Chamber and committees

Dr Rivington, will the bill as drafted be fit for purpose? Are we assuming too much on the basis of what is in front of us?

Our second panel on the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill will focus on policy outcomes relating to public health. I welcome Dr Isabel Fletcher, a senior research fellow a the University of Edinburgh; Claire Hislop, the organisational lead for diet, physical activity and healthy weight at Public Health Scotland; Jill Muirie, the public health programme manager at Glasgow Centre for Population Health; and Jo Teece, a project manager at the British Dietetic Association.

We have until approximately 12:10 for questions. I will kick off. What is your understanding of what is meant when we talk about a good food nation? Do you agree that the bill as drafted will enable Scotland to achieve that ambition?

Item 4 is consideration of a negative instrument. I refer members to paper 4. No motion to annul the instrument has been lodged.

Members will note that the instrument breaches the rule that requires Scottish statutory instruments to be laid at least 28 days before they come into effect. The Scottish Government’s letter to the Presiding Officer states that the breach is

“due to the need to act urgently to avoid an economic loss to farmers by not accepting additional cuts of pigmeat into the scheme.”

I note that we wrote to the Scottish Government with questions when we originally considered the pigmeat scheme instrument, but we have yet to receive a response.

Does any member have any comment on the instrument?

We can write to the Scottish Government to ask it for clarification on that.

Are members content to note the instrument?

As no member has disagreed, the committee is content.

That concludes our public business.? We now move into private session to continue our agenda.

We have a short supplementary from Jim Fairlie.

Are you suggesting that the right to food should be incorporated in the bill or that it should be dealt with in other legislation? I do not think that you made that clear.

I suppose that the question is about where the limit is. Should it be only local authorities and health boards or are there other public bodies that should be described as relevant authorities?

We will move to questions from Alasdair Allan.

Thank you. I will go to the other panel members before I bring in Alasdair Allan, if he does not mind. Iain Gulland, what are your views on the bill as drafted?