I acknowledge Sarah Boyack’s interest in and continued pursuit of the issue, to ensure that people are supported over the summer. I hope that the resources that the Scottish Government has put in place will go some way towards helping families. We want to take a whole-household approach. We also want to be guided by the cash-first principle, because we recognise that families require that if we are to give them agency and autonomy to make best use of their household budgets.
I hope that the £110 million that we have provided directly to support people in accessing food will go some way towards meeting the needs of the people whom Sarah Boyack has described.
However, there is also an opportunity for us to learn about what is working, what we could do more of and how we might link policies with others, including on housing, to ensure that as we move forward we are clear in our pursuit of eradication of food insecurity. We should aim to link appropriately to the huge progress that has been made on homelessness during the pandemic and, more generally, to the policies that Kevin Stewart has been progressing in collaboration with our partners.
There is an opportunity for us to do more on this; there is an opportunity for us to maximise the impact of the resources and to knit with other policy areas much more effectively, whether that is around out-of-school clubs or holiday provision.
In a host of areas, we need to grab the opportunity to ensure that we work better for families who are at risk or are in need during these times, which are stressful for families when their children are at home.
I am happy to continue to engage with Sarah Boyack and with organisations on that. We will continue to look at the issue through our advisory board on social renewal, with a key theme being food insecurity, to make sure that we can move towards food security for everyone.