Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, minister and team. You will be unsurprised to hear that I am going to ask about food procurement, given its importance to health and education.

We have heard that the proportion of locally produced food products that is available through the national framework has increased. I would say that that bar is set pretty low. When I looked at it in the previous session of Parliament, the proportion was sitting at about 16 per cent while outliers such as East Ayrshire, which we know is exemplary, sit at about 75 per cent. They have shown us the way. Food procurement is a special case because of its impact not just on health and education but on things like the circular economy, the rural economy and emissions reductions by not importing food.

With that in mind, do you think that we are moving fast enough? Can we move more quickly? East Ayrshire has shown us the way, and others are starting to follow. Should we not be pushing that harder?

Do you think that there is an opportunity, potentially through Scotland Excel contracts, to deliver a more universal approach across Scotland and give better choice to push that faster?

I have a final question. We heard from the Scottish Wholesalers Association, which suggested that rigid nutrition standards present a significant barrier to increasing public procurement of locally produced food. You will know that I am a stickler for having high nutrition value, but the standards include things such as shapes of pizza. Do you think that we are creating too rigid a structure, which potentially prevents local procurement from moving quicker?

I will leave it there.

I am in agreement with the general principles of amendments 22 and 23, but I would like clarification of why you are highlighting local authorities. We recognise from the evidence that we took that the majority of the debt in this area falls to local authorities, but why are you singling out local authorities to be treated differently from any other creditor? The regulations, as they currently stand, do not support similar treatment of local authorities.

Who would have thought that, out of everything in that report, people would jump on the reference to buying chicken from Thailand?

I note that the French always manage to do what we are discussing really well.

My last question relates to our schools and hospitals, where there is a distinct lack of ability to prepare food on site. How much does that impact on what you deliver, in terms of orders for pre-prepared food as opposed to food that could be prepared on site? Perhaps Julie Welsh can answer that.

Good morning. I will take the themes that my colleague began and run with them. There is tension between outcomes and cost. You will know that I have a specific interest in public procurement of food and the impact that it can have across much of our society. We want to have the highest-quality food in our schools and hospitals that we can—for example, food that was grown just down the road. That would improve our kids’ outcomes at school and tackle many of our poor health issues, including hunger, malnutrition and the relationship between health and attainment. It would help with recovery in our hospitals, the rural economy would benefit and we would reduce our carbon output. However, budgets come along and have an impact on that aim.

Julie, I have been looking at Scotland Excel’s work for quite a while—not from a critical perspective, but to inform my thinking about how we could improve outcomes. In 2016, I looked at the area in a lot of depth and was surprised at how little of the food that our public sector procures actually comes from Scotland. Given where we want to be, and the outcomes that we want to have, how far should we look at the issue in the long term? How much of the pressure that is put on you comes from local councils’ budgets and their ability to pay for the service?

From the other perspective, our food producers are perhaps not the best at dealing with the contracts that are required. Every single time I go to farms and meet representatives of NFU Scotland, they talk about struggling to get access to Excel contracts because, in the scheme of things, they are small operators. How do we use the public procurement framework to make it easier for them to come into the fold?

Graeme, I will come to you in a minute on that question, so please be prepared.

Can I ask a final, very small question, convener?