Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)

First Minister's Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at 12:02 pm on 20 May 2004.

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Photo of Robin Harper Robin Harper Green 12:02, 20 May 2004

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland and what issues he intends to discuss. (S2F-900)

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

I have no specific meeting with the Secretary of State for Scotland in my diary, but I expect to see him again soon.

Photo of Robin Harper Robin Harper Green

On 9 October, the First Minister assured us that work with the food-producing sector was going to produce better standards. He said:

"Those measures are already making a significant difference"—[Official Report, 9 October 2003; c 2546.]

in improving food standards in hospitals and schools. I am sure that the revelations about the disgusting and unsatisfactory conditions of food production at Tillery Valley Foods are not among the significant differences that he envisaged when he made that statement. Does he agree that the current contract to supply food to the new Edinburgh royal infirmary should be suspended and that alternative arrangements should be made to allow patients at the hospital to receive a better standard of service?

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

My understanding is that the contract is a matter for those who hold the contract and that it would be suspended only if the contract was not being properly fulfilled.

Photo of Robin Harper Robin Harper Green

When the First Minister launched the Executive's healthy living campaign, he said:

"We have been unhealthy for too long. I want the healthy choices facing Scots to be the easy choices. That means educating people, raising standards in school and hospital meals".

Despite that, hospital patients are being served food that has been cooked at least twice, frozen and microwaved—not to mention driven hundreds of miles to the hospital. It is well known that all those processes degrade the nutritional value of the food. In the First Minister's role as food champion, is he saying that the disgraceful state of hospital food is none of his business? Does he not have a duty to champion quality food in Scottish hospitals? I call on him to tell us now that he will intervene in the situation to ensure that all Scotland's hospitals provide good-quality, nutritional, locally produced food for their patients and—as he intimated on 9 October—give local Scottish producers a chance to get involved in a new contract.

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

Mr Harper may be surprised to hear that I have much sympathy with some of the points that he makes. I believe that there will be an announcement next week on the matter, which he might wish to welcome.