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David Thomson just mentioned that there has been a calorie reduction due to the reformulation of products, which is welcome. That makes me think about how the good food nation plan can be implemented if there are challenges with advertising. Some policies are reserved to Westminster and cannot be delivered in Scotland, and I am not sure whether that has been considered. There are things that we can control in Scotland, such as advertisements on bus stops, but we cannae control advertising on television, for example. Does the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 impede or enable the delivery of the good food nation plan?

I said that I would come back to ultra-processed foods. We are here today to look at the good food nation plan and you have also mentioned the national population health framework. The population health framework says that health-harming products are tobacco, vapes, alcohol and gambling, but it does not mention ultra-processed foods, and the good food nation plan does not mention them either.

Lindsay Jaacks said that investigations are still happening around ultra-processed foods and the health-harming additives that they contain. I am thinking about stabilisers, emulsifiers, flavourings and colourings—chemicals, really. Does the plan need to take ultra-processed foods into account more, or do we need to wait another five years for the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition to do more robust research on that?

The supermarkets and the massive global food companies determine how the system works, which makes things complicated. Does the national plan help to encourage good collaboration with supermarkets, for instance, in order to support healthy consumption?

Tomorrow, the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee will hold a round-table session on the good food nation plan, and the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee is holding one today. I am keen to hear about how we reassure Scotland’s farmers. Without farmers, we will have no food. How do we reassure the small farmers and big producers that you have mentioned that they will be considered when we look at the current plan and future iterations of it?

Does the food commission need to help by providing a template for each local authority and health board to follow, which would provide guidance?

I have a supplementary on ultra-high-processed food. I am thinking about the work of Henry Dimbleby, in which he talks about reformulation of the foods that we are buying—that is, reducing the salt, the fat and the sugar. I am thinking also about Pekka Puska’s work in Finland to add mushrooms to sausages as a population health strategy, which was done by working with the processors.

The whole system is complicated, and there are things that can be done. Is reformulation part of the plan to support there being less fat, sugar and salt in food?

Loads of questions are going through my head, but I will just stick with what you said about local authorities and health boards. Each local authority and health board has to come up with a plan, which should reflect the Government’s proposals in its good food nation plan. Might there be conflict between a local authority’s land use strategy—we have been looking at issues such as building houses on greenfield sites—and a health board’s plan, which might be focused more on health than on land use? We are trying to support changes to our food system locally, but how will we avoid such conflict? I will stick with local instead of global.

I know that Carlos Monteiro in Brazil has come up with the Nova classification, although it has had criticism and is not quite right. We talked earlier about sausages and heard that even putting a stock cube in soup makes it processed but might reduce the salt intake, for instance. I know that we need to work on the definitions.

I want to ask about the links to poverty and to imposed austerity, which has led to poverty. How is that covered in the plan to support better consumption and maybe reduction of foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt and ultra-processed foods?

Good morning, cabinet secretary, to you and your officials.

Before I ask my questions about ultra-processed food, I am interested in the language in the foreword of the national plan. At the very bottom of page 2, it says:

“without the full powers of independence we do not have the complete control of all the levers of food policy.”

I am interested to hear about the powers that we do not have. Is it related to the impact of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and our ability to lever supermarkets or cross-border trading? What do we need in order to have all the levers to deliver a plan?

Thanks for that clarification.

I am interested in ultra-processed foods and the emerging research that says that they are not good for you. In the national population health framework, health-harming products are listed as tobacco, vapes, alcohol and gambling, but ultra-processed foods are not listed. Is that because we are too early in the research to pin UPFs as a problem and as a health-harming product?