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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 5 August 2025
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Displaying 2160 contributions

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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

Again, I apologise to Ariane Burgess—I do not want to steal her position here—but I visited a regenerative farm that is working very closely with Soil Association Scotland, which appreciates that there are slight differences in this matter. I encourage the cabinet secretary to have a word with Soil Association Scotland on what it is doing on the regenerative side of things.

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I am sorry to keep coming back to you, cabinet secretary, but, given the size of Scotland’s food and drink industry, it is vital that we look at that area in detail. This might not be the right meeting in which to do that, but there are a couple of issues that I want to raise.

Where is the food and drink recovery plan going? What will have to be done in that respect? I know that 60 food and drink businesses have signed up to the business development academy and that every major industry body has signed up to delivering it, but I want to ask about the proposed sustainably Scottish brand. What does it mean? What will it deliver? Where does it fit in? How will our current brands fit in with it? How will we define “sustainably Scottish”?

I know that that is a packed question, but it would be helpful if you could give us a broad overview of your thinking on some of those issues.

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

The NFU wrote to Kevin Foster, who is the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Future Borders and Immigration), to ask for a 12-month Covid visa in order to get over the short-term supply chain workforce issues in the agricultural sector. Do you know whether that visa has been granted? Have you had any communication with the UK Government about that?

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Scotland’s Strategic Framework

Meeting date: 2 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I thank the panel very much for attending this morning. I have two or three questions that I would like to cover. They might be a wee bit jumbled up, but please bear with me.

I absolutely agree with what Mr Rowley said about compliance. More than half of the people in my hotel dining room this morning were not wearing face masks. There is possibly an issue about the fact that although we still have face mask control in Scotland, it is not in place in other parts of the country. People coming in really need to know what the regulations are in this country.

When we had a panel of young people here last week, we asked them, “Do you feel that the restrictions have been done to you or are you complying with them because you are part of the process?” They very much came back with the belief that it was being done to them, and the vaccine passports will again feel like something that is being done to people. That goes back to the messaging that Mr Swinney spoke about. While we are putting the Covid vaccine passports in place, could there be something far more visible and vibrant and stronger in the messaging that we put out about how important it is to get the vaccine to that specific demographic?

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Scotland’s Strategic Framework

Meeting date: 2 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

Okay. When people are young, they think that they are invincible. We need to get over that mental block in the first place.

On the requirement for vaccine passports, is there likely to be any extension to the areas that we are talking about?

My next question is perhaps more directed to Mr Leitch. We know that the virus is in the community and, as Mr Swinney has said, we are trying to suppress it with the range of measures that we have in place. Is it accepted that the disease will continue to be with us? Are we trying to create community immunity while we manage the disease to the next stage?

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Scotland’s Strategic Framework

Meeting date: 2 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I have a final quick question, which relates to constituent requests overnight. I think that every committee member has talked about the flood of emails that we all had last night. I can almost answer this myself, but will the passport be time limited?

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Scotland’s Strategic Framework

Meeting date: 2 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

Will they be time limited? If we accept that we have an endemic disease in our community, will the passports be required forever? That is the terminology that is being used in the emails that I am getting.

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Food and Drink Supply Chain

Meeting date: 1 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I have a specific question for David Thomson on something that he mentioned right at the start of the session. David, you talked about the health connections with food and the potential clash between English and Scottish regulations through the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. Will you expand on that, please?

I also want to talk about the food processing, marketing and co-operation grant scheme, which has just opened for applications. We need to ask the Scottish Government why there is such a short timeframe for businesses to get an application from conception through to completion before they can ask for the money. Pete Cheema and Colin Smith talked about the go local fund, which is a great initiative. I will leave it at that just now, because I know that we are running out of time.

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Food and Drink Supply Chain

Meeting date: 1 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I wanted to make sure I got a question in. It is not a supplementary question; it is about the good food nation bill.

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Food and Drink Supply Chain

Meeting date: 1 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

James and Mary, I am really interested in the stuff you have been talking about regarding the local food supply chain. I would really like to know how we build resilience into that. There seems to be a bit of a dichotomy here. One of the biggest export markets that we have is food and drink. How is the international trade policy of the UK Government going to affect our ability to shorten the supply chains and keep the local touch to our food industry at the same time as we try to do deals around the world?