Chamber and committees

We are undertaking the work to establish that. We need to ensure that the role and remit of the body would justify establishing a new body. The work that will be undertaken is important in that regard.

The regulations will be set out prior to the plans. I am sorry if I have not been clear in setting that out.

That, again, is an issue that I would be more than happy to consider. I will read the committee’s stage 1 report and look at any recommendations that it makes in that regard. Those are critical issues that we want to work across the Government to address.

You talked about the obesity targets, and that detail will be part of the plans. Those are where we hope to address a lot of the issues, as well as setting out the measurements to monitor progress and assessing ourselves against the measures that we are taking.

Everything that you have outlined is of absolute importance to us. Karen Adam has also talked about the importance of feeding lived experience into the process. I see that as vital and will ensure that we are as inclusive as possible. I do not want the good food nation plans, as we develop them, to be something that we are thrusting on people. They should feel like they belong to everyone, especially in relation to the local authorities. We want to ensure that, ultimately, the plans deliver the outcomes that we want them to deliver, and we will achieve that only if we have that participation and people feel like they are actively involved in the plans.

There have been lots of different suggestions in the evidence about how that could take place. We try to do that—we already continually engage with our stakeholders. I do not want the consultation to be about sticking something online and hoping that somebody ticks a few boxes. We need to go out and make sure that engagement is strong, so that we get that active participation.

A good example of work that we have done recently in that area is our consultation process on the local food strategy. I do not know whether officials could give more detail on that. Can you talk about the approach that we took? I think that it was exactly what Jenni Minto referred to—ensuring that we included the lived experience.

I hope that I have been able to outline the rationale for our decision about how to incorporate that right into Scots law. That was based on the recommendations that we received. Rather than separating out one individual right, and given that the rights are indivisible in so many ways—the rights and obligations that we are looking to incorporate in the human rights bill are interrelated—that bill was considered to be the appropriate vehicle to take that right forward. We made the provision that I referenced in section 3 of the bill to recognise that and to ensure that we have regard to that right in the future.

Essentially, the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill is a framework bill. It will underpin the work that we are currently undertaking, but it will also ensure that we address a lot of issues that we see in a coherent way across the Government and with other public authorities. A lot of the issues that you have raised could well be looked at or addressed in the light of the outcomes that we would want to have as part of the good food nation plans. The bill is not the place for us to specifically set those out because, as I have outlined, it is a framework bill.

Again, I highlight section 3 of the bill, which says that we must have regard to the right to food. Furthermore, through all the policy initiatives that I have talked about, we are already trying to ensure that we deliver on that human right. That is very much the intention, so, regardless of when the human rights bill is introduced—which we have committed to do in this parliamentary session—we will still be doing what we can to ensure that we are delivering on that right.

I know, from the evidence that the committee has received, that some people would like the right to food to be incorporated in the bill, but others have asked whether reference to the right to food could strengthen it. I feel that the bill is adequate in that respect, but I will consider any recommendations that the committee makes in its stage 1 report.

It is a choice. We are dealing with it through the human rights legislation because of the rationale that I have set out. It is not that it would be legally impossible for that right to be in this bill. However, given the interdependencies and the fact that it ties in with so many other rights, it makes sense for that to form part of the human rights legislation. That decision is based on the recommendations that we have received.

All of that will be critically important as we develop our good food nation plans. As we have previously discussed, food policy is cross-cutting. We want to ensure that our food is produced in an environmentally sustainable way. That will all feature as we develop our good food nation plans.