 Welcome to the third meeting of the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee in 2022. Before we begin, I remind everyone who is using electronic devices to switch them to silent. Our first item of business today is an evidence session on the Good Food Nations Scotland Bill. I welcome to the meeting our first panel who will be focusing on policy outcomes relating to social and economic wellbeing. Today we have Paulie Jones, head of Scotland, at the Treswell Trust. We have Pete Ritchie, director of Nourish Scotland, Tilly Robinson-Miles, the impact and policy officer from the Food Train and Anna Taylor, the executive director from the Food Foundation. I would like to ask each of the members of the panel to make a brief opening statement. I would like to invite Paulie first, followed by Pete, Tilly and finally Anna. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to come and share some evidence with you this morning on Paulie Jones and the head of Scotland for the Treswell Trust. We are a UK-wide anti-poverty charity. We support a network of food banks across the UK which provide charitable food aid and campaign to end the need for anybody needing to access food banks in the UK. In Scotland, we have over 130 food bank centres operating in 26 local authorities. We have seen a 63 per cent increase in the number of parcels that we give out in Scotland over the last five years. We support the Good Food Nation Bill. We have campaigned alongside the Scottish Food Coalition because we support co-ordinated government-wide action to end the need for charitable food aid and ensure that everybody can buy the food and other essentials that they need for themselves. We have a particular focus on reducing food insecurity and are keen to see the Good Food Nation Bill strengthened to make sure that we can reduce food insecurity in Scotland. Thank you very much, Paulie, and Pete. Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Pete Ritchie. I am director of Narraith Scotland and we are a food policy charity that reads right across the food system. We established a few years ago and we now support the Scottish Food Coalition to create that shared voice across civil society. We have been campaigning for this bill for 60 years. Briefly, our view of the bill is that it is lacking in ambition and purpose. We think that there is a historic opportunity to strengthen this bill and set the foundation for a transformation of Scotland's food system, to create a food system in Scotland that we can be genuinely proud of and to contribute to the sort of Scotland that we want to live in. We can go back over some of the details of that later. Thank you. Thank you very much, Pete Tintilli. Thank you, convener. Good morning, everyone. I am an impact and policy officer for the Eatwell A2R project, which is part of the national charity Food Train. I am a dog for and a social scientist for the master's degree in food security and food justice, specialising in older people's food security. Food Train was developed by older people, for older people in 1995, as individuals recognised the challenges and lack of support that their peers received to access food as they aged. Today, I represent the views of, and I am an advocate for nearly 3,000 older people from across Scotland, from Tom in rural Galloway, who relies on carers to cook his meals in short 15-minute care visits. To Mary in central Glasgow, who cannot easily move about her kitchen and arthritis prevents her from doing what she loves, and to Mr and Mrs Campbell, whose regular lunch clubs no longer exist, the bill must support these people. Food Train welcomes the Good Food Nation bill as a first step to prioritise how we are of and transform the food system. That has some key observations that food security is about more than finance. It is about physical and mental nourishment. It is about laughter and friendship. Incorporation of the right to food into the bill would prioritise a rights-based approach to delivery of the bill. Food should be a core priority of social care, prioritising care, dignity and compassion. For instance, including that IJBs are specified public bodies required to produce a food plan. The bill has an opportunity to support Scotland's ageing population. We know that Scotland has high rates of malnutrition and we know that Scotland's older people have suffered in relation to Covid and food. Live experience and co-production must be central to the bill. Local and national food plans must reflect Scotland's population and the development of targets must involve civic participation. The bill must recognise and provide a framework for a whole systems approach. That includes policy coherence and explicitly recognising food policy initiatives beyond this to instances as part of the national care service. Food is about care, food is about joy and food is a connector but food is also a tool and I hope to demonstrate that this morning. Ultimately, the sign of a successful and supportive food system is one when my job and the work of food trade no longer need to exist. That is the sign of a good food nation that everyone has the support to and the systems exist to allow everyone to experience pride and pleasure from their food experience. Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for the invitation to be here. My name is Anna Taylor. I am the Executive Director of the Food Foundation. The Food Foundation is a charity working at the interface between academics and citizens capturing their lived experience and feeding that evidence to policy makers and businesses in order to assist the transition towards making it possible for everybody to eat a healthy and sustainable diet. I also think that it is perhaps worth noting in this context that I was chief independent adviser to Henry Dimbleby, who was the author of the independent review commissioned by Defra in England to develop a national food strategy that has been quite involved in that whole process over the last three years. I am particularly excited to be here because seeing the draft bill really highlights the huge opportunity that there now is to set out our ambitions for a food system that delivers the health, environmental and justice gains that we are all after. You have a unique opportunity with the bill to set out that purpose in a clear way that sets an all-star for businesses and for policy makers at a local and national level, as well as civil society organisations. We know that change in the food system is going to take time and require effort and iteration over several decades. The bill can set out that ambition and direction clearly going forward. I look forward to the conversation about it. I appreciate your opening statements. We are now going to move to questions, which will take us up to approximately 25 past 10. If we can ask to keep the questions and answers as succinct as possible, I would very much appreciate that. What your experiences are of food system issues facing Scotland within your own areas of expertise? If you work across the UK, can you ask whether your views of Scotland's problems and policy solutions to date, how do they compare with other nations in the UK? All of us would agree that we would like to see a Scotland where nobody needs to use a food bank or turn to other forms of charge for food aid. I am reflecting about food systems, the growth and existence of many different kinds of charitable food aid, food banks included, is a sign that our food system is not working, that people have not been able to meet their needs for food and other essentials themselves and charities have set in to do that. We can see trends across the whole of the UK and Scotland is broadly similar in terms of the growth in food banks and more recently other kinds of charitable food aid, like pantries and larders. Food insecurity data has been measured in different ways in different parts of the UK, but increasingly that has been brought together and we can see similar statistics across the UK. I think that what makes Scotland stand out and it's welcome is that there has been concerted co-ordinated commitments in Scotland to do something to address food insecurity and, in particular, for us, destitution. We know that most people who come to food banks, 95 per cent, would be classed as destitutes, so over the few days before we might see them at a food bank, they haven't had the resources to have heat and lighting, to eat hot meals and to have shelter. One of the things, the points that I would make about a co-ordinated food system, is that, to begin with, when people started looking in horror at the number of people who couldn't feed themselves and would turn into food banks, a lot of the focus was on how do we get food to people, how do we make sure that they don't go hungry and they've got food, and that's why food banks originally provided parcels of dried food, the kind of food that you could store and distribute easily, but it's very clear that the issue is not lack of food. Scotland is, as I'm sure you'll hear later on in your evidence session, brilliant at producing its own food, a nutritious, healthy food, but the issue for people who come into food banks is that they haven't got the money to buy it, and that also means that they haven't got the money to heat it and cook it, to buy the equipment that you need to be able to cook the food. We've seen over the years a growth in not just food parcels, which, like I said, often had dried food—food that you could keep in tins that was easy to store for a little while—but we now have to provide parcels for people who only have a kettle available to them to make a meal, which is a pretty damning indictment of the system. Yes, I think that we need to think—this is why we need to think system-wide about food and what it is that enables people to access the food that they need to eat. While Scotland has led the way on making commitments about addressing this in particular through food insecurity and, most recently, with a commitment to develop a national plan to end the need for food banks, which was announced last summer and a public consultation on that has closed this week, the Good Food Nation Bill is a real opportunity for us to do the things that we need to do to look system-wide, to co-ordinate it and to make sure that change happens, that it's not just words but action that we're putting in place. A test of that, as Tilly Robinson-Miles mentioned earlier, is that we don't see people needing food train services, we don't see people needing food bank services that they can manage for themselves. Thank you. This is a really deep-rooted problem and it's going to take a generation to sort it, that's why we need a law, that's why we need more than policy. John Boydor, in 1936, in his landmark publication on diet, health and income, talked about how people on low incomes were spending more of their money on food for getting a diet that was deficient in almost every respect. 85 years on, we're in the same position and in that time the consumption of ultra-processed foods and other foods that are bad for our health has increased rather than diminished. We have a two-tier food system in Scotland where some of us can afford to choose what we want to eat, to enjoy a healthy diet, and where a lot of people can't and don't and, as Polly said, some of people end up running out food altogether. We need a universal approach to food, just like we do with health and education. We don't want to live in a Scotland where some people can eat well and that a lot of people can't, and this is, as Polly said, completely fixable. We're not short of food, so there's a huge problem about equity in Scotland at the core of all of this, but the food system is also generating the major loss of nature and biodiversity around the world. It is the single biggest cause of the collapse of nature on sea and on land. We have to understand that. We can't fix nature without fixing food and we can't fix climate without fixing food. We will never get to 1.5 if we don't transform the way we produce food and how we use our land. At the moment, our land is the only get out of jail free card that we have for net zero until other technologies emerge. That's it. How we use our land is how we're going to get to net zero and how we use our oceans. The food is also key to jobs. It's about one in seven jobs in Scotland depending on food, and some of those jobs are great jobs, small businesses, large businesses, secure careers and fantastic productive Scottish food businesses. Some of those jobs are insecure, marginalised and unsafe. We have too many of our citizens who are not being paid living wage and who can't afford to work in food and can't afford to eat food. For all those reasons, we need to change the food system, we need to transform it and it will take a generation, we need to remember that. I think that a huge challenge is that we make an assumption that, as a society that our systems in place that support these people, for instance for older people, things like meals and meals, lunch clubs, they no longer exist, we've eradicated a lot of these services and we know that things support networks prevent people from becoming malnourished. At least one in ten older adults in Scotland are malnourished, that's under nutrition, and EatWellAjo's data suggests that it could be up to 17 per cent and in social care nearly up to 30 per cent of older adults. We know that these support systems exist to support these individuals in ageing well. Social isolation and loneliness are a direct risk factor of malnutrition, so it shows you how it's so much more complex than just looking at food and why we need this cross-sector or whole-system approach. The social and economic wellbeing that we're talking about today is about how that links to public health, it's not just about this part-mentalisation of the food system, if we're going to truly transform it and support people. I think that a really interesting thing is that it talks about in the Good Food Nation Bill, about everyone experiencing pride and pleasure from food. I think that lots of you yesterday or over the weekend will have celebrated Burns Night with your family and friends and had that laughter, conversation, etc. that the food has enabled and a lot of older people don't get that, they don't have the opportunity to socialise with other people through food. It's not just about what we put in our body, it's who we eat the food with. Someone might get a plate of food in front of them from a micro-eat meal that the carers cooked for in 15 minutes, but it doesn't mean that it's appetising, tasty, meets their cultural needs. It's more complex than just physically having access to that as a challenge too, and that's why services like Food Train are absolutely vital. You can't carry your shopping, you can't get to the supermarket. I think that that's really important in terms of the reprioritisation of food, and that's something that the Good Food Nation Bill is doing. We're seeing this holistic value that food gives us. At the start of the pandemic, we all had that personal experience going to the supermarket and there's no food on the shelves or I'm isolating how I'm going to get my shopping. These are challenges that older people and others experience every day to recognise that. We can see the reframing of food and see it as an opportunity. We know that we can tackle those problems by providing support, by providing opportunities, and the Good Food Nation Bill is a first step to doing that. As you said about the UK-wide, Scotland is really well-leading in relation to community food. We used to have community food in Health Scotland and we do know what's worked. Community food in Health Scotland, things like lunch clubs that I mentioned, veils and wheels, wider support services, but we've eradicated a lot of those things. It's not necessarily looking more broadly, it's looking at what maybe we used to have in Scotland or what works in one part that could be maybe transferable to another context. It doesn't just have to be looking further afield. The great thing that's happening in Scotland and food really is this opportunity if we can see the wider value that food gives us all and that should be something that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy. Can you also touch on your views on where Scotland's problems and policies solutions are compared with the rest of the UK on your response, please? Yes, of course. Just to start by saying some of the outcomes that have been described by Pete and Polly in terms of the environmental impacts of the food system and in terms of its impact on our health, whether you're looking at obesity or the other big range of diet-related diseases that we experience in later life, or indeed if you're looking at what's happening to children and their development, all of those measures show similar patterns across the different nations in the United Kingdom. There are some variations, for example fruit and vegetable consumption is a little bit lower in Scotland than elsewhere, but those patterns are very similar. I think that the other important point to make is that we've got two chunks of challenges, one set of challenges that are around income and ensuring that people actually have the income that they need to be able to secure a diet that protects their health and wellbeing. Then there's a set of food system problems that currently make the income problem worse. If you're on a low income and you're shopping in supermarkets, going out for a meal at the moment, your options, as others have pointed out, the food system at the moment is oriented to make sure that the cheapest foods are those that are least healthy for us. If you're pressed for money, you're pushed towards those choices. We've got a situation where income is a problem and the food system is making that problem even worse. We need to think about those two challenges together. What the bill has an opportunity to do, of course, is to set out how we want those outcomes to improve so that we can, in fact, re-incentivise the food system. At the moment, the incentives are misaligned with our goals of trying to improve the environment and health outcomes that we experience. The food system at the moment is oriented towards producing as many calories as at low cost as we can. That was very rational kind of post-war. That was how the global food system has been created. We need to think fresh now and actually think that it's not actually delivering now the things that we need and we need to set that set of ambitions for it. I think that Polly mentioned the fact that we've got some outstanding leadership in Scotland on some of the areas, particularly around food insecurity. Obviously, it's a very long way to go still, but you've made some really important commitments in recent years to take a stand on protecting citizens who are in that kind of situation. I think that, in comparison to what I've been working on in the national food strategy in England, we've got a different set of processes here where you've actually now got a draft bill. While England has spent two years or more doing a really in-depth piece of work to develop this national food strategy, it is, at the end of the day, an independent review to which the Government will be responding and choosing the things that it wants to take forward. Therefore, the long-term ambition in England is very uncertain at this point as to whether or not the Government will decide to set in place that infrastructure for long-term systems change that will stand the test of time and survive different electoral cycles. You're in a unique position where you have now a bill that you can make do that and set out that long-term ambition. I think that, at the moment, as draft did, it doesn't get there but has huge potential too. That would be the challenge that I would be urging the committee to grapple with. Thank you, Anna. That's more useful. I've got a supplementary from Rachel Hamilton. It was a question to Polly about our ambition to try to eradicate food banks. There is a leak to report that says that Glasgow City Council will possibly be axing a holiday scheme for free food for children as part of a £34 million cut to the budget. This particular bill doesn't have any resource allocated to it, so we know that the local authorities have to deliver the actions that are contained within the plan. Therefore, I just want to ask you whether you believe that there should be a budget, a specific budget for this, because we're already seeing cuts. You might address that to Polly and then Anna. Thank you, convener. As we were just hearing from Anna, the bill at the moment is the beginning. It's the bare bones of where we might want to build our ambition. As all of you know only too well, a lot of the things that we need to do have a cost associated. When we think about local authorities in particular, we have concerns at the Truswell Trust from our work in Scotland about how central we know local authorities' actions, services and support are to supporting the very people that we want to prevent from coming to the food bank. However, local authorities' budgets for this kind of activity have been cut. Local authorities have spent a lot of time engaging with local authorities on how the Scottish welfare fund is delivered by local authorities. We know that what they want to do, what we want to support them to do, they don't have the resources at the moment to deliver that. Anything that we might be asking local authorities and other public bodies to implement that has a cost unless we attach a budget to it, we're not going to be able to deliver. With limited information that's in the bill at the moment, without a commitment to develop a national plan, but without saying what it is, it's hard to be able to say what the budget should be, but not recognising that a budget is necessary would stop this bill having any sort of impact in the way that we would want it to deliver. Thank you. Anna, and then Pete. Thank you. I think that you're pointing to a really vital part of this sort of picture of things that need to be in place to drive the change in the longer term, and one, of course, is adequate resourcing, whether it's at the local authority or level or the national level for that matter. Just to give you a bit of a, obviously, the bill as drafted currently sets out the requirements for a national plan and plans by the different relevant authorities. The national food strategy, which I think you probably argue is a bit like a plan, I mean it's not exactly, that's been developed for England. That was a hugely resource-intensive piece of work. It was two years, a big team in Defra, a much wider team of consultants supporting the work. It involved deliberative dialogues in five different regions, workshops in person, online with citizens to involve a really big youth consultation with 400 young people in a whole set of workshops in school. To do this work properly, and I think again you've got a really exciting opportunity to really involve citizens in creating this better future for Scotland around food, really does require investment in order to make sure that this is not just a set of words on paper, which ticks a box at this point, but actually does drive the transformation that we really need it to and which offers so many prizes at the end of the rainbow when we get there. Thank you, Pete. I just want to echo that. This is very much about investing in food system change so that we can have a healthier and happier population and we can be more easy with ourselves in terms of how we do food in Scotland. It's an investment over time. The cost of ill health from food is staggering and we can reduce that and we can have a much happier population. Local government is absolutely key to this. The local authorities in Scotland somehow have very progressive food plans. They're developing local food plans already and lots of innovation is already happening at local level, but it needs clear accountability at local level, too, which the bill will create and a assured funding stream over time to support local action on food system change, as well as national action. Thank you. I'll now move on to questions from Alasdair Allan. Thank you, convener. I was interested in something that policyed there about some of the causes around hunger and the connection with incomes. There's obviously a great deal that this bill can do and it will be interesting to see what's in the plan. Can you say anything more about what your experience is running food banks, what the impact on nutrition has been of measures such as universal credit and the impact on incomes? Pauline? I mean, our evidence is really clear that the driver of people to food banks is a lack of income primarily from the social security system. Universal credit alone is one of the biggest drivers of people to come visiting food banks and in particular the in-built structure of the wait at the beginning of a claim for universal credit before people get a payment, often called the five-week wait, but unfortunately not very often only five weeks. I think that it's extremely disappointing for us as an organisation that's been campaigning, but for people who are in receipt of universal credit, which of course is a massively increased number since the pandemic, it's been much more devastating and having day-to-day consequences to see that the £20 cut to universal credit that came in in October for many people. We are just looking at the data at the moment. We collect data from food banks across our network in Scotland and the UK all of the time and we do it and release it every six months. The last time we released data was covering the period to the end of September before therefore not capturing any of the impact of what that cut to universal credit of £20 a week was, but we know anecdotally from many food banks across Scotland that they have seen an extremely busy winter period. Winter is always very busy for people, costs are higher, heating in particular is higher and we're very concerned about rising energy costs of course, but we're just collecting data at the moment to be able to see whether what the impact has been of that cut to universal credit for most recent cuts. We remain resolute that we want to see the Westminster Government take action to put that £20 back into universal credit and fix many other things that could be done. There is something that I think the Scottish Government could look at in regard to universal credit. You have some powers over Scottish choices. We know people in receipt of universal credit want to have more options about how often they get their universal credit payments and would appreciate being offered that at every meeting with their work coach. I urge the Scottish Government to think about how it can use its existing powers to look at that. We could make a big difference to people's incomes if we use powers that we have. We're looking at the very successful model of the Scottish Shell payments, a new benefit delivered in Scotland, targeted at people, children who are at a particular risk in experiencing low income. How can we use that model to get income into people's pockets to cover that weight for universal credit? I think that it's something if we had the budget, we could do. I draw out specifically why we focus on income, but when food banks already started to grow, the focus was very much, as I said earlier on, on how we get food to people rather than the resources to buy food. There was a real focus on how we support people to budget, how we support people to cook, but let me be absolutely clear. The reason people come to food banks is not because, in the main, they don't know how to cook or they don't know how to budget. The people we meet are excellent budgeters. They can do things with very little money, but many of us in this meeting would be amazed at how they can make a very little amount go a long way. How many of us can cook with a parcel of pretty much dried, tinned food? It's really difficult, so the issue is absolutely on income. I was keen to bring that in early on in the conversation, because you make an important point that some of those issues are about income and about money as much as they are about any other policy. I was keen to know, perhaps from Anna and Tilly, perhaps, their views on that and what we understand in the future of a good food nation to look like and whether income is part of that. Thank you. I think that income is absolutely part of it, but it's recognising that that's not the case for everyone. Most older people that food chain work with finance isn't the main barrier to them accessing food. It might be physical access or it might be, but they've got arthritis and they can't use a peeler or they have really short care visits. The care can only cook a microwave meal, which is only four minutes long, and they have to sit there on their own and eat it. It's got to be recognised that there's so much more to this than just finance, and I can really value everything that Polly says, but recognising this wider complexity, if we're going to support Scotland's older population and recognise that we are ageing as a population very quickly, we need to have these systems in place that support those people. Food chains are a 70 per cent increase at the height of a pandemic in people requiring access to grocery delivery service and the wider support that we give. We've had to intensify that provision over the past 25 years because it's an increasing demand for this wider support, whether that's befriending and one-to-one meals, because people have never had the opportunity to eat with another person. People lose all that, they use their interest in food and that obviously has a wider cost society on public health and malnutrition levels and mental health, social isolation and loneliness. I think that that's really important that finance is key, but it's about dignity, it's about choice, it's about having access to culturally-appropriate food and all the principles that make someone food secure. Michael Fukari, the UN special rapporteur, says that really well about people should have the opportunity to celebrate food. If that should be the aim for eradicating food banks and for eradicating the need for other services, the goal should be that everyone has that opportunity and recognising that there's no one solution. I think that's really important that we're all different and we all have our own taste, we all have our own dislikes, we all have our own personal relationship with food and making sure that that's captured in this complex system. It's a great goal and we will achieve it, it's just making sure that we recognise that diversity of Scotland's population. Just a small addition on the point about universal credit, I think that the evidence points to the fact that it creates a unique vulnerability to food insecurity. When you look at the family resources survey data, which is the big UK-wide survey that the DWP commissions produced its first data on evidence on food insecurity last year, and when you look at patterns of food insecurity across variables around receipt of benefit, you see a staggeringly high levels of food insecurity amongst those receiving universal credit, more than other forms of benefit. 43 per cent of universal credit recipients report food insecurity in that survey, and I think that it points to some of the reasons—I mean, Polly's described very clearly some of the reasons for that, but I think that the fact that this evidence is now being produced through a really robust survey using standardised methods that are used across the world for measuring food insecurity means that we really have no excuse but to properly work out how we're going to reduce those levels and make sure that the benefit system is actually protecting people in the way that we need it to, and of course many of those people will be working, they'll be juggling jobs as well as being on universal credit, so this is as much a point about wages, which Pete described very well as it is about the benefit system, but I think we have to grab this and the bill creates an opportunity to really set some good targets around the direction that we need those numbers to go in and putting in place the measures to make that happen. We need to build the affordability of healthy, sustainable food into our public policy, and that was said by House Laws Committee recently, it was mentioned, and then we'll report to that idea that everybody should be able to afford healthy and sustainable food has to be built into how we set our social security levels and how we set the living wage, and we have to make those calculations, which we used to make 50 years ago, we don't make those anymore, we need to build that in, and that also means changing the rules of the game as far as the private sector, how the food system operates so that, as Anna said earlier, healthy food becomes more affordable and unhealthy food becomes less affordable, because trying to get that basket right so that people can afford healthy, sustainable food is crucial. Thank you. I've got a brief supplementary from Jenny Minto. Thank you, convener, and thank you panel. It's really following on from my colleague Dr Allan. I was really struck by Polly's comment about people that are in food insecurity, are very good at budgeting, and visiting a food bank is kind of a last resort. I think that it's fair to say that Scotland has made some decisions, the Scottish Government has made some decisions on its spending priorities, which has been highlighted. For example, bringing in the child payment, which is unique within the UK and will be doubled from April, and then also the roll-out of free school meals. I'm interested to hear what maybe Anna's and Polly's thoughts are on what other countries have been able to do with the full fiscal levers that they have, that they are then able to bring in the right legislation, the right powers that are suitable for the people that live in their countries. It's a good question, and it's difficult to answer it from a global perspective. Obviously, for the purposes of the national food strategy in England, we were looking a lot at what the international experience was. I can also send on to the committee some of that experience from other countries, which might be of interest and value to your process. I think that what many countries, wealthier countries across the world are grappling with now is how you, building on Pete's last comment, re-incentivise the food system, and, in particular, the food industry, food companies, to put their energy into healthier and sustainable food so that those become the ones that are the most affordable for everybody and tipping that balance of prices. At the moment, we've got it all skewed in the wrong direction, so unhealthy calories are three times cheaper than healthy calories. A lot of evidence is describing that problem. Of course, now, while you might point to, well, pulses and root vegetables are very cheap, that's true, but you also need to put quite a lot of time and energy in terms of cooking into those foods, and particularly in the context of the fuel price crisis that is pricing people out of that option. We've got a situation in which the system is oriented in the wrong ways, so we've got to be really thinking about those fiscal measures. Countries are starting to do this. They're thinking about levies and taxes and how they use those to dampen down and make it so that it's harder for companies to produce at such low cost these really energy-dense unhealthy foods and how they can then use that revenue to subsidise in different ways the healthier foods, whether that's through targeted things like preschool meals or whether that's the more generalised subsidy mechanisms. That's the space that countries are really in at the moment, and I think it's the space that across the United Kingdom we need to be thinking about, given that many of those companies, of course, are operating at a UK-wide level, so it's difficult to intervene on a more local scale. That's the challenge. We've done a lot in recent months on how do we restrict promotions, not having them on the end of aisle, how do we restrict advertising, and all of those measures are really important, but they require us to get quite detailed legislation about what category applies and what doesn't. We need to try and think a bit about how we can simplify the fiscal measures so that you can really hardwire into the system that reorientation of the economics, essentially, of what Henry Dimbleby calls the junk food cycle, this sort of trap that we're in whereby we want to eat energy-dense food, they taste delicious, they don't fill us up, we buy more of them, companies produce more of them, their markets grow, the efficiencies of scale happen and we're stuck in this cycle, which, as individuals, we can't get out of and neither can companies get out of, and that's why we need the leadership from government. Thank you very much, convener, and this question is to Pete. Pete, you just talked about the affordability of food. We're already hearing from all the other panellists about food insecurity, 43 per cent of universal claimants feel food insecurity, the ability to be able to buy food, and you're talking about the affordability of food. How do we marry that up with the cost of production in this country if we want to produce good quality food here locally? How do we get the income of the people who desperately need this food to marry up to the cost of producing the food in the first place? Right. It's absolutely going to take time, isn't it? We're going to—and things like child payment are great first starts on those things, but following on those earlier comments about international experience, this is part of a global change that's going on. The EU had the farm default policy, which came in a couple of years ago. The EU, the commission, is now working on a sustainable food law to start making this big shift from producing calories at cheapest cost to delivering nutrition for populations. That shift is coming under way in the EU, so it's going to be long-term. We've got a fundamentally very unequal society in the UK, including in Scotland, and we have to start rebalancing that and have long-term policies to reduce inequality in Scotland. It's working on that. It's going to take time, but at the same time, with the way we produce food, we need to make progress on including the externalities in the price of food. At the moment, the health costs of the food that we produce, the environmental costs of the food that we produce, the pollution costs of the food that we produce, don't appear in the supermarket on the price of the food that we produce. We haven't got a system yet, in general, where the producers who are doing the right thing, who are producing the high animal welfare standards, high nature standards, looking up carbon, reducing their emissions and necessarily getting rewarded for making those changes. Again, the incentives are not right in the system yet, because all the costs the environment get dumped on the environment, they don't come back to the person who's produced those costs. This is another part of trying to reconfigure the food system so that farmers and producers who are doing the right thing can make a living out of doing the right thing, and at the moment a lot of the incentives still push the other way. Those things are changing. We're seeing the big UK supermarket sign up at COP to reduce the environmental footprint of the food system by half. There's work in progress, but there's a lot of work to do, and it's going to come in with the agriculture bill on how we support producers in Scotland to do the right thing and make a living through food. I don't know if that answers your question, Jim. It leaves me with more questions, but we really don't have time to go into them all today, unfortunately. Thank you, Pete. We'll now move on to the question from Karen Adams. Thank you, convener. It's Adam, not S, but people like to put an S on the end of it. Part of my question that I wanted to ask further down the line has kind of been answered as well, but while we're talking about that, I feel like I could amalgamate both of my questions. One was about in-work poverty and one was about targets. This is where my concerns around targets come in. Paulie, you spoke about people and food insecurity being quite creative with their food. I spent many years in a food insecure home, and I understand that. I used to buy an eight-pack of the value shop brand sausages to split between five of us, so I used to have to squeeze the sausage meat out the skins and mix it with breadcrumbs to try and make some kind of meatballs mixed with a 9p value tin of soup on some rice to try and get round five of us in the home. I don't know if that was completely nutritious for us and it was probably high in salts and it was probably high in sugars, natural carbohydrate sugars, to bulk up. I have experience of that, direct experience, and this is where my concerns come in in regards to the targets. I had a full-time worker in the house at that time, just to say that I wasn't a single parent at that time. When we are talking about targets, what targets are we looking at? When it comes to food policy and the processes around food policy, there is a lot of disjointedness and there is a lot of disagreement between certain organisations on what should be targets. Even if we cannot agree on a target such as obesity, when we look at obesity, it is not just food-driven, it is driven by stress, mental health, poverty and all of those things. My view of what a good food nation bill would be would be a real holistic change in culture in our country and helping to support that. I can't see how inviting targets in at such an early stage, whereas the bill could probably be led by the knows by targets. Instead, of just seeing what the natural consequences of changing culture could be, because if we are going to look at obesity, if there is a target to reduce that just by food, that is not going to work. We are not going to hit the targets and we are going to see that as being a failure when that is not what this is about. I am just wondering if we could have a more organic, holistic approach to a good food nation and be guided and overseen by a plan rather than led by the knows by targets. I would like to open that up to the panel who would like to come in. Can we start with Tilly? That is an interesting point. In relation to obesity, malnutrition is also obesity and malnutrition is also under nutrition. Recognising that social problems are really key. I think that targets allow us to follow the progress of the bill. The Scottish Government has already committed to lots of things that could be part of the bill. Civic participation is key to the process. The lived experience should be central to that. That is why an independent food body is really important that it engages with people with lived experience on the ground, with experts and I think that it is also important to recognise that there should be flexibility within that. Obviously, the whole food system changed almost overnight as a consequence of Covid and the closing of hospitality. Having that steer is really important. In relation to older people, there are specific targets around, for instance, that older adults should have access to one hot meal a day. That is not similar. Some people sit there and have had six digestive biscuits a day and you think, how is that even acceptable? Having things like that that could be measured, I think that that holds you to account. Otherwise, it can just be, oh, it's great, food is brilliant, but how do we know that that's actually happening for everyone across Scotland? There are so many people who get ignored and so many people get missed from the system. I'm not saying that targets will be all and end all of that solution, but it's a start in allowing us, as a society, to hold the bill to account and make sure that we can deliver the aims of a good free nation for everybody. Thank you. Pauli? Question 2. I'm sharing your experience first-hand of trying to make those sausages go around the whole family. I really understand why you're asking about—it feels that it's a really important question—how do we measure what a good food nation is? If you set it as homework, we'd give you a very long list of all the things that were important, which is why we focus on targets, but is there one thing that pulls it all together? Is there one target that can do that? I'm not sure. I have to say that I do have a preference for targets generally, because I think it's been really helpful in our experience with the Child Poverty Act. Much as those targets were extremely ambitious and they're going to be very hard to deliver on, it really has focused the whole of the sector—the third sector, the public sector and the private sector. Everybody who engages in trying to reduce child poverty, the targets have been really helpful at really keeping us the momentum up and the drive for change, and I think that that's the value of targets. In the context of the Good Food Nation Bill, the target that is most important for us as a food bank network is reducing food insecurity, particularly looking at how we can end the need for—end severe food insecurity, but maybe part of the plan would be tasked with looking at what is the best way to measure how Scotland is a good food nation overall and what is the sweet spot between all of these different priorities and targets might be. Thank you, and if I move on to Pete. I think what you said is really important. There's a really good point about the targets helping in this context. As Pauli said, I think what targets can do is simply sum up the direction of travel and the targets that we've suggested are very much linked to the broader sustainable development goals to which Scotland is signed up, so it's not like we took out new targets. You make a much more important point here, which is about the right to food, and rights are universal. The point about bringing the right to food front and centre in this bill is to emphasise that it's a universal right so that everybody in Scotland has a right to be food secure, not to worry about where the next meal is coming from, to have a healthy and sustainable diet. We have more than enough food in the world to do this, we have more than enough resource in the world to do this. This is not technically difficult, it's about a statement of intent about a direction of travel about the sort of Scotland that we want to live in, but this right to food has to be universal. Whether you're going through a difficult time, whether you're in care, whether you're in a rural area or a remote area, in an inner city area, that everybody in Scotland could be able to eat well, to enjoy their food, as Tillie says, to feel good about food, to take pride and pleasure in their food, and not to be worried sick about where their next meal is coming from and making that right to food a universal thing in Scotland, just like we have with healthcare and education should be the core purpose of this bill. Thank you very much, Karen. It was a very thought provoking question. I think to build really on the comments that have been said already, I would be looking at targets alongside a purpose statement. The purpose statement I think has to really encapsulate that ambition and vision and the sorts of things that you touched on and that Pete just did around what we really want from our food system and what we want, the role that we want food to play in society and in our lives, which is very qualitative and difficult to pin a target on and not very easy to measure, but I think that the targets are vital for setting in some ways that bottom line. We know that things are not going in the right direction unless we are seeing levels of food insecurity go down or unless we are seeing levels of obesity go down, so they do not become the summation of everything that we are trying to achieve but really a helpful tool for judging whether or not we are directionally going in the right way. I think that you also point to a broader set of challenges around culture and how you measure or articulate those cultural changes that you want to see. That is notoriously difficult to do, but I think that the role of citizens in this process will bring that challenge to life because the more that you can talk to citizens about their hopes for the food system and how it can help them to meet their social aspirations and goals and fulfil their values, that is when you start to get into really thinking, so maybe you could co-develop with your citizens some ways of measuring whether or not you are getting there on that more cultural aspect. It would be a really inspiring and exciting process to go through and you could set it alongside some of those more quantitative easier to measure aspects that will tell you whether you are going in the right direction. Beatrice Wishaw, I move on to the question from Beatrice Wishaw. Thanks, convener, and good morning, panel. It has been a really interesting discussion so far. Pete has started the question in his response to Cardin. I was going to ask about the right to food. I wonder if I could get the panelist's views about the merits or weaknesses of incorporating the right to food in the good food nation bill. If it is not incorporated, could the bill be strengthened in other ways to address the issues around access to food? Can I start with Paulie, please? Thanks, Beatrice. We fully support incorporating a right to food within the good food nation bill. As we have just been touching on with targets, it is important that we set a standard for what people can expect. It feels like the opportunity to put the right to food into Scots law gives everybody an opportunity to claim their right and say, well, this is what I expect, but this is not what I am getting. You have a duty to address this. For us, along with all members of the Scottish Food Coalition, we have been really clear that there is a unique opportunity with the good food nation bill to put a right to food into Scots law as part of that. We were disappointed that it was not spent when there was such a lot of public support in response to the consultation calling for that. I appreciate that there is a much wider piece of work going on looking at how we incorporate a number of different human rights in Scots law. I can understand the committee's questions about whether we do this with a right to food now when we think that this is coming down the line. From our point of view, I would be concerned if we do not put it in now, something develops with the human rights legislation later on and the right to food is not something that is prioritised and is brought in at that point. Situation might change. Also, when we have been looking very closely at the experience of people that we see visiting food banks, there is an urgency about that. Every year that goes past, every parliamentary term that goes past, where we have not taken action, that is tens of thousands of people who have spent the night hungry because they have not been able to get the food by the food and other essentials that they need. For the sake of urgency, for the sake of clarity, I would fully support and urge the committee to think about incorporating the right to food in the good food nation. I completely agree with everything that Polly just said. The conversation that we have been having about targets and accountability and also having the organisational resourcing in the form of some kind of independent body or form a vital part of that picture of making sure that the right to food can be properly implemented in Scotland is really articulating what we mean by a good food nation has to have the right to food at its centre. That is the challenge that I would urge you to grasp. It has the potential to really be world-leading. I think that we have heard Pete's opinion on that. Can I ask Tilly to respond? Thank you. I echo everything that Anna Polly and I have said. A delay to incorporation of a right to food is a delay in protecting human rights. The core purpose of the bill is centred around a right to food. What is important to recognise is that a right to food is not just about economic right to food. It captures wider complexities and protects those wider complexities, and that is really important if the legislation truly protects everyone in Scotland. I just wanted to add an additional point to the second half of the question, which is what else can be done? Right to food sits and that is one thing, but it is not the answer. It has to come within all those wider elements. In relation to that, we have talked a lot about health and social care. It does not have any recognition in the bill, as it stands, despite the fact that we have the national care service. One way of doing that, in addition to the integration of a right to food, is to recognise the integrated joint boards as a specified public body in the bill now, because that provides protection to people who are at every seat of social care in Scotland. Currently, the IJBs, as it stands, do not have to produce a food plan, so the health boards have to produce a food plan, but the IJBs do not. The food, food and nutrition standards that do exist only exist to support those who are in receipt of NHS care. If we are talking about those wider things, we need all those systems to work into connected and right to food. We must be a central part in comparison with that. Before we move on to the next theme, we have two brief supplementaries from Jim and Alastair. I could ask you to address your question to a specific panel member. Pete, I will come back to you, but it could really land with anybody. If you are going to have the right to food, you want all the right. You want the right to shelter, you want the right to health, you want the right to education, you want all of those rights. If you single out the right to food in this bill on its own, surely you are better to have it in the overall human rights bill that is coming down later this year, so that all of those rights are encouraged to make that single claim for the right to food. I do not dispute the idea that we have a right to food. I absolutely agree with that 100 per cent, but is surely it not better to be tied into a bill that incorporates all your rights? That is a strange argument, Jim. We have just incorporated, we are waiting in the Supreme Court and the UK Government, but we have just incorporated to convence on the rights of the child after years of campaigning from children's organisations. We referred to it in the 2014 Children's and Young Personals Act, we set up the Children's Commission, we did all those things to bring that specifically into the lower head of the main bill. Human rights are not something that, yes, they are indivisible, but we make progress when we can to improve and enhance them. The Scottish Government does not have any problem with the principle of the right to food, so this is about what can we do in this bill to advance in ahead of any possible future bill, which is not going to come this year, it is not going to come next year, it is going to come towards the end of the Parliament, and there is a hugely complex and challenging piece of legislation. For anybody in Scotland at the moment, having the right to food in this bill, making it a clear part of this bill and that the bill is censored around the right to food, is progressing human rights. The Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament are completely committed to doing that. The Scottish Government is a world leader on aspects of human rights. For us, that is a fantastic opportunity, as Anna said, to make this a world-leading food bill that says that the right food is at the heart of this bill. Is your point that the UK Government could challenge the Scottish Government's plans to bring in a stronger legislation later on? I am going to stop you there. We need to focus on this bill. We have very little time. Can you move on a supplement from Alasdair, please? Question for Tilly. You mentioned the idea of a delay to certain rights around food and rights, which I would agree are very important. Surely the bill that we are dealing with in the here and now has a plan associated with it, and it is that plan that would make rights to food tangible and real in the here and now. Surely we are not really dealing with a delay. Perhaps the plan is where our focus should be. The bill enables a plan, the bill that we are dealing with now. We have not really talked very much about what might be in that plan. I suppose that my question is surely that we have something here in the here and now to deal with and delay is not really what we are dealing with. It is a delay to showing that true commitment and ensuring that everyone that the right to food is theirs provides you with legal protection, that saying that you will do something does not provide. In terms of plans, I think that that is an important point in how the plans exist to ensure that everyone has a right to food. That is where it comes back to my point about the integrated joint boards. Integrated joint boards control all the commissioning of social care across Scotland, so that is all people who access food through social care. They do not currently, in the current proposal, have to produce a food plan, but the health boards have to produce a food plan. If we are going to support all those people who access social care and ensure the delivery of a right to food, whether it is incorporated in this bill or not, that still needs to be delivered in those plans, so it has to come at multiple scales. I think that the plans recognise different ways that people do to interact with food, and that is not necessarily always through a health board. It is all these other ways. I think that the plan should allow—I think that it is coming back from thinking about this in scales—that context really matters when we are talking about these plans and recognising that one solution is not the answer to every part of Scotland's different plans. The plans should enable that and enable that local delivery of a right to food, but national legislation, in the form of the right to food in law, would provide that protection. I move on to our next team, the participation oversight and accountability questions from Jenny Minto. Thank you, convener. Moving on from that question about the plan and creating the plans to ensure a good food nation. I am interested to get the panelist's thoughts on whether the bill provides sufficient provisions to ensure that people can engage with it and get involved in creating the plans until he is touched on lunch clubs, meals on wheels, how that all connects in. We need to reflect the Scottish population. Anna also talked about lived experience and perhaps one-size-not fitting all. I am interested to know how good you think the provisions are to ensure that there is engagement, but also how you would like that engagement to happen. We have some great learning here in Scotland about how we involve people with direct experience of poverty in our policymaking. We have seen it through advisory groups that have been set up around Social Security Scotland. We have seen it in advisory groups that are supporting the work of the steering group on ending the need for food banks. It is a fantastic work of the poverty truth community across Scotland. There is a lot more that we could do. We could see in this bill and within the plans about making it clear that people with direct experience of different parts of the food system should be central to the development of what that looks like in practice. In my own experience, where we have service providers together to think about how we develop a service better, inevitably, we make mistakes because we are not seeing it from the perspective of somebody who uses that service or who has tried to use it and has given up because it has not worked. We should definitely lean on the experience and the strong track record of other parts of our policy development in Scotland and hard wire into the bill and the plans, the central role for people with direct experience of both working in the food industry, experiencing food insecurity, the older groups that Tilia talked about and their challenges with getting the food that they need because our policy will be much more effective and we stand a better chance of moving closer to our ambition if we do that. I would also mention that that is where introducing again and adding to the bill an independent food commission would strengthen that because, as we have seen with the work of the poverty and inequality commission, linked to the delivery of the child poverty act, an independent food commission would give an opportunity to both have commissioners who represent direct experience in different ways but can also have a whole timetable of taking evidence and reporting on the delivery of the good food nation act, as we would hope it would be. That would be my strong recommendation as well. Preempted my second question. I would like to turn to Anna and ask again about public engagement but also about the overseeing body. I am right in saying in the Dimbal Bay report that the proposal was for Food Standards Agency and I am just interested in what you think would be the structure in Scotland. On the point about public engagement, I agree with the points that Polly's made, which are vital around lived experience, but I think that the public engagement goes a lot further or can go a lot further than that and be beneficial to the policy development process. We found that doing the public dialogues for the purposes of the national food strategy really helped us to think about the sort of interventions that would be publicly acceptable. For example, when we were talking about sugar and junk food, the willingness with which the public, the citizens in the dialogues were prepared to say, yes, we don't mind taxes or we don't mind restrictions on advertising, we don't like the pest of power that kids have over us when we are shopping, etc. It is very quick to go there but when you start to talk about meat reduction, it is a very different type of conversation. Even though it was clear that, from the evidence that we need to reduce our meat, they did not want to go down the same kind of routes that we were going down for sugar and fat. That was an incredibly useful insight in the thinking about where the public are ready to embrace and where we have to take a slightly different track or explore other avenues. It is vital for that as well. Obviously, in the national food strategy process, we used deliberative dialogue kind of style processes. They are resource intensive. You cannot get away from that, but it is hugely valuable. The other opportunity that you have here with the development of the local plans is that you could not just consult but allow a greater level of participation in the process. I think that there is a tangible difference in terms of the quality of that public engagement. However, if we want those plans at the local level to come to life, they are going to need citizens to participate and feel that they have power and ownership of some of those processes. That is the prize, if you like, in thinking about how you engage citizens. The fact that Scotland is a relatively small country means that you have got some proper possibilities for doing something meaningful along those lines. On the independent commission, I know that this is always a difficult conversation because creating new structures creates resistance for good reason. You have to start with what purpose we want to achieve here and where is the place that that could be best achieved. Obviously, we have in mind quite a substantial role in helping with the consultation, the plan development and driving that coherence. At the moment in the bill, it is really hard to see how you would not end up with a whole set of local plans pointing in different directions and a national one in another direction without having that overarching sense of purpose in the bill. However, the body, whatever it is that human resource, can help to drive some of that coherence and support the citizen involvement process. Also, vitally, I think that they will have to help with tracking progress, whether it is through a broader set of metrics that underpin the bill or the targets or whatever. There needs to be that touch point with Parliament where progress is reviewed. We can see that we are making some progress on obesity but food insecurity levels are sticking and it is a process of iteration. At the end of the day, this is hard work and we have not got—there are no poster child countries that have really done this in an amazing way that we can copy. We really forge it each time. We are trying to iterate and learn what the sorts of things we can do and this body will create that function and that feedback function to be able to really inform policy makers about what they need to be grappling with next. I think that an independent body is needed. Where it sits is obviously—there may be other options that could be considered, but the function is vital. Okay, move on to Rachel Hamilton for a further question. What actually was about the procurement part of it, so do you want me to ask that? That's fine. Okay. In one of the submissions to the consultation, it was said that building local indigenous food growing culture is really important. Later on, we are taking evidence from the NFUS and as part of their submission, they also said that we need to bring the whole supply chain closer together. I wonder if you had any comments on how we could strengthen those links between farming and, for example, cities where there are levels of deprivation. I am not saying that there is not in rural, but I hope that you understand my meaning there. Can I start with Tilly, possibly? In relation to older people, I do not know if that is necessarily relevant in terms of deprivation, but we know that people should have opportunities to socially engage with food and that does not just have to be eating a meal with someone. It could be opportunities to grow food together, and lots of rich men's shares have done some really great work in terms of reconnection with the land and growing the food together and eating the food together. There are opportunities in more unconventional ways, perhaps, to be engaged with the land for older people to experience the wider social wellbeing values that food can enable. I will let the other panellists answer the wider part of your question. I had more points about this. Well-being through working in green spaces and opening up land for allotments. It is also cutting across the planning bill, so it is opening up the access to indigenous food-growing culture. Our experience as a network of food banks does not give me much expertise to share with you about the wellbeing of growing. I know that there are other people on the panel who have a lot of experience on that. I think that it is just to be clear that this is why Good Food Nation Bill is so exciting, because it brings together areas around food insecurity, which are focused particularly on income, and all the many other valuable things that food can bring in our lives. I will make the point that, earlier on, you talked about food banks having cans and dried foods. That is an area that could be opened up to replace those types of foods in terms of how we are supporting people who are possibly less well educated in terms of cooking and getting access to that food. I think that that is an area that I am very interested in in terms of access to fresh food, but I will bring in Pete. It is a hugely important area. It is worth noting that, in a Dimleby report, when he talked about the purpose of the food system, he talked about resilience. We have to remember that that is a really important part of this whole policy mix. Covid really showed us that we rely almost entirely across the world, not just in the UK and Scotland, on the very long food chains. We have disconnected farmers and cities across the world. As part of COP26, we have some interesting dialogues between farmers and cities in different parts of the world to look at how we can help each other to work together. However, we have to understand that the processing supply chains are not set up for local food systems. They are set up for long chains, big accumulators and multiple retailers. Re-engineering will take time, but there is passion to do that. We recently did some consultations for the Scotland local food trafficking. The interest was phenomenal, especially in islands and remote communities, where you are at a very far end of a long food chain bringing stuff to you, where people are turning around saying that we could produce a lot more of our food locally and we could create jobs and we could build a local economic multiplier and we could create wellbeing. I want to get short on some of those connections. I think that there is a huge opportunity to bring in the idea of a stronger local food system and a more resilient local food system into the good food nation bill. How do we get that food from farmers to support people who are food insecure? It is a big challenge, but we have seen from cities around the world that some of them are doing just that. Sao Paola is doing stuff that Leon withered from during our full farm dialogues, where the local authorities are enabling that direct connection between producers and local communities. They are effectively either subsidising the transaction costs or subsidising transport or finding some other way of making those things work. Obviously, the Brazil Zero Hunger project focused a lot on that. How do we support farmer incomes and support low-income communities to access fresh food? There are possibilities there, but they are not simple because that is not the way that our food system is set up, but we should certainly look to explore that. Can I ask Anna the same question, please? Thank you. Just to build on a couple of further comments on building on what Peter said, I think that the resilience point is a really vital one. We have done a piece of research looking at our sources of fruit and vegetables across the United Kingdom and the extent to which those supply chains are coming from countries that are either very vulnerable to climate change or have got severe water problems. It is only a matter of time before some of those supply chains become even more threatened by some of those challenges. The impetus, if you like, to think a little bit more about the extent to which we can grow, particularly fruit and veg, where we have such a high trade deficit in the United Kingdom is huge. From a resilience perspective, setting aside the other reasons why we might want to be growing things closer to home and eating them and enjoying them, the other point is the potential for public procurement to, as Peter said, the supply chains are not well set up for local food systems at the moment, but public procurement can help to drive some of that transformation if you are really setting goals for local purchasing and trying to make sure that the benefits of those public contracts are really felt in local communities. Building on the anchor institution ideas and those kinds of things that have come out of Preston and that whole experience, specifically on low income, I was visiting a food club or a food pantry in Margate and Sandwich just before Christmas in Kent. They have set up a relationship with a lot of fruit and veg farmers in Kent, where they were not only getting their supply of food from fair share in a more classic food bank model, but they also had relationships with cleaners, where they were taking a lot of the slightly less-than-perfect fruit and veg from local farms and making them available in bundles through the food club. That is not free food for provision. That is where people pay for their food, but it is much lower cost and it is a great offer without any junk food included. There are ways in which communities are innovating in those ways and breaking the boundaries. As Pete says, the systems are not favourable to that at the moment and that is the kind of innovation that we need to really push for. Given what we have just heard today about the ingenuity that has been used and is used by many families who are struggling to pay for food, I wonder whether Ms Hamilton would maybe reconsider the phrase that she used about families who are hungry, possibly being less educated and how to cook. We have only got five minutes left and we are very, very tight. I think that Pete began to touch on that, but I would like to ask the panel and I will direct this to Pete and then Anna, and I will put my questions together for the sake of time. I would like to ask your views on the role of public authorities in the good food nation. What should they be doing around procurement, health, supply chain resilience, food education and community empowerment? In your view, to what extent does the bill enable or encourage them to do that? The other question is similar but around the private sector. They certainly need to be part of the solution. In what ways can businesses play a leading role in transforming our food systems? Great. Absolutely. The public sector has to lead by example and has to show the way, but there is really some great stuff happening in Scotland. We can do more. We can do better, as Anna said. We could increase the proportion of local food. We can do more on educating young people about food systems, not just how to cook but how the food system works and create a higher end food systems. There are lots of things that we could do, but we have to remember that public food is one and a half to two per cent maximum of food supply. The big elephant is the private sector that delivers most of our food and is operating, as Anna said, on rules that generate ill health and environmental degradation, because the rules to which it operates generate that sort of food system. We have to change the rules. If you take the off-side rule in football, if you change the off-side rule, it changes the game. If you do not change it, people keep playing the same game, because that is what the incentives are set up to do, that is what shareholders expect, and that is how the market works. Fundamentally, it is a global challenge to change the rules for food supply chain actors, but what the bill can do is make it really clear that the Government is intending to use its powers to help to work with the food system, which wants to change to do things better. Mandatory reporting, which is a report from supermarkets on what they are selling, is important. Carbonary report is important. Nature report is important. Over time, we have to align what is sold to us in our supermarkets, restaurants, catering companies, canteens and takeaways. We have to align that with our health imperatives for a healthy diet and with our climate and nature imperatives for living within our climate and nature boundaries with our food system. We have to align those two systems. Otherwise, we are not going to make net zero, we are not going to get any healthier as a population, and we are going to continue to see the devastation of nature by the food system. I am conscious of time, so I will be very brief. On the point around local authorities, I think that you said in your question to what extent does it encourage and enable local authorities to take action in this area. I think that I would say that it encourages but does not enable enough at the moment in the way that the bill is drafted and in the kind of level of resourcing and capacity support that are in there. On the private sector, I completely agree with Pete that the bill must set out the expectations of the private sector. It goes back to that purpose statement. It is vital that the private sector sees a clear direction from government. The thing that causes all kinds of problems is constantly shifting the direction. If there is a clear direction set, that is a really vital step. Following through with creating those incentives, realigning the incentives for change and, importantly, many of the more progressive companies will say that they want to do that, but they have to create a level playing field. If I step in that direction, I am immediately going to be taken over by my competitors. I just lose market share and what is the point of that. They are right, what is the point of that, because you end up with the same outcomes. The point is how you move progressively to move that set of standards forward by realigning the incentives. The mandatory reporting is an important first step. It will not solve all those problems, but it brings a level of transparency and accountability to the private sector, which we desperately need. I hope that you will also equip policy makers. I will urge you to ask Westminster if they are progressing with the mandatory reporting of how the data can be cut for Scotland so that you can really use that data in a way that informs your thinking about policy development. It will create an ecosystem around it of campaigners pushing companies to move faster. That is all good, that is all what we need in terms of shifting the system in the right direction. That brings us to the end of the session. There are one or two questions that we would like to follow up with written questions, and hopefully you will be able to respond to the panel. We are in responses. Thank you very much for your input today. That has been most valuable. We will now suspend until 10.40. Welcome back, everyone. I will return to evidence on the Good Food Nation bill. I will be hearing from our second panel, which is focusing on policy outcomes relating to supply chain resilience and economic development. I welcome to the meeting John Davidson, the deputy chief executive and strategy director of Scotland Food and Drink, Karen Galloway, head of retail and insights from Seafood Scotland, Johnnie Hall, the director of policy for the National Farmers Union of Scotland and Claire White, manager of Shetland Food and Drink Ltd. I would like you all to make very brief opening statements, and I will start by inviting John. Good morning. Thank you, convener. I thought you were giving me a promotion there. I was quite excited about that. Thank you and thanks for the invite today. I am John Davidson, the deputy chief executive at Scotland Food and Drink. Scotland Food and Drink is a membership organisation with 440 members, and we also have a key leadership role to take forward the growth of the food and drink industry working with our angel partners. The context of the bill is an incredibly difficult past two years for food and drink businesses across the industry in response to Brexit and Covid. Many businesses have barely survived and now face enormous market pressures, both in terms of rising costs and market competition. That said, we think that the future is really positive for our industry and we are optimistic and therefore anything we can do to support those recoveries is a good thing. As such, we support the bill and we believe that the scope and purpose is about right. Specifically, we see this as a good opportunity for greater policy and operational alignment across the public sector, with the various bodies having a really shared and clear focus on how we support local suppliers and, in turn, how we support the local economy. My comments today will be through the lens of food and drink businesses, and we have made some suggestions on how we think that the bill can go a bit further to enable and facilitate more local sourcing across the public sector. We think that more local sourcing means that it becomes easy to talk about good quality local food, access to it and understanding where our food comes from, all of which underpin a really strong food culture in Scotland. I will pause here, convener. Thank you very much, and I will move to Karen Galloway. Good morning. Thank you, convener. My name is Karen Galloway. I am head of retail and insights at Seafood Scotland. Seafood Scotland is a trade body representing the whole of the seafood industry and was set up by the industry to represent industry views. Our role is to look to develop a sustainable, economically viable seafood sector across the board. Just following on from John's comments, I think that absolutely we support the spirit and nature of the bill wholeheartedly, but, as John mentioned, the past two years between Brexit and Covid have been exceptionally challenging, especially for some aspects of the seafood industry. There is a real opportunity within the bill to embed recovery and recovery for the sector. My comments really look to set out a much—I guess it is about the vision and the strategy for the food system across the board in Scotland, acknowledging that it needs a huge degree of policy cohesion across a whole range of different dimensions. I think that that point around public procurement, around local food sourcing, safety, et cetera, we need to look at this holistically rather than through just one lens. I think that we would really encourage the partnership working through the existing systems and partnerships that exist within the food sector in Scotland, so that we can co-create the strategy to make sure that we get buy-in from industry stakeholders, from industry itself and those businesses, and really make that difference. For me, it is really about how we can add value to that, and that is why I am here today. Thank you, convener. Good morning, committee. My name is Johnny Hall. I am director of policy with NFU Scotland, and as I think most of you will be aware, NFU Scotland is really the lead body representing agricultural producers across Scotland, ranging from crofting interests right through to soft fruit production in Anguson Fife and so on. We cover every gamut of the primary producer in terms of Scottish agriculture. Like previous speakers have just mentioned, we remain in extremely challenging times, almost a perfect storm in terms of post-Brexit landing place and the impacts of Covid in terms of supply chain issues and so on. Nevertheless, while Scottish agriculture remains extremely challenged as we move into a very new policy environment and policy context, there is also a significant opportunity. I think that the key thing for us as NFU Scotland around any aspiration for a good food nation is the primacy of the role of the primary producer, if that makes sense, and how it is fundamentally important to ensure that the interests of the primary producer are at the front and centre of the aspirations around a good food nation. No doubt, we will come to some more technical discussion around some of the challenges and issues, but in the wake of the trade and co-operation agreement, new UK legislation around the internal market and subsidy control, Scottish legislation around continuity act and so on, and where might a good food nation bill sit in domestic legislation and policy as we move to a new agricultural support settlement? I think that all of these things are really, really pertinent and the key thing for us would be to ensure that a good food nation bill acts in support and in a complementary fashion to all those other things going on rather than doing something in isolation. Thank you much, Johnny. I am the manager of Shetland Food and Drink Ltd. It is one of 18 regional food groups across Scotland, orchestrated by Scotland Food and Drink. We are a membership organisation. I have 100 members and we exist to increase the production profile and profitability of Shetland Food and Drink by providing public-facing promotion, quality assurance and collaboration opportunities. We are broadly optimistic about the bill, but, like Johnny, we are eager to see the specifics and how it will work in practice, particularly what it means in practice for small local businesses. Thank you very much. We will now move on to questions. Given the panel's experience in production in the supply sector, can I ask you individually to let the panel know what you think the most difficult challenges are facing the production supply sector in Scotland and also set out what you think those unique challenges are, but the opportunities, but also in a UK context, so compare the challenges that we have in Scotland and the policies that we have in Scotland to deliver a good food nation bill and look at what is happening in the rest of the United Kingdom. Johnny, can I ask you to come in first? Yes, by all means. Fundamentally, from an agricultural point of view, the real challenges are that we are moving out of a very familiar, comfortable common agricultural policy that is largely dictated by the behaviour and practice of agriculture in Scotland for the best part of 50 years. However, we are moving out of that into a new context whereby there is going to be more ast of agriculture, not just in terms of sustainable food production, but in terms of what it also delivers in terms of climate ambition and also in terms of restoring nature, addressing the biodiversity challenges as well. In that sense, Scottish agriculture is arguably looking at delivering on those three fronts, food, climate and biodiversity simultaneously. That is challenging, but it is certainly not impossible. It will remain almost elusive unless we also start to change the way in which we support both in terms of incentive, regulation and advice agriculture so that farmers and crofters understand what is expected of them in terms of delivering high-quality food at the same time as reducing emissions, sequestering carbon and delivering for wildlife and nature. That requires a significant shift in how agriculture and land use policy is developed and applied in Scotland. Obviously, there is a significant amount of work going on right now with us and the Scottish Government and others in endeavouring to get to that new place. However, that will be challenging for a lot of agricultural businesses. There will be a significant restructuring of agriculture over the next few years. As part of that, we also need to make sure that we have more resilient businesses that can withstand the volatility of the marketplace and have a fairer return in the supply chain so that we are not as reliant on direct support from the public purse, but we can guarantee more of an improved share of the income from the supply chain itself so that we can operate as businesses that deliver public interest outcomes. I will answer that in two parts, first the challenges and then the opportunities part. In terms of the challenges and what we see at the moment, there is two strands to this. There are market challenges in terms of how we recover from Covid. In the UK, the UK is one of the most competitive retail markets anywhere in the whole world. We have fantastic retailers that are doing great work supporting many of our suppliers, but it is the most competitive anywhere in the world. Therefore, that is putting enormous pressure on our suppliers who are trying to splant those markets and at times putting major pressure on their margins. We then have the export international markets, which on the one hand is valuable, but, because of the implications of Brexit, it is making things a little bit harder to get there now, and the competition in international markets, as other countries seek to recover, is really challenging. We have really tough market conditions out there to navigate. The flip side to that is in terms of our business and what it has experienced over the past two years. I say them all in the remarks that it is tough just now. People have lost market share and had pressure on their workforce over the past two years. Businesses and cash flows are eroded. They are typically 10 to 15 per cent down on their labour supply, and they are seeing increase in costs of 20 to 30 per cent for raw materials, packaging and so on. The conditions for businesses in those market conditions are difficult just now, but others are facing that too. On the opportunity side, what we have saw is the one bright light from Covid is an increasing interest domestically on local food. We need to capitalise on that. I think that the public generally, when we are more appreciative of our local suppliers and recognise that more, we have seen an upsurge in some home deliveries or local outlets, so we need to capitalise and do more there. We know that the Scottish brand and Scottish quality and Scottish provenance is well regarded both in England and internationally, and we need to capitalise on that. We need to redouble our efforts to get back to the market, raise our profile and help our businesses in that space again. We know that demand is there and we just need to support our businesses and navigate those opportunities again. There are two aspects to that answer. The starting point is that Scotland is a fantastic place in the sport that we have had. Government and others over the past 10 years have a fantastic culture across the food and drink industry for working together and collaborating, a culture that is not seen or enjoyed elsewhere in the UK, for example in England. Although England is catching up now through the Henry Dymblo report that you heard about this morning, Wales and Ireland are starting to also do good things. What we have in Scotland is a fantastic platform to support our industry moving forward, recognising the challenges that it has been there. We currently have, but we are also keeping that laser focus on the opportunities and how we build back stronger and target those opportunities to grow our businesses again. I guess just following on from John in particular, I think that the seafood sector has had the perfect storm over the last couple of years, to say that its tough market conditions out there is perhaps a significant understatement. We have had significant inflation. We know the labour shortages in rural areas in particular, and in some of our seafood hotspots it is really very dramatic. At the end of the day, what we catch in Scotland, we tend to export. We do not eat what we catch in the UK, or in Scotland rather. We have been trying to address that for the past 20 years, and it is very challenging to get both the UK and the Scotland consumer to eat what we catch. I think that John is right that we have seen through Covid many businesses pivot and really that acknowledgement of local food in that enjoying and supporting local business, but also enjoying the Scottish bounty, if you like. I think that we are facing some tough challenges. In Scotland, we are in a really strong position. I think that John mentioned the collaboration and the work that happens in partnership working across and between organisations. It is exceptionally strong, and it is not something that is replicated south of the border in particular. Claire will come on and talk about the role of the regional food groups. The network that we have here is vital to some of those smaller businesses and vital to our recovery. I think that the seafood that we catch in Scotland is some of the best in the world, but, as John said, the rest of the world is out there too. It is hard trading at the minute. Some of our shellfish exporters and the issues that they are seeing getting their product to traditional markets are harder than it has ever been, and that is not going to go away. The need to address some of the issues around domestic consumption and domestic demand, whether that be working with those really challenging retailers and looking to create a demand for Scottish seafood products, provides an opportunity, but it is also not going to be a quick fix. It is something that we are going to have to work on across a period of time. That comes back to the point about the impact in terms of climate, in terms of biodiversity and the impact that our industry—certainly the seafood industry—has in terms of sustainability, in terms of some of those broader environmental and ethical considerations. I think that there are a lot of issues going on in the background, but I also believe that the future is rosy with the right kind of support and the right kind of collaboration through working together, which we do not necessarily see as south of the border. Both John and Karen have made. From our perspective, the most difficult challenges that we face locally in Shetland are competition, as John said, particularly external competition in an island setting, where there is finite available food and drink spend. We have had a couple of recent expansions of local supermarket chains here, and the impacts of that are difficult to articulate because they are so systemic and catastrophic, potentially long-term. It strikes us that there is a disconnect between planning policy and local development policy and the aspirations of large companies that wish to locate themselves in island settings when it comes to that finite local food and drink supply chain. On that distribution point, production and distribution costs and blockages remain significant in island settings. Freight costs and regulation costs are generally around animal transport and slurry storage. Johnny knows a great deal more about those topics than I do, but, in all of that policymaking, it is really important from the outset that island perspectives are included and that measures are proportionate when it comes to that smaller, coherent food supply unit. On fishing, like Karen, we have the issue of, particularly in Shetland, competition increasingly over the seabed, as aspects are sold off to the highest bidder for renewable energy use. We ask ourselves what does that mean for our fishing sector, which traces back hundreds of years for generations? Just be mindful always of the competition from the indigenous existing industry in creating new industries on the seabed. Also, we face challenges and quota terms on lags in science between data that is collected and the consequent fishing policy, which has massive impacts on our fleet locally, which is absolutely the most significant aspect of our economy by some margin. The fishing industry needs support in and of itself. It is already a climate smart food choice that we are promoting here, and we need support to transition successfully. That seafood food sector is kept front and centre as an existing, already incredibly climate smart solution to a lot of the protein problems that we face. We do keep supporting that long term, I suppose. Those are all challenges that we face. The Scotland versus UK aspect that you asked about does not feel, to be honest, from a membership perspective as relevant to us as the mainland versus island perspective on things. We already collaborate, as Karen said, very effectively Scotland-wide, with our equivalents elsewhere, but there really is minimal UK-wide consultation and collaboration currently. Critical for us is, in all policymaking, think islands before implementing anything that is professing to be universal. Thank you very much, Claire. I now move to Alasdair Allan. Thank you, convener. Question for Johnny Hall. I wonder if you could speak a bit more about what you feel a good food nation would look like. You have given some indication already about what it might mean for the agriculture sector and elsewhere, but at a time when, as you have indicated, we are moving through a period of change in terms of agricultural payments. How does a good food nation plan, which will be in this bill, relate to the wider issue that you are talking about in terms of the change in the regime that you have to operate under as farmers? That is an excellent question. Fundamentally, I mentioned in my opening remarks that a good food nation must begin, at the very least, with the principle of a sustainable food system and sustainable agriculture being at the heart of that. I would argue that the last 50 years of agricultural support have driven us away, somewhat from the aspiration of a sustainable food production system in terms of our management of soils, land, livestock and so on. However, that has now been recognised and the clear intention is to endeavour to reverse that. That is why agricultural policy, quite rightly in Scotland, is starting to shift in that direction towards it being about the trilogy of food, climate and biodiversity. Behind that, the principles of just transition about enabling farmers and crofters to adapt, because it is also about underpinning rural communities, rural businesses and everything that they provide socially and economically. To me, that is the kernel of any good food nation, but particularly here in Scotland. As we move beyond the farm gate, I feel like that extends into understanding and awareness on a much greater scale than we have now and an appreciation of what producing food in Scotland is all about—providence, the cultural identity of many of our food products and so on—to resonate far more readily with our primary consumers here in Scotland but also in markets in the rest of the UK and markets beyond. That is where we need a joined-up approach between the likes of ourselves as the primary producer interests and the likes of John and Scotland's Food and Drink and others in order to then have a seamless transition from primary producer all the way to end consumer. However, bearing in mind that there is some significant commercial interest in that process around whether it is food distribution, whether it is processing, whether it is retailing and so on, so I think that the time is right that we need to really understand our potential as a food producing nation but also to then ensure that through policy and support in the right way we enable those connections to be made. That goes right the way through some of the principles in the bill around things such as the education of individuals as folk grow up, understanding where their food comes from, the value of it in terms of not just what they are paying for it but in terms of the story behind it and, indeed, the nutritional aspects of what we are producing here in Scotland. Finally, my only other question for the convener was for Claire White, who is like her. I live on an island and I am very interested in what she had to say about supply chains or the market for food locally. What more do you think can be done, I do not say to reverse a trend, but to promote places in islands where food that is produced locally can achieve a wider market, because, in many places, as you have touched on, as in the rest of Scotland, supermarkets have a market share on the sale of food, which is very large and it is very variable whether supermarkets choose to stock very much local produce at all. What are the options that Scotland has to ensure that island communities, like yours, see more locally produced food on island shelves? The first and initial response to that is, do not let this problem arise in the first place, by please connect planning and local development planning. Where planning applications come in from external competition to vulnerable rural and island regions ensure that the local development plans are upheld in the face of those applications and are not regarded as not material planning considerations and therefore unimportant. Do not invest the time, effort and local energy in formulating a vision for how we want the place to live and work in to look if you are not going to honour those commitments long term. It needs a revision of planning, first of all, in considering the impact of external competition and additional external competition on already vulnerable areas, both rural Scotland and island settings. What could be done to reverse that trend? The trouble is that, once strategic decisions are made, it is very difficult to do anything to reverse that trend, because, as you say, supermarkets notoriously offer poor margins to local suppliers. The claims in the planning applications can be, in some cases, arguably inflated, and small local suppliers simply are not economically strong enough to provide all the infrastructure that supermarkets require, and, consequently, they just cease to trade, because more and more business in a finite pool of spend moves to these other outlets. All that money for us just simply sells out the south mouth and there is no multiplier effect locally, and it is really difficult to think what to do in these situations. We try desperately to promote local produce all the times, the reason why we exist. Our resource is minute. To give you a feel for that, we are a one-person team that is co-ordinating every bit of local food promotion that happens in this region, and we have spoken to Scotland Food and Drink a lot about that. We need significantly more resource and long-term resource, in the way that equivalents in Iceland have half a million pounds to spend annually on promoting lamb alone as a result of a farmer cooperative system that they have there. That is the kind of magnitude of spend that we will be looking at to create any sort of competition that feels regionally distinct and in which we can collaborate across Scotland and build a better, bigger brand internationally long-term that will serve and deliver export benefits for Scotland. Okay, thank you for that. Just on the back of that, I think that we need to remember that this bill, as it currently stands, only really brings in a requirement to produce a plan, and private sector is not involved in that. With the risk of a statement on other members' toes in future questions. John Davidson, you guys obviously represent the private sector. Do you think that there should be duties placed upon parts of that private sector? We are talking about supermarkets and maybe an obligation to buy local, procure local, have local produce on the store. Do you think that the bill needs to go further and actually address some of those things rather than just an obligation to produce a plan? Thanks, convener. It is a very interesting question. The first part of that is in terms of the obligations on the public sector. As I said earlier, I think that the bill can go further in terms of what we want to see from the public sector to enable and stimulate more local sourcing. At the moment, the plan is a good concept. I think that we can go just a bit further to just take that to the next level and maybe come on and talk about that. I think that the private sector one is more interesting and probably is very complex in terms of how we do that. Generally speaking, setting things like targets can be quite high risk, because what we have seen in the past, if you look across Europe when targets have been set around the common agricultural policy, when you set targets to drive a particular sector, that can then create an oversupply in the sector, which then creates price drops and crashes. There are some challenges around that. I think that we have made enormous progress in the UK and in Scotland over the past 10 years. For example, we retail and work in the partnership to source more local. There is much more that can be done. To what extent the bill can address that or be quite prescriptive in that space, I think that needs a lot more thought in terms of how we do that. There were comments earlier on, I think, in the earlier session, about reporting, for example, and about retailers. If we have more transparency about social practices, does that in turn generate a bit more focus on that and a bit more momentum to source more? We very much support that in the context of the public sector, so it is an interesting debate in terms of the private sector. However, my final comment is that we have a very mature architecture in Scotland around Scotland Food and Drink partnership, which consists of all the trade bodies, many trade bodies and the public sector. I think that we have enjoyed relative success over the past 10 years working together, collaborating, and we have shared focus and ambition. We would need to think long and hard about whether there are any particular duties in legislation and how that would add value in the context of the private sector. I think that it needs a lot more discussion. I think that the public sector is an easier debate to have. I think that they should show their leadership in that space, and I think that there is a great opportunity to do that and build on the work that we have already done. Thank you, John. I was going to bring Rachel in at a supplementary, but it is probably more appropriate just to bring Karen in, which is going to lead on to some of the questions that you have touched on, and I will bring Rachel in after that. I want to touch on targets here and targets set in. I have concerns around that. The experience of the panel has food planning processes, and a lot of those can be seen as fragmented between industries and contradictory strategies with really diverse policy goals. I asked the question about targets in the last panel, and everybody seemed to have their own targets and wishes, although there was some kind of overlap there. For example, one target was mentioned to have one hot meal a day, but really one hot meal a day could be somebody throwing a microwave ready meal at somebody. Is target setting quite detrimental at this stage? Is that what the plan should be about? Should it not be as an oversight, as a guide, to see how we can holistically create that culture of a good food nation? It was John who spoke earlier about the unintended consequences of lockdown, a bit of a silver lining where people were buying their food more locally, going to local shops and local businesses. Also, because it was more practical for the sake of exports, imports and everything in the EU exit, everything was to be compounded and harder at that time, but there was an unintended consequence. If we are going to lead by the nose into targets, is there a danger that we miss the point of this good food nation bill and what is supposed to be about? Johnnie, would you like to start with that, please? I think that targets are something of a hostage fortune. Certainly in agriculture and land use, there are many Scottish Government targets kicking around, which you can see the intention behind. Nevertheless, I think that they do create something of a distraction. We have targets around things such as forestation. We have targets obviously around climate change and emissions reductions, and some of those are specifically set in an agricultural context. Therefore, the question then asks, how do we achieve that? That is also in the context of a target within something called Ambition 2030, which Scotland Food and Drink and John will be able to comment much more of, about how do we grow the value of the food and drink sector in Scotland over the next eight years to reach some £30 billion value. It is an easy one for Government and agencies to throw around the concept of targets, but when it comes to practical delivery, it is more about what measures and levers you put in place to enable people not necessarily to achieve those targets, but at least to make progress towards those targets. We should not beat ourselves up about targets. I think that I would be very reluctant to set targets for Scottish agriculture about what it should produce and so on. I would be far more interested in how it produces what we produce and how, sustainably, we produce that. What the margin is for the primary producer is that, in order to retain them in being viable agricultural businesses, they can continue to produce food of the highest quality. In that respect, I do not think that targets are particularly helpful in any respect. Obviously, it is a convenient way for Governments to set out a policy ambition by quoting a target, but the key thing is how we achieve change, how we implement change and then realise whether we are making progress to what we want to attain and whether we have achieved success or failure. As I say, targets are hostage to fortune. You either reach them or you do not, but in getting some way down the line towards them, that can still be a success. Just to come in on the idea of targets, I think that Karen mentioned and John earlier on unintended consequences. I think that, often, with targets, there can be unintended consequences of them. They can often be contradictory. We can see that often where we want to achieve net zero plus we want to achieve growth in exports or whatever it might be. Sometimes, as Johnny said, you can be hostage to fortune because you might meet one by seriously missing the other. I think that putting headline targets out there can be very much a distraction. I agree with Johnny's point on enablers. For me, it is about how we articulate what a good food nation looks like rather than setting numbers or setting targets that, as Johnny said, can be missed. For me, it is very much about how it is about the ethos and the culture that we want to create. If it is about that sustainable food production system, it is about what we need to do and the enablers and to Claire's point as well in terms of what that means for rural economies and rural businesses. Whether that be about access to local food locally but also for our rural economies and our island nations, it is about getting product to mainland and getting product around the country, so the logistics and infrastructure challenges around that. For me, there are a number of issues tied up in that. Fundamentally, I would like to see a clearer articulation of what a good food nation actually means and the enablers for business and the public sector to deliver on that. I feel that targets, slightly developing what the previous speakers have said, have been a successful incentive for us. Scotland Food and Drinks Network regional food groups is very young. It is just a year old in which we have all been in a very formalised way collaborating and exchanging information with each other. Although part of Scotland, Orkney, for example, has been doing this job for over 30 years very successfully, some parts of Scotland are just right at the beginning of their food and drink co-ordination journey. It is a very mixed picture, as Karen said, across the country. However, sitting from the point of view of someone who is trying to make this new vision of a new Scotland with a new food and drink proposition come to life daily for the people who live around about me and work here, targets are useful. Ambition 2030 is a nice, crisp, clear aspiration. Similarly, the food tourism action plan, which looks at a doubling in our revenue from £1 billion to £2 billion by 2030, is an incredibly clarifying and guiding game that we can all move behind. I am not averse to targets, but I would like to see more of, from where we are sitting, is ensure that those targets are realistic, as Karen said earlier. Johnny, as you said about making sure that it is how we do it that is important, as well as just that outcome in the end. Make sure that they are realistic and that they keep in mind the needs of the different parts of the country. Make sure that they are really well communicated, because what I am reading about the Good Food Nation Bill right now, it sounds wonderful, but it is almost like the internet going into a box or something. There is just so much information and it touches on so many aspects of life. It is completely overwhelming, so a nice, crisp number does make things understandable for everyone. Progress against targets is about the reporting of that, so that we are constantly hearing how far are we on the milometer towards our final destination, how many kilometres have we come and how many are still to go. That reporting needs to happen at all levels. Where people are struggling, there needs to be a safety net to say that we are not where we are, where we are forecasted being at this point. Who do we call upon to remedy that and how do we work together to solve that? I think that that is the only way in which we can move together as a nation on this really effectively. I know, John, that you touched on targets in your last response. Can you just summarise your position on targets? I will repeat what the other panellists have said. We are not particularly attracted to targets, I think. We do favour an ambition, so it is good to have an ambition. When we talk about ambition 2030, that is a strategy and ambition that we have. Having that high-level ambition, but we are much more focused on the outcomes, as others said. What is it that we want to achieve across different sectors and regions? The key is how we do that. How does the bill crucially help to enable that and facilitate that? Targets have unintended consequences and can just be overly focused on that at the expense of other things, so we need to keep a broader perspective. I have a supplementary question from Arran Burgess. Sticking with the theme of targets, I think that I am a bit confused. Partly because we have just talked about that in this panel, and we were commenting between switching over, I feel like I have not had anyone say that this is a target. I am going to offer some targets, or what I think are called targets, but maybe their ambitions. All workers in the food sector are paid at least the living wage and are included in collective bargaining agreements by 2025. Halfing of the moderate to severe household food insecurity by 2030, halving childhood obesity by 2030, halving the environmental impacts of the food system, including halving of food waste by 2030. Are those targets or are those ambitions? I think that those are really great useful things to have as part of our good food nation. I mean, we have been working on this, I think, for quite a long time. I heard Pete Ritchie say that he has been campaigning on this for six years, and building on a platform, John, of what you have been talking about, that we have already got a really amazing food and drink offer in Scotland. It is also just to say that the Scottish Government has already committed to halving childhood obesity elsewhere, reducing emissions from agriculture by 31 per cent by 2032 and reducing food waste by 1 third by 2025. It is already there, so it is just that thing of getting it into this bill so that we can then use that as people have talked about, the framework bill, that it sets a course, a direction for all these other things that are going to come afterwards, in particular the agricultural policy. Claire, I really appreciate your contribution that you have found targets a useful thing to move towards. This piece about, you know, we are going to miss targets. Yes, that can be a kind of thing of like the Scottish Government's missed their targets yet again, but surely when anyone is trying to change anything, having somewhere to move and a kind of an agreed direction to go in is what we really need. That is what we need to be a good food nation. Having said all that, I would love to hear whether those are targets or ambitions. I just really need the clarity of what we mean by target. I do not know who would like to pick that up, Finlay. Johnnie, do you want to come in first, followed by John? Thanks. I have obviously lots of things that are always open to interpretation, ambition or target. Once you put metrics on it in my head, it becomes a target. Putting numbers on things makes it a target in my sense in my head. I will go back to what I said before. What we want from all policy and maybe this is primary legislation and it is then what comes through secondary legislation that will count. It is the how-to. It is the enabling piece that allows you to move towards that ambition or target. However, we are going to define it that becomes critical. Without those levers, pretty much certainly from an agricultural context, we will continue to operate pretty much along the lines of the status quo unless we get some real shocks from the marketplace. However, the shocks from the marketplace are not particularly the ones that we would necessarily like or necessarily help us to achieve the wider goals and aspirations around being a good food nation. I go back to the fundamental point that I said right at the start. We need a sustainable agricultural system and sustainable food production in Scotland. What does that mean and how do we achieve it? That is not necessarily setting a target around that. However, it is something that we are short of at the moment. We are definitely not there yet, but it is about how do we piece together all the pieces of policy that will change behaviours, change practice and deliver outcomes that we actually want. It is a really good question that has been raised in the different perspectives from the panel earlier on. I personally think of those things as ambitions that have been set out, rather than targets. However, that said, it is open to interpretation. However, for me, with the bill, I think that the more defined this is in terms of just being clear about what we are trying to achieve and then thinking about how others can then make that happen is where we want to go. How does this bill create the conditions? How does it bring people together? How does it focus efforts and energy into achieving the things that we want to achieve? From my perspective, in terms of what Johnny MacDonald was saying about flourishing local businesses' sustainable food production, I think that how do we create opportunities for local suppliers? How do we try to help local suppliers to get fairer prices for their products? How do we support the growth of local businesses generally? Those are the things that I want to see. The question is how does this bill help us to do that? Can the bill have additional things in it to stimulate those things and achieve those outcomes that we want to achieve? I concur with Johnny MacDonald and John MacDonald. I would probably agree with John MacDonald that those measures are more ambition than target, but at the same time I acknowledge the minute you put a number on it, it is very much a target. I think that that is open to interpretation. I agree that it is about how and about the culture that we want to create in Scotland with the whole food production system. I think that it is about creating that shared vision. I did not manage to listen to all the evidence in the earlier session, but I know some of those organisations well. I think that we need to look at how we create that infrastructure, that shared vision. I am not sure that, necessarily, putting half a dozen, a range of targets on that necessarily helps, because I think that it can provide distraction. As Claire said, having one vision that we can all aim towards collectively is perhaps something that is more constructive. That may well be made up of a number of elements, but it is about getting to that point, which is about what do we collectively want for our food infrastructure, for our food systems, about our access to food, about worker conditions. There is a whole range of different aspects in there, and I do not disagree at all with any of them, but I do think that it is about what are the levers. How can we encourage—if we want to look at public procurement, how can we talk about obesity, how can we talk about school meal provision? There is a whole range of different aspects in each of those different elements, so I think that it is about that clarity of vision, that clear articulation and communication of it. The net zero communication is a really strong example of a clear unified position in target ambition—let's not argue about that—but it is a vision that we can all share. I do not necessarily feel that we have articulated that clearly. The words good food nation are fantastic and feel good, but what I would like to see is what does that mean in practice, both for the public sector and for our supply chain. That is all that I can add on that. We will now move to a question from Rachel Hamilton. 21 of the 66 responses to the consultation on the good food nation bill stated that education about food is key to success to meet some of the wider regard to the plan in areas such as social and economic wellbeing, the environment and health. A number of people have mentioned, for example, that QMS, Quality Meet Scotland, stated that they would like to see a right to food education. Rhett said that the bill does not consider improvements to food education, which is vital to delivering the five overall key objectives. Can I ask the panel bearing in mind the scope of the bill and possibly the limitations that have been raised? How would you like to see food education delivered through the vision of a good food nation ambition? I would totally support some of the comments that you have relayed there in terms of food education, which is a very broad piece. From our perspective, we would like to see a very clear and definitive focus on agricultural education and how food is produced here in Scotland in the first place and why we produce what we produce. We would want to see that being part of the curriculum and have openly said that. Obviously, it is the whole supply chain about the processes in which food goes through. Ultimately, to get to the point, for young, older or whoever, we appreciate the value of food. That does, in my opinion, mean that we need to go back to basics in understanding the role, function and purpose of sustainable food production, how important it is to our lives and to society and to our culture in many ways. I would entirely endorse the quotes that you have just given from QMS and RETS and so on. We need to do more in terms of allowing everyone, particularly younger folk, growing up and going through the education system, to understand more about food and, therefore, value food. I am not talking about what price they pay for it, but I value it in terms of what it intrinsically involves and what it means and how to utilise food, how to cook food, how to derive the best nutritional value from food and so on. To be proud of that food, that it has come from Scotland, the provenance side of what we do here in Scotland is critical. We are not going to be a commodity producer in any sense, relatively small agricultural economy. Our key strengths are our unique selling points, if you like, are all around provenance and all about the story behind the food. We need to maximise that, both here at home and in markets in the rest of the UK and beyond. That is all an education piece. Promotion is just another form of education in many ways. Can I open that up to John on the basis that private sector, there may be some interest in, as the Dimble Bee report has suggested, in cutting sugar and salt and increasing fibre. Now, through education, that could be changed through behaviour, and I wondered if you had any comments on that. Yes, thank you. The first point is to acknowledge that I agree with the principle about enhancing education around all this agenda, and I think that we can do much more. A lot of good work has been done by many bodies, including QMS in particular, seafood Scotland and RET, on connecting that farm and what happens on farm with school kids. There is probably another initiative locally that is happening as well, so there is some good work being done. However, it probably feels a bit disjointed and probably lacks any cohesion with the wider good food nation agenda or the culture that we are trying to see here. I think that there is a huge opportunity in that regard. I think that that is important because, as Johnnie said, young people understand where food comes from, the contribution that it makes to our society, environment and our wellbeing, and how that translates into what we may buy in the future. I think that the connection between what is then served in the local schools, for example, is really important. We want to educate young people around that, whether it is part of the curriculum or not, and how that connects to the food that has been served at lunchtime. Clearly, there are some good examples of that happening, but there is more that can be done. That relates to the wider issues around our career in the sector, which we know is difficult and we know that we need to make more progress on. That is how those things all connect. I think that the particular point around the issues around diet, salt, sugar, fibre and so on, are also important aspects to that. It is just giving young people more information on those things, on how that relates to local suppliers, on how the Scottish offer and the food offer is adapting to those societal changes. There is a huge amount of effort going on across our manufacturing sector to make healthier products, to reformulate, to cut sugar. It is not easy, it is difficult, particularly for a small producer. However, the market wants that, whether it is through government policy or market demand for a healthy lifestyle, and many producers are responding to that. The more we can involve our young people in understanding what is involved in food production, the quality that we have here, the things that we need to be thinking about and doing and the choices that we make. I think that the opportunity that the bill presents is to try to bring alignment around all that. I would expect to see in the local food plans produced by local authorities, for example, a real strong emphasis on that. How does our food culture and the improvement of that through our young people come through as part of the food plans that they have to publish annually? I absolutely agree with what John and Johnny have said and concur with the comments that you read out from QMS and RET. I feel that education has to be a real important part of that. I could drone on for hours about my own experiences with my children going into their schools to provide seafood experiences for them. As an organisation, we have done quite a bit of work on that. I think that, to John's point, it is not just about the food and the dietary aspect. There is the preparation and cooking. There is about healthy food choices and moving through into the skills and the career aspects. I think that that joined up approach through all aspects of education. Right through educating in colleges and talking to our chefs and our young people who are training as chefs, it is not just a one-trick pony that we can go into primary schools and tell them about a healthy balanced diet and the wonderful bounty from Scotland. That is a very simplistic lens. We need to look at it in the round across the whole education establishment. I agree with what John is saying about how that links up with the offer from public procurement, certainly in the school environment. We have had some experience in that. It is particularly challenging to try to link up what is being served at lunchtime with the education in the classroom. That is a massive opportunity. If we could line some of that up locally, creating links with local supply chains and local food producers, the benefits would be really strong for all aspects of the sector in Scotland. Thank you very much. I am very mindful of time. A brief supplementary from Jim Fairlie. Thank you very much, convener. That is directly to Johnnie Hall, but John Davidson, I want to come back to you later on, particularly around the role of Scotland Food and Drink Ambition 2030 and the role of the public-private partnership. I am mindful that I could come back to that later. Johnnie, you touched on stuff there about how Scots should enjoy and be proud of their food. The policy memorandum actually says that it is a norm for Scots to take a keen interest in their food, knowing what constitutes good food, valuing it and seeking it whenever they can. There are also another couple of points—point 20 and point 25—that I am not going to quote. I was also very interested in what you were saying earlier on about the farming community getting more back from the marketplace, which I absolutely endorse all of that. We are also hearing from the food insecurity side and the other side where people are living impoverished lives where they cannot get access to good quality food. How do we make this bill work where we are subsidising or supporting our farming community to produce the best quality food but, at the same time, making it available if the farming community wants to take more out of the marketplace? How do we bridge that gap? It is going to be a challenge. There is no doubt about that. One of the fundamental points I was making in terms of the farming share of the margins in the supply chain is that some supply chains are really quite short but some of them are quite long and convoluted. The role of the processor and the retailer is probably critical. Very little of our food is sold direct from farmer to consumer. I wish more of it was because there would be benefits on both sides of the point that you are making about people having access to food and quality food at that but equally getting a better return for the primary producer, i.e. the farmer or crofter. I think that the actual supply chain needs to be interrogated here to some degree to look at the sort of margins that are being made in that supply chain. Who is capturing what? Because at the one end, and I have often quoted this at the one end, you are getting farmers being squeezed at the one end and you have got pressure on consumers on the other but somewhere in the middle somebody is actually really doing quite well. We have seen farm incomes decline over years and years despite the fact that we receive significant amounts of public support, farming comes continually declined. At the other end, we will continue to see food poverty if I can put it in those terms. Something is happening in the middle more than anywhere else and I think it is the interrogation of what is happening in the middle that counts. Clearly, we are producing a high quality product in sufficient terms and we also import from the rest of the UK and other places as well, particularly around certain fruit and veg and so on. I think that a focus needs to be or a light at least be shown on what is happening in that processing and retailing and more than anything else. I would like to ask the questions around the right food, the same question that I asked the previous panel. We have heard this morning about a whole systems approach and policy cohesion, but we have people going hungry and food poverty, as Johnny has just mentioned. I wonder whether I could get the panel's views on whether the right to food should be incorporated into the bill and if you have any thoughts on any merits of doing so or weaknesses of doing so or if you can see any other ways that the bill could be strengthened to access the issues around access to food. John Lennon would like to start on that one, please. Yes, thank you for the question. It was an interesting debate earlier on about this particular question. On the face of it, we completely understand why people feel strong about this and why people see merits in this. From our perspective, we do not have a particularly strong view, but that is probably because we do not quite understand all the implications of that. Because of that and because of the nature of what we are talking about here, our thought was and respondent to this evidence was that it would probably make more sense in our view to think about this right to food in the context of wider human rights legislation, where we can look at this in a bit more coherently in the round and really take a bit of time to work out the implications of that and what it actually means in practice. As I say, it is a very complex debate. I think that the panel earlier on this morning, we were even talking about the complexity of this and all the different things that need to be considered. Therefore, in our view, given the complexity and the issues beyond food in itself, whether it is education or living or whatever it might be, we think that having that debate in the round with all those other factors is probably a bit more sensible rather than looking at that in isolation in this bill. I would totally align completely with what John John said. It is not a primary preoccupation with us. We cannot offer a particularly detailed, nuanced view on it. Similarly, I think that instinct from our point of view would be human rights legislation rather than the bill itself, but that is a very amateur view of the whole picture. Thank you, Claire. I would probably concur with colleagues. I do think that this is something that we lack expertise on. It is an issue that is hugely complex. I do think that, for me, if we were to embed this in this particular bill, it is about how we look at that broader piece around cohesion with other aspects of food policy, whether it is local procurement, whether it is education, et cetera, et cetera. For me, it is much more about the cohesion point. I am afraid that I lack the expertise to be able to say whether or not this should sit within this bill or within human rights. Fundamentally, it is something that we should be embedding within our legislation somewhere, whether it is here or somewhere else. I would defer to others who have the expertise to comment on that. I have no particular expertise in this area at all, but my gut feeling is that food is a fundamental of life. We all need food to sustain ourselves day to day. It is part of our wellbeing, part of our culture, part of who we are. I would have thought that any right to food would then align to other fundamental human rights. Therefore, if a right to food should sit alongside other human rights issues in human rights legislation, rather than in a good food nation legislation. Johnnie, thank you for keeping your responses brief. Following on from what my colleagues were discussing there, I will end up with a question that is more specific to your own industries. We are facing a cost-aliving crisis. I read a couple of days ago that there was a thread by a butcher who was explaining the cost of a leg of lamb when a customer thought that £30 was a lot to pay for it. In fact, that is a discounted price and for anyone to have a reasonable profit within that and to keep viable, a leg of lamb should really be around £50. That is more than some have for a week worth of food. I know that most people do not have an issue paying well for good food, but many just cannot. We are still seeing poverty and health-related inequalities because good nutritious food can still be a luxury for many. For example, cutting out salt is a luxury when cheap meats are full of saline and food bank foods are full of salts that you cannot extract. No amount of education can extract that salt, if you are a chemist. What can we do to address that as a reduction in food prices? I presume that we would put people out of business and harm the industry and perhaps lower food standards. Not only does it impact the quality of life for the individual, it impacts our economy and our health service. My question is how revolutionary do you think it would be for your particular industries if everyone could afford good local food? I think that we can address that to John and then to Karen. Thank you. It is a great question. The fundamental last point that was just made there in terms of if everybody had access to high quality good local food, would that help everyone? Yes, it would. There is no doubt about that. The point that was made about what it means for suppliers, and going back to my earlier comments and Karen is absolutely right in terms of the pressure on suppliers just now in the margins in a retail outlet in particular that is extremely difficult just now. As I said earlier on, the competitiveness of the UK retail market is driving prices down or keeping them stable to a level that is really challenging for suppliers. They are doing that in an effort to keep prices relatively low for consumers, but as the point has been made well for some consumers it is still extremely difficult to do that. As a major employer of 120,000 people across the industry, there is clearly a responsibility on food and drink businesses up and down Scotland to pay a good wage and a fair wage. I think that what we are starting to see is wages increasing all the time across the country. That is in the pursuit of being a good employer, but that is also because of the labour challenges that we have at the moment. We are in short supply. The reality is that businesses are needing to pay more to get people, which is a good thing for individuals. It is a complex problem. It is very difficult. The cost of food, generally speaking, for many products in the UK, is extremely low in comparison to other countries. There is enormous pressure on the supply chain around that, but at the same time it is extremely difficult for some individuals to be able to afford good-quality food generally. It is a fundamental challenge that we have here in this country. One in the industry definitely wants to play its part in how we support our own employees. I think that this is a huge issue. There is no doubt that the inflation that we are seeing in the supply input costs—John mentioned it earlier—will there be electricity, transportation, etc. The input costs for food production at the minute are skyrocketing. Inevitably, there will be food price inflation down the line, whether it will be 5 per cent as reported, or if you read some of the threads on Twitter from Jack Monroe in the region of 25 per cent. Definitely, there is an acknowledgement that this is a massive issue. It is structural, it is systemic and it is not going to go away quickly. I would love to think that the seafood industry could provide a solution, but we know that it is not straightforward because our population does not want to eat what we are catching. It is easier for our seafood industry to stick stuff on a lorry to France, where they get a better price, where the product is viewed of real significant quality and is real desired. From a seafood perspective, it is a real challenge. That is not to say that there is not something that cannot be done in terms of those local networks and how we support that. I know that some of the issues around rural communities and the support that we can encourage from our industry back into their local communities is perhaps one of the routes that we do. John mentioned encouraging and ensuring that our seafood businesses are paying a living wage and are offering good conditions to their workers. Those are things that we can control. I do not have an easy solution, but I acknowledge that it is going to be a bigger issue going forward. John's point is that we know that the retailers are really keen to keep the on-shelf prices down. We will see that the squeeze on margins will continue at a pace. I will open up a theme on participation, oversight and accountability. Before I ask my question, I just want to make a point that Claire, thank you so much for your contribution around the supermarkets opening in Shetland. I think that I drove by one of those to North Maven and then learned of the devastating impacts on a local community shop because of that opening. You have really opened my eyes to the whole connection between planning and this bit that, at a local level, there needs to be participation. I will direct that to John Davidson and Carol Whittle just because of the interests of time. Last week, Professor Mary Brennan spoke about how many workers in primary food production are not food secure themselves. That is clearly incompatible with any vision of a good food nation and shows the importance of involving workers and the whole food sector in policy design. I would like to ask your views on whether the bill goes far enough to ensure sufficient participation for the food sector in food policy design and how that should be facilitated. We have been talking about the edges of it. John, if you would like to pick that up. I think that it is important to strengthen the bill in this area in terms of how the authorities work with and collaborate with the private sector. There are two streams to that. Clearly, today, I represent a regional food group and there are 18 of them from Scotland. Those are doing amazing work locally to promote and encourage the growth of local food and drink and what happens at a local level. For me, the really important regional food groups are included as a participant in how local plans are developed. I do not think that nationally there is a problem. I think that nationally, in terms of the Scottish Government, they have a wide network of appropriate networks to feed into in terms of policy design through Scotland Food and Drink and the wider partnership. I think that locally, I think that there is an opportunity for more connections to be made. Regional food groups is one. I think that the other one is just around the thing that I represent, the Scotland Food and Drink partnership, which consists of all the trade bodies, which have fantastic links to business and workers. I think again how we feed in and are consulted and involved in the development of local plans for local authorities' health board and stuff is really important. Whether you go down a lower level to business, it starts maybe getting quite complicated, but I think that the industry bodies can do a very good job representing their workers. I think that there are two aspects that need to be included in any engagement going forward. Thank you. Karen, do you want to come in on this? Thank you. I would concur with John's comments. I do think that this is about connectivity, and I think that that has a, you know, whether it be through the bodies such as seafood Scotland and Scotland Food and Drink, NUS, et cetera, working with the regional food groups, working with regional authorities, I do think that connectivity and that creating increased closeness between whether it be supply chains through into local authorities, through into local networks, et cetera, can be part of the solution for this. So I think that if this bill does something about to help bring closer aspects of industry, then I think that that would be a real step forward. One of the issues that has been talked about is whether new bodies are needed to implement what might be in this bill on its plan. I just wonder if John Davidson would have a view as to whether that is, in his view, a priority as to how to spend money that we might be spending on good food or whether there are other areas that it might be better spent on. Thank you. No, we do not see a need to establish a new body at this time. For two reasons, just the on-going pressure on public finances is significant and therefore creating a new body, which always probably costs a bit more than you think, is probably not a wise choice at the moment. Secondly, there are others out there just now who are operating in this food and drink space who probably could fulfil some of the things that we want fulfilled potentially. Of course, we have the food and drink partnership that I have talked about a lot this morning, which is a public-private approach, sector approach to what we are trying to do, is one piece of the landscape. You have Food Standards Scotland already exists, you have responsibility around food safety and diet, so there is something in my head around is there an option if we need something to look at their role in their remit? I think that looking at existing structures and mechanisms, once we define what its purpose is going to be in terms of some oversight here, I think is a way to go rather than creating something brand new from Freshman. I would like to return to the relationship with the private sector and the bill. I am interested to know how you think the plans that the bill is looking for local authorities and the Scottish Government to create will enable the private sector to play a positive role in a good food nation. I do not think that I have too much to put into that. Obviously, that is the primary focus of the bill for the relevant authorities to produce the plans, but, as I have said a number of times, I am still struggling to see how the bill, as primary legislation, links to the how-bit, which I have mentioned a number of times this morning, but how does it then link to the private sector, to the primary producer and the supply chain, the distributors of food, the processes of food and so on. If everybody buys into that ethos around local production, local procurement and local consumption, we are shortening our supply chains and addressing some of the issues that have been touched on in other questions and so on. The bill, the way in which it is written at present, does not make those obvious links to the private sector at all. It is very public sector focused, and therefore I think that it is what the plans would say themselves will be key going forward, because surely a plan then has to set out a number of actions as to what the relevant authorities are then going to do. That is not much of an answer, but my plea rather than anything else, is that the plans have to enable something effective to then happen, rather than just being a sort of aspirational strategy. Maybe I could expand that to John and ask what kind of examples that he would like to see included in the plans that would allow the private sectors to involve and support the Good Food Nation? Yes, thank you. There are two parts to my answer here. On the plan, I think that it is fundamental that all the plans are fully aligned with the wider industry strategy that we have, and we are currently developing going forward. I think that we need that connectivity and that cohesion in the two, and that goes back to how people feed into that and how we collaborate. I think that this is the opportunity for me to mention a couple of things where I think that we could possibly look at the bill going a bit further to help the private sector. If I think that the bill is an opportunity to facilitate and enable the private sector to source more local or supply more local into our public sector and, therefore, grow that local economy and think about the wider food culture, there are three things that I think that it could do and that we could go further beyond the plan or within the plan. First, is there something around a potential duty on the public sector to consider Scottish suppliers? At the moment, there is a procurement process and, of course, our agencies and our public sector are doing good things around local sourcing, but is there a duty that could be on them that they must consider a Scottish supplier? They do not necessarily have to take them, but they must consider them. That is the first thing that strengthens that. Second thing is that there is definitely something around the reporting of local sourcing. One of the big challenges that we have is that we think that everyone is doing a good job around local sourcing and that there are some great examples out there of authorities who are doing good stuff. However, we do not really know, so there is definitely something around how the bill can bring out some reporting so that it is a bit more transparent so that we can see where the gaps are and then we can think about how we fill those gaps through the industry and the public sector working together, whether it is a particular sector, product or region. There is something around reporting and transparency around that. The third aspect—this is a bit more broader—is how can the plan, is there something around planning and licensing that can put conditions on to stimulate local sourcing and local suppliers and opportunities for them? Whether it is, for example, an event that is given a licence, what does that licence say about the need for the organisers to contract or consider a local supplier around the food and drink offer? Those are things that could possibly be in the bill that will really just take it to the next level in terms of providing those opportunities for local suppliers, which in turn has much broader benefits for local economies and are just our culture generally. Thank you, John. What you have just said really strikes with a quote that I often replay. Every time we spend a pound we cast a vote for how we want the world to be. I think that your comments tie into that. As well, Claire, you made some really helpful points about Shetland and the way that it is operating. I wonder if you can add any more to what you have said with regard to the relationship with private companies. Yes, just merely from a local perspective. Jenny, I would say that we are looking at that early collaboration and visioning on the part of local businesses. It can feel from where we are sitting, funded by our local authority, by Scotland Food and Drink, by the Highlands and Islands Enterprise and representing private businesses, that we are always slightly torn and that the objectives of those two groups are not fully aligned. It feels just from an objective point of view as a good broker. Amongst all that, the private sector has a very clear vision, inevitably through their business planning, of how they see their sector develop locally. It is in many cases slightly ahead of where local authority thinking is on this, whether it is awaiting policy advice or changes in administration or whatever else. I think that we would be on a better footing as a region, an island or a local authority within Scotland if we all envisioned that together as early as possible for our own patch and then speak about what that means nationally longer term. That is where we feel like we are right now in Shetland. I really do not have much to add. John summed that up really nicely and would probably be reflective of our position. I know that certainly we have had experience. Some of our industry have struggled on the public procurement front, where we have had business desperate to supply local authorities in particular schools. The public procurement process has been a block to making that happen. John's points are well made. I think that the bill provides an opportunity to create closer links and relationships between public and private. I would like to see some of that happen in practice as well. Nothing more to add. Thank you very much, and finally, Jim Fairlie. Thank you, convener, and I will make this very brief and targeted to John Davidson in particular. John, first of all, I would like to note the fantastic, successful industry that the food and drink sector is in Scotland at the moment. I think that that is really important. We take bear that in mind. I want to specifically focus on ambition 2030. We have had a huge turmoil over the past couple of years, clearly. Will ambition 2030 still stand? Is there a way of linking ambition 2030 into the overall plan of the Good Food Nation bill? Thank you, Jim. That is a great question. Ambition 2030, for the benefit of others, is the national industry strategy that was published five years ago, where the public and private sector all get behind and work towards. We are currently going through a process, Jim, to review that and revise it. We will absolutely be publishing our revised strategy ambition later this year. We think that that is important, because that just gives everyone a shared focus and a shared confidence to get behind industry and what we want to do. How that links to the bill is a really interesting question. I think that there is something in that in terms of the opportunities for this bill to recognise the importance of our sector in Scotland, the contribution that it makes to the economy, and how we want authorities to really get behind that industry strategy both now and in the future for the long term. We know how important the sector is to the economy, so there is definitely something in there. To what extent, in the detail of that, I think that there needs further discussion, Jim, but I think that there is definitely something around the explicit recognition between the journey that we are on and this bill going forward. It is a very good point. I should say that the industry has benefited from fantastic support from not just the Government but others over the past 10 years to get us to where we are today, and I think that recognising the importance of the sector and I think that it is really important going forward, is that the sector remains at the forefront of the Government's ambition itself and the contribution to the economy and the recovery from Covid, etc. Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of this session, so I would just like to thank the witnesses for their time and their knowledge today. That is incredibly useful and it will inform our report as we go forward. We now move on to agenda item 2, which is consideration of the proposed parliamentary procedure for the officials' controls, transition staging period, miscellaneous amendments Scotland, number 3, regulations 2021, SSI 2021 slash 493, and I refer members to paper 3. As those regulations were made under the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018, we first need to consider whether the parliamentary procedure designated to this instrument by the Scottish Government is appropriate. Members will note that the negative procedure has been designated. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee agree with this designation when it considered the matter on 18 January. Are members content that the negative procedure is appropriate for the SSI 2021 slash 493? For those participating remotely, please type in into the chat box if you do not agree. Otherwise, I presume that members are content. Thank you. We are content. Agenda item 3, which is consideration of three negative instruments, the red rock and longy urgent marine conservation number 2 order 2021, SSI 2021 slash 463, and the conservation of salmon, Scotland amendment regulations 2021, SSI 2021 slash 466, and the official controls, transitional staging period, miscellaneous amendments Scotland, number 3, regulations 2021, SSI 2021 slash 493. I refer members to paper 4. No motions to annul these instruments have been lodged. I propose to write to the Scottish Government in relation to SSI 2021 slash 493, official controls, for further explanation regarding why the transitional staging period ends on 30 June, and when further steps stages are planned beyond that, and further information on whether there are any practical differences in import controls in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK as a consequence of bringing forward its own Scottish instrument. Also, to confirm whether the issue falls within the food-feed safety and hygiene common framework. If so, our Scottish ministers, what Scottish ministers' views are on how well this framework is functioning, given the issues that are detailed in the Scottish Government's letter. Are members happy for me to write to those questions or have any other comments to make? You said that this was the Red Rock's long-age urgent marine conservation order. Is that correct? That is one of the SSIs that we are considering. Can I draw your attention to this? In looking at this, there was Marine Scotland held stakeholder engagement in 2021 on the proposal for expanding the original NPA, but I am sure that I could not find that when I went to look last night, there was not any detail of that. I just wanted to get clarification from the clerks that that is correct and why that information is not available. My understanding is that this is an emergency SSI to extend the NPA, but the whole NPA will be considered in March. Is that correct? If that information is not available, as I could not find it, it would become available before March. Is that correct? Will there be another SSI for which it includes the extension that we are dealing with today? I just wanted to raise a couple of issues and ask if we could maybe include that in the letter to the minister or to the Government. I understand that it was scallop divers who identified the site originally and then, obviously, that would have been verified later on. Following that, divers as well as reel fishing and trawling are all included in the ban from the area. I think that it would be good to get a bit of information on the evidence base for that, because I understand that it is based on NatureScot's advice, which stated that skate eggs are sensitive to a number of activities. I am looking at the list of activities and I cannot see it. It mentions diver egg collection, but it does not mention diving for scallops. I am just concerned that there is maybe a difference in sensitivity between different activities, but they have all been categorised in the same way. I understand that the previous committee wrote to the minister when the first instrument was laid in March last year. In response, the letter from the minister said that part of the process to consider the need for permanent protection at the site would involve a socioeconomic assessment and public consultation, which does not seem to actually be happening until later on this year. I understand that this is emergency legislation that we are looking at now, but it has been almost a year since the first was passed. I guess that there is just a question there about why more has not been done to gather the necessary evidence in the interim period. Thank you very much for that. I share your concerns about the lack of the socioeconomic impact. Given that this is all in place for 12 months and that there has been a commitment that there will be a public consultation to make it a permanent NPA, I would certainly agree that we should write to the Government asking what interventions there are to look at the potential economic impact and those fishing. I also want to include in that letter questions over the potential for those reporting. For example, the flapper skate egg locations might actually, if they are tied up in the ban, eventually may be reluctant to report these important findings in the future and what works being done around that to ensure that we continue to identify those important NPAs. We do not see a reduction in that because of the impact of those who are actually identifying those areas that should be protected. Are members content for me to write to those questions to the Government? Are members content to note the instruments for those participating remotely type N in the chat box if you do not agree? Otherwise, I will presume that members are content. We are content. That concludes our business in public. We will now close our business on blue jeans and meet-in private sessions. Thank you.