It is good to see you. I want to follow up on questions about support from the local community. I have visited the Ukrainian support network, and it is really impressive to see what it is doing on the ground to provide food, advice and even clothes—many people have come with just one small bag, so they are rebooting their lives. What really struck me was meeting two psychologists who had just started supporting people.

My question is about the support that people are getting once they arrive, not just from the Ukrainian community in Edinburgh, which is clearly really strong, but in other parts of Scotland. Are there networks that people can tap into? Is the support mostly in Edinburgh and Glasgow?

That was really helpful feedback.

Another challenge that I have clocked is things not working out after people get allocated a host. It is not the fault of the family or the host—it is just that people have different expectations and there is a reality check when people settle in. It could be pets and allergies, food choices or anything else that would normally be taken for granted. It was an issue that I picked up from people who are trying to support Ukrainians—there was a real nervousness about it. My sense is that Ukrainians are so grateful to come here and get support that they do not really want to complain, and there is an issue in how we support Ukrainians, particularly those with kids, when the first match does not work out. Loads of hosts are volunteering, but we need to make sure that we can match people up.

If it is incredibly brief.

I thank all those who have campaigned for years to get us to this stage, particularly my colleagues Elaine Smith and Rhoda Grant, and I thank those in the Scottish Food Coalition who have worked hard to persuade the Government to be more radical.

Today is a good result, because we do not have just a bill; we also have the food commission, which as Colin Smyth argued, is critical to ensuring the implementation of the bill and a joined-up approach to delivering it in communities across Scotland.

I very much welcome the SNP Government’s last-minute U-turns, which we got used to in the previous parliamentary session—for example, on tied pubs and on period products—when we led the way in arguing for ambitious legislation but were knocked back, with the Government withholding support, only to cave in at the end of months of discussion.

Like other members who have spoken today and yesterday, I think that the bill could have gone further. As Rhoda Grant said yesterday, the bill should have included the clear purpose of enshrining the right to food in law. We need to make the best use of the Scottish Parliament’s powers, and I want to focus on what comes next.

We need a joined-up approach and stronger political leadership to focus on ending the poverty that leads to many families having to rely on food banks. This is about access to affordable and nourishing food, and to decent incomes. Much more needs to be done—for example, on ensuring that school students get the free school meals that they need without stigma. As Monica Lennon said yesterday, the Scottish Trades Union Congress supports that for good reason.

The critical issue will be the funding that follows, which the SNP-Green Government needs to get sorted.

WWF Scotland made good points about supporting farmers and food producers to speed up the delivery of food that benefits our climate, nature and people. Colin Smyth’s points about fair work are also hugely important.

As I come to halfway, or more than that, through my speech, I want to focus on the impact of community gardens and how they can transform people’s lives. In Edinburgh, some fantastic work has been delivered by projects such as Edible Estates, the Bridgend community garden and the crops in pots project in Leith links.

The back greens initiative could be learned from across Scotland. The space between tenements in Gorgie, Dalry, Marchmont and Leith has been brought to life by local residents, and the gardens have been made attractive and productive again. Political leadership is needed to deliver those benefits, work with local councils, share best practice and think about how we manage our parks and brownfield land.

With the right funding and support, community gardens can help to address food insecurity among low-income urban communities. They will not solve the cost of living crisis, but they need to be on the agenda for the commissioners who are appointed. Community gardens give physical, social and ecological benefits to volunteers, where they live. We also need to think about how we spread that knowledge in our schools to the next generation of young people.

As we pass the bill, we need the food commissioners to be appointed swiftly, so that we can make the progress that is needed, with a more inclusive and accessible approach, so that everybody can be informed to help to deliver the legislation.

We need cross-sectoral support, so that everyone gets access to affordable, nutritious food, regardless of their income, while we address our climate and nature crisis. We need to end the need for food banks. Everyone has the right to dignity and to be able to afford the food that they need to sustain themselves and have a healthy life. That is what the bill must deliver.

This is clearly going to be the first of several last-minute announcements, when the First Minister has made a press announcement then the cabinet secretary comes to the chamber so that we can ask questions about a lengthy report that has just been published. Does the cabinet secretary not appreciate the irony of launching a report that talks about the importance of doing better a week after his statement on this year’s census failures, which he was in charge of but is yet to take responsibility for?

With hundreds of thousands of Scots being forced to choose between heating and eating, surely we need to build recovery—[Interruption.]

With hundreds of thousands of Scots being forced to choose between heating and eating, surely we need to build recovery from the pandemic, and to deal with the pressures that our national health service faces because of Scottish National Party mismanagement.

Today’s report outlines how we could be like other nations, but is it not true that the Parliament could make similar decisions now on co-operative energy, but the SNP-Green Government decided not to follow the example of Nordic countries and instead decided to sell off our sea bed? Given that the report says that

“An independent Scotland could not be transformed to match the success of the comparator countries overnight”,

and that we have been told that it would be “Brexit times 10”, will the cabinet secretary admit that independence would make Brexit look like a walk in the park?

Thanks for that. This is about the buildings and land, as well as the staff, so thinking about those budget lines is critical.

It has been said that this is about the whole Government responding. When we had the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care at committee, there was a lot of talk about social prescribing, as the convener has said. One thing that has come out in relation to the resource framework is local expenditure on culture. Evidence from Audit Scotland said that, if we look at the local government benchmarking framework data, we see that culture and leisure services have taken the biggest cut—almost 30 per cent—over the past decade. In the local government budget, how will we fill that gap? There is a need for social prescribing, including using local community arts facilities. Who will pay for that, given the huge pressures on local authorities? Can the finance secretary comment?

I will follow on from Donald Cameron’s question. I take your point about the hope that visitor numbers go up as we recover from the pandemic, but I am concerned by the properties that Historic Environment Scotland manages that are not reopening. The discussion paper asks what will happen to those properties. Should we let them face managed decline because of climate change? They are part of our history and culture. You say that we should not worry because it is only a spending review and not a budget. Is that a suggestion that capital investment might flow to Historic Environment Scotland so that it could repair and keep those buildings fit for purpose?

Jess Sargeant, do you want to come in on interparliamentary work and how to make it work better?