Education, Children and Young People Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Official Report 653KB pdf

Subordinate Legislation

Nutritional Requirements for Food and Drink in Schools (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/481)

Our third item of business is consideration of subordinate legislation: the Nutritional Requirements for Food and Drink in Schools (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021. The committee first considered the regulations at its meeting on 26 January 2022, when we agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills for more information. The committee has received a response from the cabinet secretary, which is included in our meeting papers. Do members wish to make any comments?

It was helpful to have a response from the cabinet secretary. However, it begs further questions about the initial legislation and regulations. There are still many unanswered questions and we should continue to monitor the situation, but I am satisfied that we can proceed.

We received a letter from the cabinet secretary in response to our letter, but it gave us no end date, no clarity on the conditions for lifting the regulations and, disappointingly, no record of how the regulations had been implemented since they were first enacted in December. The only assurance that we got was that officials were speaking to each other—we were looking for something more than that. Having said that, I agree with Willie Rennie.

Given that no further comments from members are forthcoming, does the committee agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument?

Members indicated agreement.