Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 22 March 2022
I am pleased to speak to the committee’s stage 1 report on the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill this afternoon, although I am not pleased that the reason that I am doing so, rather than the convener, is due to his absence from Parliament. We wish him well and a speedy recovery.
I thank everyone who was involved in the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee’s stage 1 inquiry. The committee was able to draw on a wealth of quality evidence to inform its conclusions, and members were encouraged by the passion and expertise of those advocating for change in the food system.
Before I discuss the substance of the committee’s report, I put on record my disappointment that the Government has not provided a more detailed written response to inform the debate today. I look forward to receiving a detailed response to the committee’s recommendations prior to stage 2.
The Government describes the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill as framework legislation. The bill creates a framework by placing a duty on Scottish ministers and certain relevant authorities—local authorities and health boards—to produce good food nation plans. The plans are the primary vehicle for driving forward the objectives, indicators and policies that the Government and those relevant authorities want to employ in pursuit of their ambition for Scotland to become a good food nation.
The Government has, since 2009, published a range of position papers setting out its ambitions for a good food nation. The expectation of many stakeholders was that the bill would consolidate the existing strands of policy and set out a clear vision for the Scottish food system. Around two thirds of respondents to the committee’s call for views felt that the bill should be clearer on its purpose and outcomes, and many stakeholders raised serious concerns about a lack of ambition for the legislation.
The Scottish Human Rights Commission, for example, argued:
“It is disappointing that the Bill is not framed in terms of the ambition to achieve a just transition to a fair, healthy and sustainable food system, and does not require that food plans set out the steps that will be taken to eradicate hunger and progressively realise the rights to food, health, equality, and a healthy environment.”
When the committee raised the lack of ambition in the bill with the cabinet secretary, she said that she was aware of such concerns but emphasised that it was the plans that should set out the ambition, due to the framework nature of the legislation. Although the committee was, to some degree, reassured by those comments, we nonetheless conclude that, for the bill to be effective, the Government should clearly articulate the wider ambitions in the plan when it is published for consultation and laid before Parliament.
In helping to drive the wider ambition, the committee explored whether targets or more detailed outcomes should be included in the bill, and we took a lot of evidence from stakeholders on that. Many thought that targets or outcomes should be included in the bill, but many disagreed. It is a complex issue, not least because different people interpret and understand targets and outcomes to mean different things. Although we agree that it would not be helpful to include numerical targets in the bill, the committee was more persuaded that the bill would benefit from some high-level objectives, reflecting the broad vision and ambitions for a good food nation. Therefore, we urge the Scottish Government to give further thought to the inclusion of high-level objectives in the bill at stage 2 and, in particular, to whether section 1(5) should be widened to include other policy outcomes.
The oversight of and accountability for the national good food nation policy and plans was a central theme in the evidence that we received. As drafted, the bill’s oversight mechanism is the requirement to lay all national plans in the Scottish Parliament and to lay a progress report every five years. We took a lot of evidence that questioned whether those provisions were sufficient. There was broad agreement across the majority of responses to the committee’s call for views that the bill should provide for an oversight function beyond the reporting and review mechanisms in sections 5 and 6. Accordingly, the committee recommends that the bill be amended at stage 2 to strengthen the oversight function.
The committee heard a range of views about what the oversight function should look like and who should be tasked with it. We heard support for the oversight function being incorporated into an existing body, as well as support for a new body being established, with a range of suggestions as to what sort of body that should be. Committee members agree that we are not in a position to make a clear recommendation on that.
We note the Scottish Government’s long-standing position that a new oversight body is not required but that it is currently considering that under the terms of the Bute house agreement. We asked the Scottish Government to update the Parliament on its thinking in advance of the stage 1 debate. We note with concern that that consideration is in its early stages, as the committee assumes that any oversight role that is deemed necessary should be provided for through the bill.
The committee notes that the bill does not provide the Parliament with a formal role in approving those plans. We recommend, therefore, that the bill be amended at stage 2 to give the Parliament a greater role, requiring Scottish Parliament approval of the plans after they have been laid to ensure that they align with stakeholder expectations and drive the transformational change that we want in the food system.
A number of stakeholders argued that the bill should either incorporate or align with a right to food. The committee wanted to understand whether the bill is the appropriate legislative vehicle for such a right or, as the First Minister has outlined under the Bute house agreement, a right to adequate food should be incorporated into wider human rights legislation. The committee was persuaded that the proposed wider human rights legislation is the best means of providing for a right to food and that it would be unhelpful to have the right singled out and excluded from the proposed human rights legislation.
Sections 2 and 8 of the bill provide for a consultation on the draft good food nation plans. The committee recognises that, if the national plan is to be effective, it must draw on the experiences of everyone using and working in the Scottish food system. We heard compelling evidence, from organisations such as the Food Train, Obesity Action Scotland and the Food Foundation, of the need for a comprehensive and wide-ranging consultation. The committee firmly believes that any consultation that is undertaken by Scottish ministers on the draft national good food nation plan must be as wide, inclusive and participatory as possible. The committee agrees with the evidence that it received that the consultation methods that are used should be tailored to each specific audience and that one size will not fit all. Therefore, we welcome the commitments that the cabinet secretary and her officials have made that the Scottish Government’s approach to the consultation will be as open, accessible and inclusive as possible.
As I have mentioned, the bill requires relevant authorities to publish a good food nation plan. That places a similar requirement on relevant authorities to those that are placed on Scottish ministers by section 1 of the bill, although there is no requirement for relevant authorities’ reports to be laid in the Scottish Parliament.
In evidence, it was clear that, although some local authorities embraced the good food nation vision some time ago, other authorities are at an earlier stage of their good food nation journey. Therefore, the committee considers it essential that those authorities have access to information and advice to support the development of their plans, and we called on the Scottish Government to set out in its response to our report how it intends to provide such information and advice.
Sections 4 and 10 of the bill provide that Scottish ministers and relevant authorities must “have regard to” their good food nation plans when exercising specified functions. Those functions are to be set out in subordinate legislation. The committee believes that sections 4 and 10 are key to the effectiveness of the plans. We agree that it is regrettable that a draft list of all the specified functions was not available to inform parliamentary scrutiny, although we welcome the cabinet secretary’s confirmation that the list will be included in the consultation on the draft national plan.
The committee homed in on one particular aspect of section 4, which was the provision for subordinate legislation setting out the specified functions to be considered by Parliament under the negative procedure. Officials told us that that procedure was chosen because the subordinate legislation would be likely to include a long list and would not meet the usual criteria for the affirmative procedure. The committee agrees that the decision about which of the Scottish ministers’ functions should be exercised with regard to good food nation plans should meet the criteria for the affirmative procedure and that Parliament should have a stronger role in scrutinising those “specified functions”. Accordingly, we recommend that any regulations made under section 4 should be subject to the affirmative procedure.