double the yield, then the sub-Saharan Africa would not need to import cereal anymore. If we can triple the yield, then there will be surplus for export. So with many regions in the world having water scarcity and the increasing production becomes more costly and sub-Saharan Africa is a new source for the future food supply and virtual water supply to alleviate water scarcity in other regions. So a Chinese entrepreneur once has said, give me Africa and I can feed the world. He's wrong, he cannot have Africa, but he's right in a way that Africa does have the big potential to provide food to the world. And the challenge is how to unleash this potential in a sustainable and equitable and economically way.


Hi, I am Clémentine, I am the UX UI designer of Aura, and today I'm going to talk about the benefits of usability testing. So usability testing is a really important part of the UX design approach. It allows us to find pain points and understand what users struggle with in order to determine where issues are coming from and how we can solve them to improve our design. Okay, so don't judge me, this one is a bit long. To do that, we start by writing a scenario of actions we want the users to do during the test. We give them instructions and we observe them as we take notes. These tests can be done either on web prototypes or even on paper prototypes during the early stages of design. So here we focus primarily on the sharing options in NextLoud, and we perform the test on the NextLoud 25 test platform. So the test is being recorded so we can go back to it as many times as necessary. And the user is encouraged to expose themselves out loud and give as much feedback as possible, especially if it's negative, because that's what we need to improve the design. One thing I like to do before starting is reassure the user that we're not testing them, we are testing the product. There's no wrong answers, it's okay to fail last or stuck. And we do not talk or answer any questions during the test so as to stay initial, unless they want us to repeat the instructions, of course. And once we're done, we analyze the results and we are left with factual and unbiased data so that we can improve our design. So at Aura, we are in a pretty favorable position to get clients to help us with those tests. We encourage them to collaborate on the product and some of them are really interested in it. So we ended up performing 12 user tests with various clients and employees ranking from beginners to advanced NextLow users, but all of them were non-IT. So here are the results. Each line represents a client and a user, sorry, and each column represents an action that they had to perform. So the numbers at the bottom indicate how much of a struggle an action is. So they are ranked from zero to three. So zero being no problem at all. One being success but with hesitation. Two success with difficulty and three failure to complete the task. So essentially the higher the score, the higher the struggle. Now I'm going to present two of the main issues that came out of these tests. Please keep in mind that these tests were performed on NextLow in 25, so some things might already have been changed or fixed. Here's the first one. So this one is about the sharing icon. So you can see on the right here for the first folder, the accounting one, the sharing icon ends up disappearing and being replaced by the little avatar of the user that shared the folder with the person. So what happens when you ask a user to share the accounting folder, is that they get kind of confused and they hesitate on where to click. So actually 11 out of 12 of them had at least some hesitation on where to click to reshare this folder. And the second one is about the guest option. So this one is here way at the bottom of the options when you wanna share a folder. So for most users, it's either unheard of or it's really hard to find if not impossible. So this one was a huge struggle in general. And now to finish, I'm going to show you one of my design proposal to fix the sharing icon issue. So my solution to that would be, so you can see same folder here, to leave the sharing icon essentially. It would be a permanent one, it would never move. So you can see that they're practically all aligned. And then the avatar of the person that shared the folder moves a bit to the left, I think there's much enough space to do so. And it would help prevent confusion for a lot of users. So that's my solution. Thank you for listening and if you have any questions, you can come see us afterwards. Thank you. Thank you.