Chamber and committees

Thank you.

Good morning and welcome to the fourth meeting in 2022 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I ask members and witnesses to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off for the duration of the meeting.

Agenda item 1 is a declaration of interests. I invite our new member, Graeme Dey, to declare whether he has any interests relevant to the work of the committee. In doing so, I welcome him to the committee and say that I look forward to working with him.

Agenda item 3 is a decision on taking in private items 5, 6 and 7. Item 5 is an opportunity for members to consider the committee’s response to the Finance and Public Administration Committee on the medium-term financial strategy; item 6 is a chance for the committee to agree its approach to scrutiny of the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill; and item 7 is an opportunity for the committee to agree its approach to scrutiny of the Scottish social housing charter. Do members agree to take items 5, 6 and 7 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I will stick with the theme of targets. I am a bit confused. We have just talked about targets with this panel, and we commented on them when the panels were switching over. I do not think that anyone has said, “This is a target,” so I will offer some targets—or what I think are targets, although maybe they are ambitions. They are: all workers in the food sector are paid at least the living wage and are included in collective bargaining agreements by 2025; halving moderate to severe household food insecurity by 2030; halving childhood obesity by 2030; and halving the environmental impact of the food system, including halving food waste by 2030. Are those targets or ambitions? They are really great and useful things to have as part of our good food nation, which we have been working on for quite a long time. I heard Pete Ritchie say that he has been campaigning on that for six years. To build on the platform of what John Davidson talked about, we already have an amazing food and drink offer in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has already committed to halving childhood obesity elsewhere, reducing emissions from agriculture by 31 per cent by 2032, and reducing food waste by a third by 2025. Those commitments already exist. It is about getting things into the bill so that we can use it as a framework bill. People have talked about that. The bill can set a course and direction for all the other things that will come afterwards, particularly the agricultural policy.

I appreciate Claire White’s contribution. She has found targets useful things to move towards. Targets can be missed. The Scottish Government might miss its targets yet again, but surely, when anyone is trying to change anything, having somewhere to move to in an agreed direction is needed. That is what we need to be a good food nation.

I would love to hear whether those are targets or ambitions. I need what we mean by “target” to be clear.

I will direct this to Pete Ritchie and then to Anna Taylor, and I will put my questions together for the sake of time. Pete Ritchie began to touch on this, but I would like to ask the panel’s views on the role of public authorities in the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill. What should they be doing around procurement, health, supply chain resilience, food education and community empowerment and, in your view, to what extent does the bill enable or encourage them to do that? My other question is similar but is about the private sector. It certainly needs to be part of the solution, so in what ways can businesses play a leading role in transforming our food systems?

My questions are on the theme of participation, oversight and accountability. Before I ask them, I thank Claire White for her contribution on the supermarkets opening in Shetland. I drove by one of them on my way to Northmavine, and I then learned of the devastating impact of its opening on the local community shop. You have opened my eyes to the connection between planning and the need for participation at a local level.

I will direct my questions to John Davidson and Karen Galloway, in the interests of time. I have a little preamble, but I will keep it short. Last week, Professor Mary Brennan said that many workers in primary food production are not food secure themselves, which is clearly incompatible with any vision of a good food nation and shows the importance of involving workers and the whole food sector in policy design. Does the bill go far enough to ensure sufficient participation for the food sector in food policy design? How should that be facilitated? We have been talking around the edges of that issue.

We have a few more questions from members, and about 20 minutes left in the session, so we should manage if we can all keep to the point.

Thank you, that was great. It was Elena Whitham who asked the question, but we are all interested, so we would be grateful if you could provide that to the committee. Thanks for pointing us to the United Cities and Local Governments charter as well—that is brilliant.

Thank you for your reply and for keeping it brief. I was digressing a little bit. I keep hearing that planning departments are stretched, and we are looking for the opportunities to put some ease into the system.

I will move on and bring in Mark Griffin, who has a question for the witnesses.

That was very clear; thank you.