 M frequent Llanwyrdangost. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the Rootl Affairs Islands and Natural Environment Committee in 2022 before we begin to ask old members using electronic devices to turn them to silent. Our first item of business today is to decide whether to take item six at today's meeting and consider a draft letter on the national planning framework at our next meeting in private. Our second item of business this morning is an evidence session on the draft national planning framework, and I welcome to the meeting Mary Gougeon, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Islands and Tom Arthur, Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth. We have the Scottish Government officials Jill Barber, the Head of Agriculture Development, Davidson, branch head for environment and natural resources, Andy Cunaird, head of planning transformation, Philip Reigns, head of rural economy and communities division, and Fiona Simpson, chief planner. I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement. Thank you, convener, and thank you very much for inviting me here today to join what I'm sure will be a very interesting discussion on the draft national planning framework for really ensuring that the voices of rural and island communities are heard during the development stages of NPF4 continues to be a vital part of inclusive rural development. My officials have engaged with rural and island community stakeholders to ensure that their views are included as we work together to inform the draft NPF4 and rural proof future planning goals. Our communities face endemic challenges and opportunities that we want the NPF4 to support, addressing the population of rural areas of Scotland is a statutory outcome that NPF4 must contribute to, and the draft NPF4 sets out important proposals for the resettlement of previously inhabited areas. It will also enable new homes in rural areas with planning policies that are more proactive and directive in shaping existing and creating new places, while being supportive of homes in places that benefit from them, including remote rural and island communities. We are committed to bringing forward an action plan on how that will be achieved. The draft NPF4 is also clear that we want young people to have more of an influence in decisions that affect their future places, as well as helping more people to access land and crafts and be part of the solution to support carbon, neutral, coastal and island communities. Future planning policy offers significant opportunities for investment to support the blue and well-being economies, which capitalises on natural assets and strengthens the ties between people, land and sea. The draft NPF4 also recognises the contribution that our forestry sector can make to our net zero ambitions, reversing the decline in biodiversity and supporting a growing green economy. The draft NPF4 includes a new policy addressing the nature crisis, which aims to ensure that appropriate measures to enhance biodiversity are designed into development proposals right from the outset. Scotland's land and the natural capital that it supports is one of our most valuable assets. It is vital to our national prosperity and to our wellbeing as individuals and communities. Everyone has a stake in Scotland's land and a responsibility to ensure that land is used productively and to the benefit of all. Rural and island areas can benefit from those changes enormously. That is why the vision, objectives and principles of our pilot regional land use partnerships for sustainable land use have and continue to feature in the development of Scotland's national planning frameworks, including NPF4. I welcome the ambitions of the draft NPF4 to support vibrant and sustainable rural places. It sets out how the planning system should encourage development that helps to support, sustain and grow rural areas, while safeguarding and growing natural assets that underpin businesses and jobs. I look forward to today's discussion and the committee's questions. We are now going to go to questions from members. I kick off. A few respondents were concerned about the process for consulting on and finalising NPF4. Indeed, the National Trust for Scotland said that it felt that it limits informed parliamentary scrutiny of the draft framework by not affording the relevant committee's opportunity to thoroughly examine a document. On that, can you tell me one of the things that was not clear was how has NPF4 been rural-proofed? Do you believe that it will arise to the challenge to respond to the unique challenges of rural Scotland? I believe that it will. As I said in my opening statement, the voices of rural communities and our island communities have been absolutely vital throughout the process, and that engagement has been really key in developing the draft NPF4. It is obviously out to consultation at the moment, so any suggestions that we get through that will feed into the finalised programme. The engagement that had taken place in the lead-up to publishing the draft NPF4 had been extensive. We had commissioned research to look at how, from our own policy teams, as well as commissioning external research, to look at the shape of planning policy and how that can help us to develop thriving rural communities. We had the call for ideas. I am sure that the minister might want to come in and give more details on that as well. There have been activities undertaken by the Scottish Rural Network and the Scottish Rural Parliament. The chief planner met the heads of rural planning authorities as well. All of that has been vital and has helped to shape the draft that we have before us. It is out to consultation at the moment, but I will hand over to the minister if there is more that he would like to cover on engagement. Good morning to the committee. Just to build on what the cabinet secretary was saying, the detail that the cabinet secretary has conveyed about the engagement specific to issues rural is reflected by the broader approach that has been taken in developing NPF4. That is the culmination of quite a long journey. You can go all the way back to the independent review of the planning system that was commissioned at the tail end of 2015 through it reporting. It will work the lead up to the planning act, which has clearly informed the design, structure and layout of NPF4 and its new enhanced status. We of course had a process where there was a call for ideas, two rounds of extensive consultation and engagement to get to the point already. We had the position statement, which we published in November of 2020, which itself of course was consulted on and has been extensive stakeholder engagement through that process. Just in terms of some numbers, we have had nearly 350 written responses, 180 people participated at our roadshow workshops and we also spoke to around 100 people at our drop-in sessions across the country. Throughout that, there was strong support for an NPF4 that was bold and radical. That process has really been one of the... It goes beyond engagement to almost a genuine co-production. I think that that is reflected in the response that we have seen to NPF4 so far, while notwithstanding particular points around detail. I think that there is a growing and strengthening consensus about the direction of travel in NPF4 and I believe that that emanates directly from the way in which NPF4 was brought, draft NPF4 was brought into existence, which was through extensive consultation and engagement. That was addressed on the 10th of November and Parliament had 120 days. Given Christmas, we have got a good food nation bill, do you think that it is reasonable that the committee has had such little time to look at such a hugely important bill, which could potentially have a massive impact in rural areas? 120 days is not very much particularly given Christmas recess. Is it reasonable to expect Parliament to scrutinise at that time? From what I understand, it is a double the period of scrutiny that has been for previous national planning framework, but, as the minister outlined, there has been extensive engagement process leading up to this point as well. We have the open consultation at the moment, so I would like to think that that would be adequate time for any further ideas or comments or for that scrutiny to take place. If you are content, I can just give you some more details about the covenant process of consultation that is on-going. The cabinet secretary rightly highlighted that this is a double the amount of time that was previously in place and that is something to set out in statute within the planning act, which was agreed by Parliament. Of course, there is a public consultation running in parallel until 31 March, and we are supporting communities to engage with that. I can just provide some details. There is a community grant scheme, which is a £250 grant that is available for community groups to help them to engage with. There has been open invitation events over February and into March to give stakeholders the opportunity to discuss the NPF for and encourage participation in the formal consultation. There have been nine events in total, one on each of the four policy themes and one for each of the five action areas. There have been equalities around table discussions in March. There have been round-table discussions hosted by the RTPI on business, energy development and housebuilding during February and March. There has been a Scottish Youth Parliament workshop over the next governing in March. We are working with Police Scotland to support children and young people's perspectives, discussions with community groups and online resources as well. There is a huge amount of activity that is taking part in parallel to the parliamentary scrutiny to ensure that everyone who wants to contribute has that opportunity to contribute. I would just again state as a half previously, but I very much want to encourage as much engagement as possible in the NPF for process. I am not going to move on to a more specific question. One of the key policies is commitment to a 20-minute neighbourhood, but there does not seem to be much in there for rural and island communities in that context. Are there any plans to look at the same sort of principles around a 20-minute neighbourhood that would look at a critical mass or core services and facilities that a community needs to have, given the unique nature of every single island and every single rural community that we have? Will there be any consideration of the same sort of idea as producing a sustainable community within 20 minutes but on a rural and island basis? It is a really important question. The first point that I will make is, of course, as an easy high-level document and subsidiarity applies. There will be local development plans that can give effect to that in particular localities. There will also be local place plans that will be introduced that will allow individual neighbourhoods and communities within planning authorities to shape their local development plans. With regard to 20-minute neighbourhoods in the context of NPF 4 and what it stated out, there is flexibility built-in. That is reflected both within how the policy is defined but also within the spatial strategies. If we look at the action areas, North and West Coastal innovation, Northern revitalisation, it recognises that the concept of 20-minute neighbourhoods is going to have a different application and an area with a dispersed population compared to somewhere with a dense population. For example, where we would be looking at encouraging 20-minute neighbourhoods and built-up urban areas by seeking to repopulate our town centres and some of the measures included there in local areas, but that is going to require more new ones. That might be about establishing hubs where we promote active travel networks but also recognising the need for cars. That can be supported through, for example, EV charging infrastructure. There is a recognition there that 20-minute neighbourhoods will have to be applied in a different manner in South US compared to how it would be applied in Shollins and Glasgow. I do not know if perhaps Fiona Simpson would want to come in and expand on some of the points that I was making to provide some more clarity. Yes, absolutely. 20-minute neighbourhoods is being debated quite extensively within the engagement that is happening at the moment. The work that was done by Climate Exchange looked at 20-minute neighbourhoods in different settings in Scotland and found that they could be a valid concept in rural and urban settings. The Savils research on rural planning found that there are lots that could be done by connecting up housing with services and thinking in the round about how rural communities work. I think that that debate will continue during the consultation period and we will look at ideas around that. I have a supplement from Alasdor Allan and I am wearing Rachel Hamilton. Hi, thank you. Can you see me, convener? I can see you now, yes. Thank you, convener. Yes, it is just really about the 20-minute neighbourhood but specifically about housing. I just wondered if the plan is cosy agnostic about the way the housing market operates in some rural areas where, essentially, you have to have acquired capital from property transactions in a city before you can buy or build a house in some areas. Obviously, that has an implication for the age profile and the sustainability of many rural communities going forward. What can a plan do to address that fundamental problem that many rural communities now face? I suggest that Fiona Simpson might want to give a bit of context on how the NPF relates to some of the other work that is on going in government around housing, for example. Our approach to housing in the national planning framework aims to set out a broad framework. The policy framework has been designed to allow for flexibility in rural areas. There are several exceptions in policy 9 on housing that relate to rural housing and recognising that the more housing need-and-demand-based assessment is the starting point for the process, but local development plans for different authorities in different parts of Scotland will take that forward in different ways. In policy 31 on rural development, there is a framework that aims to enable more rural housing development. It recognises that small sites, for example, can be suitable development outwith settlements that may be suitable, depending on the spatial strategy that is set out in the local development plan. We aim to achieve a broad approach overall and set out figures in Annex B, which is her starting point for local development plans, but that policy approach needs to be taken forward through local development plans as well. The local development planning guidance provides much more detail on how that can be achieved. Dr Allan's question is a very important one, and it speaks to why there is flexibility within the NPF. I am conscious of some of the feedback in other committee sessions, as perhaps certain stakeholders are looking for a more prescriptive approach, but there is a balance that is required between overly prescriptive but having that flexibility so that local circumstances can be fully taken into account by a planning authority in designing their own LDP. On Monday this week, there was an evidence session with 100 rural stakeholders, and some of the comments are very interesting. I urge you to look at that. They did, as well as the housing issue state on the 20-minute neighbourhoods, that there was an issue with lack of transport between rural communities making areas inaccessible, that local amenities had moved away, and that the NPF forward did not really translate to a rural setting. There is no appreciation of rural areas in that. Can you expand on how that can translate to rural areas on the 20-minute neighbourhood concept? If you are happy with this episode, we have just kicked off on that. I appreciate that there will be a particular interest to Miss Ampton as the southern sustainability action plan within the spatial strategy. What that speaks about is the network of towns that recognises the unique character of the south of Scotland. There is a recognition that transport is a key issue to aspect 1, as we want to reduce the need for travel. That is about building up wealth within communities and job opportunities. As you will notice, one of the universal policies, policy 5 from memory and under sustainable places, is community wealth building. I know that something that South Scotland Enterprise is very interested in. In one sense, in promoting greater community wealth building through the planning system and using other levers, we can help to reduce the need for unsustainable travel. We also recognise that travel is in many cases unavoidable. That is reflected within the spatial strategy for south of Scotland. Equally, analogously, in the action plan for the north of Scotland and northern revitalisation, that recognises the key role that our roads have. As I mentioned earlier in my remarks to the convener, the necessity for car use and part of how we respond to that will be about increasing EV infrastructure to support low-carbon travel. However, that also has to be seen in the broader context of wanting to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent and reduce unsustainable travel. As the spatial strategy action point 5 reflects the force of unsustainability, addressing issues around public transport and cross-border transport will be significant. I do not know perhaps if Fiona Hyslund wants to pick up on any points there. Through the spatial strategy, we are trying to explore new ways of living in rural and urban areas. There are lots of ideas around community hubs or different ways of arranging settlements in the future to accommodate different patterns of working and living together. What the national planning framework tries to do is to provide a framework that allows for that innovation to grow from a regional scale, as well as through the local development plans. It has just fallen on from what Alasdair Allan and Rachel are talking about. How the Government is working towards dealing with it? That is complex, particularly in a rural setting. That is really complex, because it is cross-cutting. You are talking about different land uses and different demands on the same land. How are the Government looking to marry all those things up? Land availability, land prices—we are currently seeing the price of hill land going absolutely through the roof because we are planting more trees on it. We are doing peak restoration, which is driving the price of land up. How the Government is trying to marry all those things together? Connectivity in 20-minute neighbourhoods—what are we doing about more public transport? Does this plan do anything about looking at public transport when you are making those plans? Is there anything in that plan that will look at making sure that we get the broadband rollout? It is creating that infrastructure that will work for the communities in rural settings. How are you bringing that all together? Sorry, I know that that is complex. No, I am happy to kick off on that. There is a lot in that question to try and unload, so I will try and answer it as best I can. Picking up on the last point that you talked about there first, and coming back to what I said at the start, all of this is about trying to create thriving local communities and thriving communities in rural areas and enabling the development and infrastructure that we need for that to happen is really the premise of NPF4. A lot of the issues that you have talked about there, whether that is in terms of land, looking at transport, looking at our digital connectivity, and there are lots of different strategies and pieces of work going on across Government to try and address a lot of those issues at the moment. I would highlight that none of those pieces of work are being done in isolation. For example, when you look at our land use strategy, the third land use strategy that was published last year, it makes explicit reference to NPF4, and it is also featured in previous national planning frameworks as well. You talked about digital connectivity as well. I think that we have opportunities with home working, which could help enable people to live in remote and rural parts of Scotland. Of course, we need the digital infrastructure to enable that to happen. We have the digital fibre network as part of the national development that is listed in the plan as well, recognising the importance of that, and we want to enable that development to take place. The key point that I want to emphasise is that we are not looking at each of those issues in isolation and that we are making sure that, as we are developing strategies at the moment, there is that read across to NPF4. Likewise, NPF4, as I am sure the minister will want to come in, is ensuring that it aligns with the other strategies that we are developing in those areas. The only thing that I would add to that is that, if you are talking about home working rudely, there has to be the land that is available to be able to build the houses in the first place to allow young people to stay in those areas. That is where I think that what is proposed in draft NPF4 allows for that flexibility. I do not think that it can be too prescriptive, but when you look at the types of development that are enabled there, I think that it helps with talks about allowing development for succession planning, for example. I think that it addresses some of the issues that have been in place before. It is about a balance, and it is about trying to strike the right balance, but I am sure that the minister will have more to add on some of those points. It is very brief. I think that the Cabinet Secretary has covered a lot of ground there. Of course, increasing the population of rural areas in Scotland is one of the statutory outcomes required of the NPF4 stipulated 2019 planning act. What I would really just want to highlight is policy for the 31 rural places, which is expansive. I think that it takes a holistic look at a lot of these different areas and shows how they work together. The one thing that I am conscious of, it could be very easy just to say rural communities, but every rural community is unique. I am conscious of coming back to that point of not being overly prescriptive, but there is the flexibility there, but there is clear expectations around what we require. For example, rural places are the very heading of policy 31. Local development plan should set out proposals to support the sustainability and prosperity of rural communities and economies. Development proposals contribute to the availability, sustainability and diversity of a local economy should be supported. That is reflected within the actual policy aspect. Obviously, it is important to remember that the NPF4 is unique and it brings a spatial strategy and what is the Scottish planning policy together in the one document. That is part of the statutory development plan. That is clear in terms of what our expectations are, but I recognise that, to realise those aspirations, there will be some variance between different rural communities. I am sure that Mr Felly would have something to say if I were to suggest that all rural communities are the same and require the same response. Thank you very much for coming along to the meeting today. I attended the session on Monday that Rachel Hamilton has just referenced. I am interested to ask how the plan supports the growth of island communities. We took some evidence from Orkney, for example, and they looked, the point was made, that it used to be that it needed a house and work for two encouraged people. Now, given what we are seeing with the pandemic and the ability to work from home, it is now just the house. I would be interested to know how the MPF4 has learned from the pandemic. There was also a specific question raised. It is in section 31, where it talks about infrastructure first. There was a suggestion that, perhaps in rural and island communities, buildings are first, because there are a lot of derelict buildings that could be re-engineered to be home. I would like your thoughts on that. I will happily start off on that. I am sure that the minister would want to come in. First of all, I want to see the outcome of the session that you talked about on Monday. Hearing the views and all the issues that have come out of that will be really important in helping us to develop the final draft. In relation to infrastructure, you talked about the use of vacant and derelict properties and land. That is a key factor in the draft MPF4. There is a key focus on that, rather than continuing to build new or to build outwards. It is about really trying to utilise the infrastructure that is there already. I am sure that the minister would want to elaborate on that. The spatial strategy is underpin by six principles, one of which is conserving and recycling assets. That is reflected through the spatial strategy. Policy 30 is specifically on vacant and derelict land. That speaks to our clear aspirations around climate change and a circular economy. We do not want to sat in bedded carbon that is already there, and clearly we want to make use of those assets. The service has huge applicability in a range of contexts. We will be able to think of examples in highly and densely populated urban environments where there are perhaps under-angelised assets that can be brought back to life. Of course, there is a range of work that goes on to support that through our place-based investment programme, at-it transfers via the Community Empowerment Act. That is already something that is under way. That helps to strengthen that position. It is very clear and explicit. It is also with the policies around looking for brownfield first. Again, with the two other aspects of the spatial principles that complement that approach, are compact growth and local living. It is clearly seeking what we are aiming to do is to encourage more growth in ways in existing assets. As well as the applicability to rural environments, it is one that we recognise as an applicability to densely populated urban environments. I do not know perhaps if there is anything that Fiona Simpson wants to add. You have covered that fully. The only other thing that I would add is that there is an emphasis on resilience and working with our assets to achieve resilience in island areas. The spatial strategy tries to bring that out quite clearly. I think that I move back to the whole working point that you made earlier. Again, that is where some of the points that I mentioned previously about the national development for the digital fibre network is well. Looking at the work that is being done on transport, the draft NPF4 is about enabling developments to take place, which I think all adds to what the minister set out there to. The supplementary from Arran Burgess. Thank you, convener. Good morning. I heard the minister talking about the understanding that all communities are different. However, the NPF4 refers numerous times to remote, rural and island communities without acknowledging that there are significant differences between many of those communities. That has been a concern that has been raised at a number of evidence sessions that I have been part of. Many are facing radically different circumstances. For example, the action area that covers western isles, or in Shetland, has been raised to me. There are nuances in that area, and they do not feel that they necessarily sit well together in that action area. How will the Scottish Government ensure that the diversity of the different parts of our rural, remote and island communities will be recognised through the NPF4 and the other policies that will come forward? I am looking forward to opportunities to discuss those issues before the committee that you convened in due course. The first thing that I say is that the NPF4 is a draft consultation process, and I am incredibly grateful for the interest that committees in the Parliament are taking in that. Indeed, all those individuals and groups are taking to participate and share their views. I do not want to go over the ground that we covered earlier, but it is clear that it has been a collaborative process. We have also had a lot of consultation about working in partnership with communities on the input that has led to the spatial strategy and the specific action areas that have been developed. We will take into account any feedback that we receive via the consultation via the Parliament, and that will help to feed in and be reflected in what we bring back to Parliament as an NPF for final approval by the Parliament. The other point that I would make again is that I do not want to repeat myself, but the key point about the balance between clarity and given a clear steer but also flexibility is that that is really important. Planning authorities will still have a vital role with local development plans, but, crucially, local place plans, the regulations of which I have now come into force, will give local communities more of a say in helping to shape their LDPs. It is important to bear in mind that that specificity that is required in very localised situations is still the means to do that, not just through LDPs, but it has been enhanced through local place plans as well. What we are seeking to articulate here at a very high level is the broad vision. Even if we are in a spatial strategy for a particular area, that is not necessarily going to be universally applicable to every single community in that area, and what we want to see beyond just to work with LDPs and local communities is partnership working at a regional level as well. I do not know if there is anything that perhaps Fiona would want to add to that. I would just give a bit of background on the regional scale working that we did to inform the action areas that are set out in the national planning framework. Over the course of more than a year, we worked with authorities who were either working on their own or with other authorities to prepare indicative regional spatial strategies. That work was brought together and we had a really good set of collaborative workshops over the course of the week where we set out where those areas that are set out in the national planning framework reflected shared common themes, challenges and opportunities. With the national planning framework, what we have tried to do is provide that framework, but not try and cover all of the detail or the more specific nuances within each of the individual regional spatial strategies. That will be for authorities to take forward as they prepare their own strategies for their areas. I am very conscious that we are rapidly running out of time. I have a brief supplementary from Rachel Hamilton. Can I ask if the island should be recognised in the NPF for separately and why is the Isle of Bute included in the central belt regeneration area? This has come through a collaborative process that has been outlined before. As I said earlier, we are open to suggestions for refinement about how things can be changed. That is part of the consultation process and engagement. That is a draft document. Ultimately, it is a process through engagement and collaboration that is led to the draft spatial strategy within the NPF. We are keen to hear views on how it can be refined. If there are points that you are suggesting that you feel that are inconsistent, are you not going to be able to realise the aspirations in that something that can be reflected on and potentially acted upon through the process of bringing forward a finalised version? I do not know if there is anything specific that you want to add, Fiona, just about the particular action points within the spatial plan and how they were formed. The maps are indicative and very much open for comment. There were some areas that could have gone in more than one action area and the boundaries were intended to be quite fuzzy. We were trying to extend the central belt out to include the Clyde coast, given the importance of coastal areas close to the central belt. It is to be really stressed that the heart of this is an easy place-based approach. The place-based approach is a holistic approach when it takes everything into account, so we are not dividing Scotland neatly up. Clearly, some of the areas that are applicable to remote communities are, as I have touched on earlier, applicable to urban communities as well. Obviously, there are areas that are completely distinct and are not of the same relevancy. As much as we have those five areas, it is important to look at it holistically and to see the complementarity that exists between the different regions and areas. It is to expand a wee bit more on that. As Rachael pointed out, butte is with the central belt as is done in. I am speaking very parochrial. My whole constituency is divided into different groups and then islands that I would have expected to have been with other island communities, for example, the island hub net zero. I am pleased to hear that this is being moved round. Ms Simpson, I asked you this when you first came to the committee, so it is good to hear that there is a bit of flexibility. It was certainly I have been hearing. I was just going to jump in on the national development point that you talked about there in relation to the island hub for net zero. I think that that came out of, because that is where the projects came from, the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland as well, but I would just re-emphasise the point that the minister made earlier about this being flexible and it is open. If there is more information that comes through the consultation, of course, we would look at that. Of course, again, this is what has come out of the engagement that has taken place so far in relation to where some of those developments would be emanating from. I just want to pick up, because I think that it is a really good example to your constituency. It picks up on the point that I was trying to articulate, probably not as clearly as I would have liked to Ms Hamilton. I think that it is encapsulated in the climate mission national development, because that, of course, stretches from South Lanarkshire all the way along the Clyde until you get to Danone and that takes in a whole range of communities. I think that just being within that one national development that articulates the point is that, as much as we have these semi-defined spatial areas, the border is going to be an overlap and we are not suggesting it. We have to draw a hard and fast line, but it is going to be that overlap. I recognise that in a constituency such as the one that you represent, there is going to be a whole range of different aspects of the spatial strategy that will be applicable and will be very acwy, drastically, from community to community. Thank you, convener, and good morning, cabinet secretary and ministers. Could I change slightly and ask about fuel poverty? I agree with the points that have been made about not considering rural, remote and island areas as one homogenous being, but I am going to now just do that. Fuel poverty and extreme poverty are disproportionately impacting rural, remote and island communities, so given that fuel poverty in those areas is more prominent, do you think that we should give more prominence to fuel poverty in those areas, in the NPF4, to show that the Government's commitment to taking those issues is serious? Do you think that it should be a national development? I mean, just to start that off, obviously addressing fuel poverty, I completely understand the concerns that you've raised, and that's something that I've heard when I've visited island communities, and I'm just hearing about the levels of fuel poverty where our island communities are severely impacted by that. Helping to address fuel poverty and enabling energy efficiency are the principles that are embedded within NPF4, so I don't know if it would be helpful if the minister just wanted to outline about the proposals for national developments and how that's come about. It's a really important point that I think you raised, Ms Wishart. I suppose that the first thing is that planning is ultimately concerned with development, and it has to be able to identify what particular class of development one is seeking. On specific issues around fuel poverty in relation to planning, we've already done work on permitted development rights around retrofitting and energy efficiency, and we've got a phase programme of reviewing PD rights, and that's something that we can continue to take into consideration. More broadly, what NPF4 is seeking to do is to increase prosperity in Scotland, but we'll also look at some of the specific national developments around strategic renewable electricity generation and transmission infrastructure, pumped hydro storage, for example, and industrial green transition zones. Just looking at those national developments in particular, they are about promoting not just prosperity but also energy security as well. In terms of how NPF4 specifically can contribute towards issues around fuel poverty, it's about supporting more prosperous economies, increasing the number of people in employment, and through these international developments providing that strategic underpinning for continuity and security of energy supply. We'll just keep on this. We've got a couple of supplementaries. I'd like to ask one of the witnesses in our evidence session that we had in one day with the rural action was that they suggested that rural areas were carrying the burden of delivering a just transition for those in urban areas, because it was rural areas that were carrying the burden of peatland restoration, huge, ambitious timber plans or tree planting, and, of course, the wind farms, where we see more and more applications coming to the Scottish Government getting and overturning community objections or local authorities not having the capacity to deal with wind farm applications being sent to the Scottish Government through non-determination. The new NPF4 almost has an assumption for the newables in rural areas. How does that deal with community rights to decide what's on their doorstep, listening to community voice? That's a real issue. Particularly what I think is lacking is some of the very remote areas that have large wind farms. There is no prospect of the green industrial zones that you talk about, such as the Frees and Gallows in the Scottish Borders. In relation to the community voice in these developments, what I want to emphasise is that the NPF4 is not about imposing developments on people and it is not bypassing any processes. When it comes to any developments that are proposed to take place in rural areas, that would still work its way through the planning process, where there would be relevant consultation and the opportunity for communities to make their voice heard throughout that process. It is not bypassing any processes that we have in place at the moment. There are the local development plans, which the ministers talked about previously, where local voices will be key in the decisions that are being taken in developing those. I would add that—correct me if I'm wrong—could be an expression used without sharing the burden of a just transition. That is reflected in the NPF4. I recognise the point that you make about renewables' electricity generation. Of course, there is offshore wind as well, and there are recent and welcome announcements around Scotland. If we look, for example, at the key role in North-East to play in a just transition, that is the centre of expertise there. That is reflected in the industrial green transition zone, which runs down the North-East all the way to Grangemouth. That is a key example of how more urbanised areas will have a major part to play in our move towards net zero. Of course, it is perhaps beyond the scope of our discussions today, but the huge contribution that will have to be made by urban areas, particularly in the central belt towards heat and buildings, which is going to be a significant ask of the population in moving towards just transition. Therefore, while we all have a slightly different and nuanced role to play in our move towards just transition, it is clear that there is no part of Scotland that is not going to have to share in the responsibility of realising our ambitions both 2030 and 2045. I will echo the points that the cabinet secretary made. National Development's planning policies are not a top-down stipulating specific developments that will or will not happen. Ultimately, it is for local planning authorities, in the first instance, to make determinations. Clearly, as well, we are appropriate to use the other relevant assessment criteria that is required in considering any application. I do not know if there was anything perhaps that Fiona wanted to add. I would just say that the conversation that we had during the collaborative process for preparing the NPF was looking at each part of Scotland and what could it contribute to achieving net zero. As the minister said, there is a lot in the central urban transformation zone, as much as in the rural areas. We are really looking for synergies and opportunities to support the sustainable development of those areas as a result of the burden or the requirements around net zero. We talked about 20-minute neighbourhoods and 20 per cent car kilometre reduction. Clearly, there is going to be more expectation in terms of the central belt and how that can be delivered at pace and speed. If we look at, for example, northern innovation and the action plan within the spatial strategy, there is a recognition of the increased need for private car use in those areas. I think that that sharing of the burden is a characterised that is reflected throughout the NPF. I am just to comment briefly on that point as well. I mean, I think that, undoubtedly, there will be challenges. However, I do think that what that offers as well is that there are a lot of opportunities for rural areas within that. Again, I am really keen to see the feedback from that session that you had on Monday, because it sounds like there were a lot of valuable points and concerns that have risen out of that, and we are obviously keen to try to address those as best we can. However, I think that there are really exciting opportunities that will help to maintain so that we can enable thriving communities in our most remote and rural areas with some of the developments that could take place here in relation to whether that is our blue economy, the opportunities that are there through renewables as well, which offer the chance for exciting new industries and the job creation that that will enable, as well as what is it being enabled through draft NPF4 and sustaining and ensuring that we have thriving rural communities in the future. I am keen to hear what those challenges are that I have been expressed, but I do think that there is a lot of opportunity here as well that we cannot lose sight of. I hear a number of European countries have capped the energy cost to increase to 5 or 10 per cent. Of course, the UK has capped it at 54 per cent, and I saw a comment yesterday suggesting that in island areas the impact will be significantly higher than 54 per cent in an area that already has probably amongst the worst fuel poverty in Europe. What consideration can the planning system give to how to respond to that? Presumably, an increase as savage as that is going to have an impact on people's decisions about whether they live in island areas or not and the kind of balance that that may or may not leave the community in. I am wondering what levers exist that you feel within the planning system, whether that is obligations on developers or other measures. What levers are available to cope with what will undoubtedly be an extreme situation around fuel poverty in the islands? That is a very important matter that Dr Allen raises. We have to look at what planning is about. It is about the regulation and consenting process for development, so the capacity to respond at pace through the planning system is certainly challenging. What we can look at is that in the medium and longer term, how we promote the types of development that can help to, as we touched upon in our response to this, wish to promote the kind of developments that, on one hand, reduce fuel poverty and reduce energy consumption but also promote jobs, prosperity, security and employment, which can help to alleviate some of the drivers of fuel poverty. We are also doing things around permitted development rights and have done to make it easier for people to ensure that their homes are as energy efficient as possible. However, I think that, in terms of what levers can be pulled at short notice within the planning system, that is clearly more challenging. I do not know why perhaps Fiona Simpson would like to do that. The national planning framework sets out policies around things like sustainable materials and design standards, and we have sought to do that. As the minister has mentioned, we have looked at permitted development rights and we can look further at that. However, I think that the link with building standards is really important as well. There are limitations to what the planning system can do on its own, but it can provide a vision that wider strategies and policies and programmes can build on and contribute to. Beatrice Smith, can you move on into a couple of questions to follow up in this section? The plan confirms that the island will be at the forefront of efforts to reach net zero, but the RSPP has voiced concerns about opening up island areas for large-scale development as part of the island's hub for net zero. I challenge that by saying that the Sulumvo terminal has been in operation for nearly 50 years, and we had the creation of the Shetland Oil Terminal Environmental Advisory Group SOTIAG was set up to look after the interests of the environment around the terminal on the port. It seems to me that industrial activity has been possible, and it has been environmentally responsible. My question is about the contradiction of trying to have the islands at the centre of reducing working towards net zero, and there are obviously ambitious plans that will feed into the rest of Scotland. I suppose that there is an understanding of where the Government's view is on that in terms of the plan. I am also looking at transport, which is a big factor in, for example, Shetland's carbon emissions with inter-island ferries. It is just an understanding of how that all links in together with transport. If you want me to come in on the first point, is it really just about how we manage what could be seen as the impacts? It is putting the islands at the forefront, but then, on the other hand, it is concerned about having the islands at the forefront of the hydrogen energy hub. What I would reiterate, just a point that I made earlier, is that we are not trying to bypass any processes here. When it comes to the islands, it can really be at the forefront of cutting-edge technology that we are looking at in relation to renewables. This is not about bypassing processes that are already in place for planning. There are all sorts of legislation and regulations that we have to adhere to when we are looking at any developments, so none of those processes would be bypassed in that regard as well. If there is concern there about protected areas, we have commissioned independent research to look at the impact of draft NPF4 and how that relates to either designated areas that we have at the moment or proposed designated sites. The question that Ms Wishart put is an excellent question because it really gets to the heart of planning. It is about balance. How do you balance those competing areas? Industrialisation, jobs, prosperity, protecting and preserving and conserving the natural environment that we value? Those are the kind of questions that planners wrestle with every day. I could attempt to answer that question, but I am conscious that we have the chief planner for the Scottish Government. I think that it would be very helpful to get up the planner's perspective on how planners balance each particular point and how that is reflected in the national planning framework. I would agree that that is essentially the role of the planning system to understand all the competing aims and objectives and to think about how they apply to different places and what makes sense in terms of delivering objectives for that place. As has been mentioned, as we have gone through this process, there has been an iterative process of integrated impact assessment that has helped us to really understand what the choices we are making will mean, whether that is in terms of the environmental impact or impact on island communities. All of the work that we have done aims to achieve that balance within the context of net zero and all of the broader objectives that we are trying to achieve. The statutory outcomes in terms of increasing the population of rural Scotland has been brought together with that. It is absolutely what the planning system is set up to do to look in the round all of the competing priorities and think about the assets of a place and how to work with those. I would mention in terms of transport, alignment with the strategic transport projects that you too have been really important. The planning system can set out the land use implications and has been developed in alignment with the STPR2. The strategic strategy recognises the aspirations around the net zero aviation zone by 2040 as well. The final point about making it just coming back to the personality importance of the local planning authority and the opportunities for local communities to feed into that through local place plans, because ultimately it will be for local communities to shape the direction of travel for that particular area. It is also about the contribution to the just transition to net zero. We are currently undertaking a review of all the regulations and legislation that we have in relation to the safe production, storage and transportation of hydrogen to ensure that we have the correct framework in place for that too. That works on-going. Alasdair Allan, please. Among the aims of the framework, is the continued existence of Galaxpeacan communities among those aims? I missed the tail end of that question. I just wonder if among the aims and objectives that you have set yourself for the framework, is the aim of having in the future Galaxpeacan communities that one of the aims? I appreciate the question, Dr Allan. It is not explicitly set out within the national planning framework, but clearly with one of the indirect consequences of seeking to support rural populations and increasing rural populations, that would be of direct benefit to Galaxpeacan communities. However, I am conscious that Bosnia Gaelic has highlighted some useful ideas and that is something that we will consider and reflect on ahead of bringing a finalised MPF for back to Parliament later this year. Alasdair Allan, my point related to that was, I suppose that as you mentioned rightly minister, the fact that the Board of Galax has engaged in this indicates that the future of Galaxpeacan is internally bound up in issues like who gets to live in those communities and is there housing and other opportunities there. I just wonder if the points I am making about Galax and their point about the need for interconnectedness between this plan and others. I think that that is a very fair point and I very much value that suggestion and these ideas we put forward. I just want to assure the member that we will fully take that into consideration as we work towards producing a finalised MPF for. Thank you. I would like to ask a little bit, as well as my colleagues, in a while about the strategic land use. It is probably directed to the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs. On the first point, respondents have noted a lack of clarity on how the MPF4 will relate to developing agricultural policy. My question is, will the ARIOB inform the MPF4 in its development of agricultural policy? Will the committee receive an interim report on its progress to ensure transparency and coherence regarding the relationship between MPF4 and agricultural policy? I am sorry, but was there a particular point about an interim report on ARIOB that you were referring to? There are two parts to that question. The first one is how ARIOB is looking at the relationship between land use and the aim of the MPF4. How are we to track that in our committee? Will we receive an interim report so that we can guarantee transparency over the direction of travel for the ARIOB? In relation to the work of the ARIOB, it is in reference of being set out. There has been an immediate programme of work that we have been developing, and that has been the focus of the board. I mean, I am happy to write to the committee and outline some of the work that has been taken place there, but that has been ultimately focused on developing the immediate test programme that was announced just prior to COP and the immediate work that is going on there in terms of trying to roll out carbon audits, nutrient management plans, as well as focusing on a more detailed pilot to test out what future conditionality will look like for future payment schemes. That has been the immediate focus of the work of ARIOB. Helping us to shape where very much we want to co-develop our future policy, and that is where the work of ARIOB will be critical as well as we look to the future. There has been the immediate focus on that at the moment. Of course, we have a number of pieces of legislation that are going to be coming up over the course of the coming years. The agriculture bill will also have legislation coming forward on land reform as well as a natural environment bill. There will be a lot of crossover between those different areas, not all of which I immediately lead on. Obviously, we want to make sure that there is that alignment there, but wider questions of course may well come into some of ARIOB's work, but we have not yet reached that stage in terms of our future planning because we have had that immediate focus on developing the national test programme and making sure that that is ready to launch. Does it concern you that there is no mention of land use strategy within the MPF-4? Well, again, the MPF-4 is not being developed in isolation to the land use strategy and other pieces of work that are on going at the moment. I think that it referred previously in my response to Jim Fairlie about the regional land use strategy and how that has been the outcomes of that. It makes explicit reference to the national planning framework. It has been referred to in previous NPFs. Again, they are not being developed in isolation of each other because we obviously want to make sure that there is that alignment there in terms of the outcomes. There is a lot of cut across. In relation to the third land use strategy that was published last year and the explicit links to MPF-4, there is the green and blue infrastructure that talks about optimising vacant and derelict land and the focus on nature-based solutions. Again, they are not being done in isolation and there is a lot of cut across and alignment there. Moving towards the role of planning in terms of its decision making when it comes to having an interest in the long-term public interest, we know that clearly forestry management is dedicated to forestry and land Scotland and it is dictated by the economics of a global market. Long-term plantations of single species do not create local employment. How can the climate change policies of the Scottish Government, including the plantation of forestry, sit well with MPF-4 when it is ensuring that we are looking at increasing the number of local people in employment and, indeed, the development of houses and otherwise? I emphasise that we are not doing this in isolation and there are a number of other pieces of work under way. For example, we have the pilots with the regional land use partnerships that have been established. They are still in the development stage of that, but they also map the areas that have been set out in the regional spatial strategies and it is making sure that both of those align. The purpose of the regional land use partnerships is to ensure that we are having the discussion and that we are collaborating at a regional scale when it comes to the discussions about future land use. That is a really collaborative process and that is essentially what is at the heart of that process. We are making sure that we are having those discussions with communities, landowners and farmers as we look to trying to address some of those issues at scale, but I do not know whether Phil may want to come in with as any more details. You mentioned the regional land use partnerships, but my colleagues will speak more about that. However, there are only two mentions within the enormous draft document of MPF-4, so that is quite disappointing. It is out to consultation at the moment and we are keen to hear the feedback, but we are not doing this in isolation and, of course, we are not going to be developing those policies independent of each other or of those strategies. That is where, when it comes to the regional land use partnerships, that aligns with what we have set out in the regional spatial strategies as well. I just want to emphasise that point. Ms Hamilton's point also talks to one of the wider issues about how the different activities are going to be there for the benefit of rural communities, something that was picked up earlier in the session. As the cabinet secretary was saying, there are a number of different initiatives going on to think about how we can ensure those benefits are worked through. You mentioned just transition earlier. You will notice the Scottish Government's response to the Just Transition Commission's recommendation, and there is the intention of bringing forward just transition plans, which are absolutely going to have that front and centre, not least with respect to land use policy. Indeed, we are under way with a land-based review of learning to think about what are the skills that are going to be required and what are the processes by which those skills can be put in place across rural areas over the next couple of decades. That actually addresses those issues. Arrianne Burgess. That is a question about a specific national planning policy. Policy 3 puts a duty on developers to facilitate biodiversity enhancement, but it does not explain how they should demonstrate that. Will there be a framework or mechanism established for developers to demonstrate that they are meeting the obligation, or will guidance be provided? We already have a suite of existing guidance and processes in place. Within the planning system, of course, we will reflect and refresh as required, but I think that the specific technical point I will ask Fiona Simpson to come in. I would suggest that Caraid Davidson might want to come in on this. There has been a lot of work done to prepare this policy and a lot of collaboration, including with NatureScot, but with Caraid Davidson. That is where I was going to add, because I believe that NatureScot has been developing guidance in relation to a specific policy, but, again, Caraid, may help more detail. Good morning, committee. Hopefully, everybody can hear me, okay? So, absolutely, the journey to develop policy 3 nature crisis has been one that has involved extensive collaboration. We kicked off by commissioning NatureScot to produce research on the opportunities and policy mechanisms that could be deployed through the MPF4 to secure positive effects for biodiversity from development. The research has directly informed the development of draft policy 3, as has our engagement through a stakeholder working group, which has been set up and has now met four times throughout 2021 and earlier this year as well. So, policy 3 takes an approach to mainstreaming biodiversity. We want the designing in of biodiversity enhancement measures to be something that is considered from the outset, but we also recognise that the planning system deals with quite a breadth of development types and certainly in terms of scales of development as well. So, our most stringent measures are targeted at developments of a larger scale or those developments which are going to have significant impacts on the environment. Now, we do have out to consultation or rather, NatureScot have out to consultation currently draft guidance in support of policy 3E, which applies specifically to local development and that guidance to accompany policy 3E, as I say, is available for comment just now. With regard to policy 3D, we will of course, and as the Minister has said, we will give very close consideration to what guidance may be required to support the implementation and practice of the MPF4, of course, once that is finalised and adopted. I think that I'm done with my questions. I think that we're on to 12. Okay, thanks. Jenny Minter, do you have a supplementary? So, sorry, following on from that question, I've had some correspondence from constituents about the biodiversity benefits decision making and why there is the exemption from fish and shellfish farming. I'm happy to jump in on that one at the moment. It was just to state that aquaculture, well, fin fish and shellfish farming isn't completely exempt from that policy, so there are five points to policy 3 to which that refers. It's exempt from the last two points of that, so it's not the first few, so I think it's just critical to outline that as well. Fin fish and shellfish farming is a bit of a funny one because it's the only part of marine development that is covered by the town and country planning act and by terrestrial planning processes. In relation to marine biodiversity, we think that it's really important that we look at marine ecosystems as a whole and that that's considered through the national marine plan, as well as the force coming by diversity strategy as well, so we just want to assure you and to assure the committee members that it is by no means exempt, but of course that work will be on going through the other pieces of work that we're looking at at the moment. Thank you, cabinet secretary, for that answer. I'll move on as well just to planning around aquaculture and how communities, all stakeholders within communities, will be considered, how their views will be considered for the development of aquaculture. Absolutely, I think that throughout all this process and the lead up to this as well, I think that it's absolutely critical that communities' voice is heard, that's absolutely vital. I think that there are a number of means by which community voices can be heard throughout the processes for, you know, through the consenting processes, through licence applications at the moment in relation to aquaculture. But as the minister had stated previously, I think that the NPF forward puts that importance on community wealth building, so I don't know if you want to elaborate on that point. Yeah, I would just really just add that policy 5 is a universal policy, so it's applicable, you know, all development has to be considered through that community wealth building lens, and that is an agenda which is going to grow and intensify through this parliamentary session as we've worked towards introducing legislation on community wealth building. So I think, well, again, there will be varying degrees of relevance in terms of applicability of some of the universal policies. I think that playing with aquaculture is one that will be of significant interest, and we're specifically discussing the role of the planning system here today in NPF 4. I think that these are conversations that can be expanded into the community wealth building space, and I look forward to them in due course. I would just add a brief point on that as well, that we'll also be delivering our vision for sustainable aquaculture this year as well, which we'll be putting an enhanced focus on that too, so just to give you that assurance. Thank you. Thank you. Beatrice Wishart, sorry, to hold on and say that your mic's not live. I tell you what we'll do. We'll move on to Mercedes, while Alba at the moment will sort out the mic with Beatrice. Mercedes. Thanks, convener. Yeah, I'd like to ask what is the Scottish Government's view of how the precautionary principle will be applied in relation to planning applications for aquaculture and other coastal marine installations where knowledge and information is incomplete? Yeah, I'm happy to give more information on that, so we've actually recently had a consultation in relation to this, which I think has either just closed in recent days, and that consultation was on the statutory guidance for ministers and other public authorities who must have due regard to the five guiding principles on the environment, which form part of the UK withdrawal from the European Union Act 2021. That guidance sets out our strategic approach to environment policy, including the precautionary principle, as it relates to the environment, and how that should be used and applied by decision makers. Again, that consultation has just closed, so we'll be considering the responses to that closely. Okay, thank you. I'm not sure whether we've still... Beatrice, we're still working on you. Jenny Mintie, do you have a... We're now cooking with gas, as you say. Beatrice. Thanks, convener. I was going to ask about aquaculture planning, and we know that the Griggs report is coming out shortly as well. I wonder what assessments have been given for planning authorities' needs for additional skills and training when considering aquaculture planning applications, and given that there's a national shortage of planners, how that can be addressed? Yes, this is something that we're actively addressing as well. As you talked about there, we have the Griggs review, which will be coming shortly, and that's really to look at. We undertook that independent review to really see how we could make the regulation process and development more responsive, transparent and efficient, so we'll, of course, be considering the outcome of that review closely. However, when it comes to the knowledge that you talked about, was that the point that you were trying to get to as well, like the knowledge that's within local planning? I thought it is as well. We've actually taken action recently to try and address that, so we recently published our response to the salmon interactions working group, and one of the outcomes of that was that we identified SEPA as the lead regulator for sea lice interactions, so what that does is that marks, it really marks a transition away from local authorities managing interactions through environment management plans, and SEPA are going to be working closely with local authorities to ensure that there is a smooth transition there, and they're also consulting at the moment on a risk-based framework for managing interactions between sea lice and from marine fish farm developments and wild salmon so, again, just to assure you that these are issues that we are working on to address, and there's a lot of work going on in this space at the moment. Karen Adams. Adam, beg your pardon, Karen. Convener, and good morning. I'd like to ask, was those questions in two parts. Firstly, how do we meet the challenge of an emerging conflict between the concept of permanent development but an increasingly changing coastline, particularly in light of the severe weather environmental changes that we've been having and will continue to have, and how can planning policies for coastal and marine infrastructure take account of existing Scottish Government policies for fishing in the blue economy, including future fisheries management plan and the upcoming blue economy action plan? I'll happily address that point that was raised in relation to the blue economy action plan, because we'll be setting out our vision for the blue economy and our action plan after that. Essentially what that will provide is a framing and ambition for Scotland's marine management policies, our strategies and plans, and the national marine plan, regional marine planning and future fisheries management strategy, will be key delivery mechanisms for the blue economy, because essentially what that approach is about is looking at our marine industries holistically, and it really will allow us to achieve our ambition for the sustainable stewardship of Scotland's blue resources, which of course is consistent with the international commitments that we have for our marine environment. So again, that's how all these plans and strategies will come together under the blue economy vision, but in relation to the planning for coastal, as the minister will come in on that? Certainly. The two aspects firstly are our spatial strategy. It recognises the tremendous opportunities, economic opportunities that are created by our coastal communities, but also the particular challenges that they face and their particular vulnerability towards climate change. Within the policies, policy 35 is a specific policy on coasts. I would maybe just draw the committee's attention to policy 35B, which states that development proposals that acquire a coastal location should be supported in areas of developed shoreline, where the proposal does not result in the need for further coastal protection measures and does not increase the risk to people of coastal flooding or coastal erosion and is anticipated to be supportable in the long term. If I just very briefly subparagraph C, development proposals in undeveloped coastal areas should only be supported if the proposal is necessary to support the blue economy and net zero emissions, or if it would contribute to the economic regeneration and wellbeing of communities whose livelihood depends on marine or coastal activities. That particular tension that Ms Adam articulated is reflected within the spatial strategy, but also very specifically within policy 35 on coasts. I don't know if there's anything that I want to add to that. No, I would just echo that in terms of the policy that has been developed and revisited from previous policy. There's again an important link to local development planning and guidance that we're currently consulting on on local development plans. Several of the national developments relate to coastal waterfront areas, reflecting the importance of looking at long-term resilience to climate change. Okay, I've got a, Karen. Have you got a bit of a follow-up on that question, big burden? No, okay. No, it's just a send and keeping. In the MPF for economic growth and development was a priority and your predecessor minister, Derek Mackay, suggested that opportunities for all to flourish through increased sustainable economic growth. It led to the Government's economic strategy. However, this draft of MPF for doesn't mention economic growth at all, apart from two times in relation to the national transport strategy. It doesn't appear to have any economic growth strategy. To ensure that Scotland optimises opportunities for growth and economic success, along with getting a balance between development and environmental protection, is that something that's been missed, or how have you addressed that in this document? Just to say straight off that, we're obviously working on the national strategy for economic transformation as well, which is going to be critical in addressing some of those points that you've raised. I come back to points that I've made previously. Of course, we're not considering those strategies in isolation to each other, and there will be strong links and alignment there, but I don't know if the minister would like to... I would really just echo that point. There's obviously a forthcoming publication of the national strategy for economic transformation, and that will be published ahead of the finalised version of MPF for coming before Parliament. Clearly, what emerges from that work will be reflected within the finalised MPF for, but I would also say that at the heart of MPF for, with in terms of response to climate change, the climate emergency and the nature crisis, is moving to create a genuine wellbeing economy, and that is why community wealth is embedded at the heart in terms of our six overarching principles relating to sustainability. So, creating a prosperous economy that works for everybody is at the heart of that document, and it is a spatial expression of all the Government's policies, including the Government's economic policy, and will reflect the end-set once it has been published. Thank you, convener. As the cabinet secretary is aware, we're also taking evidence on the Good Food Nation bill. Conversely, I'm going to talk about the urban setting in terms of how the planning policy is giving local authorities the opportunity to take due regard of the Good Food Nation bill in the planning process. It's probably not a question, it's more just an observation that that's something that's going to be really vital. If the Good Food Nation—you've answered it in fact that you're cross-cutting, you've said that this consultation is looking at lots of policies, so it's just to make sure that there's due regard taken to the Good Food Nation bill as we go forward so that people can get access in the urban areas to food-growing areas. It's a really important point, and I'm glad that you raised that as well, because I think that from the early engagement that took place in preparation of the draft, I think that emphasis on food and that support for food and drink and the ability to encourage community growing is something that came out really strongly, and I think that that's reflected in some of the policies that have been set out throughout the draft as well. For example, I think that it's policy 14 where it talks about supporting space or facilities for local community food-growing and allotments. There's also a number of other policy areas where we're encouraging that development. For example, policy 31, where it talks about supporting farm and croft diversification, and there's specific mention of enabling that to encourage farm shops, for example, to open up. I think that it really enables that kind of positive development and encourages the ambitions that we want to see through the Good Food Nation bill. I know that the committee has been taking evidence on that, but everything that's in the draft NPF4 is well really chins with what we're looking at through the local food strategy, for example. We've had the consultation on that, which closed in December at the end of last year, and we're currently analysing the results of that, but I think that planning and food is critical. We do all that we can to encourage and enable the vision and ambition that we've set out through the Good Food Nation bill. I've taken part in a visit earlier this week, where I visited the James Hutton Institute and visited Liberty Produce and Intelligent Growth Solutions, and we were having discussions there about vertical farming. It's really interesting to see how that has also developed and how people are now looking to have vertical farms as part of developments when that comes to housing, so I think that there is so much opportunity there. I think that it's really important that the draft NPF4 enables that type of development to take place so that we can again become that Good Food Nation. Hello. I'm not sure if you can hear me. Yes, we can hear you. Come on, go ahead. I just want to ask a quick supplementary, if I may, on the back of the point that the minister made there about crofting. Just to ask again at this point about plans tying together how she feels that achieving those aims that she was set out for crofting would tie in with legislation on crofting. Absolutely. We want to make sure that that read across is there, and I would also say that it's part of the engagement that took place in preparing for the draft NPF4. There have been discussions with the Crofting Commission, too, so again, those aren't things that we're considering in isolation. Thanks for this session. Clearly, we could talk to you for a lot longer on this, just to scratch you the surface. My question is really about process, so that your consultation will end at the end of March, as you said, and then what happens because the evidence sessions that I'm doing in my other committee is clear that there's some pull-through, there's some, I would say, knitting together of aspects and clarity. I hear you talking about, you know, it's like we don't want to be prescriptive and flexible, but I'm also hearing a lot of comments from planners and so on and so forth where they want the clarity. So I'm just concerned about what is the process after the 31st, and when do you expect to, you know, this is a draft, when do you expect to bring the final one to Parliament? I'm conscious of time, but very briefly, we will take into account all responses that we receive through the public consultation. We will take into account all responses that parliamentary committees have received, both written and oral, and that will be reflected on, and we will seek to make judgments and to seek to incorporate where we think there is, you know, points to where we can improve, and we will obviously feedback through a consultation response and into the final draft NPF4. Our aspiration is to be able to lay the finalised NPF4 before Parliament prior to summer recess for adoption. Obviously, that work is taking place at the same time as the consultation on the LDP regulations. I want to just be very clear to the committee and give a commitment that we very much value all of the engagement, and there's still quite a substantial amount of engagement to take place. I'm conscious of the further committee consideration that will be on-going, and indeed there's quite a very heart-intestinate amount of community engagement that is starting to take place. That's something that, in my own ministry, I'll get passed to, I'm looking forward to engaging in. At this particular point, we're very much in listening mode and very much welcome this opportunity to articulate what our thinking has been in preparing the draft NPF4, but to make it very clear that we are extremely grateful for all of the contributions that people are making, have made to get to this process, are making this now to share their views and give the undertaking. We will take that all into account and be clear and transparent about how we arrive at the final decisions that we put before Parliament in NPF4. It is, of course, a matter for Parliament to decide whether or not to approve NPF4 so that it can be formally adopted by ministers. I don't know if there's anything else in the process that you maybe wanted to add, Fiona. Just to add, there's a new requirement as part of the 2019 act that we set out how we've taken views received during the 120 days into account. Minister, cabinet secretary and witnesses, thank you very much for giving evidence this morning. I will suspend briefly to allow you a change over witnesses and we'll reconvene it to 5 past 10. Our second item of business today is consideration of the Aquaculture and Fisheries etc scheme for financial assistance Scotland regulations 2022. Those regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure and are referred members to page 3 of their paper packs and page 30. Once again, I welcome back Mari Goujon, cabinet secretary for rural affairs and islands and her officials for this agenda item. We have Carline Cowan, interim deputy director for funding and strategy from Marine Scotland. Ian Hepburn, future marine funding strategy team lead Marine Scotland and Emma Phillips, the Scottish Government legal directorate. I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement. Draft instrument establishes a scheme in accordance with the Fisheries Act 2020 whereby Scottish ministers can give financial assistance for a range of permitted purposes, which include promoting and developing our fishing and aquaculture industries, training and improving the health and safety of those who work in those industries, the economic development and the social improvement of our coastal communities that rely on those industries, developing recreational fishing and conserving and restoring our marine environment. This instrument is necessary as it gives us the ability to go beyond the scope of our existing funding powers and consider other areas that would benefit from support, in particular coastal communities and recreational fishing. This instrument will enable delivery of a funding scheme from 1 April this year, which allows financial assistance to be given for a broad range of purposes as set out in the Fisheries Act. We will publish guidance setting out the specific range of fundable activities and eligibility criteria in due course. Under the house agreement, we have committed to an ambitious programme to protect our marine environment and support fishing and aquaculture businesses and coastal communities who depend on them. This instrument will ensure that the marine fund Scotland continues to be key in the sustainable development of Scotland's blue economy through investing in our marine sectors, creating sustainable jobs and helping to protect the marine environment, not only today but also into the future. We are not alone in recognising the value of our marine space and the need to protect, restore and use it sustainably. The EU established their European maritime fisheries and aquaculture fund last year, replacing the previous European maritime and fisheries fund from which Scotland benefited greatly. Its new fund includes support for the transition to sustainable low-carbon fishing, the protection of marine biodiversity and ecosystems and innovation in the sustainable blue economy. Those are objectives that we share and the instrument will ensure that those objectives can be delivered, so I am happy to take any questions that the members may have. I understand that the legislation is going to allow the Government to subsidise fishers. It is important that the subsidies are pinned to delivering public and environmental outcomes. The example of that is set out in the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, which states that, by 2020, we should be prohibiting certain forms of fisheries subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing and eliminate subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and refrain from introducing new such subsidies. I feel that Scotland should be leading the way on that, but the regulations that we are looking at today, as proposed, do not seem to provide for any such conditionality. They provide wide-ranging powers and leave the awarding of subsidy to Scottish ministers' discretion. In fact, recent rounds of funding have seen money given for new, more powerful engines and bigger nets without any link back to what that might mean for sustainability. I would like to ask how the Scottish Government will ensure that subsidy created using those regulations does not contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, as per the Sustainable Development Goal 14. I just want to emphasise that what we are setting out today is not actually the creation of a fund. It is simply setting out the framework for that funding and gives us additional powers as to what we can look to fund. It expands the range of activities that we can look to fund. Of course, what we will be doing from this point is that we have had one round of the Marine Fund Scotland. We will obviously be looking to look at the outcomes of that and how that first year's funding has gone. However, we will also be considering, as we referred to in the previous session, that there are a number of pieces of work that are currently under way. We are working on our blue economy vision and action plan. We already have our future fisheries management strategy. We will obviously be making sure that, as we look to develop the criteria for funding into the future, it aligns with the visions that we will be setting out and the different strategies that we will have in place at that point, too. However, we are not at the stage of establishing the criteria for that. The regulations simply allow us to fund a greater range of activities. I suppose that, if the initial regulations—this framework—does not include conditionality, I am not sure how the Parliament and members can have faith that that will come later on. I would be interested to know how the Government will use the regulations to incentivise a move towards sustainable forms of fishing. Is there any further due term? I know that we are still to set out our vision for the blue economy, but there are a number of pieces of work that are on-going in relation to the work that we are undertaking in fisheries and in aquaculture. We will be making sure that, when we establish the new funding, that it takes account of that. However, we are not at that stage because we have not yet decided on what any new fund may look like and exactly what the criteria are for that funding yet. We are just not at that stage yet. Can the cabinet secretary confirm whether the Scottish Government agrees with the principle that subsidies should be linked to public and environmental contributions and improvement? What I touched on in my opening statement was what we signed up to in terms of the bute house agreement and the environmental ambition that we have there. I am not going to commit to exactly what will be in a fund at this stage because we are yet to take decisions on that. What that does is that it sets out the range of activities that we will fund, but that work in establishing a fund is yet to be undertaken. Thank you and no further questions. Cabinet secretary, can the cabinet secretary tell us whether any of the companies who have received hardship marine fund Scotland funding from the Scottish Government in the past two years have also received fixed penalty notices or have been referred to the Crown prosecution services for breaches of fisheries rules? I am afraid that I would not have that information to hand. Can you tell us whether the Scottish Government would amend the regulations to prevent companies who have received fines or are being prosecuted for illegal fishing from having access to funding for three years? I am not looking to amend the regulations at this stage because, as I have already outlined, they extend the range of activities that we can fund. Again, we are not at the stage of establishing a new fund or what the criteria for that might look like yet. Perhaps you could follow up on Ariane's initial question there with the committee. That would be helpful. Cabinet secretary, the instrument allows the Scottish ministers to specify the procedure for making an application for a grant alone under the scheme. With reference to two particular areas regarding the previous funding, where you were unable to make decisions on assisting the fishing industry with aid directed at statutory costs of a business, but you were able to support non-statutory investments, does that instrument change the ability of Scottish ministers to be able to do that? If I give you two examples of improving the arrangements for use of catch quotas or effect quotas and contributing to the expenses of persons involved in commercial fish or aquaculture activities, those are, in my mind, defined as statutory costs. Will that instrument change your ability to be able to make decisions on those? I do not believe that I would, but... In my initial answer, I might ask a lawyer Emma to intervene. The contributing to cost of business does not necessarily have to be statutory costs, so that can be any costs. On the use of catch quotas, I would have to remind myself in detail of the regulation, but again that can be used. I do not know if Emma Phillips wants to add anything. As much as those are, the purposes for which funding can be provided under the powers that are being used to establish the scheme, as to the precise definition of what expenses would cover and in terms of the use of catch quotas or effect quotas, I will take that question away and respond to the committee in writing to address those points if they want further clarification. I would like to add, in response to the first question, raised about conditionality under the scheme. The regulations provide that any grant loan funding offered under the scheme will be subject to any conditions determined by the Scottish minister, so there is provision for that to be subject to conditions. Any contractual conditions of grant or loan would be specified in the contractual offers of grant or loan issued to successful applicants, so there is provision under the regulations to allow a conditionality to be attached to the grant or loan funding under the scheme. I just want to follow up on that because there is a method behind my madness here. That is that in the past, the Scottish Government responded to grants and loans in terms of public investment and the relative poor return for fishing businesses on funding, say, an operational statutory cost. I am very interested in Emma Phillips' response to the committee regarding that specific issue about return on investment and how that specific instrument changes that. I would be happy to come back with specific answers in relation to those points. I just want to touch on how the scheme differs from the EMFF. The instrument broadens the scope of financial support previously available under the EMFF to include conservation enhancement, restoration, marine aquatic environment and so on. I understand that you have a current funding pot of about £14 million to the Marine Fund Scotland and the UK seafund. There is money coming out of that as well. The EMFF provides about 108 million euros, so do you have a fund figure in mind and how does that compare? How would it operate in the UK internal market and to what extent will the UK internal market act constrain your choices? In relation to the EMFF, the previous round of funding, what is being set out in the regulations here means that we can now greater align with the new European maritime fisheries and aquaculture fund, so it broadens the scope of what we can fund compared to previously. For example, we could now look to fund activities in relation to marine biodiversity in ecosystems as well as coastal communities as well, so there is a broader range of what we can look to fund as part of the regulations. In relation to the level of funding that we received for this, we know that we have the allocation of £14 million per year. That has been very frustrating and disappointing for us because we believe that our allocation should be in the region of £62 million, so obviously there is a significant shortfall there in terms of the funding that we should have expected. If you are short of that amount of money but you are saying that you have greater scope, does that not mean that your ability to fund anything is going to be much more limited? It makes sense to me that if you are going to fund more areas but you have a much smaller pot, how are you going to make that work? That is what we will have to take careful consideration of when we look to set the criteria for the new fund and the activities that we would like to fund. Ideally, we could do so much more if we were given the full allocation that we rightly expected and deserve in relation to the £62 million. What is made worse by that is the fact that we had received, in previous years, an extra £5 million on top of our allocation from the EMFF in recognition of the significant marine resources that we have in Scotland. The UK Government has now decided not to give us that uplift that we had previously received, so we have significantly less funding than what we had previously. Obviously that is an issue that we continue to raise with the UK Government and a cause of significant frustration and disappointment because, of course, we could do so much more for our marine environment and for our coastal communities, our fishing industry if we had the full allocation of the £62 million. The UK internal market? Yes, in relation to that as well. We see the impact of that through the UK seafood fund. It touched on some of those points when I had the discussion with the committee in relation to the budget. What that does is it causes duplication in terms of what we can fund in Scotland. There is not that clarity there and I think that it will be confusing for those who are applying to the marine fund in Scotland as we have heard over the course of this past year because it is direct spend in a devolved area and is funding that we believe should be for the devolved parliaments to be allocated and distribute. I was just to sit on your first point just to explain how we have got to where we are. Under EMFF we had EU regulations directly applicable, which allowed us to spend in the full range of the previous fund, the EMFF's purposes. Last year, because of the very late settlement with the UK government, we had to use the powers we had available to spend the money, which were the 2007 act, which were fairly narrow. It has been a bit of a top-up almost to EMFF powers. This is partly why we need to do this now because in order to align with the new funds, we have only got these very narrow powers. This is allowing that broader range of purposes. The situation is that last year, we were very restricted in some ways compared to where we have been in the EU with the relevant regulations, if that makes sense. In effect, you had very restrictive powers with a bigger pot of money. Now you have much more powers with a restricted pot of money. Last year, we had the same plus the £5 million that the cabinet secretary referred to under EMFF. We had the £98 million over the periods. The key point is that the EU has now negotiated the new fund and our assessment is that we would have been entitled to a significant amount more. The quantum from this financial year to next financial year is a little bit reduced, but it is far below what we believe that we would have got if we stayed in the EU. I would like to ask whether the fund supports sustainable fisheries management through the provision of financial assistance for scientific data collection, or is that within the scope of the UK seafood fund? In relation to the criteria or what we would look to set up in a new fund, that has not been established yet. In relation to the regulations, that is something that we would be able to fund through those. The SSI states that grants and loans can be given in relation to Scotland or the Scottish zone. The cabinet secretary knows that I have raised on several occasions with her concerns about the practices of non-UK gilnet operation fishing around Shetland. Does this leave open the possibility that any boat operating in Scottish waters or zone would be eligible for financial assistance? In relation to criteria that we would set out, we have not established a new fund yet or established any criteria for that, but that would have to align with the strategies and vision that we have set out, which is obviously to the benefit of our coastal communities and for our fishing industry in Scotland. Are you saying that the scheme would allow for non-registered boats that are not registered in Scotland? That would appear to be your response. That would depend on the criteria, but surely that does not allow boats not registered in Scotland to obtain grants and funding? No. It does not? No, not through the regulations. As far as I remember, I would like to double-check the Fisheries Act. We are restricted to funding Scottish vessels. That is quite important. I will confirm that in our written response, but I am reasonably confident that that is the case. My understanding of what we are deciding today is that I have established when there was a scheme that allows you to make payments. It does not set out anything further than that. However, can you give us an indication of what stakeholder engagement you are going to carry out and how long it is going to take for you to develop the guidance around the potential grant and loan schemes that you envisage coming forward? We are really looking for a timescale for the work that you say that needs to be done to set out criteria. In relation to the guidance, that would be a technical document. In relation to any consultation on that, we would not look to consult on the technical guidance that we would be establishing itself. However, in relation to the strategies that I have talked about that are currently in development, there will of course be consultation undertaken in relation to developing those. I think that that is the point at which that would be done. In relation to timescales, I will probably ask how that worked when we established the Marine Scotland fund, in relation to when that fund opened and when we were able to have the guidance available. One of the challenges is not knowing how much or if we were going to receive money until the UK spending review, which puts tight timetables. Last year, if I remember rightly, we were able to have the scheme open in late May early June and publish the guidance. I think that we will try our best to do it sooner than that. There are also links to the other strategies. Obviously, we do not want to be publishing that technical guidance until we are sure that it is aligned with the wider strategy. Some of which are in the public domain such as the future fisheries management strategy, for example. On that basis, if you hope to open the funds in May, when will you start the consultation process and how wide will that stakeholder group be on the consultation? It is not possible for me to set that out at the moment, because again, what we would look to fund is dependent on the regulations passing the committee today. Should that be done, we will look at the number of pieces of work that are on-going at the moment, which will help to inform the shape of what a future fund might look like, but we will be looking to develop that as soon as we can. At the moment, there are no plans or timescales for the consultation at the moment? I cannot give a definitive timescale at the moment, but I will be happy to keep the committee updated as to when we are intending to launch a round of funding. That would be helpful. Thank you very much. It is welcome from what you have said that all Scottish ministers have the ability to set the criteria of a relatively new fund. What relationship between the £100 million UK Government seafood fund does that have? How will it complement that fund? Looking at the innovation, the infrastructure, the training and the skills tranches of that particular fund, is there a crossover here or are you planning to fill the gaps and, hopefully, that will be established with the stakeholder engagement that Finlay talks about? We are in constant contact with our stakeholders anyway, so I want to assure the committee on that front. I do not think that it is really our role to try and plug the gaps of other funds. I think that it ultimately comes back to the point that the UK Government is spending directly in what is a devolved policy area. Essentially, that funding should come to the Scottish Government for us to distribute according to our policy priorities. That is the problem of the UK seafood fund at the moment, which is causing duplication and confusion in terms of the activities that we are funding through the Marine Fund Scotland. Of course, that is not an ideal position and that is not where we want to be, but that is the cause of frustration to us. We see the duplication when we should be able to spend according to our own priorities. What are the duplications? I will ask Carol for the specific areas that are covered by the UK seafood fund, but there are a number of activities that we fund through the Marine Fund Scotland, which are now also being covered by the £100 million fund. That goes to the heart of my question. The innovation, the infrastructure, the training, and the skills of the seafood fund. Will the SSI, in what you intend to do—I know that you have not created the details of the criteria of the fund yet—do you do what that fund does not do within the activities that you have suggested that the SSI will do? I would be looking to establish a fund in accordance with our priorities and, like I said, the pieces of work that are currently under way will help to shape what the criteria of that fund looks like. It is not our job to simply plug the gaps of other areas. We have to spend according to our own priorities. Of course, that is what we will be seeking to do with the creation of any new fund. That concerns me, because if we are to accept the SSI today, you surely have done work into what is the duplication and should have that to hand. On that, we have continued to raise with the UK Government. Again, because we established the marine fund, there had been little engagement from the UK Government in terms of— What are the duplications? Again, that is what I was going to ask Cado to refer to. On the initial science funding, a lot of the funding went towards continuing an existing programme. On the innovation pillars and training skills, we do not really know what those are that they have not been set out clearly. It is hard for us to assess duplication when we do not know what the criteria are going to be from the UK Government. Does that mean that you are not ready to put the SSI forward? No, that is not the case at all. Again, what this enables us to do is to fund a broader range of activities. I do not think that we should be waiting from the UK Government before we look to do that or to fund the priorities that we see as being important in Scotland. After all, it is public money. Obviously, we would not duplicate, so that one project could not receive funding from both funds for the same work. Do you have agreement with our UK Government colleagues that we would assess for that kind of duplication? Why have you not done that prior to this? Because their fund has not launched yet. Right. Okay. Thank you. I think that they are launching in the next financial year and they have not— Sorry, I see your point now. They have not set out the criteria. Right. Thank you. Okay. Jenny Minto. Sorry, thank you, convener. Just a quick question. What would be the implication or the delays if we did not pass this today, given that it is a requirement that we are giving the Scottish Government an opportunity to set up a framework to support loans and grants to fishermen? Essentially, it would mean that we would be restricted in what we could fund, so we could still launch another round of the Marine Fund Scotland, but we would only be able to fund what is within the scope of that at the moment, and we would not be able to fund that wider range of activity. So this is giving an opportunity for fishing communities to apply for a wider range of grants and loans to support their businesses and their sustainability? Yes. Emma Phillips would like to come in. Thank you, convener. I just wanted to add—we will respond to writing about the committee's earlier question in terms of funding Scottish fishing vessels. The enabling powers are very clear that funding will be provided either to the emulation of Scotland in the Scottish Shown or Scottish fishing vessels, so any funding relating to fishing vessels specifically would be tied to Scottish fishing vessels, but we can respond more freely to the committee's question writing on that point. Thank you. That is most helpful. Any more questions? No. We will now move on to the formal consideration of the motion to approve the instrument, and I invite Ms Gougeon to move motion for S6M-02734 that the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee recommends that the Aquaculture and Fisheries, etc. scheme for financial assistance Scotland regulation 2022 draft be approved. Does any member wish to debate the motion if so please indicate or type R in the chat box? No, okay. Is the committee content to recommend approval of this instrument? Please indicate by typing N in the chat box if you do not agree, otherwise I presume everyone is content. We have a division, so we will now go to the vote. All those who agree to S6M-02734, please indicate by raising your hand or indicating by N in the chat box. All those who disagree to S6M-02734, please indicate by raising your hand or indicating by N in the chat box. All those who wish to abstain to S6M-02734, please indicate by raising your hand or indicating by N in the chat box. We have yes to confirm, no to disagree and one abstention, so the committee has agreed to S6M-02734. I should just clarify that we had seven votes to approve, one not to approve and one abstention. The committee has passed the motion. Thank you. That now completes consideration of the affirmative instrument and I thank the cabinet secretary and officials for attending today. I will suspend briefly and allow for a change of witnesses and we will reconvene at 10.40. Thank you. Welcome back everyone and we are going to return to our evidence on the Good Food Nation Bill and today's session will focus on public bodies. I welcome to the meeting Mike Callaghan, the policy manager from COSLA, Mark Hunter, the strategic lead food and facility support East Ayrshire Council and Jane Jones, the national chair of assist FM food and drink Argyll and Bute Council. Before we start, members will note that the bill would place a duty to produce a good food nation plan in health boards as well as local authorities. The clerks, however, have been unable to secure any witnesses representing health boards for today's meeting, which is very disappointing. I have written to all the health boards to invite them to provide written responses to some of the questions that are posed today and hopefully we can incorporate those in our inquiry. We are now going to move to questions. We have approximately 12 o'clock today. I would like to ask the witnesses what their understanding is meant by being a good food nation and whether the bill would enable public authorities to contribute to that ambition. If we kick off with Mike Callaghan, please. Good morning, everyone. I thank you, convener. In respect to what means to be a good food nation, food clearly intersects many different policy areas, and it is important that a good food nation bill is not considered in isolation, given that it should shape good-related legislation policy in all areas, such as public health, food insecurity, insecurity, public procurement and agriculture. It should also link other areas to how it contributes to local communities and reflect not just the current situation but future challenges, as well as current challenges that we have in respect of food policy in the food sector. Global price increases shortages of certain goods and how it impacts on public sector purchasing by local authorities of food, for example for school meals and for the care sector. It should consider a broad area and should be an overarching plan for all food policy. It certainly has merit and should encompass a wide range of policy areas for food. Good morning, convener. The understanding of the good food nation is about the collaboration between the public sector and the private sector, and how we look at food as a whole, either within the community or nationally. It is about supporting communities to build place-based and sector-led approaches, and, however, it is looking at how that contributes to a better economy. For me, a good food nation is one of which we take a local and sustainable systems approach, where our food production is good for people in our communities, for the welfare of our animals and, of course, for the planet. We want that food to support good health for our workforce, to be valued for its importance to society. Our food inequalities are tackled with no need for emergency food, but access to healthy food is much easier and where people know more about their food and where it comes from, and where public sector food is leading the way in achieving those aims. I see it as an important opportunity for us to develop a food system that is less fragmented and more interconnected, and we recognise that climate change, food insecurity, health, food employment, land management and so on, are all considered as interrelated, and they all need to be addressed to ensure that everyone in our communities has access to good quality local, sustainable and ethical food. Public sector food can be a driver for this change and should be an exemplar of good practice that can ignite the systemic change that we need across our communities. We are already on this journey. It is not something that I think that we are at the very beginning of, and we need to recognise the progress that we already made, but Good Food Nation Agenda gives us the opportunity to do more. Thank you very much. Mark Hunter, the East Ayrshire Council has heard in very high regard what it regards to the progress that is made on food procurement and ensuring good, healthy food. Does the Good Food Nation Bill need to go right down to soil quality agricultural practices right through to the end consumer and the nutrition for our elderly and care homes? What is your vision of what the plan should deliver? The East Ayrshire Council has been on this journey from around about 2004. We have started looking at how we can support the local community and the local suppliers. That has an impact on what we can call on to use in food education programmes and in our schools. The suppliers support that and the links that we have with the local community and how that engages the discussions of where we go forward. We also have very good links with the other food sectors within the local authority. That links in to the other things that we need to do. Looking at the social and economic wellbeing of our community, the environment itself is something that we would have to look at to enable farmers, for instance, to be able to adjust some of the other things that we would be looking for in the local project side of things and how we develop those farmers to be able to deliver it. If we can get a good food education programme within the schools, we can support the health agenda going forward and then obviously the economic development of our local community. I note that Jane Jones described that this is being on a journey. We have also heard evidence that it is a change in culture. I am interested to hear what changes in culture you have seen in both your local authorities as a result of the decisions that you have made with regard to food and perhaps what learnings you got from the pandemic and the impact of some Scottish Government policies such as the 1,140 hours of free childcare and free school meals and how that is impacting on the children and your local authorities and the way that you shape your policy. We have seen a huge amount of change in evolution over the years. As Mark said, this has been a journey since the early 2000s in which we have been able to develop those relationships with suppliers, local producers, manufacturers and farmers in our local community. It has been about taking the time to nurture and build those relationships, to develop opportunities for them and to build on the trust around what public sector food can offer by way of opportunity, not just for economic growth necessarily but economic stability. We give stability and public sector food through providing guaranteed volumes and repaired bills and things like that. It is being able to talk more with them around that and offering them wider opportunities. One of the big things that we have been working on is dividing our procurement opportunities into very small lots so that they are manageable for small suppliers. That again allows them to come on board, build confidence and then look at future opportunities where they may wish to apply for future lots and grow beyond that. That can give them access to wider areas for their own supplier development as well beyond just public sector food so opportunities to access more restaurants or cafes, for instance. There has been a lot of learning during the pandemic about the importance and the value of our supply chain and how working with it was invaluable to reach people all across our communities who were in need of food support. I do not think that we could have done any of that without the relationships and partnership working that we already had in place. We were able to work with businesses, not just suppliers that we rely on day in and day out. We were able to keep them from putting staff on to furlough, for instance, by enabling them to use our relationships to support community food. We were able to work with retailers and other businesses to provide that support too. It is very much about having that holistic mindset around local food and what works in our local areas. The final point that I just wanted to touch on was the culture change and bringing in our children and young people on board with that and how we have used some of the changes in policy to support that. The 1140 hours programme and the fact that those children who are in receipt of 1140 hours now receive a meal is a really important development, but that means that they are at younger ages than ever before. We are able to use that as a means of food education, teaching them how to eat, sit down and enjoy a meal in company with their class and introduce them to meals and opportunities for food that we do not necessarily always have. It is creating that lovely warm food culture that is nurturing and we can now, by doing that with two and three-year-olds, take those children on that journey where food is just part of the school day and it is part of what they are used to every single day as part of their educational experience. Mark Hunter. I agree entirely with what Jane Stewart said. I will start off with the procurement set of things. It is about starting off small and having that engagement with the local suppliers. That did come to its front during the pandemic. We were able to change quickly by speaking to our suppliers and allowing those kind of food products that we required, one to deliver the food boxes but also to keep them supported throughout the pandemic and have them some sort of income coming in. By having that availability to us, it worked both ways for the supplier and ourselves. With the introduction of the 1140 hours, we are starting to see a difference in the primary ones that started in August that were in 1140 or receipt of meals in 1140. We have seen a slight increase in uptake in the primary ones within our local authority—I cannot speak for other local authorities—but we are starting to see that impact where they are used to the food coming in. We know that young ones or anybody taste change throughout the years and we lose them and then gain them in certain areas but we are starting to see that impact of that coming through. It is important that the food education side of things is very important to show and use the local suppliers that we do use to come in and show where things are coming from so that people understand and the young ones understand the food that they are eating on the plate and recognise that. I think that my colleagues from my local authority sector have covered it fairly well in respect of their points on that aspect of procurement. We are aware that local authorities spend roughly about £80 million on their amounts per year on the procurement of food. Those costs have grown up, so it is obviously only quite a strategic approach to how local authorities meet those challenges. At the same time, I know from discussion at our recent cause of looking at wellbeing board that there is a great appetite and desire from local authorities and elected members to identify ways in which food can be grown locally, particularly in urban areas, using land that is not used, for example, by public organisations to provide that capacity to grow more food locally and contribute to local food supplies. Those are some of the ideas and considerations that I have been out of just recently. Mark and Jane have set out some points really well on some good local approaches in Argyll and Buton, East Ayrshire. Thank you, convener. I would like to have a discussion in regards to targets. This is something that I have been talking about over the past few weeks and then trying to dig down into that. When we talk about targets, everybody seems to have their own specific agendas set for what they would like to see. For example, I have been using obesity as an example. How obesity is not just as a consequence of a bad diet or eating too much obesity has a lot of socioeconomic factors that come into play there. I also heard of a target where somebody was mentioning, given that one hot meal a day could be a target where we know when it comes to if that is a meal on wheels type thing that could be a microwave meal, just heat up in the microwave for five minutes or whatever. So my concern here is how can this plan ensure that everybody is working together that these targets are not in fact pooling the plan apart when this plan should be a holistic view at how we look at a good food nation. If we are going to set targets for things that might be consequences of socioeconomic things, we are looking at a cost of living crisis at the moment. If we are going to add targets in that are in part due to that, that is setting us up to fail. Are we in danger of not seeing the wood for the trees if we get too caught up in this target set and should we be looking at more levers and performance and looking at these unintended consequences and open that up to the panel. Jane, would you like to kick off? I think that this is a really important part that we need to delve into quite deeply. I think that there do have to be clear outcomes and indicators in place so that we can see our direction of travel moving us towards that aspired state that we want from a good food nation bill that you have just so clearly outlined around all of the socioeconomic implications that some of that has. Those headline outcomes and indicators need to clearly link how food relates to the wider policy outcomes, including right up to those national outcomes that were committed to around environment, education, economy etc. Targets can help to keep us on track and there is merit to having some high-level measures in place. However, I do not automatically think that what gets measured gets done. That just does not apply to food in the same way that it does to other areas that can be measured. For one of those reasons that you said is that it can sometimes be distracting. We need to be thinking about quality over measures. I think that I heard something in the question about that, which is really important. When it comes to food provision, quality is something that is of real value and important with other commodities that can be measured. For instance, there are absolutely no measures related to public sector food or to school meals or to food purchasing on the local government benchmarking framework, but that does not mean to say that it is not being done. That does not mean to say that we are not working hard to improve the services that we provide every day. Mark and I have talked about some of the progress that we have made, and that is without having very rigorous benchmarks and frameworks to targets to achieve. Indeed, sometimes having too many or too rigorous targets can be a barrier to safe implementation into effective service delivery. There should be some measures in place to determine what success looks like. The local action plans will be critical for local communities to design exactly how they will begin to achieve that. Not all local authorities are starting off at the same place, and I am sure that the same could probably be said for health boards and other public bodies. We need to be sure that no one is left behind if we set targets that simply are not deliverable. I also think that there is something in there about the collaboration and how the plans overlap and talk to each other to make sure that we do not leave people behind with that. There could be stretched targets and aspirations around things such as percentage of Scottish food procured or percentage of organic foods used. Those are useful tools that I have heard about in earlier sessions, but only as a part of a suite of other enablers that will drive that improvement that should not just be about targets and measures. The target thing that I always worry about, if we set targets and in some cases that people cannot reach those targets, is about outcomes. I agree that outcomes are probably better. We are on different levels of this journey. We are on different stages of this journey. We and our Gail and Bute are probably one of the two or there is more. We have been doing this for quite a long time, and those engagements have happened. We have different teams around us that support those engagements within the community and within the council, and that overlap and connection that we have with our partners and other colleagues within the council. That would be a better word that I would like to use. It is a process that needs to be set and how we move that forward and how all our local authorities will move with us and will not be left behind, if Jane says. That is a really interesting point in terms of targets or outcomes. I remember very clearly when East Ayrshire started out on their journey and they employed the hunger for success, they went all out to make sure that they do all the things that make you a gold standard. I know that Argyll has done the same, but there are other local authorities who chose not to go down that same road. The current food procurement practices that we have are hindrance. Does the national plan need to make sure that local authorities employ this? That is their own local plan in order to make sure that there is the take-up and that it is not a voluntary thing, if that makes sense. I will come to you first, Mark. You mean as in local procurement? Yes. The local procurement, where we started off slowly, and it was led by Robin Gurley back in 2008, the sole association with the local suppliers. It is about recognising the capability of one of the suppliers and what is within your area. East Ayrshire is quite fortunate. There are quite a lot of suppliers within the local authority that we can call upon and we can use. It is about engaging with them, it is about speaking to them and saying, would they be interested in this? It should be come forward, it should be come to light. That is probably the more difficult bit, because small SMEs and small suppliers are frightened of the procurement process, but it is understanding that procurement process and, for instance, the pin notifications that have been out and asking the questions, but also allowing them to ask the questions should they have any issues with going through the process. I get the dichotomy being a small producer trying to go into a local authority is difficult. Does the current public procurement practices allow for that ability to bring in these SMEs and smaller producers? Should the national plan enforce almost to say that local authorities must make that engagement to provide the good food nation objectives? If you make reference to supporting your local community or community wealth building, that might allow local authorities to look at their procurement. What I would not say is to make it mandatory that they have to go down that local procurement route. That would be difficult in some cases for some local authorities, but I think that it should be there that they could look at it so. Some use some smaller SMEs within their local authority and they use the bigger breaks in the 366 trees of the world for the other bulk of their food products, but it would be difficult in some cases for some local authorities to look at local procurement as a whole and make it mandatory. I think that there is a huge risk around mandating that type of work. I think that the current approach to public sector procurement allows the flexibility that we need to engage with food and drink manufacturers, producers, suppliers and farmers across Scotland and to build those relationships. Although that takes time and it takes resource, not everyone has the time and resource to do some of that work in building relationships and talking to people at the farm gates and building trust and getting them involved in that process. We also need to recognise that, in some local authority areas, access to a range of different food and drink producers is much easier than in others. We have heard evidence already in the committee about the difficulties in Glasgow when there are so few food manufacturers and food businesses in the city. How can they do that and replicate or learn from more local authorities like East Ayrshire and how they approach things? The approach for some of the cities or some of the smaller, more urban local authorities would have real challenges in producing food from the local authority. It is how we connect those things up that is part of the challenge and part of what we need to look at. I think that wholesalers are part of the solution and should not always be seen as part of the problem. We have some great work working with our wholesale association and with our large wheels of the operation, if you like, because they can enable some of that local and Scottish produce to be delivered to other local authority areas. There is something in us having that local plan and national plan to allow us to have the flexibility to deliver some of that framework work. However, the procurement guidance, as it is, still permits some of that to happen. Just in an ideal world, if we get Glasgow growing more fruit and veg in Glasgow, then that shortens that supply chain. NPS4 then becomes important. I bring in the piece around the financial memorandum. I am aware that the duty to publish and report on plans will have a human resource and financial impact on local authorities and other public bodies that are already very stretched. I would like to ask whether you believe that the anticipated costs in the financial memorandum are realistic and whether they should be met by additional funding from the Scottish Government and whether that should be ring-fen. Start with Mike, and if anyone else wants to come in, that would be great. Thank you. That is a very good question. The financial memorandum does not identify, in our view, any funding for the delivery of plans for a good food nation. Clearly, local authorities have critical importance in their delivery business, and they must be fully funded, both to develop their plans and deliver on actions and commitments, in order to enable delivery of the good food nation bill's aspirations. Members of the committee are aware that the local authority budget has been eroded over quite some years, so it really is quite key and imperative to the fact that local authorities are adequate and sufficient funding to take this forward in a positive way. We do have a resource that needs to be funded. Anything that we are looking at, there has to be an element of funding and there has to be an element that will be supported against the policy and the legislation to be able to do what we have done. I suppose that that is really everything that I would have to say at the moment, but it is looking at how and what would be funded to support this coming forward. For me, the biggest issue here is how we deliver this ambition without adequate resource, and the plan ultimately becomes a piece of paper with ambitions on it. The hard part is how we then bring this to life. How do we make sure that we have someone to meet with farmers, suppliers and producers? How do we make sure that we have someone to spend time dealing with food insecurity and working to develop the local solutions of tackling the challenges that they face? How do we make sure that we have someone who can provide educational and community food opportunities to create change in our communities? Some of that work is going on in small pockets, but to draw it together and to create more of that across Scotland takes time and it takes resource. We would love nothing more than having local food in all schools, care homes and developing opportunities to work in more areas of growth, but capacity is the issue. We can only do so much on goodwill and our ambition alone. We heard that the Government thought that the cost of drawing up the plans for public bodies and health boards was going to be negligible, but the delivery of the plans to achieve outcomes is a different thing. Potentially, if we are procured locally, there is a higher cost to that. There is a higher cost to potentially building the processing network for the food to be used locally. We have seen local authority budgets slashed over the past few years, so local authorities are under immense pressure at the moment. We hear also about the benefits through eating healthier food and cough seasons every year, of millions of pounds to the health service. How much commitment should the Scottish Government give to local authorities to deliver those plans to achieve what we all want as a good food nation? Thank you, convener. That is a discussion that we need to explore in respect of matching the aspirations of the bill. I think that what is being considered so far in some of the discussions is clearly that the capacity to deliver the aspirations of bills for the bill would need to be greater for local authorities to do it effectively. It is not just the consultation part of its operation delivery. It is a co-ordination. The whole series of tasks and work that have been involved in doing it effectively and with different partners. I do not have a respect to quantifying it. I hope that it is much more significant than what it was originally envisaged for. When we think about the current challenges that we have on the food sector and food policy in Scotland, global factors are more important than the impetus that has been attacked ever before to have sufficient capacity for it. I think that this is something that will need to be explored further with local authorities to quantify exactly that. It still needs to be an adequate sufficient staff resource for the co-ordination of local authorities as part of the committee plan and partnerships. I agree with what Mike has said. We know that it comes at a cost. We need to think differently about how we speak about food and what those aspirations are. All too often we think of food as being a cost to be borne or a cost to be cut. We need to reframe that and think about that as an investment in those wider strategies that we have touched on in those wider aspirations that are outlined in the national outcomes. That is how we measure that as a challenge, so that we make sure that we are getting good bang for our buck through this process. However, if we reframe the thinking about that, that has to form part of the discussions also. I think that the value on the plate is what we sort of look at within East Asia. We do have to look at it in more detail, that is for sure. We have learned to live with the additional costs that it would cost us to use local suppliers. We have grown with that over the period of time, but it would not be straightforward for any other local authorities that may have not started that path just now. We have embedded it into what we do now, but it would need a lot more to detail the discussion on that. Thank you, Mark. That is helpful. I would like to hear your views on whether the statutory requirement on public bodies to produce, consult on and publish a good food nation plan will make a difference to what public bodies are already doing. I will start with Jade. I think that that provides us with an opportunity to be more strategic in our thinking about food and how we could enhance work that is already under way. I think that I have already said that food policy is quite fragmented at local and national level, with so many statutory requirements and regulatory measures already in place. The requirement to produce and publish a plan gives us an opportunity to think better about how we draw together all those various policy areas to really change our food systems and our food culture for good. I really liked Robin Gurley's suggestion at the committee a couple of weeks ago for those food plans to be given the same level of importance as other plans, such as health and safety, and if all council and national services had to be more mindful and supportive of food and decision making, that could mean that a food plan could be transformational. When it comes to consultation, we need to consider before publishing a plan about our people, our workforce and how we need to better value caterers who work so hard in our schools, our hospitals and our care homes, delivering hundreds and thousands of meals each day. I would like to talk about how that plan can recognise their role and how we can make that work happen not by chance but through our people. That includes our staff, our producers and our suppliers. We need to think carefully about a time when recruitment is very challenging. We also need to think about our children and young people and the important role that they have to play in developing our ambitions and our plans. That is generational change. Those are the people that we are going to rely on to do the work, and they also have a role around monitoring and evaluating what we do. Ultimately, when it comes to the consultation part, it can be done in such different ways to meet the different needs of various groups, including hard-to-reach groups. We want meaningful participation in that. There has been a lot of learning from the pandemic about how we do that. We should build on that, and some of that has to be done nationally. Perhaps citizen panels and listening groups. Locally, the work that we have already placed with community groups in the third sector, we are very well pleased to carry out that engagement work across communities as well as across our children and young people networks and with our workforce. It is about making sure that we have those links embedded in what we do locally or nationally. The links are in a good position from the pandemic, where people were cooking more at home, I would guess, and we think that we know that. They were cooking more at home. That use in local became more apparent during the pandemic. Again, where the local authority had those links within the local communities or community councils or associations, that allowed us to move forward very quickly during the beginning of the pandemic. That is crucial to where the engagement goes forward, whether it is links within the community, links with other restaurants or suppliers locally. That is how we can join that up in a better way. Do you have any comments? I appreciate your time that is limited, so we will bring in those questions. If there is anything else that you want to add before you go, please feel free to raise it. Go for it. Just to add convener to what has been said, I think that a genuine, very good point about policy being fragmented on food policy. I think that there is some kind of coordination, particularly when local authorities are well placed to do that at a local level. Other public bodies can be considered to contribute to that. For example, prisons and universities, colleges, in respect of them, have drawn up their food plans along with local authorities. How can they strategically respond in a strategic approach to food, in respect of managing staff welfare facilities, food waste and so on? I think that all public organisations should have food plans in place in respect of how that would be feed into a local good food plan for the local authority community plan in the partnership area. The bill provides for public authorities to be designed as specified public authorities, who would be required to produce the good food nation plans. Beyond local authorities and health boards, do you have views on which public bodies should be given this designation? Mike, would you like to come in on that? Yes, I think that, as I have just said previously, there is an opportunity for sharing the duty of responsibility with other public sector organisations to drop food plans. As I said to the universities, colleges, prisons and services that are all involved in providing food for inmates in prisons and for students at colleges, local authorities probably provide food for children and for people in the care sector. I think that that would be a positive move. Section 8 of the bill states that a relevant authority must consult on a draft plan and have regard to any responses. I would like to hear your ideas on how public bodies could ensure meaningful participation in the creation of their plan, especially from Jane, who touched on that already a bit, food workers and those with lived experience of food-related issues. I would also appreciate hearing your views on whether it would help to have an independent oversight body set up before the plans are drafted to support public bodies to conduct processes of meaningful participation and engagement. Jane, maybe you would like to start. I did touch on that briefly in my last response. I think that there will be a need to consult in different ways, particularly if we are looking at a national plan and then a variety of local plans. I think that there is a risk that any consultation, if it is not done in a collaborative and cohesive way, may mean that different organisations or public bodies are asking very similar questions, but perhaps at different times of the same community groups. The co-ordination of activities around how we do that is going to be really important, because if we are going to specific communities and groups, then we need to have all of our questions quite specifically around not just what our local plans look like but what our national plan needs to deliver to. I think that there is learning from the pandemic about how we can do this, some of the work that was done in terms of gathering views of what the response looked like post-pandemic, and that work was done locally and nationally. We should be building on some of that. I think that our local authorities are best placed to carry out a lot of that engagement work through the community planning partnerships so that we are not doing that in isolation, so that it is about that wider engagement. We need to be thinking very critically about how we engage with our children and young people and take them on this journey with us, because, as I said, they are a critical part of that. All the people working in food have to have a say, and their voice has to be listened to, because they are the ones who will come up with creative solutions and innovative ways in which we can create the systemic change that we are looking for here. For me, it is about local authorities, community planning partnerships, community groups, the third sector and business working together to inform and design what that consultation process looks like. When you say it like that, you can see why there could be benefits to having some joined-up and collaborative approach to doing that. I want to address it to Mark Hunter in that case. It has already been asked about this question about having regard. I wonder what his understanding of having regard is. I know that there is a legal meaning, but what he thinks local authorities can do to gear up for the bill or the act, as it will be. It is having other engagements. I know that Jane McLean mentioned about the local authority being best placed to lead, but it has connections with the local authority and the public sector bodies to say, okay, this is what we are trying to do. We are trying to start off with the good food nation. Obviously, bringing that knowledge in the local areas together is crucial. Some of us have been on that journey, and those engagements take place. It leads to other connections to allow the expansion programme or to allow the information to be disseminated throughout the local communities and elsewhere. Briefly, if I may, I have a question about the potential costs of the bill for local authorities and other agencies. Do you feel that the potentials are for spending to save, if you like, given that there is a health benefit here that may have an impact on local authorities' work as well? Maybe we could bring in Mike, if he is still with us. Thank you. I was just about to leave, but the health benefit on local authorities has caught the end of that. I think that I would have to really put the points at how collaboration for any implementation for this is key for the good food nation. One thing about local health benefits is that we are having a local approach that meets local circumstances to address the question that Karen made earlier about different social inequalities across the country and different health inequalities. There is a need to have that local flexibility to meet local circumstances for local authorities and their partners in order to do that. That would be a key benefit of good food nation plans locally and to be in line with national high-level outcomes that are identified for this. As I said, collaboration is a key for this. I think that some final comments that I may provide are required to go, convener. Do not believe that a new body is required to oversee the implementation. Local authorities are subject to local democratic accountability and are also subject to a range of policies. Legislation from oversight bodies are in place that local authorities have to demonstrate compliance to. That would be some final thoughts that I would like to contribute to the discussion just before I depart, but I would like to thank for the opportunity to find contributions to the discussion. I will follow that up on full tansy of questions. Mr Allan, I will follow that up on full tansy of questions more fully and reflect any other comments that we wish to provide to the discussion. Thank you very much for your contribution, Mike. I appreciate you taking the time. We are going to explore that topic a little bit further. I will move to Jenny Minto to ask more about the collaboration. As Mike has just said, collaboration is key. I think that I also reflect that one size does not fit all. Our local authorities all have responsibilities over different types of areas. For example, last week, we heard from Jill Murie of Glasgow, and she talked about the fact that more than 90 per cent of food bought in Glasgow is being transported there, so it has not grown there. She mentioned partnering with other areas and other local authorities. I am interested to know how being two of the leading authorities in the collaboration around improving food and localness in your areas, what collaboration that you have done with other local authorities? I will go to Mark first, please. The contracts that we wrote for the local procurement were done as a pan-airshire agreement, and any of those local authorities can come into those contracts. It is a framework of contracts, so it can choose any others within that framework, or it can choose not to. It is a collaboration. We share the information and the procurement process with our other colleagues in Ayrshire, not necessarily outside, but that does not stop that opening up even further to our borders, and we are not sure of those places. That is the discussion that we have not had just now, but it is a pan-airshire contract that we write based on it, or they are asked whether they want to come into the contract process. Great. Thank you, Mark. Jane, have you got anything to add? Yes, collaboration is so critical to what we do around public sector food. There is no doubt about it. Mark talked about some of the work that is under way across local authorities. Within our Gaelin view, we may not be working across local authority boundaries, I think, partly because of our size and geography. It makes that challenging. However, we do work with our local health board, our health and social care partnership. I have a local care home producing meals for early years settings. I have a hospital producing meals for early years settings, and they also produce meals for a care home. It is about how we can think differently about good food and making the best use of public investment in public sector food. That can be place-based, as well as thinking about it sectorally around school food and hospitals and care homes. What is good food and how we can share that in collaboration with other organisations is something that we should be embracing as part of this rather than having separate plans that may not cross over. Particularly around school food nationally, in Scotland, we are considered to be leading the way in how collaborative working can be successful. There is a lot of partnership working that we see between local authority caterers through organisations such as assist FM and APSI and how we collaborate with Scottish Government civil servants, Education Scotland, Food Standards Scotland, our existing supply chain, trade unions and the various food and drink stakeholder groups that we regularly engage with. We begin to see successful models of how sharing of best practice already exists, but we tend to keep that under the radar and do it without shouting about it. I think that that is something that plans will enable us to do as well as to be clearer about some of the good work that we have under way. That is before I even touch on the work that we do with our children and young people to improve school food or with our communities around community food. I would like to ask whether you believe that specified functions that relate to food policy areas and are being driven by the Scottish Government should be co-ordinated via primary legislation, such as procurement, supply chains, green spaces, allotments, food education, fair work or other very important strategic goals that we want to create a healthy and sustainable Scotland, including net zero. Should that legislative footing be put in place, given teeth, or should it be dealt with with secondary legislation? I honestly do not have a view as to whether it should be primary legislation or secondary legislation. I think that Mike would have been best placed to give a view on that. However, what I do think is what that looks like needs to be developed between local and national government. We need to be clear about that. I think that the definition of those specified functions is to be as broad as possible so that we are inclusive to all of those delivery areas that we see within the bill. That leads right up to how we deliver the national outcomes. From a local authority perspective, I think that it should include all areas of business within which a local authority is engaged. To have that whole system improved, we need to regard for all those functions within that system, including education, planning, housing, waste, economic development, procurement, transport, social care and community wealth building. It is how we define that and where that should sit within the legal framework. It needs further discussion with local government. Mark, do you have any views on that question? No, it is somewhere, Jane. I do think that there has to be that sort of connection between all the different departments within the local authorities. I would not give a view on whether it should be primary or secondary, but I think that those specified areas should be quite extensive and that it covers the majority of things that we would need to look at in a good foundation bill. How much engagement do you expect to have with regard to that specific question? You want to flesh it out. What expectations do you have of your engagement? I cannot hear you, Mark. The engagement itself, as we said earlier on, all local authorities are on different routes of this path and going forward. We are quite lucky. I was employed just over four or five years ago to look at food in East Ayrshire and the engagement between education and the other departments. That allowed me to go and do what I needed to do. In some cases I would appreciate that there may be some catering organisations when the local authority might not be able to do that engagement, but we did. We had a very good response from our likes of education, health and social care partnership and other private sectors in the local authority. That allowed me to get ahead of where we were. It allowed us to put a path and engage quickly and respond to the pandemic. If we did not have that engagement, we probably would have been a little bit more behind trying to support the things that we had to do during the pandemic. However, the engagement side of things is crucial to moving anything forward. It is for other areas to recognise that, if the good foundation bill is put in place, it will not have lines to speak to us, but it will at least give us the time to speak to us about how we can move it forward. I would like to ask Jane Ann-Marc, if you have a view on what role the Scottish Parliament has in the scrutiny of the specific bill. I think that it is for public authorities to develop and implement the operational delivery, and we have our own level of scrutiny and oversight from local elected members. However, I think that it is entirely appropriate for the Scottish Parliament to scrutinise the progress of the outcomes of those delivery plans and how those specified functions are meeting them, so that we can see and understand how well the whole process is performing. There has to be a level of assurance that what is being committed to is being delivered, and scrutiny obviously forms a really important part of that to make sure that that is the case. Jane, we participated in the CPG on food, which was excellent a couple of weeks ago. My colleague Jim was there as well. I just wondered if you had any views on the unintended consequences of a target-led approach, which we have already discussed. There was mention in that CPG that meeting targets could put a burden on a lot of food producers and increase the price. George Burgess also said that cost should not be really the only measure, so how do we bring all that together in terms of the pressures that we do have to bear on budgets? That is one of the other significant challenges that we have to be considering as part of this. I said earlier that I think that well targets can be useful and I think that there is a place for them in making sure that we are on the right direction. It is more about having very clear outcomes and indicators that give us that framework to work within. That also gives us the flexibility to be able to deliver things appropriately and locally and to enable the collaboration to happen. If we have too many and too rigorous targets, that can indeed be a barrier to safe implementation, including a barrier to cost as well. If we put too many, for example, we set a target around having Scottish food in local authority purchasing going to 60 per cent. That, for some local authorities, might be a very small increase that they will be able to achieve without a significant amount of cost. However, another local authority might be a huge leap from where they are at the moment. It is about how we make sure that targets are meaningful for everyone and how we can make sure that those targets move us forward rather than overwhelming some people with targets that are unattainable or not reasonable. I think that you make a good point there, because it depends on how puritanical we get over procurement. For example, if something is brought into the country, if it is imported and it is rebadged or reprocessed and a Scottish label goes on to it and then it is designated as sourced in Scotland, if we change that within the nature of this good food nation bill, that could drive costs substantially. It is just a comment on the back of what you just said. I think that it is something that we should be conscious of as well, where that badging and how that looks like can also sustain other employment opportunities through distribution and logistics. Although that may not be a Scottish product, it could be a product that is also supporting Scottish employment. Just before we move on to Jim Fairlie, we touched on the role of Parliament in scrutiny. You commented that local authorities have a process where elected members will, no doubt, be expected to approve your good food nation plans when they are eventually developed. Given that, at the moment, much of the content of the good food nation plan will be in secondary legislation, which lies very little scrutiny, do you think that the Scottish Government's plan should ultimately come to the Scottish Parliament for approval and further scrutiny before local authorities are expected to pay regard to it? I apologise, convener. I wouldn't be in a position to give a good answer to that and I would like to consider it further and give you a response if that is all right. Mark, do you have any thoughts on whether the Scottish Government plan should come before Parliament before it comes into force? I would tend to say yes, in my own opinion. What we haven't pitched on a lot of it, and I would just like to bring this up, I don't know whether it's going to be questions on it. When you talk about the costs to the health, then we know that the rural areas, the higher costs rural areas, need healthier. We know that, that's a fact. We can also control what happens within a local authority, but we don't. We're out of control of what happens outside the school gate, for instance, within those other sectors. I think that I would like it to come to the Scottish Parliament first and then lead back to the local authorities. Thank you, that's useful. Jim Fairlie. Just reversing a wee bit back to what Rachel was talking about and the aspiration. One of the things that I do remember from my very early years of involvement in this is that the public procurement used to be about pens per unit. Now it's about value for every pound that you spend, as opposed to basically based on the price. What we're trying to do here is a big thing, a cultural shift. I'm pretty sure that the plan or the ability that we have is a two-year review. Is that two-year review enough for us to be able to start the road, get it implemented, look at it in two years' time and say, yes, these are the changes that we now need to make in order to take it further? Given the diversity of the number of local authorities right across the country in terms of where they are sitting right now, with where they are starting out from. Jane, I'll come to you first. I think that there is a risk that if the reporting frequency is too tight, that becomes a burden, a bit like the targets where you spend all your time reporting rather than doing the work. I do think, of course, that it's perfectly reasonable to expect public authorities to report on their progress and to be held accountable for implementing the actions that they're committing to and their plans. As I say, that will take time to bed in, to get resource available, should it be funded to do the work that's needed to move the plans forward. It depends on what some of that looks like, but to deliver change, we need to be reporting on progress. I think that it's going to be a long-term commitment that will be at least generational and monitoring progress every two years is an appropriate starting point. However, I think that there should be reasonable flexibility to be able to say that, actually, as long as we understand that, after the initial two years, we only may be seeing very small incremental moves forward on the understanding that it's heading in the right direction. That kind of emphasises the point that I was trying to make, that one local authority may start from a very low base, and then you've got people like East Ayrshire who are starting at a very high base. We can't start the process of every local authority at the same point. Yeah, absolutely. Mark, do you have any views on that? Yeah, I think we don't want to underestimate some of the work that's probably happening in every local authority that just hasn't really been documented or shown, and it will aim towards starting off on the Good Food Nation bill of what they're doing already. Like we said before, we are in different paths, we are in different levels, but I think anything within the two years we have to show some sort of progress of where they've started or where they've been. Again, I say that a lot of the local authorities are probably doing something along the lines of the Good Food Nation bill, just hasn't been documented. You've actually raised a really important point there, is that what this does is it brings to the surface some of the fantastic work that has been done but isn't documented and people don't know about it. In effect, creating the plan, I actually let us see where we are, because there's a lot of conversation about how bad public procurement is in local authorities in terms of not doing enough, but we might be actually doing a hell of a lot more than what we realise, and the plans will actually bring that to the surface. Yeah, I agree. Okay, thank you, Cymru. Okay, thank you, that's useful. We'll now go on to talk about the right to food. Beatrice Wishart. And I've got a couple of questions, which I'll roll into one. So, I'd like to hear the panel's views on whether the right to food should be incorporated or, otherwise, through the Good Food Nation bill, and if you feel it could be incorporated, how you think that could be achieved. Secondly, if there was a right to food, if it was statutory, what implications would that have for the work of public authorities and their plans, their Good Food Nation plans? Jane, do you want to kick off? Yes, thank you, convener. I don't think we can talk about any actions to create systemic change without thinking about our most vulnerable households and those who have either insufficient income to meet the food needs or who are food insecure by virtue of where they live or their own personal circumstances, whatever they may be. There are significant disparities in how we think about food insecurity and if we don't ensure that there is some crossover of policy around the right to food and the Good Food Nation bill, we aren't thinking about that wider systemic change. For me, that doesn't necessarily mean that a right to food shouldn't be firmly within a different legislative framework, however it absolutely has to be strengthened, in my view, as part of the Good Food Nation bill. There are very significant implications for public sector food around this. We have very many lessons learned about different needs and responses, particularly as we emerge from the pandemic and more people are finding that they are struggling to cope with the cost of living and rising food fuel and energy costs. How we implement a right to food and how we require a local authority to support households will mean different things. Firstly, we have the issue of those who just can't afford good food due to lack of income. Local authorities working with national government have a very important role to play in supporting households who are financially insecure. However, there are also people who face food insecurity as a result of scarcity, as a result of living in rural and remote areas, who are adversely affected by supply chain issues that, at the end of very long supply chains in some places, put shortages that we are coping with in the public sector too at this moment in time. Transport issues from driver shortages, road closures and ferry cancellations are things that some of us have to cope with regularly. For those people, although in those circumstances it may not be a lack of income but a lack of access, that again takes local and national support to try and overcome some of those issues and challenges. Similarly, we have people in our communities who are dealing with food insecurity and it is about their inability to travel to get it or due to illness or age, they may struggle to cook, they may have lost interest in food due to loneliness and social isolation and I know that Tilly gave evidence a couple of weeks ago about that. For local authorities and community developing plans for all of those types of responses, ranging from lunch clubs and wheels and wheels to tackling transportation issues, those are all things that I think need to be addressed and a right to food will assure that and we need to think about how that fits within the good good nation bill. However, as I say, some of this is about partnership and how those local and national plans talk to each other and how we can use them as drivers to make sure that we create dignified and sustained strategies that support people dealing with food insecurity, no matter what the reason for it. Thank you, Jane. Mark, your thoughts on the right to food? Again, I agree with everything that Jane said. I think that it should work in parallel with anything that is being produced over and above. The access to food we know can be an issue for some people. We do see a difference in the ones that are on low income and benefits than the ones that are on low income only and are not entitled to any benefits. It is that access to food that needs to be looked at and addressed. Again, in addition to where we work within local authorities, that access can be as simple as a community order in some cases. However, it is allowing that engagement to take place, but I see that the right to food and the good food nation bill working in parallel rather than being co-opered in it. I will pick up on the theme of oversight and accountability. A number of respondents to the call for views raised concerns that the reporting and review requirements in section 11 and 12 do not ensure adequate accountability of public bodies. I would appreciate to hear your views on the appropriateness of the reporting and review requirements. I think that we touched on some of that earlier around the reporting mechanisms and the frequency of reporting on what that can look like. I think that it is perfectly reasonable to expect us to report on progress, and that has to be done at appropriate junctures to make sure that we are able to monitor that. We have also touched on the importance of scrutiny locally and nationally. Those are things that we are very mindful of before we start this journey. I think that it is something that we are used to coping with, because food is not something that has been exposed before. We are not currently measured through targets on the local government benchmarking framework or anything like that. We are looking to introduce a whole new system that will create that monitoring and scrutiny process that does not currently exist. My view is that that should be light touch and that it should be appropriate at both local and national level. I am sure that we are going to go on to discuss whether there is a requirement for a national body to provide some of that assurance. For me, it is important that we have those discussions so that we know what is able to support us to develop real actions for change rather than policing actions. For me, it is about how we can be flexible and dynamic enough to allow the work on the ground to actually keep police without it being curtailed. Many stakeholders have called for an oversight body to be tasked with benchmarking, providing expertise in food policy and ensuring policy coherence, publishing annual progress reports on the state of the whole food system and facilitating public participation and more. If those responsibilities were given to an existing body such as Food Standards Scotland, how would you see that body expanding and evolving in order to fulfil the many important new functions alongside its remit? I think that if we are looking at creating a national body that, as we know, comes at a cost and we have spoken quite a lot today about where the appropriate costs could be allocated to give us the best delivery on the ground, so we need to think carefully about that. That is not to say that a national oversight body is not the right thing to invest in, however, I think that there is a requirement for national oversight and for there to be assurances that local and national plans and policies are in line, are delivering, are complying and are carrying out the consultation that is required. Those are all behaviours that local authorities carry out anyway. I do think to achieve this systemic approach, we need to make sure that cohesion and central oversight are essential for part of that. I can see the value in having something akin to the poverty and inequality commission overseeing this work. That is just an example. If there were to be additional duties in an existing body to carry out that oversight, I could equally see the value of that, provided that it is not just seen as a bolt-on to existing roles and responsibilities. I guess that it is that dichotomy between, should we be creating something new, where we can clearly define what we are looking for from that role, or is it something that we are looking to add on, where we may not have the same scope and ability to be clear around what the intentions are behind that body? The central oversight will be keen for it to be overseen by one particular body, rather than to add on to the Food Standards Scotland. That is all that I would have on that. Again, it has to be detailed enough that the areas that you would like to focus on are focused on, and they are focused on by everybody, not just the public sector but also the private sector. Having that engagement, or even allowing us to have that engagement with the private sector, would obviously be displayed by somebody else overseeing the whole process. I am going to throw a wee curveball into both of yous here. Should the scrutiny be through the ballot box so that we have local authority elections coming up in May and we have national elections every five years, should the performance of the people who are delivering and developing those plans be ultimately decided by the people who are going to be the end-users, and that is the public? I am happy to come in, convener. I think that we need to be clear in our heads about two different aspects of this. The first aspect is the scrutiny element, which is where the political aspect comes in that you refer to, however, a lot of that work will be operational. It will be about officers and local authorities and the NHS and working in partnership with communities and groups on the ground. Those are the parts as well that we need to make sure that we are being measured and dealt with appropriately. We need to make sure that we provide the political oversight and make sure that some of that work is being seen through on its natural journey to achieve the systemic change that we are looking for. Ultimately, we are talking about operational delivery on the ground and what that looks like. We need to make sure that that part of it also has the oversight to ensure that we are assured that that work is delivering. Just on that, I have a little supplementary. George Burgess suggested that there was an electoral cycle that would ensure that elected members would be held to account. That is not the case with health boards, and I think that there is an issue there that it is difficult to hold health boards to account to ensure that their plans are right. I am just going back to the scrutiny. You suggested that we maybe did not need one new body. Are you suggesting, potentially, that local authorities should have an obligation to consult with no other bodies to look at inequalities? You would go to a body to scrutinise your plan on how the plan addresses inequality or food standard Scotland and so on. Does there need to be a requirement for local authorities to do that, or do all those bodies need to play a role in it? Jane, it was something that I would like you to answer. That was something that you touched on. Thank you, convener. It comes back to one of my earlier points about food policy being quite fragmented and responsibility for different areas around food and food policy and statutory compliance lying not just within different stakeholder groups and different regulatory bodies, but within the different directorates of Scottish Government or different directorates within local government. Having that plan gives us the opportunity to draw some of that together to be more holistic and systems-focused and to have that cohesive approach to it. That is why I think that there is benefit in having national oversight. What that looks like, I think, still needs some work and to be determined. I think that it should be like touch, but something akin to the Poverty and Inequality Commission was what I was comparing that organisation could look like in terms of how it provides that oversight. Okay, thanks very much. Finally, we will move to Alasdair Allan for some questions. Thank you, convener. I suppose that it was just perfectly a question, both my question or two or three questions here for Jane Jones. It is about the fact that you have indicated, I think, without putting words on your mouth, that awareness about local authority spending too much time on reporting on their activities with regard to those plans. Does that indicate also awareness about targets? I think that what I have been trying to make clear is that, if we are asking for too much by way of complying with targets and reporting mechanisms, there is a risk that we can spend too much time focusing on those aspects and not enough time on actually delivering the systemic changes that we want to see. If we look at school food just now in the workmark and I have talked about and described over years, we have done that because it is absolutely the right thing to do and the right trajectory to create that systemic change, not because there has been a requirement to report on it or because there has been a requirement to meet a target. I think that those are both very useful and important things, but we cannot get tied up in those being the fuel and end-up of the plans. If I am right, you seem to be quite open-minded about the issue of whether it should be a new body or not that was doing at any oversight of that. We have had a bit of evidence put to us that it is a very cluttered environment in the food world just now. Is that a picture that you would recognise? I would say that that is the case. With the fragmented approach, we go to different people for different things and regulation takes place in different ways. For instance, for the work that Mark and I are doing, we have Food Standards Scotland to deal with food safety. Education Scotland is helping to support and ensure compliance with school food. The Care Commission is involved in monitoring and compliance in early years meals. Yes, there is quite a lot of regulation in different requirements at the moment. Introducing another body could do one of two things. It could either create yet another body to have to report to or, potentially, it could simplify some of that, which is what I would prefer to see. Thank you. Finally, convener, on another issue. Obviously, the bill or rather the plan associated with the bill will make real some of the rights that will be contained in other legislation, the human rights bill with regard to food. How important is it that rights around food are connected with other rights? Again, I asked that in the context of the discussion that we have had in other parts of the meeting today about the competing problems that families have around eating and heating. How important is it that those things are all connected? Mark, would you like to kick off? The earlier committees we heard quite a lot about. For many households, the reason they find themselves, for the food insecurity, is a lack of income. Mark? I think that we have to understand or we do understand as caterers and people that feed people. I have been in catering all my life. Food is the ultimate source, obviously, to anybody's wellbeing. The way that those things are connected is either and the way that we sort of look at it through the food education programmes is what leads them to rely on food at the last resort. Now, normally at the last resort, we know that the last resort is either having enough heating in the house or having enough fuel to cook the food or having the food to cook on the fuel that you have. It is that clear link that we are all these connections that we make with financial inclusion, health and social partnership, dieticians and NHS. That is an important thing that we see down here, links up to that sort of joined-up thinking. It is about referring people at the right time to the right people. Food always comes down to the bottom line, but if nobody knows how to cook food, then they will go for the easier option or they will go for the toast and the jam if they do not really have anything else. We know that. It is really about linking those joined-up approach that we always keep saying about, but where it is good, it works really well. Where you are still on that path, that is the difficulty about joining up with those different organisations, the third sector, NHS, like you said before. That is how I see it going forward. Thank you very much. I have a yes-no question to finish, just based on some of the last couple of questions that Alasdalen teased out. That was on education. Should the plans or should primary legislation state that there needs to be due regard or give recognition to the importance of education in relation to health-eating and making the right choices? We have come to the end of our session. Thank you very much. We were very hard on you. You were reduced to two in the end, but a bit like health-eating, it is not about quantity, it is about quality. Certainly, your answers were of very high quality and will help us in our deliberation. Thank you very much for providing evidence this morning and the time that you have taken to do that. That concludes our business in public. We will now continue our business in private session.