Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill - call for views

Closed 5 Jan 2022

Opened 5 Nov 2021

Contact

Mark Johnson

(Assistant Clerk)

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

rural.committee@parliament.scot

Published responses

View submitted responses where consent has been given to publish the response.

Overview

The Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment (RAINE) Committee is scrutinising the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill and is seeking your views.

What does the Bill aim to do?

The Bill requires the Scottish Government and relevant authorities (e.g. health boards and local authorities) to create good food nation plans to support social and economic wellbeing, the environment, health, and economic development.  Relevant authorities must have regard to the Scottish Government’s good food nation plan when drafting their own.

The Scottish Government and relevant authorities must consult people on their draft plans. A progress report must be published every two years and the plan must be reviewed every five years and, if appropriate revised.

According to the Scottish Government, these plans will help ensure good quality, locally sourced and produced food is a practical everyday reality for everyone.

More Information

In 2015, the Scottish Government established the Scottish Food Commission to provide advice on the existing and future challenges facing Scotland’s food culture, and to advise on how these might be addressed. The Scottish Food Commission’s final report, published in 2017, included recommendations that:
  • framework legislation be established to support work that is already being done across the Scottish Government to contribute to the aim of being a Good Food Nation;
  • legal duties on publicly funded bodies and private businesses that are substantially food oriented to have good food nation plans;
  • that an independent statutory body should be could be established, or responsibility for Good Food Nation Policy given to an existing or a new body;
  • that the Scottish Government should carry out a review across food-related policy areas to establish how to achieve better coordination from existing funding;

The Commission also made a range of specific food policy recommendations for health, social justice, environmental sustainability, and knowledge.

What does the Committee want to know?

  • What is your view about the scope of the Bill?  What else, if anything, would you have liked to see included in the Bill?  Please explain your reasons.
  • What is your view of the decision not to incorporate the ‘right to food’ into Scots law through the Good Food Nation Bill?  Please explain your reasons.
  • How should the Bill and/or the Good Food Nation plans link to other food policy initiatives, for example the current process of producing a Local Food Strategy, and addressing global impacts of food and drink supply chains – for example taking up any of the Global Resource Initiative recommendations?
  • What outcomes, indicators and policies should Scottish Ministers and ‘relevant authorities’ include in their Good Food Nation plans?  Please explain your reasons.
  • The Bill requires that Scottish Ministers and ‘relevant authorities’ must, when exercising a specific function or a function falling within a specific description, have regard to the national good food nation plan.  Those “specified functions” will be set out in secondary legislation.  In your view, what should those functions be?  Please explain your reasons.
  • The Bill does not provide for a body to oversee how the Scottish Government and ‘relevant authorities’ are implementing the Bill; what is your view on this?  Please explain your reasons.
  • What impact will the Bill have for local authorities and health boards?
  • Does the Bill provide for opportunities to participate in the production of national and local good food nation plans? You may wish to consider, for example, how the views of vulnerable people or those whose voices are seldom heard would be sought.

How to submit your views

Please submit your views using the online submission form, linked to below.

We welcome written views in English, Gaelic, Scots or any other language. 

The call for views closes on 5 January 2021.

Interests

  • NZET