Chamber and committees

Section 8 states that a relevant authority must consult on a draft plan and “have regard” to any responses. I would like to hear your ideas on how public bodies could ensure meaningful participation in the creation of their plan, especially from food workers—Jayne Jones touched on that—and those with lived experience of food-related issues. I would also appreciate hearing your views on whether it would help to have an independent oversight body set up before the plans are drafted to support public bodies to conduct the process of meaningful participation and engagement.

I would like to hear your views on whether the statutory requirement on public bodies to produce, consult on and publish a good food nation plan will make a difference to what public bodies are already doing.

Thanks for taking part in this session. Clearly, we could talk to you for a lot longer on this. We are just scratching the surface.

My question is about process. Your consultation will end at the end of March, as you said. What happens then? In the evidence sessions that I am doing in the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, it is clear that there is some pull-through and some knitting together of some aspects in relation to clarity. I hear you saying that you do not want to be prescriptive and that you want to be flexible, but I also hear a lot of comments from planners who say that they want clarity. I am concerned about what the process is after the consultation ends on 31 March. This NPF is a draft. When do you expect to bring the final one to Parliament?

Would the Scottish Government amend the regulations to prevent companies that have received fines or been prosecuted for illegal fishing from accessing funding for three years?

I am aware that the duty to publish and report on plans will have a human resource and financial impact on local authorities and other public bodies, which are already very stretched. Are the anticipated costs in the financial memorandum realistic? Should the costs be met through additional Scottish Government funding, and should that funding be ring fenced? I will address those questions to Mike Callaghan first, but if anyone else wants to come in, that would be great.

I will pick up on the theme of oversight and accountability. A number of respondents to the call for views raised concerns that the reporting and review requirements in sections 11 and 12 of the bill do not ensure adequate accountability of public bodies. What are the panel’s views on the appropriateness of the reporting and review requirements?

That is okay. I will go on to my next question.

Many stakeholders have called for an oversight body—which Jayne Jones touched on—to be tasked with benchmarking, providing expertise in food policy, ensuring policy coherence, publishing annual progress reports on the state of the whole food system, facilitating public participation and more. If those responsibilities were given to an existing body such as Food Standards Scotland, how would you see that body expanding and evolving in order to fulfil those many important new functions alongside its current remit?

I heard the minister talking about the understanding that all communities are different. However, NPF4 refers numerous times to remote, rural and island communities without acknowledging that there are significant differences between many of those communities. That concern has been raised in a number of the evidence sessions that I have been part of. Many of those communities are facing radically different circumstances. An example is the action area that covers the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland. The point has been made to me that there are nuances in those areas and that they do not necessarily sit well together in that action area. How will the Scottish Government ensure that the diversity of the different parts of our rural, remote and island communities will be recognised through NPF4 and other policies that it proposes?

Thank you, Sarah. You raise another issue that has been identified to us, around linking the framework to existing policies.

Thank you for that specific reply; it is good to have those examples.

I will direct the next question initially to Steven Heddle. It is about the consultation timescale. There has been quite a bit of concern about the fact that the committee is consulting at the same time as the Government and gathering feedback from stakeholders. Will you expand on those concerns and feed back on how you would like consultation to take place as a final plan is developed?