 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the ninth meeting of the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee in session six. Before we begin, I remind all those members using electronic devices to switch them to silent. Our first item of business this morning is an evidence session on the Good Food Nation Scotland bill with officials from the Scottish Government. I welcome to the meeting George Burgess, deputy director of food and drink, Ashley Cooke, head of food policy, James Hamilton, Solicitor and Tracy Macaulain, head of the bill team. I would like to invite George Burgess to make some brief opening remarks. Good morning, George. Good morning, convener. Thank you, committee, for the opportunity to give evidence to you today. Just some very brief opening remarks about the history, how we've got to where we are now. We'll go right back to 2009 and the Scottish Government publishing recipe for success, Scotland's national food and drink policy. That was followed in 2014 by a discussion document, recipe for success, Scotland's national food and drink policy becoming a good food nation. So that's the first point where a good food nation came into our consciousness. That set out a new vision for Scotland, that we should be a good food nation where people from every walk of life take pride and pleasure in and benefit from the food they produce, buy, cook, serve and eat each day. I think that gives a sense of the breadth of this policy. The non-satry Scottish Food Commission was established in 2015 to provide advice to the Scottish Government on the challenges facing Scotland's food culture. The commission reported in 2017 with recommendations to us. One of the key ones was to provide a framework legislation that this bill now represents. In 2018, the Scottish Government committed to bring forward legislation to underpin the good food nation policy and the consultation ran from late 2018 through to 2019. As I'm sure members are aware, with the pandemic, we had been seeking to bring forward the bill just as the pandemic struck. That had to be postponed, but now we're bringing forward the bill at the earliest opportunity. Thank you very much. We're now going to move to questions. I'm pleased to understand that Mr Burgess, you're going to field the questions and direct them to the appropriate officials who appreciate that. I'll kick off looking at the pre-legislative consultation. As you said, the good food nation policy has been in developments in 2009 and there was a recommendation for a bill and other aspects of food policy. The Scottish Food Commission in 2017 raised certain issues around the bill and the consultation. One of those was whether the bill would deal with public health, food security, insecurity, provenance, procurement of food waste and food education. Can you tell me to what extent those recommendations have been included in the bill and if not, why not? We are doing exactly what the Food Commission recommended to do. As I said in my opening remarks, the good food nation policy is everything. You might say right from farm to fork, but it's actually pre-farm and post-fork as well. That would include procurement, education and looking at the bill itself, if I can find the right provision. The requirement on the Scottish ministers and local authorities and other bodies to produce plans sets out the issues that the Scottish ministers and other authorities have to have. That includes social and economic wellbeing, the environment, health and economic development. In that, all the topics that you have outlined would be within scope for those plans. That's something that our committee is looking at over the period. We've got to look at the process of the bill, but we can be taking evidence from that and making some recommendations. There was also the question of an oversight role for an existing or a new public body. Can you let us know how we can hold the Scottish ministers to account to ensure that that happens? The Scottish Government's consultation in 2018 set out our view. At that stage, we indicated that we didn't consider that a new bespoke oversight body was required. For one thing, this Parliament, this committee and indeed the other committees in particular subjects will have a role in scrutinising the Scottish Government for local authorities. There are existing mechanisms as well. At that point, we didn't set out, we didn't see a particular need for a new body and indeed the bill does not itself contain a new body. Nevertheless, in the agreement between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Green Party, there is a commitment to reconsider that and that is what is being done at the moment. The role of the capacity within private businesses, could you tell us to what extent private businesses and the good food nation bill are involved? How is that expected? How will private businesses play their part? I wonder whether you are thinking that there was a recommendation from the Food Commission about reporting by private businesses. That's not included in the bill, so the bill that's before the committee looks at the public sector, the Scottish Government at local authorities and other public bodies. Nevertheless, there is other work with the business community on reporting. There was an announcement at COP yesterday at a certain tier of businesses about reporting on climate matters, but that is very relevant to food. We are engaging with businesses on food and drink. I wonder whether my colleague Dr Cwg might want to say a little bit as he's been having some of that engagement most recently. I can speak a little bit that we have been discussing with business representative organisations in recent weeks about their bill and their views and any concerns that they might have on that. I know that they will want to give their own views to the community in due course, but they have been providing their feedback to us. We have on-going consultation with business quite a bit at the time. We have a food sector resilience group on the yesterday where we discussed this bill and offered further engagement with any business that has an interest. I should also add that the bill itself, when we are creating the food plans, there will be a consultation process for businesses and others to feed in on the development of those plans. There was a suggestion in some of the consultation feedback that it maybe shouldn't be referred to as private business, but it should be enterprise. Was there any consideration to include business enterprises on a far bigger scale in the private sector to be included in this legislation? We have taken the approach that the bill is focusing on on the public sector. There are limitations on the extent to which this Parliament can impose duties on companies and other business entities. I am not suggesting that that was a determining factor, but, as I have already mentioned, there are other routes through which we can look to companies and their reporting. I am now going to move on to questions on the purpose, scope and content of the bill and questions from Mercedes. The bill seems to be quite narrow in scope, specifically focusing on the good food nation plans. I was wondering if you could tell us what the thinking behind that was and what you see the practical implications of having such a focused purpose of the bill. I think that you are right. It is narrow in that it is focusing on the plans and the requirement on the Scottish ministers and the other public bodies to produce those plans. I am sure that we will come on to discuss later the effect of those plans on those bodies when they are exercising their functions. That is the extent to which it is narrow. The plans themselves need to cover a very broad field. I have quoted already from the bill and the requirement to have regard to social and economic wellbeing, the environment, health and economic development. That is certainly not a narrow scope for the plan. The bill in terms of what it does is very precise. The plans themselves and their implications are broad. I think that a lot of people are expected to see a right to food in this bill. Is that something that we can expect to see? If not, do you know why that decision was taken? Yes, the Parliament certainly can expect to see a right to food. That right, though, is not in this bill and it is not intended that it will be set out in this bill, rather that it will be dealt with as part of the new human rights bill that I think has been set out already in the programme for government. That said, the right to adequate food is very relevant to the bill. The committee will see that, for instance, in section 3, there is a very clear requirement for the Scottish ministers when preparing their plan to consider those rights to food within a range of international instruments. Those international instruments already set an international obligation that is binding on the UK and the Scottish Government and other public bodies. Through that, the plans will give life to that right to food. It will set out exactly how the Scottish ministers and local authorities and health boards are giving effect to that right to food. The expression of the right to food itself will be in the human rights bill, but at the same time this bill, the right to food is very relevant and the plans will help to give effect to that right. I hope that it is not too tangential, but it relates to the point that you made, Mr Burgess, about the fact that the plan will be where much of the policy detail is. I realise that, although you cannot speculate too much about what might be in the plan, looking at the bill, there is reference to things like relevant authorities. Can you elaborate on what those relevant authorities are? If our authorities are fair to when it comes to reporting and so on? If we turn to section 7 of the bill, that is the place where we put the requirement on relevant authorities to produce a plan. The Scottish ministers must produce a plan with relevant authorities. Those relevant authorities are health boards and local authorities. As the key bodies, we also have a power there to specify other public authorities. In time, other public bodies could be identified and added to the list of relevant authorities, but at the outset, it is health boards and local authorities that are included there. Am I right in reading the bill as not specifically attempting to create a new body for the purpose of administering the bill? The bill states that the good food nation plans must set out the main outcomes to be achieved and indicators to assess progress in achieving these outcomes. It cannot set any specific outcomes or targets itself. The Climate Change Act demonstrates that including targets within legislation can stimulate action, embed scrutiny and accelerate progress. The Scottish Government has already set many relevant targets which the good food nation could incorporate such as halving childhood obesity, reducing admissions from agriculture by 31 per cent by 2032. And reducing food waste by one third by 2025. I am curious as to why existing targets like those were not included in the bill and would welcome your thoughts on whether there is scope to add such targets before the bill is finalised. You are correct that the bill does not, on its face, set out those targets, but it requires the outcomes and indicators and measures to be set out in the plans. If we look back to the work of the Food Commission and part of the work that was done for them and then by them was looking at the set of indicators and in recognition of the breadth of food and food policy it looked at a whole basket of indicators, many of the issues that you mentioned around dietary targets, climate change targets and economic targets as well. So rather than setting out on the face of the bill what might be quite a long list of individual targets, the approach that we have taken is not to set them out on the bill but to require them to be in the plans themselves. I have had conversations with Councillor Everson, the president of COSLA, about the importance of clarity of outcome. It has been around other issues, not a good food nation bill, but I really take that learning from her and it seems to me that we really need clarity of outcome and targets could give everybody who is writing those plans that clarity of the direction that we need to go in the future. I think that we are in this good food nation bill and also what I hear from stakeholders is a long held out hope for something that will act as a framework, a guiding framework for the government for future bills that relate to anything to do with our food. Yes indeed, perhaps if I start at the end of that, we see this bill as being exactly that framework. It requires ministers and the other public bodies to set out their plans. It then provides the circumstances where ministers and other public bodies must have regard to those plans. It does provide, we would suggest, that framework that is required. Picking up on your reference to Councillor Everson's comments, I think clearly what is appropriate for one local authority might be quite different from what is required for another because of the different circumstances of those authorities. There will be obviously some issues that will be in common across all authorities and public bodies. It might certainly, when we come to the relevant authorities, be less appropriate to try and specify at a national level what are the targets that each local authority must have. I am sure that the question of whether targets should be on the face of the bill will be something that the committee will want to consider as it takes evidence from stakeholders. We understand that legislation is required to necessitate public bodies to produce a plan. Legislation is not required for the government to publish a plan. Can you tell us if there are any practical implications with that regard? Has it potentially changed the focus of the purpose of the bill? The requirement on the Scottish ministers to have a plan. You are right that there is nothing to stop the Scottish ministers from setting out a plan on a non-statuary basis. There are plenty of policies and plans that are set out in that way. Indeed, when it proved impossible to bring forward this bill in early 2020, we had at that stage looked instead to prepare a plan, the plan that would be required by the bill, but to do so on a non-statuary basis. It is perfectly possible to create a plan on a non-statuary basis. What the bill does is give that plan teeth. It puts requirements around it in terms of consultation and scrutiny, but then, as I said earlier, it creates a legal requirement for ministers to have regard to that plan. That has consequences for ministers and, indeed, for the public bodies in relation to their plan. It goes beyond what would be the case for an administrative plan. It is something that the Scottish ministers simply decide off their own volition to create. It creates the requirement on them to have the plan and it sets out the effect of that plan. I'm going to move very shortly to questions from Githras, but Jim's got a procedural question that I'd like to ask. Something new said earlier on. You'll have to forgive me, George, new MSP, so daffladi questions here. Finlay mentioned an oversight body. Is there not already public bodies that could absorb this in being an oversight body? There are indeed. As part of our further consideration of this issue, that's one of the things that we would be wanting to look at. Obvious candidates might include Food Standards Scotland, so standing apart from Government, they, of course, have very particular duties and functions. It wouldn't necessarily be as simple as simply conferring an oversight function on them. There are other bodies as well. The Human Rights Commissioner in relation to the right to adequate food would, I'm sure, have views on the adequacies of plans. There are a number of bodies already that are in this space and would have an interest and would provide oversight. That, as I say, is why, going back to the consultation in 2018-2019, we did not, at that stage, see that there was a very clear need for a new body, but, as I said already, that matter is being reconsidered. Thank you. Why the bill provides for a negative parliamentary procedure? In relation to the various delegated powers, most of them are indeed negative. There is at least one that is affirmative. We've prepared a delegated powers memorandum, which your colleagues in the DPLRC will no doubt be scrutinising and will, in due course, provide a report to this committee in their views. I think our view was that negative is adequate for most of the powers that are here. I think the one where we have taken or introduced a requirement for affirmative and my colleagues will keep me right is in relation to the international instruments in section 3, where I think any change to that list is subject to affirmative procedure. Thank you. I may come back to that. Thank you. I'll move on to questions from Beatrice. Thanks, convener. Good morning, panel. I'm interested in the terminology and the phrase that's used a lot as have regard to. That seems quite subjective and open to interpretation, so I'd like to maybe get a better understanding of what that actually means throughout the bill and when could have regard to become disregard. OK. Have regard to is a phrase that you will find very frequently appearing in statute. It's a well worn phrase that the parliamentary draftsman used because it actually encapsulates what we want here. If you think of a sort of spectrum from completely disregarding or being required to disregard something and there will be some cases where that is provided in statute through having a bit of a look at it to being ultimately completely required to adhere to it with no deviation whatsoever. Have regard is towards the second end of that spectrum, so it requires the body to take it into account to consider it and give it proper consideration, not just to yes, we've looked at it once and that's fine, we don't need to go back to it. It would also require them to be able to justify the approach that they've taken. It doesn't, though, go as far as a slavish requirement to follow what's in the plan. There may well be circumstances. There may well be other duties that the body is subject to that would say that in a particular circumstance having an absolute adherence to the plan is not the right approach. But, as I say, have regard to is a well used phrase across many statutes. There was a reference earlier to the climate change act and many of the duties there are duties to have regard to plans or targets or the like. Bodies would have to demonstrate that they had gone through that process. I'd like to ask what sort of functions does the bill team expect to be made under section 4, the Scottish Minister, on the national food plan, when exercising certain functions? My colleague Tracy has some examples that might help with this. The bill sets out that Scottish Ministers and Relevance Authorities need to have a regard to the plans, whether exercising certain specified functions or a function falling within a specified description. The specified functions will be set out in secondary legislation and the specification will be primarily by reference to a subject area. An example would be the provision of food in schools would be the subject area. The intention is that there could also be a requirement to refer to certain aspects of legislation in relation to that. For example, in relation to the provision of school and food, you could refer to various parts of the Education Scotland Act 1980. The idea is that this is quite a flexible approach that would allow everything to be caught under the description, so you're unlikely to miss things by specifying specific functions, but by describing them you're more likely to catch everything that would be of relevance to the plans. That means that the legislative powers are going to be focused much more closely on the policy areas of real relevance to the delivery of the good food nation plans. I have more specific detail on the provision of food in schools and the relation between the description and the references to the act, if that would be helpful. It would be, yes. It gets quite technical now. If the good nation plans could include a reference to responsibilities regarding providing food in schools, they could also refer to the Education Scotland Act. For example, they could refer to sections 53 and 53A of the act. Those are about the provision of school meals and the promotion of school lunches. That would be the specific reference in the legislation. The wider description would cover things such as looking at the wider responsibilities with regard to the provision of food, for example, on-going developments around procurement, food waste, healthy eating and nutrition for young people. That would fall under the description, but you could also be looking at specific aspects of the act. It would include elements of education in that, for one of a better phrase, catch them all. Yes, yes, that's the idea. It would give scope to say that if a local authority was trying to avoid doing something, it's still there within the provision. Is that what you're telling me? No, I think that... I'm not trying to avoid it, just saying that we can't do that because of this. These are considerations that would probably already be taken into account when developing food policy, but the difference is that there would now be a statutory requirement to take all these things into consideration. So you wouldn't be focusing on the narrow aspect of just the provision of food in schools. You would be looking at the wider policy environment, and that would give... in the exercise of those functions, so that would be having regard to the good food nation plan and expanding it from that narrow focus to a much wider focus, and there being a statutory duty to do that. Just something that's popped into my mind. The World Health Organization have a definition of what a health promoting school is, which does what I think you've just said encompasses the environment and everything else. Has that been considered during the process of this putting the bill together? I'm sorry, I missed the first bit of what you said there. The World Health Organization have a definition of what a health promoting school is, which includes the environment, the community in which the school resides, the ability to be able to teach kids about where the food comes from and all the rest of it. Has that been referenced or was that looked at during the build-up of the provision of this, or the making up of this bill? I'll pass back to George Bote. That's the sort of issue that would actually be for the local authorities when they're framing their plan. Take the hypothetical example, a local authority might decide that its policy that it's going to include in the plan is for all of its schools to become health promoting schools. At the level of the bill and what we're providing here by way of specified functions, we might be saying that either narrowly in relation to school food functions or more broadly in relation to a wider set of education functions that the local authorities would have to have regard to the plans. What we're trying to achieve here, just maybe to take it back up a level, is a balance. We could say that Scottish ministers, local authorities in all of their functions have to have regard to the plan. There are other cases in statute where that approach is taken. The difficulty with that is that there will be lots of functions where really what's in the good food nation plan has little relevance to the function, so we wouldn't want to get into a tick-box exercise of yes, we've considered this plan, even if we know at the outset that it has a very little effect. Rather, we want to make sure that the taking account of the plan, having regard to the plan, is focused on those functions where it really matters and will really make a difference. That's why the approach that we've got here has been taken so that we get the plans to bite where they need to. Should Parliament not play a role in deciding what those specific functions are to ensure that the concerns of Parliament are addressed and not leave it to the discretion of Government whether those functions that might fall under the requirement of due regard to the good food nation bill, is there not a suggestion that there's no lists are dangerous because it's not what's included in the list, often it's important it's what and not included in the list, but we do have secondary legislation that at some point might address that. Is there not a role for Parliament or the bill to have some of those specified functions in the bill at this stage rather than waiting for secondary legislation? Can you tell us when it's likely that secondary legislation would come forward for this? Where I'm coming from is, as a Parliament, we might decide that nutrition and elderly people is very important and we want that to be a principle of the good food nation bill and always be referred to when anything comes forward that might have an impact on that, but the Government may not suggest that it's one of their specified functions. Why is there not an opportunity for those specified functions to be laid out in the primary legislation and potentially added to in the secondary legislation? Certainly that was one of the approaches that we considered as to whether we would have, if you like, a principle group of functions specified in the bill and others in the secondary legislation. A little like, as is already provided in the bill, the key relevant authorities, so local authorities and health boards are specified on the bill and then there's a power to supplement it. Eventually we concluded that it was probably neater to have all of those functions in one place, so in a set of regulations. I take the point about parliamentary scrutiny. The regulations would be subject to parliamentary oversight, but at that stage it's take it or leave it. I would expect, however, that we will be consulting on the list of functions so that there will be an opportunity to feed in points. We've been considering the appropriates of timescales for this. I envisage that the list of functions is being developed in parallel with the plans so that we make sure that the plans and the list of specified functions match up. Certainly there is concern that, when we come to secondary legislation, as you've suggested, there is a lack of ability for Parliament to scrutinise that as you say it's take it or leave it. That may have been an issue. Can I bring in Rachel Hamilton? Supplemental. Do you want me to ask my other questions at the same time? No, if you just take your supplemental just now, thanks. Mr Burgess, it sounds as though this bill is putting the onus on local authorities. You've mentioned local authorities a lot here to produce this good food nation plan. Have you considered the expertise within local authorities for nutritional experts to be able to produce these reports? Indeed, the local supply chains, the logistics expertise that they'll need and all the other things that the Government is expecting local authorities to do without a specific budget. There has certainly been engagement with local authorities and COSLA throughout the development of this, right back to the Food Commission and the consultation and much more recently. A number of local authorities already have plans very similar to the ones here in place and they have decided to do so. There is already expertise in the local authority community. I think that there may well be a need for more expertise and, indeed, I would suggest mutual assistance. This is not something that is simply being visited by Government on local authorities and other public bodies. The first sections of the bill are placing that self-same requirement to have a plan on the Scottish ministers ourselves. The source for the goose is the source for the gander as well. Can I just drill down into this, because it's really specific to the framework? You're saying that Scottish ministers have a responsibility for local authorities to give them expertise and guidance. So who is actually going to be creating these reports and who will have the accountability and how is that reflected in that stage 1 of the framework? The two sets of plans. There's the national good food nation plan, which the Scottish ministers are required to produce. The first couple of sections of the bill relate to that plan. Then, from section 7 onward, we have the requirement on local authorities and health boards to produce their plan. Those will be a matter for the local authorities to produce. They are also in that required to have regard to the national good food nation plan as well. That will provide some additional guidance for local authorities and the other public bodies when they come to frame their plans. That may sound like a rather top-down approach. In practice, we envisage that as being a system of mutual aid, there will be great ideas coming up from local authorities and other bodies as to what they would want to see in the national plan. So it's not simply all coming top-down. Beyond passing the bill, there's no set true role for the Scottish Parliament in relation to the national good food nation plan that you just mentioned. The bill requires the Scottish Government to publish and lay before the Scottish Parliament its good food nation plan. However, it does not make any provisions for ministers to consult the Scottish Parliament on its draft plans to provide for the Parliament or its committees to approve the plan. The bill also does not provide any oversight mechanism in relation to Scottish ministers and public bodies requirements to produce a good food nation plan or to have regard to it when exercising the specified functions. I'd like to understand why there is this lack of any parliamentary or other oversight in relation to the national good food nation plan. Section 2 sets out the key duties. The first of those is for the Scottish ministers to publish and consult on the draft of the plan and to have regard to any responses to the consultation. We've already discussed what to have regard to means in that context and elsewhere in the bill. It would be perfectly open to this committee or any other committee of the Parliament to contribute at that point to the consultation on the plan and ministers, according to section 2, would be required to have regard to those views. There is then, as you have noted, the requirement to publish and lay before the Parliament the report every two years on the plan. Again, that is providing an opportunity for the Parliament and its committees to look at what the Scottish Government has said and hold the Scottish Government to account. In a previous theme, you were talking about consulting with local authorities on this and that local authorities will be writing the plans. Where is the scope for communities to engage with the creation of those local plans? In both the national requirement on the Scottish ministers and the requirement on the relevant authorities, including local authorities, to consult, there is a requirement to publish and consult. That consultation requirement is not limited to a certain group of people. We are not saying that you can only contribute if you are in this certain class of people or bodies. That is an open consultation and the requirement to have regard to consultation responses applies to each and every one of those consultation responses. Ultimately, it will be for each local authority to determine what their process is. There will be opportunities, I am sure, for community, for grassroots engagement, as there has been throughout the work leading up to this point. In the work of the Scottish Food Commission, there was a summit that we held in, as I recall, late 2017, around the preparation of the bill. There has been the public consultation that I have already referred to. There have been opportunities throughout the process and will be for not just NGOs or statutory organisations to get involved but for everyone to get involved in the framing of the national and individual plans. From your experience, I am curious because I heard yesterday about the local governance review and the fact that some of them did not even know that it existed. I am curious to know your thoughts, the Scottish Government's thoughts on what can be done to make sure that people understand that a plan is being made on their behalf and how they can contribute. For Scotland, on all the consultations that we do, we are not really reaching people who really need to be involved. It is always much easier to reach the usual suspects than others that are not traditionally or regularly involved in consultation. I would not suggest that it is an easy thing. If all that was done was publishing a plan by sticking it on a website, waiting three months and seeing what responses came in, I would suggest that it is probably an inadequate approach to consultation for something like this, where we need to get to a wide group of stakeholders, the institutional stakeholders, the NGOs and the general public. It is really following on from questions from both Arrianne and Rachel with regards to local authorities, health boards and other public organisations. As you mentioned, Mr Burgess, some local authorities already have plans in place and one size does not fit all. I am interested just to ask what flexibility does the bill give around public bodies to have to drafting their own good food nation plans? I am very aware of consistency versus equality. The bill is not very prescriptive. We have set out, if I find the right section, section 7, which is mainly around local authorities and other public bodies. It is setting out there the requirement on them to have regard to the list that we have already touched on several times, social and economic wellbeing, the environment, health and economic development. There is also the requirement for them to have regard to the national good food nation plan as well. Beyond that, it is really up to the individual bodies to determine what is best in their circumstances. We are not creating a template for the plans. It will be open to the local authorities to frame them and develop them in the way that they see best fits their circumstances. I am reading through the bill. Every so often it is a must, then it is a me and then it is a have regard. That is very helpful. I am interested to know how the bill will allow for the effectiveness of the public bodies plan to be overseen by the Scottish Government. In relation to the Scottish ministers, where there is the requirement to report and labour for the Scottish Parliament every two years, the report on the plans, there is in section 11 for the local authorities and the other bodies a requirement to report on a similar timescale. We are not providing here a requirement for the local authorities to another bodies to report to the Scottish ministers. We are not putting ourselves in the position of marking their homework. Rather, as long as they follow the requirements here of publishing their report, we are not putting any further checking by the Scottish ministers of their plans and their progress. Thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel. I would like to caveat my question as to how data has been gathered and used to inform the development of the plan distinct from consultation on a finalised draft plan. In the spirit of COP, reforming food systems is crucial if we are to hit our targets. In Scotland, the debate centres a lot around what it means to be a good food nation. In an international context, can the panel comment on best practice and us learning from other countries as we seek to reform the food system? As well as we do in terms of pioneering best practice in our own world-beating food and drink sectors, can we, for example, learn from the likes of Italy on food culture, Finland on local food, Brazil on dietary guidelines? Name in a few who have made acknowledged progress changes that we can all learn from. Two different aspects of that. First, on data. The bill itself does not require data. Nevertheless, the requirements for the national and the individual plans to set out indicators or other measures will, in many cases, be data-driven. I referred earlier to the work begun by the Scottish Food Commission looking at what might be potential indicators and targets and the availability of data there. In some cases, the data is readily available, and that is great. In other cases, things that we might quite like to know, we simply do not have the data, nor would it be really proportionate to try and seek that data. In those cases, we might need to look to use proxy measures instead. The committee's predecessor in scrutinising the agriculture-retained EU law and data bill a year or so ago, one of the provisions there was around data collection. That is very much focused on the agri-food element of it. One of the things that we had in mind there was making sure that we have the powers and the mechanisms to collect data that would be relevant. Turning to the second part of your question about learning from others' experiences, absolutely that is what we should be doing. It shouldn't be a case of if it's not made here, it's no good. Our colleagues in Northern Ireland have recently produced a consultation on a food strategy. That will be one of the things that we will be looking at to learn from examples. On the international space, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, in relation to the right to adequate food, publishes quite a wide range of material, including case studies from other nations. That will be one of the sources that we will be looking to find good examples. Of course, something that works in one country will not necessarily automatically work in another country, but that shouldn't be a reason to dismiss it out of hand without considering it. We are signed up to the international human rights laws protecting the right to food, but the Scottish Human Rights Commission is calling on the Government to take action to go a little bit further, so that the bill can be fit for purpose to tackle poverty and health-related inequalities, while supporting local economies and industry. How important has it been that people with a lived experience of food poverty and access to good food have had input? In what ways has that been ensured in the development of the plan? I think that we talked earlier about the approach to consultation on the plans as they are being developed. What I said there was that a consultation that is the very traditional written consultation three months and get your written views in is a good start, but not the sum total of it. If we go back to the work of the Food Commission, the Food Commission itself had people from a whole range of different backgrounds, including, importantly, at least one member that was experiencing food poverty. Speaking personally, one of the things that made the biggest impression on me attending some of the meetings of that commission was the comments from that person of, essentially, yes, all this good food nation stuff is all very well, but as she said, where can I buy a cabbage? There's great good food, but if I can't physically access it, so right from the point of the Food Commission, and I would suggest all the way through the development of the plans, we do need to be taking into account, as you say, the lived experience of individuals. On the back of that, you know, the bill requires the Scottish Government to consult on a draft plan. At the risk of going over the ground that we've already covered, but there's no obligation to consult on the making up of that plan. We might have a bill here that includes other topics that are not in the bill as it is at the moment, so surely it would be sensible to consult as part of the initial plan, rather than only after a draft plan has been made, given your last response. Should there not be an obligation on the public bodies to also consult during the formation of their plan to ensure those stakeholders, those with lived experience, those organisations that represent older people with malnutrition or children in school meals, should that not be part of the bill an obligation to consult as part of the formation of the plan, rather than the draft plan? I think we could potentially get tied into procedural knots if we start putting in statutory requirements at a whole number of stages. Obviously, that would be something that the committee will want to consider, but I think from what I've said, the success of this will depend on not Government officials like those here sitting in a building and dreaming up a plan, and then the first that anyone outside sees is the draft plan being published under the requirements of the bill. Rather, it is going to need to be an inclusive process, including bodies. As we've already said, that process is underway already engaging with local authorities, with businesses and others. On Finlay's point about pre-legislative consultation for public bodies, do you think that it is a good idea? Originally, when the consultation was done, things have changed. If Mr Burgess mentioned procurement through local authorities' public bodies, procurement was under EU legislation. Therefore, there was no requirement to state the country of origin. Therefore, if we are to create a good piece of legislation that encourages further public procurement for Scottish produce and we don't have pre-legislative consultation, how can that be effective? I think that there's a difference between requiring consultation and the consultation happening. For instance, today our public sector food forum is meeting, so that is bringing together local authorities, those in the colleges and university sector and others in the wider public sector with an interest in food. That forum has been born out of the pandemic, but we have seen a real value in it in looking at issues such as public procurement. As you have said, we are not bound in quite the same way by the EU rules that previously existed. Most of those are, however, retained EU law. There are, of course, a number of international obligations, not least the WTO agreement on government procurement. I'm sure that you weren't suggesting that it was. It's not a free-for-all in terms of what can be done on procurement. The committee, I'm sure, will be aware that the UK Government, in particular, deffra, is also looking at the moment on developing a food strategy. This is in the back of the report from Henry Dimbleby. One of the areas that is flagged up in Henry Dimbleby's reports and in government consideration is around public procurement. There is already agreement between the Scottish Government, the UK Government and our Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts to use our inter-ministerial fora to be looking at those issues, because we will have similar issues coming up in all parts of the UK. I've pre-empted my next question because I wanted to ask what joint working there would be with the national food strategy in deffra. I read that paper last night and it is very much based on a whole food system rather than quite a narrow description of a good food nation bill. My question would be, how can this be an effective piece of legislation if we're not looking at it alongside other bits of current legislation and future legislation? For example, if we want to have good resilient local food supply chains and we don't know what the agricultural bill is saying, how can we ensure that farmers are creating food and being given that the policies are being created to allow them to grow? How can we reduce their environmental impact and create good, local, accessible food for people in local authorities? That's not going to happen right across Scotland because not all farmers are producing food to finish. On part of that, I'll go back to the discussion that we had earlier about it. Yes, you might say that the bill is narrow but the plans are broad. The plans are required to cover social and economic wellbeing, the environment, health and economic development. We should not see good food nations being something narrow. It is in fact very, very broad indeed and would have as wide coverage as anything that our colleagues in Whitehall are looking to prepare at this stage. In relation to the agriculture bill, the committee is aware of the great deal of work that is already under way on that. The work now of the adiob group to prepare proposals for the future agricultural support system. Similarly, our colleagues in health are working on diet and obesity and measures on promotion. The bill does not sit in isolation. Many of the other developments are going on at the same time and will have to be taken into account in the setting of the Good Food Nation plan. Indeed, the Good Food Nation plan is taken into account in those other developments as well. The same would apply for perhaps working alongside the Child Poverty Act. What is the definition of a good food nation? I have read that. It is very wide. It is, yes. It does not take into account what the food is available in terms of the local supply chain. It is not giving local authorities—I have read the parts of the consultations from various local authorities—and they are not happy that they feel as a lack of clarity because that description is around three or four sentences long with regards to that definition. The definition has the opportunity to be tightened up so that the other aspects of the current definition would be covered in the bill itself. I am not sure quite what the criticism of the definition of a good food nation is. The bill itself does not directly define or rely on a definition elsewhere of a good food nation. It is now that we have set out the breadth of topics that the plans are required to include. I think that Jim, have you got a short supplementary? Yes, and I may be going over an old ground here. In terms of the definition of a good food nation that Rachel has just mentioned, I think that the best definition that I have ever heard was from James Wither who said that if we want a good food nation bill then we have to be a good food nation, so it is changing a cultural thing, but that is just an aside. It is going back to the local authority as opposed to the national government. I am taking out of that and correct me if I am wrong that it will be local authority discretion within the confines of what it is that you are going to give them as a plan to work to it. There will be certain local authorities who get it, who just say, yes, this is absolutely vital, but there will be other local authorities who will be saying, no, we've got to get the building sorted out. How do we ensure at this stage that local authorities are bought into the idea of setting up a good food nation plan? Local authorities individually and through COSLA have been involved throughout the development of the good food nation agenda. I am sure that you are right that there are local authorities that are probably more proactive on this than others. I can certainly think of some that have been very, very active in, for instance, school food and linking school food to local provision and schemes like Food for Life that we fund is helping local authorities all across the country to do more on that. I think that I mentioned earlier that there is room for quite a bit of mutual support and learning in this. Rather than each of the local authorities going away and doing their own thing but regular sort of comparing of notes, we don't want them all to look exactly the same in terms of their plans. The local authorities that have already put more effort into that can perhaps provide assistance and guidance to others. That goes back to what I am just saying to Rachel, that we are actually creating a culture where this becomes what we want to aspire to. I think that we all understand that food and drink in the economy is very complex in health and social care. One of the responses to the consultation suggested that it was too complex an area to be assessed only by KPIs and there needs to be a far broader understanding of how the system is working. How would we deliver that cultural change, as Gemma suggested? How does the Scottish Government intend to oversee how effective public bodies are performing? Indeed, how would the Scottish Government expect to be judged on its performance? Is that through KPIs or how would that be? Will the Scottish Government oversee public bodies? Does that not suggest that we need an independent body to overlook the Scottish Government? As I think that we have already covered, we are not providing in the bill any scrutiny function for the Scottish ministers in relation to the plans and the reports brought forward by local authorities and other public bodies. That has been left to their own scrutiny mechanisms. When you set this out, how did you envisage local authorities in going through that self-assessment process to ensure that they will fulfil the broad outcomes that are looked for? Local authorities under the bill are required to publish their report every two years on the implementation of the plan. Obviously, the members of those local authorities are subject to the electoral cycle and the views of the local electorate. That might be one of the factors that would be taken into account. If they get it wrong, voters can vote them out, but they cannot vote the Scottish ministers out for bringing forward a bill that does not have the ability for local authorities through the guidance of the Scottish ministers to set targeted policies, implementation plans, success indicators and reporting arrangements. The local authority and other public bodies are required to have regard to the national good food nation plan in the setting of their plans. To that extent, there is a top-down approach in the setting of the plans. The local authorities are not entirely free to do as they please. I do not think that that is clear, but I think that that is for the committee to discuss a little bit further and dig down into that. Finally, you suggested that local authorities are held to account because of the electoral cycle. How does that apply to health boards? It probably does not in the same way, but I think that the question was specifically around local authorities. There might be a gap in the legislation regarding how health authorities judge or self-assess their response to the good food nation plans that they put in place. I think that it might be worth in that looking at other duties that health bodies have to report on matters. I do not think that there is any shortage of scrutiny of what health boards are doing and their performance on a whole range of matters, and that would be just another one. We are no further questions, so I thank you very much, Mr Burgess, and your team for coming in and answering our questions. We now move into private session.