Chamber and committees

We are taking a variety of steps to reduce food waste.

For supermarkets, the Courtauld Commitment, run by the Waste and Resources Action Programme, aims to reduce food waste, as well as unnecessary packaging. More information on the Courtauld Commitment can be found at http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/courtauld_commitment/index.html.

For households, we support Waste Aware Scotland''s Love Food Hate Waste campaign, www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk, which provides advice on how household food waste can be reduced through planning purchasing decisions, storing food in the correct way and not cooking too much. In addition, six trials to collect food waste from households for composting were funded by the Scottish Government. The trials found that 30% of people participating in the trials indicated that they had made changes to reduce the amount of food waste produced by their households in the first place.

For commercial premises, Envirowise Scotland, http://www.envirowise.gov.uk/scotland/Sectors/Food-and-drink.html, provides advice to business on reducing waste, including food waste.  The National Industrial Symbiosis Programme Scotland (NISP Scotland), http://www.nisp.org.uk/scotland.aspx, identifies residual materials from industry that can be used as an alternative to raw materials for other organisations or used in any other viable alternative to going to landfill.

Data produced by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency for the EU Waste Statistics Regulation provides information on all waste generated and managed in Scotland. This data can be found at:

http://www.sepa.org.uk/waste/waste_data/waste_data_reports/waste_statistics_regulations.aspx.

There are no such targets in place at the moment. However, question 9 in Scotland''s draft Zero Waste Plan, currently out for consultation, asks whether the government should set any targets in relation to the prevention of commercial and industrial waste and construction and demolition waste:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Environment/waste-and-pollution/Waste-1/wastestrategy.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme have undertaken a UK study on the amount of household food waste. This work was published in July 2008 and can be found at:

http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/case_studies_research/report_the_food_we.html.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) carried out National Best Practice Projects on fish waste and on food preparation and processing waste “ raw meat and fish. These can be found at:

http://www.sepa.org.uk/waste/waste_publications/national_best_practice_project.aspx.

Business waste surveys carried out by SEPA have quantified food waste arisings by economic sector. These surveys can be found at:

http://www.sepa.org.uk/waste/waste_data/commercial__industrial_waste/business_waste_surveys.aspx.

Tables 5a and 5b in Annex B to Scotland''s draft Zero Waste Plan, http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Environment/waste-and-pollution/Waste-1/wastestrategy, published for consultation on 20 August 2009, provide information from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) on commercial waste arisings and management methods. SEPA also publish an annual Waste Data Digest, providing information on waste arisings and treatment methods:

http://www.sepa.org.uk/waste/waste_data/waste_data_digest.aspx.

The Scottish Government had a very productive meeting with Scothedge, the organisation which seeks to secure legislation on this issue in Scotland, on 2 April 2009. I wrote to the Public Petitions Committee on 23 April to provide its members with an update and a copy of the note of the meeting''s outcomes, which had been agreed with Scothedge. My letter and the meeting note can be viewed on the Parliament''s website at www.scottish.parliament.uk, under Written Submissions for Petition PE984.

In order to build a consensus around the most appropriate course of action, we plan to launch a public consultation on the issue in the summer. Details of this will be published on the Scottish Government website and MSPs, MPs, members of the public and others with an interest will be invited to participate in the consultation process.

The Forestry Ministers'' Group has not discussed potential changes to the duties and functions of the Forestry Commission.

There are no current plans for a meeting of the Forestry Ministers'' Group.

The Forestry Ministers'' Group last met in October 2005, and it discussed ˜forestry and climate change''. Following that meeting, ministers agreed that they would only meet if and when an issue arose which required cross-border co-ordination.

We are considering all responses and options put forward and giving very careful consideration to the future role of the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board and arrangements for determining pay and conditions of service for agricultural workers in Scotland.

Consultation responses are available on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/01/19103314/0.