Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 01 September 2021
There absolutely is urgency. That is why we established the agriculture reform implementation oversight board just last week, and it will be driving forward the recommendations of the established farmer-led groups. We recognise the urgency, and we want to drive and deliver that change.
We have seen the stresses and strains that Brexit and Covid-19 have placed on our food system, so it is more important than ever that our food policies ensure that we are more resilient, and that people in Scotland can access affordable, healthy food that is locally produced, sourced and available. We are working to make that ambition a reality through a wide-ranging programme of measures on food and diet across the five key areas of health, social justice, knowledge, environmental sustainability and prosperity. The next step is to introduce a good food nation bill that will provide the statutory framework needed to support the development of our future food policy to benefit the wellbeing and health of people in Scotland.
Many have called for the right to food to be included in that bill, but the right to food is best considered as part of a single, coherent package of legislative proposals via the human rights bill, which will set out for the first time and in one place the wide range of internationally recognised human rights belonging to everyone in Scotland. That will include a right to adequate food as an essential part of the overall right to an adequate standard of living, as reflected in our shared policy programme with the Scottish Green Party. [Interruption.] I will not take an intervention at the moment; I need to make progress.
I know that many were disappointed when we had to shelve plans for the good food nation bill in the previous parliamentary session due to the pandemic, but I assure members that we intend to introduce that bill early in this session.
Ambition and policy on food is no use without an industry, however, and I do not need to tell members that, as one of our largest employers, our food and drink industry is both economically and culturally vital to Scotland, sustaining jobs in some of our most fragile and rural communities. It is also one of the sectors most adversely affected by Brexit, which is threatening jobs and businesses all around the country, undermining the sector’s ambition to double turnover to £30 billion by the year 2030. That is why a key priority last year was to put in place a recovery plan for the sector, the first sectoral recovery plan of its type. Working closely with the food and drink partnership, particularly the industry body Scotland Food & Drink, we have collectively committed £10 million in support so far.