Hansard

I congratulate the Government on introducing the bill. Establishing food standards Scotland as a stand-alone body is clearly the most viable option, based on the recommendations of the Scudamore and other reviews and building on the existing expertise and best practice of the Food Standards Agency. I congratulate the Health and Sport Committee and support its recommendations.

One recommendation that particularly interested me was the request for clearer detail on the proposed research functions and capability of FSS and how those will relate to UK-funded research bodies. That reminded me of the rationale for setting up the FSA as a UK body in the first place. The 1998 consultation document said:

“The Government believes that a single body to control and regulate food safety and standards in the United Kingdom is appropriate because it would be impractical and costly to duplicate the necessary scienti?c advice in all parts of the UK”.

I was therefore reassured by Duncan McNeil’s reference to the memorandum of understanding that is in progress and the guarantee of access to UK research. That is an important development.

Duncan McNeil also referred to the committee’s approval of an eight-person board. The committee welcomed the minister’s reassurance on that, but I want to back up Claire Baker’s point about the Mather commission and the merits of having an employee director. I do not need to give the minister a lesson on that, because of course many, if not most, health bodies already have an employee director. If we needed reminding of it, Claire Baker mentioned the invaluable work that people on the ground do. In particular, she referred to meat inspectors, who prevented more than 1 million instances of diseased animal carcases entering the food chain. I therefore hope that the minister will consider that proposal for an employee director.

It is no secret that many in Scotland have difficulties with weight and health and that much of that relates to the quality of our diet. A preventative approach is clearly essential, and clear and reliable nutrition advice through labelling of food is an important part of that. That is why it should be welcome that labelling will be made a priority when the new body is formed next year.

Having a stand-alone body that addresses the regulation of food standards will allow us to place emphasis on our national health priorities and protect Scottish consumers while avoiding the UK’s rather fragmented approach to food standards as a whole since 2010. It is not entirely clear why the responsibilities were sectioned off to different departments in the way that they were. In fact, the review panel under the guidance of Professor Scudamore, along with many stakeholders, made the point that FSA UK

“had functioned well prior to the UK Government’s Machinery of Government changes in 2010”.

It is clear that a joined-up approach that recognises the connections between different areas of monitoring and maintaining food standards and the Government’s overall health priorities will be required if we are to address issues such as obesity and tackle lapses in food quality. As the Scudamore review concludes, Scotland has unique and complex problems in relation to diet, obesity and certain food-borne diseases, which means that food safety and regulation should not be divorced from nutrition and labelling standards.

In that respect, FSS’s extended remit will require substantial extra resources. The financial memorandum states that there will be a direct transfer of existing staff from the FSA to FSS. However, the minister has indicated that the new body’s remit will go beyond that of the FSA’s functions. To that end, I hope that before stage 2 the Government will produce an update on the budgetary negotiations with the UK Government and give further assurances that future expansion of FSS’s role will be appropriately resourced.

As the Scottish Government 2010 report “Preventing overweight and obesity in Scotland” points out, evidence suggests that the provision of health information, although important, is not sufficient and that to make the changes necessary we have to reshape our living environment from one that promotes weight gain to one that supports healthy choices. By broadening the scope of FSS to prioritise an evidence-based approach that allows a greater understanding of what leads to poor diets and ill health, we can go beyond monitoring quality to promoting health and tackling health inequalities on a broader front.

However, it is important that any existing staff receive the appropriate level of upskilling to allow them to deliver any new changes. The concern that was reflected in a small number of the responses to the consultation was that it would perhaps be preferable to allow some time to pass, to allow the new body to bed in, before expanding the remit to include public health issues more generally. That is perhaps a prudent suggestion that may be worth considering as the bill moves forward. Indeed, there is much to be considered in the Scottish Government’s further suggestions on the additional work of FSS; many of them have merit, but perhaps all of them will require careful consideration as to what is feasible.

It has been suggested that the scope of the body could include considerations of environment, provenance, sustainability, food security or tracking and measurement of food poverty. The last suggestion is intriguing and I look forward to hearing more on how the additional work will link in with current responsibilities, and who within the new body will ensure that its role is co-ordinated with the NHS’s existing programmes and priorities. There is still a lack of clarity on that, and as the committee’s stage 1 report suggests, the onus is on the Scottish Government to take

“any steps necessary to ensure that the work of FSS and the relevant NHS bodies is appropriately co-ordinated.”

Widening the scope of FSS provides an opportunity for the body to lead on a national response to the problem of food poverty, thereby helping to confront one of the most pressing public health problems that we face. There are various ways in which that may be achieved, but partnership working between local authorities and FSS is key.

Earlier this week the Finance Committee discussed the connection between national outcomes in the performance framework and implementing measures at local authority level. There was a great deal of discussion as to how budgets could be allocated to combine national ambitions with effective partnership working, to achieve a healthier and more equal Scotland. That policy could be highly effective in challenging some of the major health problems that Scotland faces if it is implemented with the partnership working that local authorities desire.

As a nation, our relationship to food is fundamentally linked to many of our health issues. I hope that gaining an understanding that safety and regulation should not be divorced from nutrition and labelling will translate to a more holistic approach to maintaining standards and promoting health. On that basis I am happy to support the bill at stage 1.