Seòmar agus comataidhean

Rachael Hamilton’s well-intentioned amendment would insert a target of 60 per cent of the food procured by each local authority to be produced within 60 miles within three years of the bill’s royal assent. That is an admirable aim, and I fully support the intention to incentivise and support local food production and procurement. However, the target is problematic in practice for a number of reasons.

For the foreseeable future, it would be very difficult to source enough bread, pizza, most pulses, most fruit, tomatoes, peppers, sweetcorn, rice and more from within 60 miles. That is the unfortunate reality, and it will not change unless the Scottish Government increases support for local small-scale production, which my amendments 48 and 201 seek to achieve.

The next practical problem is to do with definitions. Is a sausage roll that is produced in Lanarkshire local if it is produced with Polish pork and French flour? Tracking back to ingredients is a challenge.

The next issue is that 60 miles is a long way for local authorities in the central belt but not far for isolated islands. An islands impact assessment would be needed.

Then there is the legal difficulty. The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, which the UK Government introduced, makes a requirement to source from a particular part of the UK illegal under the principle of non-discrimination. I would be interested in hearing whether the Scottish Government is in conversation with the UK Government about allowing the specification of locally produced food in public procurement.

In any case, such a target should be included in a statutory plan, such as the good food nation plan or the rural support plan, not in primary legislation.

I support the principle of procuring local food but I do not support the amendment. However, I would welcome a commitment from the cabinet secretary to add practical measures to the rural support plan and the good food nation plan to support the local food economy using funding from the agricultural budget. That would allow a target such as the one that Rachael Hamilton proposes to become much more achievable.

It was just one number in a grouping, not the groupings themselves.

I was just finishing.

For all those reasons, I support those amendments.

I will indicate my support for some of the amendments in the group. I support Rhoda Grant’s amendment 82, which would require ministers to make provision for publishing information about rural support that is provided. Rural land management impacts all of us, through its large impact, both positive and negative, on the environment, climate and our food supply.

For many people in Scotland, there is a sense that the wealthiest landowners receive the most public money simply for owning land, and that is unjust. For transparency’s sake, it is only right that the public can find out who is supported, how much they receive and why, and what public goods are enabled by that support.

For similar reasons, I support Richard Leonard’s amendment 13. If some landowners are not applying for support directly but are using third-party businesses to do so, the public and the public purse still have a right to know who is the ultimate recipient of that support. That would help to close any loopholes that might allow large landowners to receive support above the capping level, if they apply through more than one business.

I take on board the cabinet secretary’s point about the lack of a clear definition in Scots law of “beneficial ownership”. If we had a system, the information that would be published—thanks to Rhoda Grant’s and Richard Leonard’s amendments—could support the creation of a cadastral system for Scotland, which the Scottish Land Commission has recommended. That would be a set of records and maps that described the ownership boundaries, value and use of land, as is used in other countries such as the US and 14 EU members.

Having all that information in one place would be crucial for a carbon emissions land tax or any land-based replacement for council tax. If the information needs to be collected for those purposes anyway, there should be no reason not to publish it for transparency, provided that data protection is properly considered.

Publishing that information would also allow an external body to conduct a value-for-money assessment of the support that is provided, which I intend to propose at stage 3.

I am interested in discussing this further and in bringing together the folks in the forestry sector and the RSE to get clarity in relation to the misunderstanding of how forestry EIA regulations work. The RSE has done a tremendous body of work. It would be helpful to keep it on board and to get some kind of collaboration going with the society.

I am done.

The point about regional hubs certainly came up at some point when we were doing work on NPF4 last year.

Thank you. We previously agreed to take the next three items in private. As that was the last public item on our agenda, I close the public part of the meeting.

I am sure that the chief planner and her team are very busy on that work.

Pam, do you want to come in with your other question?

The next agenda item is to further consider a negative Scottish statutory instrument. There is no requirement for the committee to make any recommendation on a negative instrument, but I am interested to hear any comments on the amendment order. Do members have any comments?

Members: No.