Meeting of the Parliament 17 March 2016
I welcome the Scottish food coalition’s important set of policy asks in advance of the Scottish Parliament elections. The fact that the group is a coalition of environmental campaigners, anti-poverty campaigners, trade unions, farming and food producers gives us the impetus to think across the political agenda about food poverty, food quality and accessibility to food. That means that we can think about all the key policy levers that we need to put into place and pull.
On a side note, I thank Alison Johnstone for getting the issue on our agenda. I whole-heartedly agree with her about the funding for the project work that Nourish has been doing. That work is cutting edge and crucial in setting the agenda for the Scottish Government. I am interested to hear the cabinet secretary’s response on that in his closing remarks.
I am tempted to get sidetracked by responding to all of Alex Johnstone’s points, but I am not going to go there because it would get me too annoyed and I have only four minutes for my speech.
The agenda is important because it brings together fairness and social justice, applying that to the food chain and right across our communities. It is appropriate that we are at the end of Fairtrade fortnight. There are so many interconnections that we could be making. Focusing on the rights of workers and food growers in some of the most disadvantaged countries on the fair trade agenda and bringing that closer to home, we need to be thinking about the value that we give to food and the principles of fairness and social justice. Those things need to apply in Scotland, too. That theme runs through Alison Johnstone’s motion.
It is good to see the Scottish food coalition arguing for fair pay for those who work in our Scottish agriculture and horticulture industries; they are some of the lowest paid workers across the country.