Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 01 September 2021
It would be unfair to say that the failure to be able to access overseas labour is not impacting that problem. However, I recognise that some of the labour shortages that we face today are caused by a multitude of structural factors that go beyond Brexit and the pandemic.
It is also important to highlight that there is also a difference between a labour shortage and a skills shortage. That means doing more to train our own workforce to ensure that people have the skills to meet the demand in the labour market and to ensure that they are paid a decent wage; it also means taking a fresh look at our supply chains. The food and drink sector’s hard work and innovation during the pandemic mitigated the worst impact of the sudden shift in demand from the food service sector to the food retailer and of the halt in people being able to move freely, but the vulnerability of supply chains to major upheaval was clear. The capacity to adjust rapidly is seriously limited, and we cannot ignore the precarious nature of our food and drink system, which is under enormous strain.
The sector has responded well to the crisis, but we should not be dependent on a largely reactive response. We need to have a far more strategic and joined-up approach to managing our food and drink system, and we need robust contingency planning to ensure that the sector is prepared for future emergencies. We need a more cohesive and comprehensive policy on food—from the farm to the fork to waste—through a proper national food?plan.
At the centre of that plan must be the aims of embedding farming and food production at every level of education and having a far bigger focus on procuring and promoting local food and drink. It simply cannot be sustainable that the majority of the fish that we eat are imported while the majority that we catch are exported. The Scottish Government, local authorities, the national health service and other public bodies spend £11 billion a year on goods and services, including food, but for far too long public procurement has had a narrow focus on price and cost reduction. We have failed to maximise the benefits of low-carbon local supply chains and to minimise the vulnerabilities and risks from an overreliance on international supply chains.
Key to changing that is how we support our local food producers. Labour has long advocated the development of local food strategies, but that cannot involve the top-down approach that is all too common with the Government. Support for the sector must be local. It cannot involve central organisations and agencies simply handing down grants to local businesses.