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When we were gathering evidence for the regulations, I hosted a number of round-table events to support the decisions that I finally made. Those events included people from third sector organisations—NCD Alliance Scotland, for example—and business and health stakeholders, such as Food Standards Scotland and Public Health Scotland. I was very clear at the start of those events that this had to be a whole-system approach. We cannot have a healthy Scotland without healthy people or healthy businesses, and we need healthy people to operate healthy businesses. A circular requirement exists for everything to be ensured.

We have to be clear and understand the resource that COSLA believes that it needs.

I recognise the work that you do on ultra-processed food. You are right that, initially, the Scottish Government thought that the measures would have to be introduced through primary legislation. However, work that has been done across the years has shown that regulations are the best way to introduce such provisions. Regulations will allow the changes to take place more quickly and, to take a phrase from Ewan MacDonald-Russell and David McColgan on the previous panel, we need to see it done. That is why we are implementing the measures through regulations.

That will be absolutely key. The committee has just heard some evidence about the importance of the work that the University of Leeds has done on the implementation of regulations in England. We have asked Public Health Scotland to ensure that it is doing the right evaluation and to look at how the regulation ties into our population health framework.

We have had many conversations about this topic. I am very clear that I am pleased that we are introducing the regulations at this time. Do I think that we can go further? Yes, I do, and we are continuing to do that work, certainly through one particular piece of legislation—the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022—and the population health framework. I think that you are right: there is no one solution that will improve the health of people living in Scotland. There has to be a much wider and more rounded whole-person approach.

Just yesterday, I spent some time in Dunoon in my constituency with people from the Argyll and Bute youth action council. We were talking about the importance of healthy food in their diet, having lessons on cooking healthy soups and so on. I do think that we need that whole-person approach. I should say that we were also talking very much about the importance of activity and recognising the importance of getting out in nature. In fact, there were some young people from Helensburgh—which is not in my constituency—who were part of a group who climbed to the top of Ben Nevis, and that gave them a lot of learning points. They learned from the exercise about the importance of having good nutrition to keep their energy levels up as they were climbing the hill, as well as about the importance of teamwork and working together to improve health and wellbeing.

For a number of reasons. You are right that I heard those explanations. Meal deals are more difficult to define—they are not simply a sandwich, a fizzy drink and crisps. I recognise that having a meal deal and getting a free packet of crisps is not the best thing to do, which is why we are continuing to explore those specific things under the population health framework.

I have had a lot of conversations with officials, third sector organisations and public health areas and businesses. My understanding is that most people recognise what calories are, so they can make informed decisions when calories are on the product. Again, we have received evidence from Food Standards Scotland and Public Health Scotland, and more widely through Nesta and Obesity Action Scotland, about the impact of diets that are high in fat, salt and sugar on health outcomes, whether it be type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular issues and so on.

I was very disappointed to read the statistics that came out recently on the stroke bundles. I agree that improvement has to be made.

Just last week, I chaired a round table of all the stroke leads from the health boards across Scotland, at which we talked specifically about door-to-needle time as a major concern. We have considered how health board staff are configured and we have helped boards to introduce nurses who will specifically support people who could be presenting with stroke symptoms. I think that I am right in saying that NHS Lanarkshire has made really good improvements there. At the meeting last week, it was great to hear about what NHS Lanarkshire has been able to do. The other health boards heard about that and they can consider the changes that they could make. The Scottish Government has provided some funding to allow additional training for nurses across the health boards.

As you will know, the Scottish Government provides funding to health boards directly. The total health budget is about £21 billion. Of that, about £15 billion goes directly to health boards, and it is for them to make their decisions on how to allocate that among the various conditions that they have to support.

Having met the Bundy family and representatives of the Stroke Association and Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, I felt very strongly that it was important for each health board to have a stroke lead and for me to meet them regularly. We also have a stroke specialist in the Scottish Government, who is part of the chief medical officer’s team. He engages regularly with the stroke leads to ensure that we can improve, because that is what we have to do. You are absolutely right that we have to improve the statistics.

As you know, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and I have written to the UK NCS, which is an independent body, and we understand that, over the next three years, it will be reviewing evidence. The evidence must be robust and peer reviewed, so we are pleased that that is part of the screening committee’s work programme.

We are already considering what we can do once the UK NCS makes a decision. It was clear, when Kym Kestell answered a question on screening, that it is not just about screening; we need to ensure that we have the pathways in the various health boards to ensure that they can support people who are screened and might have a condition. We do that work regularly with health boards.

With regard to data, I touched on the Public Health Scotland Scottish cardiac audit, which was released yesterday. There is an iterative process to ensure that we are collecting the right data, and the scope has been extended, as this is the first year in which the audit has contained additional information on congenital, if I can use that word—

When the First Minister and I met the Hill family, one of the outcomes concerned the need to understand clearly what sportscotland is doing. Sportscotland has some guidelines, and Scottish Rugby and the Scottish Football Association have clear pathways to ensure that people who are participating in sport have the right healthcare monitoring that they need. In that meeting, I was struck by the work that the Hills have been doing on monitoring young children who have been playing sport. We have been looking at that in preparation for any change in the UK NSC guidelines.