Seòmar agus comataidhean

To follow on from what my colleagues discussed, I have a question that is more specific to you and your industries. We face a cost of living crisis. A couple of days ago, I saw a thread by a butcher, who was explaining the cost of a leg of lamb. A customer had thought that £30 was a lot to pay for it, but in fact that was a discounted price. For anyone to have a reasonable profit and to be viable, a leg of lamb should cost around £50, but that is more than some have for a week’s worth of food.

I know that most people do not have an issue with paying well for good food, but many just cannot do that. We still see poverty and health-related inequalities, because good nutritious food is still a luxury for many. For example, cutting out salt is a luxury when cheap meats are full of saline and food bank foods are full of salts, which you cannot extract. No amount of education can extract that salt—well, maybe you could do it if you are a chemist.

What can we do to address that? I presume that a reduction in food prices would put people out of business and harm the industry and perhaps lower food standards. The issue impacts not only the quality of life for the individual but our economy and health service. How revolutionary would it be for your industries if everyone could afford good local food?

I want to touch on targets and target setting, as I have concerns about that and we have experience in the panel. A lot of the food planning processes that we have can be seen as fragmented between industries, and we have contradictory strategies with diverse policy goals. I asked the previous panel a question about targets, and everybody seemed to have their own targets and wishes, although there was some overlap. For example, one target that was mentioned was having one hot meal a day, but one hot meal a day could be somebody throwing a microwave-ready meal at somebody. So, can target setting be quite detrimental at this stage? Is that what the plan should be about? Should it not be an overview—a guide to how we can holistically create the culture of a good food nation?

John Davidson spoke earlier about the unintended consequences of lockdown, with a bit of a silver lining being that people were buying their food locally and going to local shops and businesses. That was also more practical for the sake of exports/imports and everything else in the light of EU exit. Everything seemed to be compounded and harder at that time, but there was an unintended consequence. If we are going to be led by the nose towards targets, is there not a danger that we will miss the point of the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill and what it is supposed to be about?

Thank you, convener. It is “Adam” with no S, but people like to put an S on the end of it.

I thank the witnesses for their extensive answers so far. You have probably already touched on the question that I was going to ask in the previous couple of responses, but I should say that the committee has started to explore what a human rights-based approach to budgeting could mean. There have, for example, been clear recommendations to integrate intersectional gender analysis with the Scottish budget process. What would that look like in practical terms?

We know that investment in particular areas can have unintended consequences, good and bad, so I want to ask not just what the investment looks like in practice but what outcomes we want to see from it.

How much of the investment is mitigation? At the moment, there are rising food and energy costs and rents, which we know will disproportionately affect women. Is there anything that we can do to ensure that we make the most of the money for the long-term vision? The pandemic and our exit from the European Union have compounded a lot of the issues.

What I am trying to say is this: we have this money and we are trying to get particular outcomes from investment in certain areas, but what does that look like in practice, and what exactly can we do to ensure that the money gets to the people who need it the most, to help and support them in the long term?

Dr O’Hagan, will you respond first?

I see that Chris Birt wants to come in.

That makes my point, in a way. You are speaking about obesity and the correlation with food, but we know that one of the biggest factors in obesity is stress, which can involve social injustices and living in poverty. The obesity target is focused on food, but stress comes into play, too.

The witnesses touched on targets. I note that Robin Gourlay said that we should not get too hung up on them. How effective are targets, particularly at an early stage? Often, they can drive a narrative, whereas outcomes are more organic. There can be more unintended consequences that might be missed or not noted if things do not sit within targets.

With the bill representing such a vast, high-level overview, would targets be a help or a hindrance when we are looking to change a whole culture? Noting that everyone has their own view on what the priority targets should be, how can we prioritise the targets? Each witness has their own direction of travel today, on which they really want to focus. Would rigid targets not take away the essence of what the bill is supposed to be about, which is more of a guided, natural, holistic culture change?

I open that up to the whole panel.

I will be brief, convener. I was interested to read about the kitchen table talks that the Scottish Food Coalition and Nourish Scotland developed and which brought people together to talk about the issues in the way that Professor Brennan just mentioned. Are there any other activities that could be used to motivate and enthuse people and get them involved in the development of food policy?

Earlier, you touched on the EMFF. Given the current situation with replacement funding, what is happening with that, and with the UK seafood fund in particular?

Quite a lot of my questions have been answered. I express disappointment that a UK Government minister cannot come before the committee next week as planned, and I hope that that is taken into consideration before we change our work plan again to accommodate that. It would be helpful if the session could be rearranged for any time before completion of our consideration of the Subsidy Control Bill, because we seem to have quite a lot of questions about that.

We have spoken quite a lot about agriculture, and we have touched on fisheries. What can we do to prepare our Scottish fishing industry for what is ahead in the light of EU exit?