Committee
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee 13 January 2026
13 Jan 2026 · S6 · Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Item of business
Draft Climate Change Plan
Professor Scarborough
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Okay—you mean the Food Standards Scotland report and what underlies it. It is a question of the evidence for the health benefits of reducing meat consumption in general.Clearly, different categories of meat have different health impacts, and the ones for which we have the best evidence of health impact are red meat and processed meat. That is clearly the case. The impacts of red meat and processed meat on cancer risk have been well documented.You have to be careful with this, though. Although the evidence is as strong as the evidence supporting the impact of tobacco consumption on health outcomes—that is certainly the case for processed meat; it is slightly lower for red meat—that does not mean that the effect size is as big as that of tobacco. We do not want to conflate those, but we need to understand the evidence level and that there is good enough evidence out there to support it.There is further evidence from observational studies relating to red meat, processed meats and general meat consumption of issues such as obesity levels, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. There is evidence out there that if you reduce your meat intake, particularly your red and processed meat intake, you are improving overall public health.I also understand that you are saying that if we reduce our meat intake too much, down to the lower end, you have concerns about micronutrient consumption in vulnerable groups. That is certainly the case, but you could argue that that would be the case for a lot of different dietary goals. With a lot of dietary situations, you are looking at hitting the sweet spot.At the moment, meat consumption levels are too high. They could do with coming down, yet if you are reducing meat consumption levels and shifting that distribution, you have to be concerned about the people who are already eating quite low levels. You have to look at how you protect them and ensure that those people are getting adequate nutrients from their diets; however, that does not mean that you should not be looking also at the high end. I would support that.The idea with the Food Standards Scotland goal of around 70g of meat consumption was to ramp up the ambition to reduce meat. That goal involves reducing the level below what is suggested in the United Kingdom, because the supporting modelling took the approach that if we reduce it to that amount, not only would it have public health benefits, it would also have benefits around climate change and other environmental aspects.
In the same item of business
09:15
The Convener
SNP
Item 2 is oral evidence from a panel of witnesses on the draft climate change plan and its implications for public health in Scotland. This is the first of t...
David Torrance (Kirkcaldy) (SNP)
SNP
Good morning. Witnesses, do you think that the policies and proposals set out in the climate change plan will improve indoor and outdoor air quality, and do ...
Professor Jill Belch (Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh)
May I answer that question? The ambition for outdoor air quality is reasonable. There is an ambition to reduce air pollution. However, the plan has missed ou...
David Torrance
SNP
Do any other witnesses want to come in on that point? No? Okay. Could there be any unintended consequences for health or inequality from the policies?
Professor Peter Scarborough (University of Oxford)
Do you mean generally in relation to air quality?
David Torrance
SNP
Yes.
Professor Scarborough
I work on food and diet, so I will speak only about the agriculture elements. I do not think that the proposals that have been put forward in the agriculture...
Professor Belch
We know that air pollution strongly produces health inequality. Therefore, there will be benefits as we reduce it. The issue is that one of the ways that we ...
Brian Whittle (South Scotland) (Con)
Con
Good morning. I am interested in the data on change of diet. I had a meeting yesterday with Food Standards Scotland about its report, and I was pleased to he...
Professor Scarborough
The Climate Change Committee report is clear about having a pathway for bringing down meat consumption. Maybe I am missing it, but I could not see that in th...
Brian Whittle
Con
I am talking about the Food Standards Scotland report and the way in which it has been interpreted.
Professor Scarborough
Okay—you mean the Food Standards Scotland report and what underlies it. It is a question of the evidence for the health benefits of reducing meat consumption...
Brian Whittle
Con
I have to say that I agree with you that we should get processed meat out of the diet, for sure, but I am concerned that we talk about obesity and diabetes b...
Professor Scarborough
Obesity can be related to more than one thing. Yes, it is related to sugar and salt consumption, but it is also related to red meat consumption.
Brian Whittle
Con
It is just not.
Professor Scarborough
The evidence is that, if you are reducing meat consumption, you see a reduction in body weight levels and in diabetes levels—
Brian Whittle
Con
I am sorry to interrupt you, but we have eaten red meat ad infinitum, and obesity has become a problem only in the past 20 or 30 years.
Professor Scarborough
We have not eaten red meat at the levels at which we are consuming it at the moment.
Brian Whittle
Con
Tell me how that is related to red meat.
Professor Scarborough
Red meat consumption in the UK is at a historically high level, although it is slightly scaling down. If you look at it in terms of the amount of consumption...
Brian Whittle
Con
But is that processed meat? Are we talking about processed meat or are we talking about fresh meat that we produce? What are we talking about here?
Professor Scarborough
Both have been going up since the 1940s or 1950s—they are both higher than they were. This is where we are at. Meat has become a staple within the diet in a ...
Brian Whittle
Con
Just finally, should we be doing more? Generally speaking, the production of meat has a high-carbon footprint globally. We should be exporting our knowledge ...
Professor Scarborough
Yes, without a doubt. The Climate Change Committee’s carbon budgets report is quite clear that things really need to crank up by 2045—that is when big change...
Brian Whittle
Con
Am I out of time, convener?
The Convener
SNP
No—on you go.
Brian Whittle
Con
This might be one of the most important topics that we discuss in relation to the health of the nation in this whole year. My worry is that people, especiall...
Professor Scarborough
That is exactly what the Climate Change Committee suggests in its report and through the balanced pathway—we should be eating a healthy, sustainable diet fro...
Brian Whittle
Con
I very much agree with you about changing the food environment in which we work, but I think that you are tackling the wrong thing.