Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 15 June 2022
I am relieved that we have a bill in front of us that is much improved from the one that we were presented with before. As Colin Smyth said, the major improvement is putting in place a food commission that will oversee the drawing up of good food plans. May it also be independent of Government, which will allow the Government to focus its mind on how we implement our human right to food.
The amendments that relate to the food commission were lodged by Ariane Burgess who, bizarrely, voted against similar ones at stage 2. I thank her for having the conscience to change her mind and stance—Sarah Boyack also thanked her for that.
However, credit for the commission being established lies elsewhere. First, it lies with Elaine Smith, and I pay tribute to her work in campaigning to have a commission set up. She wanted to create legislation that the Government refused during the previous parliamentary session. I am sure that she will be delighted that her hard work paid off.
Credit also goes to all the others who fought for a commission: the Scottish Food Coalition, the Co-operative Party, the Trussell Trust and many other organisations and individuals too many to mention, many of them working to bring food to people who cannot afford it. I thank them for their help and advice during the consultation for my proposed bill.
The cabinet secretary gave credit to them, too, and included the UN rapporteur but ignored their pleas to enshrine the rights to food in the bill where it rightly belongs. That is a major omission from the bill and, even at this stage in the process, Ariane Burgess failed to mention it in her speech. Again, we see the Greens abandon their principles—a theme that runs through the process. To be frank, without the right to food enshrined in it, the bill is half baked.
Colin Smyth talked about the fact that the bill could have set targets to eliminate food poverty and has not. Rachael Hamilton, Beatrice Wishart and Brian Whittle expanded on that point and talked about where those targets could have been set. Beatrice Wishart spoke clearly and passionately about the right to food and her hopes that the food commission will deliver where the Government has not. Sarah Boyack talked about how the bill could have gone much further in dealing with food poverty. That was echoed by Monica Lennon in her intervention.
When the commission is set up, a lot will fall at its door to deal with the things that the Government has omitted to do during the passage of the bill. The bill should bring us a step closer to ending hunger in Scotland but it really needs the Government to act. Its unambitious bill does not fill me with confidence that it will do so, but I live in hope. The Government needs to understand that failure to end hunger costs us all. It costs in health inequalities in Scotland, where life expectancy depends on your postcode and can vary by 20 years and where children, who are our future, are failed due to hunger.
I dream of a world that is better than that: one that is free of the need for food banks and where no one faces the inability to feed themselves and their family. The Scottish Government can realise that dream if it really wishes to.
17:52