Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have to disagree. You will not be surprised to hear that I was going to come on to sport, but I would point out that we have decreasing life expectancy; we are one of the unhealthiest nations in Europe, and we are getting worse; we have, crucially, high levels of drug and alcohol deaths and other issues; we have the highest obesity level in Europe; and we have really high levels of mental health issues. That is how you measure preventative spend. At the end of the day, those are the things that we are trying to prevent, and we are not doing that.

As for sport, you are right to say that we agree on the impact that sport, and physical activity in general, can have on health, mental wellbeing and, indeed, overall wellbeing. When I came into Parliament, the sports budget was £44 million, and last year, it was £36 million. I note that it is now increasing—and you will never hear an argument from me with increasing the sports budget. However, the devil is in the detail, and some of the funding is for one-off activities related to the Commonwealth games and the FIFA world cup. I will also be interested to see whether sportscotland delivers extracurricular activity in schools. Again, that will be very welcome, because I think that it is hugely important.

However, the reality in sport is that people on the front line are really struggling to develop even basic programmes. You have told me that you are looking at the sports budget in the round, but the fact is that you have not doubled it in this parliamentary session as you said you would in your last manifesto—the budget is going into the next session. I note your commitment to sport, but how can you claim that what has been done so far in this parliamentary session has been beneficial to it?

Finally, if we are looking to establish national guidance, how will consistent implementation be supported across Scotland?

I accept that the NHS should be an anchor, but I am saying that, in a lot of cases, it currently is not an anchor when it comes to food procurement. More concerning is the impact that that has on patient health, given that the quality of food is not as high as it should be and that more than 50 per cent of it is thrown away. If the NHS is supposed to be an anchor institution, why is it not, and who has the power to make sure that it is?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I have a point of clarification, I suppose. Are the discussions on section 30 and section 104 orders about trying to limit any potential divergence, should both bills—the one in Scotland and the one in England and Wales—be passed? Is it your intention to try to reduce any potential divergence in policy and any inherent issues that might arise?

I will stick to the theme of waste and focus on food waste. There is significant food wastage in hospitals—I think that the figure is more than 50 per cent in some hospitals—and the procurement policy for some major hospitals allows food to be procured south of the border, packaged and driven up the M6 every day. Have you looked at that issue, given that food waste has a huge impact on climate change?

09:15

On the budgeting, one of the issues in the NHS is the huge use of plastics and the like. Is any work being done about how we tackle that particular issue? It is one of the biggest problems that we have in relation to climate change and the NHS.

Hopefully, I will ask the brief supplementary that Emma Harper wished to. We have been speaking about the link between ultra-processed food and environmental issues. How is the increasing predominance of ultra-processed food linked with increasing ill health?

I have to say that I agree with you that we should get processed meat out of the diet, for sure, but I am concerned that we talk about obesity and diabetes being linked to red meat when, actually, they are linked to higher intakes of sugar, refined carbohydrates and all that sort of nonsense. Surely that is what we need to be tackling.

We should be eating what we can produce, because, from a climate change perspective, we will end up importing most of our food, which must go against the climate change objectives.

I very much agree with you about changing the food environment in which we work, but I think that you are tackling the wrong thing.

Good morning. I am interested in the data on change of diet. I had a meeting yesterday with Food Standards Scotland about its report, and I was pleased to hear that it has the same concerns as I do that, although the overconsumption of red meat is a problem, the underconsumption of red meat is also a problem. There is no differentiation in the plan between red meat, white meat and other kinds of processed meat, which is a worry. The generalisation about reducing meat consumption by 20 per cent by 2030 and then later by 35 per cent will not lead to a healthier diet. I want to hear your understanding of where those figures come from.