Meeting of the Parliament 13 September 2018
The £250,000, which was requested by Dumfries and Galloway Council, is important, but it will be used to develop an action plan. It is crucial that the proposals from that action plan, whose cost could come to several million pounds, are backed by the Government. That is what will create jobs in the area, not the plan itself.
I return to the issue of the future after Brexit. What will replace the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy post-Brexit remains largely unanswered by the UK and Scottish Governments for a sector that relies heavily on long-term planning. As has been touched on, we also face the threat to geographical indication status, which provides legal protection against imitation and is estimated to increase a product’s value by a factor of 2.23.
Geographical indication is particularly important to the Scotch whisky industry, which is our biggest food and drink export. The industry is worth £4.36 billion a year and accounts for almost three quarters of our exports, highlighting the need for a Brexit deal that retains geographical indication status. The economic importance of our food and drink sector is enormous and so, therefore, is the potential impact of Brexit.
The importance of the food and drink sector goes beyond its crucial economic importance. It impacts on our health, our environment and our record on animal welfare. A lack of adequate access to food for far too many people exposes the gross inequalities in Scotland today. In a nation that provides so much outstanding food and drink, it is to our nation’s shame that so many children in Scotland still go to bed hungry at night. Although our food and drink sector in Scotland has grown, so too has the scandal of food poverty. Just last week, the Food Foundation revealed that more than 200,000 children in Scotland live in households that are unable to afford a healthy diet. It is absolutely right that we celebrate the successes of Scotland’s food and drink, but we need to rethink how we approach access to food in this country. That means recognising that access to food is a fundamental human right.
It is deeply disappointing that last week’s programme for government did not give a commitment to introduce a dedicated, comprehensive good food nation bill that would put tackling food poverty at its heart, despite previous pledges by the Scottish Government to do just that. That is a kick in the teeth for the many stakeholders who worked with the Government on our good food nation ambitions and who now believe that they have been betrayed. More importantly, it is a kick in the teeth for those 200,000 children who live in households that are unable to afford a healthy diet.