Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee 03 December 2025
03 Dec 2025 · S6 · Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Item of business
Subordinate Legislation
Good Food Nation (Specified Functions and Descriptions) (Scottish Ministers) Regulations 2025 [Draft]
Thank you, cabinet secretary.
This has been a long process. The good food nation has been talked about for more than a decade. This committee did a huge amount of work right at the beginning of the parliamentary session, but, sadly, we were unable to properly scrutinise the plan, given the lack of time.
In their responses to our call for views, stakeholders, including the Scottish Food Commission, have been highly critical of the SSI. There has been lots of concern around governance and accountability. Indeed, the Scottish Food Commission suggested that the SSI has
“conflated the desire for specificity with that of being narrow.”
There is, therefore, some confusion about how we have arrived where we are. Will you explain what your approach has been and, given that some functions or descriptions—for example, crofting—appear in one schedule but not in the other, is there a risk that, by including some functions but not others, there may be omissions in practice?
In the same item of business
The Convener (Finlay Carson)
Con
Good morning, and welcome to the 34th meeting in 2025 of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee. Before we begin, I ask everyone to ensure that their electr...
The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands (Mairi Gougeon)
SNP
Thank you, convener. I am delighted to be here to introduce this Scottish statutory instrument on specified functions. A key piece of the good food nation pu...
The Convener
Con
Thank you, cabinet secretary. This has been a long process. The good food nation has been talked about for more than a decade. This committee did a huge amo...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
There is quite a lot to pick up on in that question. I will work through it as best I can. I absolutely appreciate your points about the amount of work that...
The Convener
Con
You say that you tried to be comprehensive. However, one damning feature of the SSI is the policy note, which runs to just one and a half pages. I have seen ...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
The schedules set out quite clearly the functions and descriptions that we intend to be considered. I have also written to the committee to address some of t...
Emma Harper (South Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
I want to build on what you said in your opening statement about how comprehensive the list of what needs to be contained is. The letter that you wrote to th...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
It might look as though that is a glaring omission in the SSI, but, as I tried to outline in my opening comments, what can appear to be omissions in some are...
Emma Harper
SNP
The population health framework is also mentioned in the good food nation plan as being part of our ability to address our food system, for example, and to s...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
Yes, you are absolutely right. That important points about the population food framework and the work that is being done in that regard were raised when I wa...
The Convener
Con
The instrument appears not to cover issues such as food insecurity and diet-related illness, which, according to the evidence that we took four years ago, ar...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
They have not been excluded, as you can see through the list of specified functions and the tables that I provided to the committee. The specified functions ...
The Convener
Con
On the agricultural side, again, several respondents, including the Food Coalition and NFU Scotland, highlighted that agriculture is not referred to as a pol...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
Again, that is because there is already reference to the good food nation plan and how we give consideration to that in the Agriculture and Rural Communities...
The Convener
Con
The rural support plan does not cover everything. It does not cover a lot of the things that you would expect the good food nation plan to cover. Does that n...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
I do not believe so. First, that will be the key strategic document. Given section 2 of the 2024 act, what the rural support plan has to give consideration t...
Alasdair Allan (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
SNP
In responding to the committee on this issue, as you have just mentioned, you highlighted areas that are not specified in the SSI because they are already sp...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
As I have talked about, the monitoring and how we look at that will be critical to ensuring that the have-regard duty has effect in the way that is intended....
Tracy McCollin (Scottish Government)
The work to develop the SSI has already started that process. There has been a lot of cross-policy and cross-portfolio working, so there is really good aware...
Alasdair Allan
SNP
Given what you have said about the conversations with the sector, what would be the implications for the wider good food agenda if the Parliament were not to...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
If the instrument is not approved by the Parliament, the have-regard duty will not have an effect in those policy areas. I want to make the point that we are...
The Convener
Con
On that, although the instrument is subject to the affirmative procedure, thereafter the procedure to be followed would be the negative procedure, so the Par...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
I do not think that more time would necessarily have assisted in that. We have also faced criticism in relation to the time taken to develop the plan, but, s...
The Convener
Con
Rhoda Grant, do you have a supplementary question on this matter?
Rhoda Grant (Highlands and Islands) (Lab)
Lab
No.
The Convener
Con
I call Tim Eagle.
Tim Eagle (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Con
I think that I understand what you are trying to say, cabinet secretary. Even in my short time in Parliament, I have heard various ministers and cabinet secr...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
A number of different things can be done in that regard. First, we will be open to any further suggestions for additions that people feel might be required i...
Tim Eagle
Con
It is up to the convener, but I would be happy to hear more as this progresses, given the concerns. Just out of interest, do you have any meetings arranged ...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
There is already that engagement—