Seòmar agus comataidhean

Of course.

I am interested in the argument that social security should be seen as preventative spend, in how we talk about the matter and in the question whether treating social security as that kind of spend helps with our decision making on the Scottish budget and our seeking to ensure that that approach happens. I wonder whether we can hear from Mairi Spowage first, if she does not mind, because I know that her organisation has responded on that issue.

I am interested in thinking about the issue in terms of the Scottish budget. Has the Government done enough work on the preventative approach? If we go down that route—we have argued that there are lots of reasons to do so—how will we make sure that it works in terms of the budget?

Thank you; it is helpful to know those things.

We have been advised that a small Government team is working on the plan. Is that enough, or will the team be built up? I am also interested to know whether there are good working relationships on this across the UK? The way in which food moves about is important and some of the legislation will also be cross-border, so I would like a wee bit of information about that if possible.

I thank the panel members for coming along. We look forward to your evidence. I will start quite generally and talk a wee bit about the plan overall. It is fair to say that it is ambitious but also that discussions have been on-going for many years. We need to move into the action stage; we have talked about it enough.

Can we achieve the outcomes and the vision that we have talked about over the past 10 years? I am particularly keen to know how we can get over the hurdle of cross-portfolio working—we have to do that with this plan. Do you have a view on how we can move it forward? With the size of the Scottish Government, what are the things that we need to do to ensure that it happens? Lindsay Jaacks seems to be nodding.

I have one more question, which is for Lindsay Jaacks and is about leadership. Should the leadership come from Government, which then has to pass that to other stakeholders to do the working-beyond-scope activity?

I want to understand the power imbalance that some people live through in their life. People often live in poor housing, have precarious work or have caring responsibilities, and we know that there is a high level of health problems in our population. As a politician, I really need to understand my responsibility, and not just the individual’s responsibility, in changing this food environment.

Is there more work to be done to move away from it being the individual’s responsibility to fix the problem and towards politicians and Government taking responsibility? Do we need a wee bit more of that in the plan and perhaps education for some of us as politicians about how we do that?

Thank you convener, and thanks to the panel for being here. We had a robust session, so it is great to have you here to build on that.

It has taken us a while to get here, and you probably would acknowledge that, so my question is: what is the next stage? Do we have a plan so that action can happen? I am particularly interested—as I often am in the Parliament—in how we get cross-Government working, which can then feed down right across all the different sectors.

My colleagues will go on to discuss some of this, so I will not focus too much on it, but if there was one message to give to Government on cross-portfolio working, what would it be? Do people in the Government just need to talk more, or do we need an action plan? What advice would you give us? We talk about cross-portfolio working so much, but just getting it in place seems quite difficult at times.

I want to understand the power imbalance that some people live through in their life. People often live in poor housing, have precarious work or have caring responsibilities, and we know that there is a high level of health problems in our population. As a politician, I really need to understand my responsibility, and not just the individual’s responsibility, in changing this food environment.

Is there more work to be done to move away from it being the individual’s responsibility to fix the problem and towards politicians and Government taking responsibility? Do we need a wee bit more of that in the plan and perhaps education for some of us as politicians about how we do that?

I want to touch on facilities and their availability to communities, which is something that is raised with us frequently. There are the issues of the decline in stock, the availability—particularly in rural areas—and the need for funding to upgrade facilities so that people can access facilities that we would all enjoy using. Can anyone give us a little bit of a picture of how facilities out there are for people and whether any funding that has become available has been useful, which we might be able to think about in the context of other areas?