 Welcome to the fourth meeting of the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee in 2022. Before we begin, can I remind those committee members using electronic devices to switch them to silent? Our first item of business today is to decide whether to take item 5 and 6 in private. Are members agreed? Thank you. Agenda item 2 is the Good Food Nation Bill Scotland. We are continuing our evidence sessions on the bill, and I welcome to the meeting our first panel who will focus on policy outcomes relating to environment and sustainability. With us today, we have Ian Gullen, the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer from Zero Waste Scotland, Mike Rivington, a land use systems modeler from the James Hutton Institute, Dr Christine Shields, a lecturer in international law and food security at the Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Security, and Vicki Swales, head of land use policy at RSPB Scotland, representing the Scottish environmental link. We will move to about 90 minutes of questions, and I will kick off. What I would like to hear is your experiences of the food systems and issues within that system facing Scotland with regard to the environment, waste and related issues. I will go to each panel, but I would like if Dr Rivington would expand on the experiences throughout the pandemic and how that might help to inform our approach to food policies in the event of further environmental shocks. We will start off with Ian Gullen, please. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. We welcome the introduction of the Good Food Nation Bill and its commitment to addressing not just the environmental aspects of the food system, but doing so in equal importance to the social, health and economic pillars. Our focus is on food waste and the impact of that. It is clear to say that the impact of our food systems and tackling the climate emergency has been severely understated to date. Topics such as energy, transport and plastics dominate our conversation quite often about the environment, which was also evident during COP26. In fact, our consumption of materials and resources is responsible for around 80 per cent of Scotland's carbon footprint, and food makes up a significant part of that. We all know that agriculture and associated land use accounts for around a quarter of Scotland's total greenhouse gas emissions. We look at the global picture in terms of food loss and waste. If food loss and waste were a country, it would be the third-largest carbon footprint in the world after the USA and China, and yet a staggering one-third of all the food that we produce globally is lost or wasted. Food production does not just contribute to climate change. It is also one of the biggest causes of biodiversity loss, as habitats and the natural environment are destroyed to create farmland. In fact, an area larger than China is used to grow food that is never eaten. It is also a moral issue. If we consider the 1 billion hungry people in the world, they could be fed on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the UK, USA and Europe put together. In Scotland, unfortunately, we are part of the problem, so collectively in Scotland, we throw away more than 980,000 tonnes of food, so just under a million tonnes of food every year. 40 per cent of that is in our food industries, such as manufacturing, retail, hospitality and food services, but more than 60 per cent comes from households up and down Scotland, so we all have a role to play whether we are part of the food industry or not. Hospitality and food services, the equivalent of 106 million meals, are discarded every year in Scotland. That is one out of every six meals served. It is a great cost to our hospitality and food service industries, even if we consider filling a wheelie bin with food waste every week. That is costing a business about £8,000 a year. We also need to grow more food in Scotland to save emissions from imported food and ensure that our food supply chain is more resilient to global shocks such as the pandemic. We mentioned that already, convener. At the same time, inedible parts and by-products from food productions should be fed back into the system to grow more food and enable creative new solutions. Ultimately, we all need to support Scottish households across the country to put an end to edible food waste in our homes and to recycle as much as we can. We cannot beat them to prevent them from going to landfill. When we waste food, we also waste the water, energy and resources that went into growing it. The Good Food Nation bill should be seen as an enabler for the inclusion of a food waste indicator and food waste reduction action. The national, the NHS and the local authority Good Food Nation plans will help us to monitor the progress and allow for smarter targeting of action and support. The bill needs to be a catalyst for a system-wide approach to how we grow, produce, supply and consumer food that delivers a more sustainable, healthy and equitable future for all. Thank you very much, convener, and Dr Levington. No, good morning. Thanks very much, convener. If I just pick up on your first question about the Covid aspect as well, because I think that's helped to set the context a little bit. Primarily, the Covid impact was a demand side shock, not a production shock. There were impacts on the production side, but primarily it was a demand side caused by the loss of income. What we saw really was a divide in the impact in terms of the demand side, that there were some people who were severely impacted by the Covid pandemic in terms of access to food, and by that I mean economic access and physical access. The production side wasn't that impacted, despite 2020 having quite a severe combination of weather events that meant overall production in the UK was lower than average. What we were trying to glean from the Covid impact was complicated further by Brexit and trying to understand what the impacts of that were, but the main message from the Covid impact was that there was a need to ensure food security within Scotland to support the most vulnerable people, and that can be best achieved by financial support rather than making food available directly. What we found from the Covid impact was that food wasn't in shortage, what was in short supply was access to affordable food because of the economic aspects. Where we can then connect that through looking forward to the Good Food Nation Bill and what it's trying to achieve in terms of handling climate change impacts and biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation impacts on food is that that is likely to be a production side shock. The two things are a little bit difficult to compare because what we're talking about in terms of future risks are primarily production side shocks. I think it's really important to flag that the UK as a whole imports about 48 per cent of its food, so therefore we have to consider the impacts internationally of all of these different drivers that are likely to produce production shocks. We can't look at Scotland in isolation. I think Ian just made very good points about the scale at which the international aspect is a key role in the fact that we waste so much food or so much food is lost and that is likely to increase with climate change impact. I think it's really important when we're looking at the food nation bill is how we consider the international context as well. My research is in long governance in relation to land and food. In response to your question about observations, as a result of Covid and so forth, I'd say that the key one is that we can't rely on changes at household level. If we want people to have healthy, sustainable diets, we have to have healthy, sustainable sources of food and a good place to start is with public institutions, bills, hospitals, et cetera. We need to increase access to sustainable food sources and access. We need to look at access in different ways and understand the real obstacles to access. I'd also like to make a few comments on the scope and ambition of the bill. The bill focuses on process and duties on relevant authorities to create food plans, and that is exciting from a democratic perspective. It's helpful to have those bodies on board for partnership, but it cannot be assumed that that will create an equality of impacts or food systems transitions. We need to ensure that the good food nation bill engages with the whole food system, from production to consumption, from farm to fork. In particular, there's an opportunity to close the gap between farm and fork. By that, I mean to cultivate closer relationships with farms and food producers through local suppliers of food. There's an opportunity to do something innovative in relation to the land diets nexus. For example, despite being the UK's largest local authority by land mass, the highland region produces very little fruit. I'm afraid that it looks like we've lost Dr Shields at the moment. Vicki Swales, can I ask you to come in at this point until we get Dr Shields back? Thank you, convener. Good morning to members of the committee. If I pick up on Scottish environment links understanding of the environmental impacts of our food system, as previous speakers have indicated, we know that our food system has very significant environmental footprint affecting biodiversity and our climate globally and domestically on land and at sea as well. In the face of a nature and climate emergency, it's really critical that we look at our food system and we look at reducing the environmental impacts of that food system. It's really critical from our perspective that we take action now and we take it quickly. This decade is really significant to 2030. It's the UN decade of ecosystem restoration. We know that we're going to have legally binding targets for nature recovery and we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 if we're going to get to net zero by 2045. We have a clear and growing evidence base about the state of our environment and some of the drivers behind that. We've had some big international assessments by diversity. We have the biodiversity intactness index of how much human activity has impacted on nature. Of 240 countries, Scotland is 28th from the bottom, so we're not doing very well in terms of what's happening to biodiversity. Our state of nature report has summarised very clearly the problems facing very many species. We've had 49 per cent decline of species in abundance and 11 per cent of species threatened with extinction. As other speakers have highlighted, we have very significant greenhouse gas emissions from land use, from farming, from our food system as a whole. We've really got to tackle those issues and we need to transition quickly to farming and fishing methods that are nature and climate friendly, which reduce those emissions, which reduce those impacts on biodiversity. Our food system has a really big part to play in that. It's part of the problem currently, but it needs to be part of the solution to a bill that's really being in a position to help to drive forward change and some of the transformational change that we're going to need to do that quite quickly in the next decade. Thank you very much. I'm going to move back to Dr Shields, but I'm going to ask my next question. We've heard that the plan, the bill needs to do this and it needs to do that, but Dr Shields, you said that we shouldn't assume that it's just going to do that. The bill is drafted in front of us as a framework bill, so it doesn't, as it sits, potentially achieve any of the ambitions that stakeholders would like it to. There's an argument that the bill shouldn't have been laid in the way it has been now and the Government should have fleshed it out a little bit more. It looks like at the moment that it's going to be left to parliamentarians to bring forward amendments to deliver some of those ambitions. I'll start with Dr Shields. Is that your understanding? Do you think that the bill is drafted? Is it going to enable Scotland to achieve its ambitions? There's a lot that needs to be added to the bill. Beyond a general mission statement, there needs to be reporting procedures and accountability mechanisms and a clear definition of what we mean by good food. There's also an opportunity to expand the commitments under section 3. As the session is on, the environment, the scope to add links to key frameworks around the environment, for instance, FAL and WHO's guidelines on sustainable health and diets. Some of those principles are around use of pathogens and toxins and maintaining greenhouse gas emissions, preserving biodiversity, minimising the use of antibiotics, reducing fruit loss and waste and so forth. There's a lot more that could be done to hitch this to international frameworks. There's also the right to a healthy and sustainable environment, which was passed in a resolution on 8 October 2021, which is highly relevant for this bill. There's also options for what France has done recently. It passed a law in 2008, which came into force in January 2021, that demands that 50 per cent of sustainable products are used in public institutions catering. It includes measures against food waste and bans on food surpluses and things like that. There can be a level of specificity, and there can also be attachment to the broader framework issues, and I certainly look forward to that being built into the bill, as you say, through discussion on amendments. Thank you. A brief supplementary from Rachel Hamilton and then Alasdair Allan. On the point that you just made, you believe that the Good Food Nation Bill is the place to strengthen the procurement rules in Scotland? Absolutely. Stronger procurement rules, what are we dealing with? Procurement rules enable us to build closer connections over the source of our food supply. By doing that, we can regenerate food production across Scotland by specifying particular quality of produce in procurement. Procurement is really within the magic happens. I will go to the other panel members before bringing Alasdair Allan in, if you do not mind. Ian, what are your views on the drafted bill as it is before us at the moment? When I do agree to some extent, if the bill was more prescriptive and had more specific actions contained in it as presented in specific targets, you could see a benefit from that. There is also enabling legislation, so I think that power is how the plans that are developed by the Government and local authorities, probably local authorities in particular, how they could shape the future that we are talking about. The power that they have, not just in writing a plan and looking about their own internal operations, but how they could strengthen and work together collaboratively—all 32 local authorities, for instance, and all national health boards work together to shape that new food system that we are all talking about—more sustainable, healthier and more accessible—dins of population and diet, et cetera. That is something that I witnessed during Glasgow COP26, where almost an awakening of cities, particularly in a number of events around the agenda, how cities, where they import almost 99 per cent of all the food that goes into cities, all comes from outwith cities. The influence that they could have, both individually but more importantly, working together collaboratively across—it comes back to that point about procurement. I think that that is where the ambition needs to lie. If we are really serious about that, how could the public bodies come together, not just trying to address their own particular issues? Absolutely, they need to do that in terms of the populations themselves, but how could they come together and shape that system, both at a national level and collaboratively across all parts of Scotland? Having that ambition set out and how do we support them? How do agencies, such as I, support all those plans so that they are all aligned, they are all joined up, they are all in the same direction, and those real significant opportunities—it is not a fragmented approach, it is a joined-up approach across Scotland that I believe could deliver. That ambition is set out in the plans and it is taken forward by particularly local authorities and the other agencies. I think that we will see the success that we are all aspiring to. Do you think that the bill is drafted in front of us is going to be fit for purpose? Are we assuming too much and what is in front of us? I think that there is good scope for additional ambition, but I would say that there is a time imperative here in that we are desperate to meet the 1.5-degree target and therefore actions need to be taken as soon as possible. I appreciate that it takes quite a long time to get a bill through Parliament, so there is an imperative to try and set things in motion and also understanding that bills can be amended afterwards. It would be really important to get things moving as fast as possible. At this point, I would like to bring in a notion about the psychology of the population in terms of what we have with the Food-Nation Bill. It is an opportunity to bring everybody on board to take steps towards mitigating climate change through our choices of the food that we consume and where we buy it from. There is room for ambition in it, but the delay of waiting until you have got something that is more ideal as a bill may miss the window of opportunity that may fade in the coming year or two in terms of that immediate response to the climate emergency. We have already witnessed that to some extent. After COP26, there was obviously a lot of interest, but other things that distract us in the news and things take away the thought about the climate and biodiversity crisis. What I would urge is not to wait until the bill is perfect, but rather to get it through on the basis that what you can do is use it as impetus to try to get everybody on board, the whole population on board, as to the scale of the emergency and what the individuals can do about it. I'm going to move on to Alasdair Allan, who's got some supplementaries. Thank you very much. The question for Ian Gollum was really about some of the fearful statistics that you've just given us about food waste and the solution that you're setting out, which quite rightly you're advocating for more food to be grown in Scotland that can be used in Scotland. It was really just to ask you about how that all relates to the problem that we were talking about last week, which is the affordability of food, not just because of the cost of living going up, but more generally what we've been talking through this issue of how do we make food affordable for people on low incomes. I just wonder if you can say something about how all that we want to see happen, more food grown in Scotland being used in Scotland as a solution to some of the problems that you've outlined. How do we actually make that happen in terms of affordability? Good question. Obviously, it's the aspect of the price of food, but also the fact that across all parts of society we waste food, and that's a cost. We talked about the carbon emissions part for the average household that ranges from around about £500 a year that we're pending on food that we don't eat. That's another aspect to this as well, not just the price of food that is impacting on our households and the affordable money that we've got to spend, if we could just think differently about how we buy food, how we consume it, how we store it, because there are elements of clearly aspects of behaviours that we could support at household levels to people in terms of cooking, preparing food, so they don't waste food, store food properly, whether it's in the fridge or the freezer. They use leftovers to save money, so that allows them to to some extent spend the money on food going forward. There's also aspects about how do we grow more food for all the businesses that I've talked about that we work with directly. They are making cost savings, so food waste, whether it's the production, whether it's the supply or the retail, the food waste costs their money, so that's a cost that they're having to put on to the price of food or the price of their operation. Again, by addressing the food waste issue not only is obviously good for the climate, it's good for the economy. That almost million tonnes of food that we waste throughout the supply chain is over a billion pounds of cost to the economy, both at household level and within industry. I think that the hospitality industry costs them about £170 million a year, and particularly now when the hospitality industry is under such pressure, that's the waste that is what's impacting on the bottom line. There's obviously more challenges about making the cost of food or looking at the cost of the food. There's savings that can be made right through it, and obviously we start to ensure some of that production and some of that growing here in Scotland. There's huge potential for us to reduce those cost savings further by thinking about the whole supply system and the inputs into that, particularly around inorganic fertilisers, et cetera. I'm thinking differently about how we grow our food in Scotland and addressing that. I'm going back to the point about how local authorities could influence this by working collaboratively together to create innovative solutions to how food is grown and prepared and supplied with one of the big things that I'm sure other people saw during COP26 was vertical farming. It was promoted by the Scottish based company, IGS. I think that innovative growth solutions looked at that and as a real opportunity to grow more food more sustainably here in Scotland, obviously not replacing the whole market of food, but specific food types and providing that at local level at reduced cost, reduced environmental impact, less transport to people across the world of Scotland. What an opportunity for us. That innovation could be supported by the lights of local authorities and NHS and other partners working together to create the market pool for those reduced cost solutions. I wanted to come back to your question of whether the bill has drafted to help us to achieve its ambitions. You said that it should be a framework, law and environmental perspective. We feel that the bill has drafted its very lighting ambition and content. It's a good start. We need a national food plan. We need local food plans, absolutely. The bill has drafted doesn't establish a very clear purpose around what we mean around a good food nation, high-level principles or give us that sense of direction of travel in Scotland that we need and clear goals for our food system and a process for delivering and reporting on progress, for example. Those principles and goals that should be set out on the face of the bill would then need to underpin and inform national plans, local food plans and, indeed, future relevant legislation regulation and policy. For example, we know that we're going to have an agriculture bill and a natural environment bill that we've got the national planning framework for going through at the moment. We'd very much like to see clear purpose on the face of the bill. We think that the bill should establish some high-level targets that would help to drive progress and things that we can measure against. We also think that there needs to be the establishment—we might come on to this—of a body, an independent body, a statutory food commission, which would help to provide coherence and oversight, look at how we monitor and evaluate progress in our food system in order to deliver all the things that we need, whether that's thinking about health or environment, the affordability of food, access to food, everything else, all those really difficult issues that face our food system. Dr Shields, in response to Alasdair Allan's MSP's question about the cost of a transition, just to say that cheap food is extremely expensive when we consider the impacts on the environment and especially on health and on NCDs. Perhaps the most critical thing that the bill has to build in is a budget sharing mechanism where it can move towards looking at net budget savings and start to long-term funding for a food system that will offset costs in other parts of the world. Thank you very much. I'll give a short supplementary from Jim Fairlie. This question is specifically to Ian Gullin. Ian, are you suggesting that all local authorities should work to the same plan collaboratively and effectively have one national local plan, if that makes sense? No, not quite. The law has specific, almost internal issues within the local authority area to address accessibility to food. To me, the power of the bill is not just then thinking absolutely about addressing food issues within local authority, but about how it could influence the food supply chain and economic development and the wider food system. I think that creating a market pool for things like vertical farming or enhanced innovation in food supply through the agricultural system is thinking about that. I think that each collective action needs a fragmented approach. There are lots of great stuff happening, replicating those ideas across different local authorities. I think that that's all that happens. I think that the power of the bill would be how those different parts could really mobilise together and think beyond their own local authority area and how they could shape the supply chains both here in Scotland and abroad to push fuller, certainly from the climate point of view, and possibly create more economic prosperity for Scotland in the agricultural and food service. How do we make sure that all of the individual plans are not just aligned if they're all going to go and do that type of work, so there's potential identification of those opportunities at a national level and then the local authorities can see how they can play into those so that we don't, to some extent, try to create the biggest impacts of a small number of interventions at a national level to create the impact that we're all talking about? Thank you. Questions from Karen Adam. Thank you, convener. I'm really interested in what you had to say, Ian, in terms of collaborative working and that coming together with purpose and sustainable goals. I've been asking the panel about targets in the past few weeks. What I've realised is that stakeholders have very specific targets, very specific asks and often times they don't cross over with other stakeholders' ambitions. To that extent, can targets be too constraining on achieving ultimate ambitions of a good food nation? Also, could it constrain local diversity approaches bespoke to their own specific areas, as Jim touched upon as well? How does the panel see a more collaborative and collective plan for food in Scotland, which is important to what Ian touched on, but would also ensure effective action in making that connection with sustainable development goals, as opposed to targets that perhaps could be more of a problem than part of a whole culture change? I'm a great believer in targets setting the framework for action. We have a national target for food waste reduction from the Scottish Government, 33 per cent by 2025. There's a UN target of 50 per cent reduction by 2030. That's the ambition, but I do think that it's up to, whether it's different sectors or different parts of Scotland, to understand how they then contribute to that and set their own goals, whether they set the specific target. The key for me is the collaborative nature, because of the time frame that we're all working in on climate change and the necessity to scale up. We need to work together. There's lots of successful initiatives on food waste happening at a local level, but they're small. They're targeted, ambitious and delivering, but we need to scale some of those up. How do we ensure that local authorities or different agencies or NHS are otherwise working together to share best practice, share their learning, share their successes and how can we then replicate those across, instead of trying to reinvent different programmes and projects? That's the key. How do we create that collaboration and synergy? There's really big opportunities in terms of supply and land management and particular dietary issues that we need to address that we can do together. Whether that's around a common target or a common activity or a common understanding of the challenges and how they can shape some of those opportunities, for me that's the power of the bill, is how do we bring everybody together around a common purpose? Everybody recognises you, rather than you divide up the target amongst everybody and then everybody then just focus on their bit of that, because this is a systems approach. Everybody said that. You can't look at this in isolation. Everything is connected and if we're serious about doing it, we all have to be at the table working on this together. I absolutely agree with that. It really is a systems approach, but also with the fact that we would like to see some headline and outcome targets on the face of the bill. They're really important in setting the direction of travel, in driving outcomes, in giving clarity to everyone about what we're trying to achieve. From an environmental perspective, we could include an environmental target to halve the environmental impact of the food system, including food waste by 2030. That's picking up on what Ian's just said about going further than the current targets on food waste, for example. What targets do require is to measure and establish baselines and work out what's possible and to look at the impacts of the food zones. We can identify the appropriate indicators and the metrics by which we do that and judge whether we're making progress towards those outcomes that we're all looking for or not. That's really important. Clearly, how we achieve those targets requires everybody to play their part. It requires a lot of collaborative action and a lot of collaborative working. The process of producing the national food plans and local food plans is going to require the engagement of a wide range of stakeholders, individuals and actors. That brings to a point that we may come on to about participation and how we engage people in the processes of working out what it is that we need to be doing and how we deliver against the goals that we're setting up for ourselves, and how we genuinely create a good food nation that is tackling environmental issues, health issues, food waste and all those things that we know about, food inequalities, etc. I agree that targets are problematic and the relevant authorities are going to face hard choices between competing priorities. With the targets as well, there are certain gaps in our indicators and there's the issue of what isn't counted, isn't measured and therefore isn't valued. Targets are problematic. If there are targets included, I would also say that there has to be a statement to say that there's a responsibility on government to assist the relevant authorities in achieving the targets. Just asking the relevant authorities to meet the targets is going to create diverse outcomes. In order to connect the plans, there should be an overarching national food strategy and mission statement. That strategy should focus on reorientating food systems to link health and environment, and the economy will fit in to that. There are a number of ways of reorientating and realigning health and environment through food, for example increasing production of local fruit and veg. There also has to be a platform to share common resources between the authorities, to share experience, evidence and decision support tools. The platform should also put data within the reach of different authorities, otherwise we will have huge disparities between areas. There are lots of models as to how to do that. For instance, the Scottish centres of expertise have teams that are neutral and can provide support to targeted issues. The issue of having targets is going to be a little bit central to that. You can argue that without the climate change, targets' activities would not have happened. If we have targets, we have something to aim for. If we go with the argument that we become what we measure and we develop appropriate monitoring, reporting and verification of those targets, then they can become quite a useful tool. I take Kerstin's point that there will be gaps in between, but there are some targets that could be linked to other objectives. For example, soil health. If a soil health indicator is improving, it can relate to the quality of food and the ability to provide it in the long term. The range of targets that can be set for other purposes is important. It would be important to include things that are perhaps seen as beyond the food system, which are essential parts of it as well. I was really interested in Ian's position regarding the collaboration across the local authorities and Government. My understanding of the bill is that it is an enabling bill that will allow us to create a shift in the culture of how we use food and what food it is and how people feel about their food. Following on from the progress that we have already made, because we have made huge strides in Scotland over the years to improve the food quality over the past 20 years, there is always a wee dichotomy for me. That is how the coherence between the good food nation bill and other upcoming legislation and policy changes at the lengths of the agricultural bill, the circular economy bill and the national environmental bill and even the human rights bill. How do we get those things connected so that they are working in tandem? Ian, I will come to you first. The challenging question to some extent, because there are a lot of these bills and initiatives. I think that that is the challenge of our time, as we have certainly seen how climate change is not any particular silo can sort this out. It is all aspects of society and industry, and everything is interconnected even from our own decisions and the power of national governments and local governments and communities to make the change. We all have to be aligned. I think that there is an opportunity, even in Scotland, because we have the ambition obviously around climate change, around tackling poverty and all the other aspects that we want to address to work more collaboratively. In this sense, it is creating a different platform for us all to speak about this, to work to contribute, not to see food in a particular part of society or even within the Parliament. It depends on talking to a different committee for me to talk about food rates, where I usually talk to the net zero committee about this. How do we get everybody to see that this is so important and a priority? Food is the most important thing for all of us in terms of sustainability. Maybe that trumps all the other things to an extent that we can get food right in the way that we grow our food, the way that we distribute our food, the way that we use our land to do that. We can solve some of those other aspects of agriculture, the natural environment, et cetera, because of the impact that the current food system is having on biodiversity loss and land use and all the things that we have just talked about. How do we form a priority? What is the priority in all those bills? Is it food and the way that we choose food, use our land to choose food and ultimately supply it? We need to talk about food ways in terms of climate ambitions. As I said, it has been understated. It is not something that we even nationally talk about when we talk about climate change, about reducing flying, about renewables, et cetera. All of that is important and we need to do that. However, the impact of our food system in Scotland and globally is really the biggest contributor to climate change. We need to do something about it. If we are serious about that, outwith the recovery from the pandemic and the health crisis that we are in, if climate change is the biggest challenge that we face in Scotland and globally, we need to address food ways. That needs to be one of our overarching priorities in terms of action and all the other bills and all the other activities that we are involved in to feed into that. I would say that it is tempting to always think of those policies as competing when, in fact, they are all mutually reinforcing. A healthy environment is essential for healthy diets. Healthy diets are essential for the economy and for issues of equality and justice. They are all aiming in the same direction. We should avoid looking at policies as being competing. In fact, there is a circular economy between the gains that are achieved in one area and can feed progress in the other area. Against that, I would say that, if there is any doubt as to what the overarching aim should be, it is time to refer to the constitution. It is at that level of what are the aims, what is the Government here to do, what is the highest aim of government and all those policy statements that should be feeding into that. Finally, on that supplementary, Dr Irvington—oh, no, we have lost him—Fickey Swales, have you got a comment on policy coherency? Yes, thank you convener. As we are establishing food intersects, obviously there are so many different areas that are relevant to some aspects of policy in forthcoming legislation. I think that this comes back to the good food nation bill having a clear sense of purpose in setting out direction. If we put some clear targets in it and if we have an overarching body looking at policy coherence, that is a key link for a statutory firm. I have informed lots of things that then come down the line. As Jim mentioned, we know that we have an agriculture bill coming, we have a natural environment bill, a circular economy, all those things are relevant, but they can take their lead if there is clarity in a clear sense of direction about how we want to improve our food system in Scotland in the good food nation bill. That will help to create policy coherence and inform other aspects of legislation and other areas of policy that are coming and in our marine environment, for example. If I can pick up on a key one in terms of looking at some of the environmental impacts and thinking about that agriculture bill, we very much see that the good food nation bill has got to lead the way for that agriculture bill, which will create the powers for a new system of farm support. If we are serious about reducing the environmental impact of our food system, we need to transition to farming systems and practices that are going to help us to do that, we are going to tackle the nature and climate emergency. That means that we need to refocus how we spend that £650 million thereabouts of public money that goes into supporting farming to better deliver against some of the outcomes that we are looking for in terms of environment and healthy food and everything else. There are various mechanisms that the good food nation bill can establish which help to create policy coherence and give a lead to other areas of policy legislation. It was actually just to pick up on the disagreement within the group of evidence today where some believe that targets are suitable and some believe that they are not. I know that within this room there is a disagreement on that as well. Yesterday in the health committee, Marie Todd said that there was a really worrying increase in childhood health problems with 15.5 per cent of primary 1 children at risk of obesity last year, up from 10 per cent in 2009. We know because it was mentioned last week by Karen Adam that it is a peculiarity of the modern food system that obesity sometimes coexists with hunger, so bad diets per calorie are much cheaper than healthy diets. I want to open it up to the panel. In your opinion, firstly to Kerstin, without targets on the face of the bill, how can these various environmental issues, dietary issues, be achieved? I really appreciate that you have said that targets are not necessarily something that you support, but I think that for this committee it is important to hone in to know why. I am so glad to have the opportunity to clarify that. I agree that targets are difficult and they are problematic. It does not mean that we should not use them. If they are on the bill, the responsibility for meeting the targets has to be with the Government to resource the relevant authorities to work towards the targets and then the benefits of working towards those targets can be met. I absolutely am not saying that there should not be targets on the face of the bill or in the bill, but I am agreeing that there are problems with targets. Targets done badly can create more harm, so we have to get the targets right. That is a lot about the content of the targets themselves but the accountability towards the targets. Targets without a budget are not particularly helpful. To Mike, on the land use strategy itself, how can diet and land use be married up? One of the opportunities is to focus on more locally produced food and veg production. Obviously, a large area is put aside for grazing and livestock. That land area in itself is now under pressure for carbon sequestration purposes, for example from tree planting, given that we import so many of our food and vegetables from places such may in the future and near future become more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and potentially experience water shortages. We have the opportunity in Scotland to be able to produce more of the high nutrition food from food and vegetables at home. As Ian has mentioned, there are also great opportunities from the vertical farming and controlled environment agriculture as well. I think that there is a central place within the land use strategy as to how we can best cite these efforts to improve food and vegetable growing and that, with developing technologies, we are getting more flexibility about where that can actually happen rather than being constrained just on things like soil quality and climatic impacts as well. Looking at climate change projections for Scotland, we are likely to see an increase in opportunities for more flexible cropping systems. Having said that, there are also substantial risks in terms of loss of productivity in some years because of climate impacts as well. On the basis that if Scotland experiences those impacts, other parts of the world are likely to experience them more severely. I think that that is a good case for making Scotland more resilient to impacts elsewhere in the world by being able to produce the sort of foods that we would normally import. What I would add to that is that we do need to be a little bit careful not to go down the self-sufficiency route entirely because international trade is obviously quite an important stabilisation factor and food is a great example of that. Also to achieve the diversity of foods, we do still need to look at imports as well for diversity of ingredients. In terms of your question of the land use strategy, it has to be integrated with all the other aims and targets that we have for, for example, increasing the planted area, increasing the area for conservation. Within that, there is plenty of scope for increasing what I would call the self-reliance of Scotland in being able to produce those high-quality, high-nutritional value food products. I would like to ask the panel's views on the link between the right to food and environmental incomes. We know that the key element of long-term food security is environmentally sustainable food production and to enable our food system to continue to reduce food for future generations. I wonder if the panel could give their views on the link between the right to food and environmental outcomes and whether they think that the right to food should be incorporated or otherwise strengthened in the bill. Without diversity and healthy environment, we are not going to be able to meet food security needs and food poverty will increase. It has direct impacts on the way that we are currently producing and consuming food has very damaging impacts on the environment, so it is a two-way process between the environment and our diets. In terms of content on the right to food, I see that, in section 3, there is reference to article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which includes the right to adequate food. I think that the main content of the right to food is contained within the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment 12. Reference should be made to that, which has much more detail in terms of obligations on states in relation to both the production and the availability and affordability and access of food. Linking to article 11 is not enough. Linking to the UN general comment is where all the detail is, and I think that that would really give the right to food a much stronger platform in this bill. Thank you. I think that it is essential that we have an element of the right to food within the Good Food Nation bill, because it is associated with so many other basic fundamental rights, the right to a healthy environment. I think that there is an opportunity here for a very good link to the two things that we tend to think about food, where our food comes from, and we need to think more about that. If there is an opportunity to link the right to food, to the right to clean water, it fits in very neatly with the sustainable development goals. I referred to the psychology of the population in terms of how we view the environment. There is a very strong case to be made that we have not valued the environment enough and that, to address the climate and biodiversity emergencies, we need to value it. We need to value the environment a lot more. One way that you can do that is actually firming up the links between the right to food and the quality of the environment, and I think that that will help a lot with people's attitudes and their perceptions of values if we are able to better value the environment and what it can actually do to us. I think that the two things are really neatly linked. I guess that I have to pose the opposite. If you do not have something on the right to food, then it is also negating the right to a healthy environment as well. It is very clear that the right to food includes the right to have food that is produced in environmentally sustainable ways, as has already been indicated. We are very clear that the Scottish Government has described the bill as giving practical effect to the right to the food. For us, it is really important that that purpose is explicitly set out in the bill, that it defines that right to food, which includes the environment and that it restates the duty on ministers to realise that right and links those duties and powers to giving practical effect to discussion and debate around where that right to food sits in terms of human rights and with forthcoming human rights legislation. However, we have a real opportunity now with the Good Food Nation bill to put that right to food front and centre and for that to encompass all aspects that everybody has access to adequate amounts of appropriate food, as I say, and healthy and nutritious food, which is produced and environmentally sustainable ways. For us, it is a really critical point, and we need to see the bill help to progress that right to food in all its different component parts, but especially around the environmental aspects. I echo what others have said in terms of how it fits with that. It goes mad at that question on policy cohesion around the seriousness of tackling inequalities, and it feels that it is the right thing to do. Clearly, for me, anything that is going to help to drive all the reductions in food waste here in Scotland and get people's attention on the imbalance that we have, I think that I said in my earlier remarks, is that we globally grow enough food for everyone. It is just the supply and distribution of that that is really impacting on societies and individuals across the whole world. The amount of food that we waste could potentially feed a huge part of society who are going hungry both here in Scotland and around the world. I think that we are picking up on a previous point. We forget all that food waste. We have talked about it in carbon emissions, but it is also important. Minerals, etc. and vitamins are being lost as well. We have done work on a recent project with a primary school which, over four weeks, wasted nearly 200 litres of milk and yogurt. That is the equivalent of the dietary requirement in terms of calcium of 420 children. You start to think about it in that terms as well. The amount of waste that we are producing in terms of our food is not just climatic, it is nutritional, it is a health impact as well that we are wasting. Thank you. Through that, do you suggest that there should be the right to food incorporated within the bill, or should it be dealt with in other legislation? I do not think that that was clear. No, yes. In the bill, yes, in the bill, yes. Thanks very much. I will now move on to our next theme and question from Arianna Badges. Thanks, convener, and thank you very much, panel. It has been a really good conversation this morning, and bringing in things like soil indicators and food waste is moving the conversation on and opening it up. I will pick up on the theme of participation, oversight and accountability. I have a few questions in this area, and I will start with a question directed to Dr Shields. I would like to hear your views on whether the bill provides sufficient opportunity for meaningful participation from food industry workers, stakeholder groups and members of the public, especially people whose voices are seldom heard in the food policy design? As it stands, I do not think that there are those provisions present in the bill. I think that there is a huge opportunity to develop food councils attached to the relevant authorities in terms of making their good food plans. There are fantastic examples of food councils, particularly from North America, Toronto and places like Detroit and also in Europe, in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. There are great examples of setting up food councils that might create their own reference in terms of how they meet and how they debate and how they mediate on issues, or we can look at best-case examples from these international examples. However, I think that the bill could contain more detail on setting up the councils alongside the creation of the plans and discussing representation on those councils. I do not think that there is much on that at all in the bill, on how the plans are going to be created. I will move on. I would like to hear your thoughts on how a Scottish Food Commission or another body would help to ensure that the people's participation is an oversight that feeds into the process of drafting the good food nation plans, and if that body should be established before the work takes place? I think that there is a huge value in establishing a body. The other value of establishing commission is that it will secure commitment to the process that transcends electoral cycles, so that it will create a certain permanence, like the Land Commission has done. On the representation of stakeholders on that commission, there is a lot to learn from the Land Commission in terms of how they have both engaged, educated and engaged through different mobile roadshows and discussion forums. There has to be an element of shared ownership that has to be private representation and public representation. Vicki Swales, you mentioned some kind of Scottish Food Commission earlier in our conversation. Do you like to come in and expand on that? Dr Shields mentioned the Land Commission, and I wonder if that is a good model that we could be picking up here in Scotland in terms of the good food nation bill. I think that, certainly, the bill, as it stands at the minute, has got limited consultation. How we get active engagement or participation is a really key thing in that. That is definitely something that we see as a role and a function of setting up a statutory food commission, which will be to support that citizen engagement and participatory democracy. There are lots of different ways in which we could do that. We see that body having quite a number of different functions alongside that engagement and participation. It has an important role in terms of data gathering, helping to monitor and report on progress in relation to setting outcome targets and indicators, providing scrutiny and evaluation of national and local food plans and relevant policies, ensuring that policy coherence and join-up is difficult to achieve at the moment. Food affects so many different policy areas and ministerial portfolios that are relevant to so many different committees of this Parliament. It is difficult to get that scrutiny, so setting up a body with that explicit purpose, which can then provide advice and guidance on those issues and identify where we may need to make policy changes, et cetera. Those are all things that could be really important functions of a body. In that sense, we see some analogies with the Scottish Land Commission and the way that it was set up in some of its functions. They are very similar to what I have just described. There is an important point about the permanence of going beyond electoral cycles and having a body that builds up that expertise, staff and resources to look into those sorts of issues and have the knowledge to do that. It would perform a really important function. I know that there are always issues and concerns that are raised about setting up new and separate bodies and the costs of those, but we need to look at some of the benefits that it will provide in terms of giving us driving progress and giving us some of the coherence across all those issues that span the food system and generally making progress on this front. We didn't go and like to comment on that as well. No, I agree with that. I think that that is obviously something that Ellison pointed out, and I agree with who is going to certainly oversee the plans, the development of the plans, and the point that I made about the real strength of the plans would be how they are all aligned and how they support collaborative working. How do we ensure that that is happening? Who is going to hold the various agencies to account in terms of reporting and making progress? That important thing about participation is to ensure that all the partners that we have talked about and to ensure that that collaboration is there. How do we ensure that the right support is to the individual agencies to develop the plans and deliver on them, such as skills, capacity, who is going to, to some extent, brigade organisations such as our own Zero Weed Scotland to provide the right support alongside the participants and active citizenship, etc. Having a commission or a body established is fundamental to success, to a degree, and we welcome that and to be part of that. Dr Shields indicated that you would like to come back in. Just to say also that some of those international examples say that a major change that occurred through the food councils or a food commission was this move to looking at food issues and shared responsibilities, moving away from individualising food and diet issues. The Amsterdam programme was on a childhood obesity plan and by spreading responsibility for this across a very wide range of stakeholders, there was a cultural change that this childhood obesity was not to be left to individual households to tackle. It was a community problem and I think that brings huge value. I would like to follow on from Arianne Burgess' question about participation and, interestingly, Dr Shields, what you were talking about there is a community taking responsibility for an issue. It is fair to say that the bill is giving us a fresh approach to seek to embed food within public policy. A word that has been coming up through all this morning's evidence is coherence. That coherence across a wide range of areas to create an improved food landscape for everyone and to encourage cultural change. I am interested to hear about the participation of how we get people involved. I think that some people, I think that Vicky Swales and your evidence proposed a citizens assembly, so I am interested to hear about what you think about that across the participants and also other forms of engagement for the creation of those food plans, the national one and also ones in local authorities and other public bodies. I was struck by Dr Rivington's comments early on about the time imperative of getting that introduced. I start with Vicky Swales. There was a call recently for a citizens assembly of Scotland model to be embedded in Scottish politics and making the principles and practice of participatory democracy a real thing. We have had some examples of that in terms of a climate assembly. We have also had work in the Scottish Parliament previously looking at not quite the same thing but in the previous Parliament near Claire committee, for example, we had an inquiry into a citizens inquiry into land management payments, for example. There are various different models and ways of engaging society, engaging people in these really important issues and getting their lived experiences and ideas, getting their knowledge and informing processes. I think that there is real scope here to think about a citizens food assembly and how that might work. I think that that is a role in setting that up, which could be given to the establishment of a statutory food commission if we get that. Obviously, those things do take time. They can have some costs associated with them, but many of the benefits that can flow from doing that in such a complex area of food could be significant. We need to get away from the idea that we can do a short consultation, and that is sufficient to deal with and identify what are, in many cases, some really intractable problems with difficult things to sort out. Great participation and engagement are absolutely important. We need to look at all the existing mechanisms that we have. For example, just struck by comments earlier on the land use strategy, we have piloting regional land use partnerships to produce regional land use frameworks. That is another process of engagement. We should certainly look across the piece at what we have already got, but I think that there is probably scope to significantly build on that and do something new that would feel really quite fresh and ambitious for Scotland. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the time frame versus the importance of the public engagement and getting buy-in. Thank you, Jenny. The time imperative also implies the need to engage with people. I think that there is an important point about that. Through the engagement, you can help to glean all the information that is needed to address what is a very complex system, the food system, and how it relates to society. In doing so, if we develop this participation process, and I will back up exactly what Vicky has just said about the opportunities here, we also need mechanisms by which information is transferred back through networks and process of engagement on best practice, on how we achieve the range of their targets or whatever the ambitions are. If it is set up properly, it can be a two-way process. You can gather information from the relevant communities. I think that that is just an extension to my previous response about issues to do with food production within Scotland. I think that there is probably a very important issue to do with things like affordable housing in terms of if we are wanting to look to increase production of food within Scotland in rural areas and in urban areas. Having things like affordable housing will help to provide the basis on which people are able to take up employment opportunities that arise. Having that engagement with a very wide diversity of involved stakeholders to identify what all the different issues are within how you do the food system transformation will provide the information that we can then use to make decisions and then reverse the flow of information back through those networks on how best to implement them as well. Time limits. Do you want to move on? I have a supplementary question from Arrianne Burgess. Thank you, convener. I just want to pick up on the Scottish Food Commission and its role a little bit more or whatever oversight body. I am going to direct that question in the interest of time to Ian Gulland. I just think that you might have some experience from your work at zero waste. Some stakeholders have called for this body to produce an annual state of food progress report, which would reflect how well the country is doing against objectives or targets in the good food nation plans or possibly in the bill. Those reports could be examined by parliamentary committees, just like the UK CCC's progress reports on emission reductions or examined by NSET. I am wondering whether you believe that that would be an important function over an oversight body and how progress reports could encourage and incentivise the private sector to play its part in delivering a good food nation. The simple answer is yes. That would be very good. I think that it is pretty good that this is the reporting. An annual cycle of reporting on progress against actions from our point of view reducing food waste then allows us to address insufficient progress or areas where we are getting greater traction and ensuring that we are learning from that and replicating that across other parts of Scotland. The success of the climate commission is that it not only reports, it gives analysis, it gives scenarios about how to get back on track, so to speak, and areas of focus. It brings people to account, to somebody who holds people to account, different sectors that are potentially not progressing as much as other areas. I think that that would be very significantly beneficial to have an annual cycle of that from the oversight. The role of commercial companies is important. I come back to the planning. If the planning is done—I talk a lot about citizens there—the development of the plans at national and local level includes industry, sectors, businesses, local businesses as well as national businesses that are involved in that, they will feel as accountable to the direct—not just the ambition but the targets and the reporting as much as anybody else, and they will be woven into that just as much as individual communities. Even that, again, how do we—having an oversight body who would support the input from industry per se, I think would be really useful as well as citizens, and I think that that would encourage greater participation, if not essential participation, by commercial enterprises and third sector enterprises in the food system as well, if we might feel a little bit excited from that process at the moment. We are not going to move on to questions from Jim Fairlie. Just in the interest of time, we are running very rapidly at a time. I will ask any members to direct the questions to individual panel members, but if any of the panel members feel that they specifically want to answer them if they could indicate in the chat on what we will try to bring in. Thank you, convener, and I will direct this to Ian and Kirstyn, if that is okay. You might have largely covered this, but I just want to know what your views are on the practical role of public authorities in the Good Food Nation in relation to securing environmental outcomes. Need to start? Yes, please, Ian. I think that, certainly, they can impact on procurement of food in the supply chain. As I've mentioned already, they can help to support the delivery of initiatives locally to their citizens. I think that there's a real role for them, but it's not just about their own food supply. They can shape wider activity on the ground with their citizens, with businesses, supporting economic development, supporting particular innovation around the food system locally and distribution, but also the supply working collectively, and, more importantly, the strategic support for the wider change that we're trying to create here in Scotland. I think that there's a lot that they can do out with just looking at their own food and supply to schools, which is obviously very important, and we can use that as a driver. They can support and facilitate other action in the ground. In case of planning as well? I absolutely agree with that. Their powers are limited to the powers that they currently have. So, whether they can effectively tackle being flooded with processed foods and issues of high-street issues, who's the main food provider and all of that, those issues can't easily be tackled by local authorities. They're focused, therefore, beyond places of public food. There are really great examples from Europe—Italian, Casa de Popolo, for instance, which are community food hubs. There's no stigma attached to them. People go there to read the papers. They have very close ties with farms, whether they are local farms or regional farms, and they have a sense of seasonality about their food system, and food cultures and food processing, and all of that. There's a lot of food education that happens in those centres. Those stem from post-Second World War era, and maybe that's where we need to pick up from in terms of redressing the food culture in the UK, is to go back and look at what was lost then and how we can recultivate a sense of community around food. Local authorities are very well-placed to do that. There are also examples from France, where a municipality, Muen Sartreau, bought land in order to supply school food, and that model has now been replicated in different municipalities and small regions around Europe. It's called Bio-Cantines. There you see a reform of not just farming but the whole food system. I'd like to ask about the relevant authority. The bill sets out that the Scottish ministers and relevant authorities must have regard to the good food nation plans when exercising their specified functions. Can you share your views on who should be designated a relevant authority in terms of the bill? Can I go to Dr Shields, please? Who you think should be designated a relevant authority in terms of the bill? Does anybody else want to come in on that? The question is, where does the limit? Is it just local authorities, health boards, or are there other public bodies that should be described as relevant authorities? Does anybody else want to come in on that, Ian? I'd like to go through all the different agencies and authorities in the public realm. We would hope that everybody would take recognition of the national plan and the local plan and, certainly, either voluntary or become part of it, set their own ambitions. I'm thinking about prisons, for instance, where a great user of food comes back to that collaborative nature about procurement. If we're serious about changing some of the way the systems of supply of food here in Scotland, we need all the public agencies to be involved in it and to be accountable to it. It's not just the health boards and the local authorities, it's probably a whole range of other agencies that could be part of it. If there is a list of relevant authorities in the face of the bill, why should there be a list of relevant authorities in the face of the bill? I think that some of the main ones are the health boards and the local authorities, but I was thinking about the previous question and the public authorities and bodies that own land. If we're thinking about how public land is managed in various ways in reducing our environmental footprint, whether there's scope to doing an assessment of that and thinking about how that public land is used in relation to our food system generally, as well as the obvious functions around their roles in procurement and shortening supply chains and stimulating and encouraging food production in local areas, there may well be some other bodies that own land, not explicitly for food production purposes at the moment that could be looked at in the context and have a role to play here. I just wanted to add to that the role of organisations such as NatureScot and SEPA, obviously from the perspective of maintaining sustainable food supplies in Scotland, the importance of maintaining environmental quality and the role that NatureScot and SEPA can play within that as well. I was really interested in what Mike said about changing the mind and behaviour of people and their psychology, but 21 out of the 66 consultees to the consultation on the good food bill said that food education is an important part of a good food nation. We know that food education is currently in the curriculum, but it is not core and it is deemed as possibly a secondary subject. Do witnesses believe that food education should be on the face of the good food nation bill? Mike? I think that it should be, and I think that there are good opportunities here as well as I said before of making that link between food education and environmental education. If we are trying to foster a culture of care within our society, understanding where food comes from, how we are supposed to prepare it and what the consequences of our choices are in terms of impact on the environment, there are good opportunities here for the bill to make connections to the curriculum about how we educate our young people about the value of the environment and how ecosystems function. Most importantly, if they don't function, what the threats are then to food security. There is a very neat multi-way link between that. I think that there are really good opportunities for embedding education about food within the bill and then broadening it to wider issues to do with education as well. The Committee on Climate Change made very clear that some of the solutions to climate change are due to behaviour change, and some of the best ways that you can achieve behaviour change is through education of young people and influence on parents. I think that there is definitely scope within the bill for firma education. That's a great answer. Can I go to Vicky, please? Thanks. It's not something necessarily that the Scottish Environment Link has a particular position on, so it's perhaps more a personal view, but I fully endorse what Mike just said. It's absolutely something that would be really valuable to do and tying it in with that understanding about the environment, about where the impacts on the environment come from, and given what we've said about the critical role that our food system plays in that. But also thinking about the future and some of the solutions, I think that they again totally agree with Mike that young people will determine the future and are the future, and their views on that will be really already seeing quite a lot of concern around biodiversity loss and climate change. I think that young people are making some of those connections, but embedding some of those issues in the national curriculum would obviously be clearly beneficial as well in issues. Can I go to Ian, please? I shouldn't avoid the fact that education is so important in that. We obviously have done quite a bit of work with Education Scotland in developing curriculum materials for obviously around food waste with our real positive response, and we continue to work with schools individually and collectively. Again, there's another role for local authorities on a practical level to support such programmes, and we know from the sort of work that we did in the run-up to COP26 that people didn't really—there was a very low threshold of awareness in the population more generally about the impacts of food waste in terms of climate change. Obviously, we've seen a huge shift in people's awareness around plastics, but plastic waste at home is three times the impact of plastic waste at home in terms of the environment, so getting simple messages across to people and targeting schools, getting that education, getting people on an early stage to understand the wider impacts of opportunities around changing whether that's diet, whether that's access to food or how they consume waste and not waste food is hugely important, and I think that that's critical to the success of the bill going forward. Thank you very much. I will now move on to Jenny for our final questions. Thank you, convener. Following on from what Iain was talking about there, last week we took some evidence from Shetland Food and Drink about the impact of supermarkets opening up and the impact that that has on local suppliers of food. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the role of the private sector in a good food nation. I find that I walk round supermarkets and try to avoid buying things with plastic, but how can the good food nation bill help to change, perhaps, not only the decision making of local authorities but perhaps the private sector as well, so I'd be interested to know your thoughts on that. Iain, I don't know if you want to start and then perhaps go to Kirstine. I think that there is a huge opportunity, certainly from local authorities again, if it's a more participative, collaborative nature, clearly both at national and local level to include the private sector in terms of retail as well involved in that. I think he will find willing partners, certainly in the conversations that we have, strategic level with some of those operators. There is the understand that they have a role to play, but they know that they can do it alone and that they want to work with whether that's local authorities or local agencies on the ground and local communities. I think that that comes back to that, but also going back to the point of influence. A collaborative nature of all 32 local authorities working together on the supply and changing the way that food is presented or distributed both formally and informally through the Scottish supply chain. They could ask to start to influence on that, and that's why I saw a quote in 26, which is an awakening of not just Scottish cities, but global cities' understanding. Because they actually pull in 99 per cent of their food from outwith their areas, they could start to really influence how the big corporates collectively. Everybody thinks that the big corporates are to some extent the barrier, and we have to get them on the side. However, if local authorities could get together collaboratively, they could start to influence that more directly rather than all individually trying to change the way that the big supermarkets act. If they can do that here in Scotland and find partnerships in other parts of the world, the real change that we're trying to see could happen. Given what's said about, we can't necessarily rely on change through individual choice and procuring and providing for sustainable places for both communal food is a really good way to pump prime local production so that local production can scale up and become a preferred choice. It's a good way to increase availability of local food. With the Good Food Nation plan, there's a huge opportunity to change the messaging around food and to make healthy environmental choices the easy choice, the preferred choice. That would mean greater availability of local produce on the high street, perhaps, or with farm shops or markets, but there definitely needs to be greater diversity. Supermarkets have kind of got us here and got us to the situation, so we need to look at more farm direct sources of food. What this raises is some very uncomfortable truths about the way that the food system operates and, effectively, where the money goes, Johnny All from the NFUS raised a really good point in one of your previous sessions about farmers' producers being squeezed at one end and consumers being squeezed at the other and asking the question, where does the money go? That implies what the imperative is, profit orientation. I think what we need in terms of the food system transformation is a shift towards both a sustainability and resilience orientation for environmental quality for food security but also the profit motivation, as well as blending the two things together. The private sector has a key role to play in this, but sometimes you feel it's a bit like a David and Goliath type situation because of the power and influence of the food system. Globally, there's about 110 key buyers that influence where food comes from and how it's grown and where it goes. Influencing them towards increasing levels of sustainability is absolutely essential. The private sector has a key role to play in it, but, in this bill, there needs to be a lot of influence asserted to try and steer their profit motivation towards sustainability as well. Finally, Vicky Swales. Thank you, convener. There's two ways. Clearly, there's a very big role for the private sector in relation to making Scotland a good food nation. The stronger this bill is in terms of its clarity of purpose in defining what we mean by that in setting targets, scrutiny in accountability mechanisms and reporting. In a way, it all helps the private sector to understand where we're going to and what the responsibilities are and what needs to be done. Clearly, some food businesses and many others are making progress and arguably are maybe more ahead of where the public sector is on some fronts, but we need that clear direction of travel. That's one way that the good food nation bill can help. The other way to pick up on comments from other panellists is thinking about our current food supply chains that are very long. There are some big corporations in those, and a lot of them we create shorter supply chains. How do we connect primary producers to consumers? How do farmers, crofters and fishers make a better living from the food that they produce? From that, what benefits can flow both economic benefits but also environmental benefits from having a more localised food system requires having some local processing capacity, and we need to be thinking about how grants and public money and other things support some of that. There's a lot of benefits in that. There's a lot of work looking at the benefits of shorter supply chains at EU level and through the Farm to Fork strategy, for example. For Scotland, there are some real benefits in terms of creating a more not only environmentally sustainable but resilient food system for Scotland, really connecting people in local ways, consumers and producers. Of course, there are benefits that flow from that in thinking about people who come to Scotland and consume food to Scotland's tourism industry from having a food offer that is of high quality local sustainably produced food. Getting to that point, the national food plans and local food plans are clearly wise in which we can identify where the opportunities are and how that could be achieved and how we can make progress on that front. Thank you very much. Ian, Mike, Kirstine and Vicky. Thank you very much for giving evidence this morning. It's very much appreciated and it will certainly help us to form our report into the draft bill. We will now suspend this meeting until 10.50 to allow the change over in witnesses. Welcome back, everyone. We return to the evidence on the Good Food Nation bill, and we are hearing from our second panel focusing on policy outcomes relating to public health. To this session, I welcome Dr Isabel Fletcher, the senior research fellow from the University of Edinburgh. Clare Hyslop, organisational lead for diet, physical activity and healthy weight from Public Health Scotland. Gill Murie, public health programme manager from Glasgow Centre for Population Health. Joe Teese, project manager from the British Dietic Association. I'll start with question. We've got until approximately 10 past 12 for questions, so I'll kick off. What I would like to understand is your understanding of what is meant by a Good Food Nation. Also, whether you agree that the bill is drafted will enable Scotland to achieve that ambition. I'll start with Dr Fletcher, please. Thank you, everybody, for giving me the opportunity to speak. I have a really simple definition of a Good Food Nation, which is one where everyone has access to nutritious and sustainably produced food prices that they can afford and they don't have to worry about that access. I also think that it would involve everyone working in the food industry, so in manufacturing, retailing and catering being paid a decent wage for the work that they do. I know that that is a simple definition that covers a lot of complex policy issues. When we talk about Scotland as a Good Food Nation, we focus on production and exports. We don't focus enough on our domestic consumption. We need to think more about the day-to-day effects of what Good Stand of Scotland calls bad diets, the fact that everybody eats badly in Scotland, and that they are reflected in our health statistics, and that the least well-off eats, worst of all. We need to reverse the historical pattern that Good Stand of Scotland has been reporting on this in 15 years, and it hasn't changed significantly. I will leave others who have more expertise in this area to fill in on the detail of the public health aspects of Good Food Nations. I would say that the bill stands. It's a start, but there are gaps in it. There are gaps around targets, implementation and public participation. I think that we need a statutory body to fill in some of those gaps. Hi there, and thanks for inviting me along today. Our vision for a Good Food Nation would be similar to what you probably heard from a lot of the other evidence committees. It is about having that acceptable easy access to affordable food that promotes nutrition for everybody. I think that we need to focus in on the reduction and inequalities around that. We want people who are informed about the food that they eat and where it comes from. A Good Food Nation would be things that would look much wider than that, things such as the environmental impacts and how we can maximise the income for our businesses and the workforce around that. We welcome the bill. It is a good opportunity to strengthen policies across Scotland. We have a complex food policy across Scotland, but there are lots of other wider policies that impact on how we are able to achieve the ambitions of being acceptable, affordable and nutritious as well as being sustainable. One of the things that we would really want the bill to strengthen on is having a clearer purpose and outlining what we need to do to achieve that. We all know about the increase in statistics around Scotland's poor diet and those living with a higher body weight. That is often exacerbated by inequalities as well. We know that it is not just about how our diets affect our health but not just our physical health or mental health. It also has massive knock-on effects on budgets for our NHS and our workforce. I think that it was mentioned earlier in the session around our recent publication of VMI's for primary 1 stats, which has seen a stark increase in children who are experiencing risk over weight in obesity just in this last year. That brings into the forefront the impact that the pandemic has also had on our food systems and people's health outcomes. The bill has a real opportunity to change things, but we believe that public health needs to be at the heart of that and that prevention is absolutely key. People's weight is not just about an individual thing. We need to think about much more holistically this. It is not simply about eating less and moving more. We need to change the current food environment that we are in to have easy access to the kind of acceptable and affordable food that we need to do. We hope that the bill has a role to play in that. I speak on behalf of the Glasgow Centre for Population Health and Glasgow Food Policy Partnership, and we have been developing over the past seven or eight years a Glasgow City food plan that was recently launched. I am speaking from my experience in both of those areas. For us, a vision for our good food nation would be one that supports our ambitions for an inclusive, sustainable, healthy, resilient and fair Scotland. Our food system should support all of our aspirations for the country. In terms of public health, as Claire said, we have a number of really pressing public health issues that relate to our food system. We have significant dietary-related illness, including overweight and obesity, but going beyond that to other chronic illnesses. We see significant inequalities and inequalities increasing, as Claire indicated. We also have significant food insecurity, which existed before the pandemic but has been exacerbated by the pandemic. The poorest in our country experience a double burden of not only being unable to eat healthily in a way that supports their health but struggling to afford adequate food on a daily basis. That burden falls on lone parents and the children that they live with and on our population who are living with disabilities and ill health. We see them significantly more likely to be food insecure. The other public health issue that you have been listening to in your other sessions is the climate emergency. The climate and nature emergencies are probably the greatest public health issue that we will be facing going forward, and our food system is really central to addressing that. In terms of the Good Food Nation bill, we really welcome it. We think that it is a great opportunity. We particularly welcome the framework approach, which gives us a real opportunity to build greater coherence and co-ordination across the whole food system, which, as you know, is really complex. The gaps that we feel, as we very much agree with other speakers, and the gaps that we think there must be a much clearer purpose and direction and ambition within that, gives everybody a kind of route map where we are trying to get to. What do we think collectively we want to see for our food system going forward in Scotland? We would like to see a statutory body for overseeing that. We would like to see clearer targets, and we would like to see participation built into that. I am a registered dietitian. I work in the NHS as a project manager supporting the implementation of the framework for the prevention and remission of type 2 diabetes. I am here this morning on behalf of the British Dietetic Association representing the views of the approximate 1,000 dietitians in Scotland. I am also a member of the Allied Health Professions Federation Scotland. Dietitians work across health, social care, justice and housing. We provide evidence-based nutrition and dietetic advice, and we are regulated by the Health, Care and Professions Council. I think I would very much echo Claire's comments around her definition of the good food nation. We, as a professional body, are supportive of the bill. We feel it is ambitious, and again, echoing much of what has been said this morning, it will rely very strongly on partnership and co-production. I move to a question from Alasdor Allan. Thank you, convener. I was really just to ask perhaps Dr Fletcher and Claire Hislop about the—you mentioned the importance issue of the food environment that there is in Scotland, and I think that we would all agree about how that needs to be changed. But, of course, I am sure that you would also agree, without putting words in your mouth, that we cannot divorce the issue of incomes, although I appreciate some of the levers around determining what incomes are, whether through wages or through benefits, are preserved. I just wonder if you could say a bit about how you think a good food nation is in terms of incomes. Who would like to kick off on that one? Claire Hislop? Yeah, and the hand puppet come in. I think that we can destroy the two, and I think that, as I mentioned earlier, the whole issue of wider policy areas is not through the good food nation bill, just focusing in purely on food policy. I think that we need to look at the wider aspects of that. As we say, in the pandemic exacerbated, there is obviously an issue here around people having the ability to purchase food with dignity, food that they want to purchase and how they choose to do that. I do not know if I have the answer here, but we certainly need to look at how we work with our industries around things like living wage, how we are maximising our incomes with people, for example, in low-income communities. Some of the work that we do with community groups is to provide, for example, advice when there may be attending things such as lunch clubs and so on about how they maximise things like their benefits and making sure that people are claiming everything that they need to. I think that we need to look at that holistically, linking up with our colleagues and maximising income to ensure that we have access to healthier food. One of the other things is not to think about this in isolation and looking at our wider policies, but things like the planning framework to ensure that people have access locally and that they do not have additional costs such as transport. We need to look at the increase in energy bills and how that will impact on the wider population as well. We need to take all those things into account as we progress through the bill as well. I echo most of those comments. I would add that I think that affordability is largely an issue of incomes, which I understand is not easy to solve and be something that is necessarily within the power of the Scottish Government. Historically, agricultural workers, people in catering and retail have been amongst the lowest-paid occupations. We have a situation in which the people who work in the food system are often the people who can afford the food least. We need to think, as the previous witness said, systemically and holistically about how we change that situation. I do not have any answers. I move on to a question from Karen Adam. I would like to ask in regards to target setting. We had a discussion on the last panel on collaboration and fragmentation, which might happen if there is no agreed prioritised view for goal setting and the danger of gaps. Rachel asked about obesity targets and rightly mentioned how that is not just a food issue. It is also attributed to access to certain food quality and other variables in our environment's precarious socioeconomic conditions that cause poverty and health related inequalities. Child poverty is a driver of obesity in children. We know that much like the poverty related attainment gap when one goes up and the others follow. For example, would it not be setting up to fail? I will use obesity as an example. If we have a target for obesity in this plan, which is highly dependent on welfare reforms and mitigations, is there a danger there that we are shifting focus when we should be looking at a more holistic view, culture change, embedding good food into our public services, looking at levers, performance, monitoring and all of the natural consequences as well from that? Rather than being led by the nose, by targets, which may take us off course. I will open that up to the panel who would like to come in. I think that that is quite a challenging question and I do not have a position. I can see Jill on my screen, so I thought that she was speaking but no, it is my turn. Apologies. I do not have a position, but I can go away and come back with a position from our professional association. Food poverty, we know particularly, we see many examples as dieticians across the whole of the public health spectrum, so it is not only food poverty, it is also around food sustainability as well. I am going to defer to the other experts on the panel first and feel free to come back to me. I agree that targets can be problematic, but I also agree with some of the speakers in previous sessions that they are really important. They are really important for bringing people together with a common purpose. I think that targets are a really important part of the bill, but not the only thing. For example, the independent scrutiny of the bill to look regularly at the progress towards those targets and to get underneath that, again, using participative approaches, understanding what is happening in terms of the implementation. Sometimes, targets are not hit not because the target is wrong but because the implementation has failed in some way for some reason. That could be due to an external thing, such as prevailing economic issues or a pandemic or Government policy from elsewhere, or it could be because something happened that stopped the correct implementation within something in which Government has more control over. We need to set targets, we need to work towards those targets, we need to collaborate in agreeing those targets, and those targets must be linked vertically through our governance system to the national performance framework to our SDGs, but they must also be looked at not in isolation but as part of the whole good food nation approach and how we are making progress towards them. They need to be linked to indicators that show our progress through the short-medium and long-term, so that we can, through our scrutiny process, identify if we are not hitting that target, or if there is some perverse incentive on the way, or if indeed the target is not challenging enough. However, we need the targets but we need other things built in to scrutinise, review and evolve the approach that we are taking over time to make sure that we are being as ambitious as possible but taking into account any challenges that we might meet along the way. Claire Heslop Thank you. Sometimes, it is about the terminology that people use as well, for me, some of the ambition and aspirations that we have got quite often seem quite far removed, and I think that we need to recognise that that is a long-term goal. For example, to change obviously the obesity levels that we see in Scotland is not going to happen overnight, and sometimes having really ambitious targets mean that we do not see the successes that we want, so we see it as a failure when it is not actually, and we have moved a long way in the right direction. Just to give an example of that, I have been heavily involved in the school food agenda over the past 20 years, and we have done a huge amount of work, working with caterers, education, parents and the young people themselves to take school food from a place where it was very much about chips with everything to healthy balance meals. We have also done work around our increase to free school meals. We have got our best start scheme. We have got all the things going on really ambitious and really well thought through policies. Despite that, we are still seeing rise in obesity figures, and that is because we do not have that policy cohesion elsewhere. I think that we need, for example, high-level ambitions, but I also think that we need targets for implementation so that we have dates to work to, so we can start to see how those things come together, so that we can share good practice and actually look for where the unintended consequences are amongst other policy areas to start to better align the needs. I think that we need to outline what we want to do within the bill, and I have clear indicators of how we will measure both implementation and longer-term goals. We need to set them out both in the national plan and within the local plans. We will hopefully echo those, and I will allow them flexibility depending on their circumstances. I think that there is a real opportunity here to drive change forward with targets and ambitions for implementation, but there are clear indicators for how we would track that to make sure that we are having the change that we need to see happening across Scotland. Dr Fletcher? I would echo what everyone else has said. The key thing is that targets are important for co-ordinating activities across different policy areas. They create a kind of shared, shared basis for monitoring, implementation and monitoring. Without targets, it is hard to see how we could achieve the policy coherence that we need to drive change in that area. I would also say that we have a lot of those targets already. A lot of them are not about creating new targets, but about monitoring the progress towards the ones that we have. The Scottish dietary goals, the food waste targets, the childhood obesity rates—we are not talking about necessarily creating a whole new set of targets. We are talking about monitoring the progress towards important sets of targets that we have already agreed on. That was really helpful. I agree that we already have so many other targets. I think that that is what I wanted to pull out of that as well. All stakeholders have their own part to play in this, but they already have targets set. How do we work that in with the bill, but not setting the targets and having to prioritise those within the bill itself, but everybody having a collaborative approach? That was really helpful, thank you. I move on to a question from Rachel Hamilton. Dr Fletcher has already identified that there are existing policies that could possibly run in parallel to the Good Food Nation bill. Are there current policies or forthcoming legislation that you would like to see that the Good Food Nation bill addresses? That is notwithstanding the comments that have been made on the current possible need for targets. Are there new policies that could change dietary habits that you would like to see as part of the Good Food Nation bill? I will start with Clare. Earlier, we talked about the policy coherence, and we already have lots of good policies out there. Likewise, I echo what people said earlier about the targets that we already have. The Scottish Dietary Goals is something that we need to continue to work towards. For example, we have the national planning framework for a bill coming through just now. That is a key area that we need to link up with in terms of public health and the Good Food Nation to achieve our ability to look at how decisions are made locally. Obviously, they can give cognisance to some of the targets. For example, how planning decisions would affect moving towards the Scottish Dietary Goals. That might be something that we want to set and train. We have a lot of other policies. For example, a Scottish Government published its out-of-home action plan last September. Obviously, I want to see that in the work that we plan to do with that included in the bill. The other thing is a forthcoming public health bill. That has links to things such as restrictions on promotions of high fat, salt, sugar and foods. Again, I cannot echo enough the wider aspects of all the other policy areas that need to be included in the bill, including environmental maximising income. Obviously, the whole focus on that is reducing the inequalities that we see in Scotland. We would really like to see that strengthened in the bill about making sure that everything that we do and everything that we link up to have a focus on reducing that as well. Joe, could I go to you? As Claire has clearly articulated, there is already current policy out there, particularly as diocesians and a professional association. We align a lot of work to the diet and healthy weight team at the Scottish Government, to the childhood obesity work, the draft malnutrition policy, the healthier future and the prevention and remission of type 2 diabetes. The public health priority 6 is something that we support. We would hope that the bill aligns closely to that. Claire has already alluded to the whole systems approach. The potential forthcoming legislation around outdoor advertising and, as Claire mentioned, high fat by sugar foods. We would hope that all of that would be aligned within the bill. To develop the question and go to Jill, in Glasgow, where you are running your programme, how difficult or how achievable it would be to put the goals in parallel alongside the good food nation bill to deliver it locally as part of a multi-strategy ambition? I do not think that it would be difficult because the way that we have set up is with a view to the good food nation bill coming along. We would review our approach in line with what comes out of the good food nation bill. Where we started was a recognition that we had loads of brilliant work happening and lots of really good policies. They were happening in isolation of each other, and it was very disjointed. Oftentimes, some of the good work was happening in spite of, rather than because of, the support that it was getting from national local policy. What we were trying to do was to build a coherent city-wide approach that brought together us stakeholders in a collaborative way to achieve not just a more coherent approach, but a synergistic approach. When people get involved, it becomes more beneficial and we make faster progress. For example, our child healthy weight programme received funding because of its extensive collaborative approach, so it becomes beneficial when we get to that point. That collaborative approach and the coherent approach that we found really helpful. On how easy it is, we pulled together all the policies and areas that we could see intersected with the food system and said, what are all our stakeholders, what are they committed to achieving in terms of targets and where is the coherence there? We have not set new targets. We have drawn on the existing targets that are currently set out in lots of different policy documents and pulled them together in our plan. We have set out a range of actions—short, medium and long-term actions—over the next 10 years, which will be reviewed regularly in terms of our progress towards those, taking into account how our partnership evolves and how policy evolves over that time. We will have regular two-year scrutiny of that approach. In answer to your question, I think that it is really important to have that vertical integration. I do not think that it is difficult. The way that we are doing it in Glasgow City is by having our partnership, which is an independent group. We report to the Public Health and Sport Committee, which reports into the community planning process. There is collaborative governance built into our approach, which we found really helpful. We have our community food partners around the table, which gives us the opportunity to hear from the range of people who are doing really interesting, really joined up, really whole systems approach at a really ultra-local level. We can learn from them what is working, what is not working and where the policies are working in conflict on the ground. Oftentimes, what you can have is a policy that looks good at city level in one part of the system and another policy that is perhaps in health. When you are trying to implement those as super-local levels, it is difficult to do that in an integrated way. We are getting that feedback from our community partners, and then we are in the position to try to address some of those challenges at a city level. Having that support nationally will be really helpful, because, as a city, we can only achieve so much. We are trying to do stuff as part of our city region approach, which brings us together with the partners roundabout, where potentially there may be more food production, and that is really helpful. However, taking a Scotland-wide approach and having direction from Scotland would help to give more levers and give us a stronger direction. In other bits of Scotland, there are sustainable food places partnerships working, so we are part of a sustainable food place approach, which is a UK-wide scheme. There are a number of those in Scotland, and we meet with the sustainable food places groups on a regular basis to try and bring coherence and share our learning between those different areas. If the whole country was doing that, that would give us even more opportunity to share learning, to share resources so that we are not duplicating and to bring greater coherence to everything that we are doing across the country. Children and young people across Scotland have stated how food insecurity affects them, and in 2016, one child pointed out that when you are hungry, all you can think about is food. Another spoke of the impact of food insecurity on learning, stating that it is really hard to concentrate. Children also talked about the potential impact of financial insecurity and not having enough to eat, stating that children feel upset, stressed, worried and scared. That is absolutely heartbreaking and who could not feel to be moved by that. The factors in that statement are not exclusive to just good or bad food. It is about a whole raft of measures needed to ensure food security, which would all be covered in the new human rights bill. How does the panel confront the potential issue for conflicts and duplication with the existing legislation and workstreams, if we looked at implementing the right to food within the bill? It is probably beyond my expertise. I agree that there is the potential for duplication. I would hope that the legislation is written so that there are no conflicts, but I have two higher-level points that I want to make about putting the right to food in the bill. One is that it is a way of making sure that the Scottish Government meets international obligations, such as those under the Sustainable Development Goals. I think that that is really important. The other one is that it would have a huge symbolic value. It would show that the Scottish Government values food and good food in a way that would signal a change in our national approach to food. Symbolically, it is really important. I am inclined to say, as a researcher, that I leave the duplication and inconsistency approach to the people drafting the legislation, because that is not my area of expertise. In terms of the right food, we certainly feel that the bill should set a standard for what people should expect and should be at the centre of what we do in becoming a good food nation. We support the right for food to be enshrined in Scottish law so that people can access that acceptable, affordable and nutritious food with dignity. Implementing a right-based approach to food, and specifically with a right-based approach around food poverty, has the potential influence to affect household insecurity. Food insecurity reduces nutrition-related inequalities and also improve health. We believe that that should be done, but at what root should that be put in, whether within the forthcoming human rights legislation or within the Good Food Nation bill. Again, we would leave that to others. In terms of the timing, we want that to move swiftly with the bill alongside. We do not want any sort of delay in that happening, but we would also want to look at where it would have most impact, what levers are in place within each bill to ensure that that is implemented effectively and that people are held to account for that. In terms of our position, it would be where it is going to be most impactful, but it certainly should be given consideration within the bill. A couple of points to make in relation to the question. Some of the question is without the scope of my expertise. However, the British Dietary Association made a position statement in March 2020 around food poverty that nobody should live in food poverty and that the UK Government and local authorities must take urgent action to lift people out of food poverty and prevent others from falling into poverty and very much supported in strining a right to food within UK law. We have seen on the ground during Covid those nutrition-related inequalities have been widening. For example, pressures during homeschooling, holiday hunger, so just a couple of examples of nutrition-related inequalities linking back the food poverty and the rights of food. I absolutely agree that the scale of food insecurity and the experience of particularly our children is really unacceptable for a country such as Scotland. I absolutely agree that we need to be addressing that. In terms of incorporating the right to food into the bill, we think that it is really important. It sends a message, as others have said, but it also helps to ensure that our food system is rooted in and coherent with the environmental and social justice agendas. It means that all policies must ensure that they are not negatively impacting on people's right to food. It brings important checks and balances into the system and goes beyond children's experience of food insecurity to making sure that all policies maximise people's ability to access and afford healthy, sustainable food. It helps us to meet our international obligations in terms of the SDGs. In terms of where it sits, my understanding of framework legislation is that the Good Food Nation bill sits out and other legislation can go into more detail, and there should be coherence and co-ordination between them. As long as the two are linked, I think that that is the important thing about where the detail lies. It is probably up for some debate. I would like to ask a question about participation and whether the bill is strong enough to ensure that we have the right participation in the creation of the good food plans. Both Gill and Claire have given examples of where that work has happened, so you could expand a bit more on that in connection with the bill. Dr Fletcher mentioned that perhaps there were gaps in the bill with regard to participation if you could expand on that, so I will start with Dr Fletcher. The work that Gill Murray has outlined is really impressive and provides a really good model for the sort of participation that we need to make this successful to change food environments. I think that it is nurse Scotland that said that we need to go out. When we are talking about citizen participation, we need to go out and talk to the groups who are most affected by the problems in the food system, and they highlighted those living in food insecurity. Farmers are another key group, and we cannot rely on people who are responding to consultations. We need to go out. I am using our royal way here, but the Government needs to go out and researchers need to go out and actively engage people in those conversations and get their lived experience. It was Mary Brennan who said in the very first session that we will learn so much from them. I have done a little bit of research in rural areas in Scotland and England in talking to people about food shopping. People are very engaged in the topic of food. They have experiences that they want to share, experiences and knowledge, so I think that that is really important. I think that there are interesting models that Keith Whale talked about in particular last time, he talked about citizens assemblies. We have expertise in the scene, the university, and citizen participation. There are a lot of models that we can draw on, so I would not want to set a particular model at this stage. It needs to be much more about a road show going out to people and organisations and learning from them. I think that I will stop there. In the last session, we also got the comments about the timeframe and ensuring that there was also an iterative process so that everything was learnt from. Gill, I would be really interested to hear more from you with regard to participation and how we can ensure that the plans are covered. I think that participation is really vital. As many people have said in your sessions, people have a real interest in food and have lots of experiences to share. People in different bits of the country and living in different circumstances have quite different experiences of it, and it is really important to hear from them. I think that the bill could do much more to strengthen the participation side of it. I think that having a statutory food commission could oversee that. I think that that would be an excellent role for them. Different approaches to participation will be really important, and not relying on one particular approach. Citizens assembly is a good thing to consider, although it takes time and resource, but if we are talking about food being a priority and being urgent and being so central to so many parts of what we are trying to achieve as a country, I think that careful consideration should be given to that. However, I do not think that we should lose sight of the fact that we already have a tremendous range of participatory approaches that exist across Scotland, and we need to draw on that expertise and on those existing structures. Within local authorities and community networks, there is a tremendous amount of expertise around supporting the engagement and participation of local people. We need to draw on that. There has been some really amazing innovative practice that has been driven by the need to do things differently because of the pandemic. Talking to people such as the Scottish Centre for Community Development and other specialists in engaging people would be really helpful here, as well as our community food networks and our third sector partners. There is a lot to draw on, but we do not need to reinvent the wheel. We need to draw on different methods for different stakeholder groups, because, although getting the lived experience of people living in different communities is really important, getting views from different stakeholders is also really important. There will be different approaches. For example, engaging with private sector colleagues takes quite a different approach. Building in relationships with chambers of commerce and other small business organisations is really important. Similarly, engaging with food producers and farmers is really important. There are different approaches to doing that across the country. Also, local authorities are increasingly building up their participative approaches that they are taking to developing local authority-wide policies and reviewing those. There are opportunities for building in deliberation about the good food nation. As I said, I do not think that we need to set up everything from scratch, although, as I said since assembly, I should be given some careful consideration about drawing on the range of other fantastic things that are already under way and drawing on the expertise of people who are really skilled in engaging, empowering and supporting participation of people would be really important. Thank you, Gill. Claire, have you got anything to add in your... I think that Gill covered quite a lot there as well. I think that we would echo what Gill says in terms of strengthening the level of identification of what needs to be done within the bill. As you say, I have not worked in the sector for more than 20 years. I am always amazed by the passion and commitment of people and how much they want to tell us about what they want to do and how they want to see the changes happening. We need to be thinking about how we engage those people and at what level. As Gill says, both at stakeholder and local level, but I also think that our third sector colleagues and businesses are extremely important, because that is about cohesive policy. We need to make sure that that is not done just to one set of people who need to be coherent. As I said, there are so many ways that we can do that. Gill mentioned the Scottish Community Development Centre. It has standards for community engagement that can be built upon. There are things such as, again, citizens assembly community-led research, giving people the skills locally to speak to those that they work with, etc. We have got real opportunities here with the kind of build to outline what we would want people to do and how that kind of engagement would be done. I think that we do need some flexibility in it, because people will want to do this in different ways, both locally and nationally, but we need to be clear that it needs to be done at every level. Stakeholders are local through businesses, for example through trade bodies. We have got lots of ways that we can do that. As Gill said, we have been doing it very well for years. I think that we need to look at what we have got out there rather than trying to reinvent in the wheel as well. I think that there are lots of opportunities to engage with the sector, and we should certainly be taking those up to ensure that whatever we come out of this is informed by those who the policy will impact upon, but who know more than us that we are trying to develop something. Joe, do you want to comment on anything additional to add? I do not have anything additional to add. Grant, thank you very much. Question perhaps for Claire Hyslop and Joe Thies. There is something that we have considered that previous meetings has been about whether or not a new body is needed to ensure that what is outlined in the bill and the envisaged plan works. Do we need a new body in that area, or can we not develop existing bodies that work around food in Scotland to fulfil that function? I think that the need for scrutiny around the bill is clear. We spoke earlier on about things such as indicators and so on. We need to outline and show how we are making improvement. The landscape around food policy is really cluttered in Scotland, and we absolutely need oversight to ensure that we are making the progress that we need to see and that people are reporting in. Whether that is another food body, we would certainly say that there needs to be some level where there are resources to enable that to happen, but whether it is an individual food body that is set up on its own, or one that is attached to current food bodies with tasks around having the scrutiny over, for example, the diet, etc. We need to consider the benefits of the costs of setting up a new body versus putting that into something else. The other opportunity is a group that could come together to oversee that, but one of the fundamental points of that is that, with anything that needs to oversee the scrutiny of that, there will need to be people who understand the complexity of the environment with the skills to be able to do that, and it will need to be resourced in a sufficient way to enable that to happen. If you could elaborate a wee bit on what you mean there, that is a cluttered environment. You said that the world of food is quite a cluttered environment in some ways. Do you want to explain what you are thinking there? Even looking at the evidence sessions, how many people you have had to give evidence, the number of people who have admitted responses? We are looking at all the different aspects in which the bill includes bodies, for example Scotland Food and Drink, There's Ourself in Public Health Scotland, Food Standards Scotland and Zero-Way Scotland. There is a huge amount of bodies already there that have an agenda around that, and to bring in yet another body, we need to make sure that all those bodies are either fed into that, or is there somewhere currently that we could set that work and have oversight of it, ensuring that it's fair and equal and that the scrutiny process is there. To put in another body, that would need to be debated further, but in terms of our review, there are lots of people out there who are doing really good jobs and could potentially take on that role, in addition to some people from other bodies coming together to support that. Jo-Tice, I don't know if you have a view on that or the point that I made more generally about, is a new body needed? Our position or our view as an association would be no, we don't feel there is a new body. I'm putting you on the spot here, Claire, but we feel that Public Health Scotland would be ideally placed to align this work to, because it already has its strategic objectives around food poverty, around health inequalities, the work alongside COSLA, priority 6 for the public health framework, so that was our position that we felt no, we didn't need a new body, but Public Health Scotland may be well positioned to align this work to. I'm picking up on the themes of public and private sector roles, and I've got two questions, question 7 and 8. We heard from previous panels about the role of public authorities in a good food nation, but I'd like to ask for your views. What responsibilities should public authorities take on in relation to procurement, health promotion or education about food and the food system, for example? To what extent do you believe the bill enables and supports them to fulfil this role? I know that we've started to touch on those things, but I'd like to have a little bit more thinking, and I'd love to start with Joe Neury. In terms of public sector roles, I think that that's wide-ranging, and that highlights the importance of having an integrated food policy that is vertically and horizontally aligned with other policies. The public sector roles include, as you say, health promotion, food provision, and planning. If we're thinking about 20-minute neighbourhoods, for example, how do people access affordable, nutritious food within that 20-minute neighbourhood? If we think about the areas around schools, how do we ensure that children are not bombarded with high-fat, salt-sugar, low-cost food around schools? There is also a role in education, and I'm not just thinking about the curriculum here, but the curriculum is important. The curriculum must align with the circumstances in which the school environment exists. The area around the school and the food provided in the school, as well as education provided outwith the school, so in community education and further education, and in how we support and develop future business leaders and future innovators in the food sector. I think that there is a huge amount that the public sector can get involved in. It can also get involved in developing partnerships and leading them in partnerships locally. For example, in Glasgow, we are in the process of setting up a sustainable procurement group that cuts across private and public sector procurers across the city and thinks about some of the challenges and opportunities for collaboration. I'm thinking about some of the universities that are involved in that, as well as some of the local small businesses. I'm thinking through what are the challenges in getting smaller bundles that smaller businesses can bid for in public procurement. There is a huge amount of potential roles for the public sector, which highlights the importance of having an integrated food policy that brings together quite a lot of the issues. The other thing that I didn't mention is how we support the private sector and incentivise the private sector through some of the things that the public sector is doing. For example, in Glasgow and around COP, we were thinking about how we highlight and promote those cities that are being forward-thinking in terms of their sustainability around their food provision. How do we support them to market what they are doing for the increasing number of tourists that we will be having as a city that are interested in spending their money in sustainable ways? There are a whole range of different public sector roles, which is why we need that collaborative approach. That is why, in the City Council, we take our papers to different committees and we have discussions with different councillors and different conveners around different aspects of our approach. That is why we have a partnership that is representation from a wide range of bodies in the city so that those different perspectives and different opportunities and different challenges can be raised. Thanks for that, Jill. It's really great to hear about the full-on work that you're doing to ensure that there is this woven holistic approach by going to the different committees. I'm going to move on and bring in another question. I think I'm going to start clear by addressing it to you, but if anyone else wants to come in on either the one that I just asked or this one, that would be great. This is a two-part question. The bill lists three types of relevant authorities who will be tasked with producing a good food nation plan, that is local authorities, health boards and any other specified public authorities. I wonder if you would recommend any other specific bodies to include it in this list. The other part of the question is that, last week, several witnesses suggested groups that these authorities should consult when drafting their plans, and the suggestions have included integrated joint boards that are responsible for ensuring that good food gets those who are receiving social care. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on that suggestion and whether you would recommend any other bodies or groups that should be consulted during the production of plans. If I could start with Claire, and if anyone else wants to come in, you can put an R in the chat. I want to see the public bodies leading by example. The bill highlights the need to have plans for NHS boards and local authorities. As Giles just pointed out, the collective nature of plans and being able to influence locally is really important. We think much wider than that. Ultimately, whether it be by area, for example, like the work that Giles is doing, looking at how we can maximise how our public bodies provide food in a sustainable and healthy and nutritious way, is really important. We need to look at that across the board. In terms of things such as integrated joint boards, there are other areas such as Scottish Prison Service. Anybody who is responsible for procuring of food, serving food to others, we need to ensure that they are within that. I also do not think that we can forget about the fact that we need to think about our third sector partners and the private sector. It would be naive to think that we can formulate plans without consulting and working with people who are fundamentally going to influence the types of foods that we can buy, what foods are on offer, how foods are promoted, etc, right across the board. Giles mentioned, for example, that all the good work that we are doing in schools through education, through obviously school meals, etc. However, when we lead a school A, we need to work with, for example, community retail sector and wider bodies to enable all that to happen. Ultimately, we need to consult and work with those who have plans through the public sector, but we need to widen that out as well. There are some really good examples of that happening across Scotland. We are working on some of the approaches that are looking at whole systems approaches to BCA. There are some projects running just now that we are evaluating, and it has been really good to see the extent to which local areas have been keen to take a systems work and approach. We are looking at a wide range of local stakeholders that drive the elements of diet in BCA. They have identified a shared understanding and shared actions so that they can tackle that. It is a bit like the work that Giles is doing as well. It is important that we look at that more holistically when we are working with that. Is there anyone else who wants to come in on that? Is there any additional Dr Isabel Fletcher? I just wanted to make a brief comment. Those are really rich and interesting examples of the work that is going on. It highlights the need for some kind of body to co-ordinate. Collaboration does not happen without work being put in it and with some kind of co-ordination of it. If we are talking about sharing best practice and collecting evidence, those are all arguments for some kind of statutory body to be filling that role. Gail Muri has talked about the amazing work that has been done in Glasgow. She said that she would really want a national steer and national strategies to advance that work. It is a fairly straightforward point. We need some kind of statutory body to be doing that. It will not happen. Lots is happening in lots of different places, but to make it more effective and to join those things up, somebody needs to be co-ordinating. That is a really good point. I know a lot about community development and co-ordinating things on a community level. Do you think that it needs to be, as some people are calling on a Scottish Food Commission along the lines of the Scottish Land Commission or, as has been brought up by Joe Cheese, that it could be Public Health Scotland? My personal preference would be for something like a Scottish Food Commission. Public Health Scotland is doing great work in that area, but food covers so many different departments and policy areas. Historically, we are not good at doing that kind of work across those areas. For example, I know from the search that I have been doing on another topic that health and environment within the Scottish Government do not talk to each other very well. If we use one of the existing bodies, we may not be able to achieve that joined-up approach, but it is still what we need. Supplement from Rachael Hamilton. I will make it quick. Do you think that food education should be on the face of the Good Food Nation Bill? I have to apologise. I am not 100 per cent sure what you mean by on the face of the bill, but as dieticians and as a profession, we strongly advocate nutrition education, which is cool, particularly Clare's mention of the work within schools. We have dieticians within Education Scotland advising on school meals. Nutrition education goes across the lifespan, and as dieticians working in public health, we are well placed to educate from almost the cradle to the get grave. I would support that education is key within the bill. Education is so important, however. We absolutely need it embedded in the bill. We already have things in place, but they could be strengthened. Fundamentally, it is only part of what we need to do. It will not change the behaviour that we see. My previous role as a school inspector and a lot of children could tell me what they should be eating, but could they access that locally at an affordable price? It was a completely different matter. We can continue to educate, and it is important that children not just learn about how to keep their bodies healthy but about where their food comes and understand the complexities of what they are eating and how we get to that stage of sitting in front of their table. We need to make sure that the wider aspects of the policy coherence comes together so that children are able to implement what they learn in class. It is not just about children, but about the wider education. We need to make sure that people are as informed as possible about the types of foods that we eat. That will help to change the way that we eat and how we view about food. Education is so important, and it is just part of the picture. I think that education is important. It depends on what you mean by education, but it is important, and it is necessary, but it is not sufficient to make the changes that we want to see happen. If you think about major public health achievements that we have achieved in Scotland, education was not sufficient. We needed substantial changes in the circumstances in which people lived or legislation that supported them. Yes, education is important, and I will go beyond nutrition education. Young people, children in schools, the curriculum needs to reflect the whole food system in terms of what they learn about, particularly with the climate emergency. They need to understand the role that food plays in that. They need to understand to be food literate, if you like, to understand what the impact of their food choices is, in terms of workers' rights and the impact on different countries, and a whole range of different things. Food, the ethics of food, sustainability, and I know that there is lots of work going on in learning for sustainability Scotland that is using food in a sustainability context in schools-based education, which is really helpful to learn from, and I know that Strathclyde Uney has been doing some really good work around that as well. Building on the good work that has happened and embedding food and a holistic approach to food in the curriculum is really important. I know that loads of schools have done brilliant stuff, particularly at primary level. I think that it becomes much more of a challenge in secondary level, but I think that there are real opportunities to build debates around food, for example, into modern studies. There are real issues going on in the food system that are really important for young people to grapple with and understand. Going beyond that, the opportunity to build young people's skills to be innovative leaders in a new food system is really important. We are struggling to employ young people in our agriculture sector. We are struggling to employ people in our sustainable food sector who understand and are able to grapple with some of those new technologies that we need to build. I think that there are opportunities in working with our further education colleagues, some of our higher education colleagues and apprenticeships and training opportunities to build that workforce. We in Glasgow are building in sustainability into the chef courses and the kitchen courses at college so that our new chefs can understand not just about the nutritional principles that they should be thinking about but also about how to build sustainability into the food provision that they are planning. Ultimately, what we have found—this is going on a bit of a tangent on what we have found—when we speak to our procurement colleagues, they are not the ones with the power, but the ones with the power are deciding on the menus. They then set out the procurement requirements in line with that. We need to be thinking about how we build healthy, sustainable food into our meal plans, into our menu planning, into how we build seasonality into that and then how we support a local food system to develop that meets those needs so that that money that is invested in procurement stays within that local economy. There is education required around that as well. We also need to think about how we educate the public around what a healthy, sustainable diet looks like. We also need to educate our food retailers and our food producers around how to meet that need. Education goes really wide. It is absolutely essential, but it is not sufficient. Sorry, it is necessary but it is not sufficient. We need to think about the circumstances, the context and the structures that are in place that support the new knowledge that people have. I have some questions specifically from Public Health Scotland. There is a requirement in health boards to consult and publish a good food nation plan under section 7 of the bill, but there is also a requirement for health boards to have regard in those plans when exercising specific functions, but we do not know what those functions are yet. They are not laid out in the face of the bill. I can have your views on that, but there are resource implications. I am looking at the costs of consulting and publishing a good food nation plan. The Scottish Government suggests that any costs arising are negligible. Do you agree with that? The costs involved in putting it all together would be negligible and that goes to Claire. I think that it is quite difficult to answer this question because they have not outlined the function of the bill. It is not quite clear to me what we would be required to do. I think that one of the things that is happening in this evidence is about how we outline that more succinctly so that people know what is expected of them. Of the budgetary things, I could not comment on costs. Certainly in terms of being able to deliver a good food nation plan, it will take a resource. It will take people to think about how they will facilitate that across their board. We will then need to link up with others in local authorities, businesses, procurement and so on. That will all take time. The level at which we have all agreed today needs to be participation with others. It will also come at a cost so that there will be a significant resource. Whether that is a financial link to people or budgetary, I think that we will need to be considered. I think that, until it is clearer to outline what is in the bill, it would be hard for anybody to reflect on what that would cost. Sorry, I cannot be more held. You have given us your opinion of what the good food nation bill should deliver in aspirety and ambitions. Public Health Scotland should have an idea of what a plan might look like. We have taken evidence for that over the past few weeks and we have had the consultation responses. There should be a good indication of what could be in that plan. Therefore, an indication to health boards of what the cost or the resource implication of pulling those together is really important. Do you think that the specified functions need to be laid out on the face of the bill so that we are absolutely certain of what the plans are for each individual health board are going to deliver? It is not then down to cost and resource implications based on the position that individual boards are. I agree that we have to lay out what we want to happen. The local board will be looking to the national plan. The national plan has to have substance in our ability so that we can align to that. We have spoken very much about the need for flexibility locally for people to adapt their plans. Fundamentally, we need to be clear about what the purpose of the bill is so that people know what we should strive to achieve. We spoke earlier about ambitions, targets for implementations and so on. That needs to be considered before we can realistically think how much that would cost. Even putting plans together will take resource. In terms of implementing it, I would not have any idea how that would cost. In public health Scotland, we are a special board and not a local board. We need to think about being more inclusive about how other people might be required to write some kind of plan or support others to write their plan or at least be involved in, for example, the national plan. This has been a fascinating session for all, so I thank you very much for your input. I have really enjoyed it and taken a lot out of it. I would like to explore the roles and responsibilities of the private sector and the good food nation with regard to delivering public health outcomes and how the bills and plans can support and enable the private sector to play a positive role. When we talk about the private sector, I would include the food producers in that. One of the things that I have a difficulty with in all the sessions that we have had is that there seems to be a dichotomy between we want to have environmental protections, we want to protect biodiversity, we want farmers to be able to continue to produce food locally with short supply chains, but we also have massive food inequalities in this country. How do we get the private sector to recognise that dichotomy and work together so that they can be part of the good food nation bill? I will start off with you to begin with. Sorry for that. Start with the hard question. Some of it is about looking at what the Government does and developing more coherence so that we incentivise the private sector. As I said, I was doing some work in rural areas, and it was upland rural areas. A lot of that was talking about the environmental impact of livestock farming and public money for public goods. We are supporting farmers and other food producers to produce food in the most environmentally benign manner possible, rather than having perverse incentives to produce food in ways that are environmentally damaging. I know that this is slightly of public health. We also need to think about SMEs, small and medium enterprises. A lot of people want to set up food businesses. There are a lot of people who want to grow food and sell food, cook, set up small catering businesses. It is a difficult thing to do, and I think that the Government can support people more partly by providing better infrastructure. I did research on bad roads, bad broadband and a lack of abattoirs, if you are talking about meat. It is very difficult to set up small food businesses on that island. There are opportunities there, which are rare in public policy for win-win situations. Tim Lang did a report about British horticulture and, on the last session, the issue came up. There is a gap between what we produce and what we eat. We can close that gap by supporting small-scale producers to grow more fruit and vegetables. We cannot grow peppers and tomatoes in the UK, but we can grow potatoes, turnips, onions and cabbages. We can grow a lot more of what we eat. That is one way in which the private sector can contribute to the goals of a good food nation. Can I go to Joe Teese on that one? We heard earlier on from some of the other panellists about the national planning framework. We can give all the education that we like, but ultimately we need the availability of the kind of foods that you, as a dietician, would want to see our young people eating. How can the private sector play their role? One of our reflections was that there perhaps needs more engagement with the private partners around the bill. Food sustainability is a key factor there. There are some reflections. I know that the aim of the bill is to get rid of the need for food banks, but as dieticians, the food that is provided within food banks is not always nutritionally balanced or nutritionally appropriate. I guess that there is work there as well. It goes back to food poverty and food sustainability, so it is making sure that people are educated on what is a healthy balanced diet. I am more than happy to provide more evidence around that question if that would be helpful as well. Clare, what are your thoughts on that? I think that the private sector, before having a key role in helping us, obviously has a good food nation. I think that there are a couple of things here. We want those businesses to flourish as well and to boost our economy. Therefore, they can afford to pay our workforce sufficiently, which again improves public health. We have all that through there as well. I think that we have an opportunity here to try and change and shift. If we co-ordinate policy better, there will be, hopefully, a better requirement, and people will want healthier and nutritionally balanced sustainable foods. Therefore, we can support businesses to do that locally. There is a real opportunity to help businesses to support their ambitions to flourish as well. I know that businesses are quite reticent at the moment, potentially because of the impact that a lot of our sectors had around the pandemic. I think that we can, through the bill, look at ways in which we can support businesses to flourish, because all the things that have boosted our economy, our workforce and so on. In addition to looking at the wider aspects around improving the types of foods that we have on offer within our retailers and things that we produce locally, there is a real opportunity to try and harness that in a real positive way in working together with our private sector to enable that to happen. Gill? Specificially for yourself, you probably remember when hungry for success was implemented that East Ayrshire went for it absolutely hammering tongs and created a gold standard. Can the private sector be encouraged to do that in your area to get involved with it, Gill? One of the differences between us and Ayrshire is that not a huge amount of good growing goes on within the boundaries of Glasgow. One of the things that we have been looking at is how we use some of the learning in Ayrshire. That is one of the reasons why we are working with the city region or trying to work with the city region to think through where the opportunity is there. We have been working with the inclusive growth work going on with the city region to think through how we can develop a project and look at one foodstuff or one small bit of the public sector procurement in that city region and how we can think about how to build short supply chains and more local produce into that. That is something that is on-going, as discussions are on-going, but it is a challenge. Public procurement has an important role to play in thinking about how we can align the products that our public sector colleagues are looking for with what is produced locally and how we can stimulate and support the local economy to develop production of those foodstuffs is one area. That would stimulate an incentive for more producers to start producing that. One example that I have of one business that I was speaking to—a private business—had a need for a grated cheese for their sandwiches, which they sold to supermarkets. They had their grated cheese from Dumfries, but they could not find anywhere that would grate it. The cheese went to Wales to be grated and came back. There are examples—I think that those examples are all over the place—where we could think a little more in detail about some of the supply processes and where can we support Scottish businesses to intervene in there or to develop processes or facilities to do the bit so that we can keep it in Scotland, reduce those miles and keep the business in Scotland. We are in the process of thinking about that in Glasgow. The other thing that we are thinking about is how we can use our vacant and direct land and how we can use more innovative processes in Glasgow—vertical farming and such like—to build more food production into the city boundary. Those discussions are in relatively early stages and involve thinking through where we can get funding. Having a collaborative approach in the city does help us in bidding for funding to start trying out some pilot processes of new innovative approaches to food production. There is something about thinking about seasonality and what we can produce and adapting our menu plans so that we are looking for food that is more easily produced. There is something about supporting small businesses and local businesses to develop the production processes for the food that we need and that is in demand by the public sector. There is also something about supporting local more generally, so encouraging people in general, retailers, the public sector to think about buying local. I think that there are some shops and some outlets and some retail establishments and some restaurants that do that really well. There are others that maybe do not do that and I think that more could be done around encouraging and highlighting the benefit to the local economy of using more local produce. Thank you very much, Ed. That brings us to the end of the session. Isabel, Claire, Jill and Joe, thank you very much for your time this morning. We very much appreciate it. We now move on to our third item of business today, which is consideration of two notifications from Scottish ministers for consent to the FFITO Sanitary Conditions Amendment regulations 2022 and the milk and milk products, pupils and education establishments, aid applications, England and Scotland regulations 2022 and the refer members to page 3 on page 21. Under the protocol between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government, those consent notifications have been categorised as type 1, meaning that the Scottish Parliament's agreement is sought before the Scottish Government gives consent to the UK Government making secondary legislation and devolved competence. Considering the two notifications separately, in relation to the site to sanitary conditions SI notification, do any members have any comments on the consent notification, please raise your hand or type R in the chat box if you are participating remotely. Is the committee content that the provision set out in the notification should be included in the proposed UKSI? Please raise your hand or type N in the chat box. We do not agree, otherwise we are content. In relation to the milk and milk products SI notification, do any member have any comment on the consent notification? No. Is the committee content that the provision set out in the notification should be included in the proposed UKSI? Please raise your hand or type N in the chat box if you do not agree, otherwise I will presume that members are content. Finally, is the committee content to delegate authority to me to sign off a letter to the Scottish Government informing it of our decision today? We now move on to agenda item 4, which is consideration of a negative instrument. The private storage aid scheme, Pygmead Scotland amendment regulation 2021 brackets 2021, 4, 9, 2. I refer members to paper 4 on page 26. No motion to annul those instruments have been lodged. Members will note that the instruments breached the rules that require SSIs to be laid at least 28 days before they come into effect. The Scottish Government's letter to the President and Officer states that this is due to the need to act urgently to avoid an economic loss to farmers by not accepting additional cuts of Pygmead into the scheme. I can also note to the committee that we wrote to the Scottish Government with questions when we originally considered the Pygmead scheme SSI. We have yet to receive a response. Do any members have any comments on the instrument? We can certainly write to the Scottish Government for clarification on that. Are members content to note the instrument? That includes our business in public. We will now move into private session to continue the agenda.