Found: Chadwick DfT Sponsor Tony Meggs IPA and CRL Baney Young 2 NR Sponsorship Rob Scopes 3 Deloitte Simon Wright

Found: It was then reviewed by Sergeant Simon Wright in October˜2014.

Found: It was then reviewed by Sergeant Simon Wright in October˜2014.

Found: Age Cymru Dyfed CEO Simon Wright, said: I’m proud that our charity has been recognised so highly for

Found: Chadwick DfT Sponsor Tony Meggs IPA and CRL Baney Young 2 NR Sponsorship Rob Scopes 3 Deloitte Simon Wright

Found: Cherrington, Pauline W inchester Councillor, Robyn Pattison, Ron McKail Councillor, Ryan MacDonald, Simon Wright

Found: ƒ Simon Wright (University of Wales Trinity St David and Wright’s Food Emporium), Dr Mary Dobbs (Maynooth

Found: Simon Wright (University of Wales Trinity St David and Wright’s Food Emporium) told Members that he

Found: Several stakeholders made the ‘invest to save’ argument Simon Wright (University of Wales Trinity St

Found: the objectives as “quite nebulous” saying there was no clear vision for the food industry.53 Simon Wright

Found: Affairs Committee on 27 October 2022, during an evidence session on the Agriculture (Wales) Bill, Simon Wright

Found: Gavin Bunting - University of Swansea Paul Allen - Centre of Alternative Technology Simon Wright - University

Found: 17 August 2022 17 August 2022 The Minister for Health and Social Services has agreed to appoint Simon Wright

Found: Several stakeholders made the ‘invest to save’ argument Simon Wright (University of Wales Trinity St

Found: ƒ Simon Wright (University of Wales Trinity St David and Wright’s Food Emporium), Dr Mary Dobbs (Maynooth

<p>I would wholeheartedly and 100 per cent agree with what Rocio has said. A national food strategy and a vision for food in Wales is definitely needed, joining up lots of good evidence. You've heard evidence before from Food Sense Wales from Simon Wright. But I think the communities and schools are key because they provide the perfect opportunity. Children want to learn. Children are so easily engaged if you engage with them positively. There are so many good examples of community farms as well where children are taken to a community farm, they plant seeds, they harvest potatoes, they eat them. There are some charities who work with schools. They grow kale, they eat the kale, and those children ask for kale. I mean, that's unheard of, but it does work, and there are plenty of those examples that have worked because you can enthuse children and you can educate parents along the way and get them involved.</p>
<p>So, if you grow food locally, that would be so much better, because the big supermarkets, again, where is their food coming from? We're looking at fruit, we're looking at things like that, they're travelling halfway around the world. So, we need to also focus on local food that's in season because that, again, nutrition is going to be so much better.&nbsp;</p>

<p>I think the Senedd is at its best when it comes together on issues like this, on a cross-party basis, and finds agreement, and I hope the Government, in reflecting on today’s debate, will recognise that this is a Venn diagram of agreement that we have today. And today is another historic moment, for a very important reason. It must surely be the first time that three Members speaking in a debate all have a birthday on the same day, and I think that shouldn’t pass without noting.</p>
<p>I would like to talk a little bit about how we use the food system to leverage broader opportunities for Wales because I do think that our food system and its development is a key part of the foundational economy thinking—how do we harness our spending on well-being critical goods and services, and also benefit grounded local firms. Only about 6 per cent of the fruit and veg used by the Welsh public sector is made up of products grown in Wales. We’re buying and transporting food from other countries, and schoolchildren and hospital patients are routinely eating apples from France, tomatoes from Spain and courgettes from Chile. Now, what’s stopping us from supporting Welsh farmers and buying local? Well, we don’t grow enough veg for a start, so there’s an opportunity for farmers to embrace horticulture to create new sources of income. We hear a lot about lamb, not enough about veg.</p>
<p>There’s also a challenge of what’s called 'aggregating demand'. The fresh local produce for schools feasibility study, commissioned by the Vale of Glamorgan Council, showed that buyers find it hard to deal directly with growers of horticultural produce, and co-ordinating with multiple different producers, washing and peeling the veg, bagging it, arranging for the distribution to the school kitchen is just too difficult. And it highlighted the potential cost benefit of an investment in a central facility to wash, peel and distribute the veg to the standards required by customers, and investment in technology and automation could allow local suppliers to compete with the big international firms who currently dominate. There’s good work being done by the charity Food Sense Wales to look at how to scale up local supplies. Also, the Welsh Veg in Schools project, which benefited, I’m pleased to say, from the Welsh Government’s Backing Local Firms fund, is working with growers across three local authority areas, and supported by co-ordinators from the local food partnerships in Cardiff, Carmarthenshire and Monmouthshire, and they’re now onto the next stage and working with growers, including the wholesaler, Castell Howell, to try and address this disconnect between supply and demand for locally grown horticulture produce.</p>
<p>Now, we should use the public sector as an anchor client for this important development, but we should also remember that when you add together the value of all the public food procurement, it’s the equivalent of the annual turnover of just one large supermarket store. So, what we really need to do is influence the private sector. And there’s a really promising example in Hirwaun, where Authentic Curries and World Foods&nbsp;are developing commercial products using local food, and they’re the leading providers of ready meals for retailers and caterers.</p>
<p>Now, chard and kale may not be on the top of your shopping list—they may be on Jenny Rathbone’s shopping list; I have no doubt that they are, but they’re not on mine—but they are both excellent sources of nutrients and can be grown very successfully in Wales. But how do we get them onto menus and into products that people will buy to create viable levels of demand? Well, the new programme of product development at the Authentic Curry Company is showing this can be done for both public and private sector retail markets. They’ve shown that you can add value and increase the shelf life of vegetables through further processing and cooking&nbsp;to multiportion meals. Welsh tomato sauce pizza bases, cauliflower cheese, and Welsh beef Bolognese have already been successfully developed, and this highlights a route to market where Welsh produce can form the basis of menus that are healthy, cost-effective and climate friendly.</p>
<p>So, how do we scale this up? Well, we need products that customers want to eat. We need a regional infrastructure that develops the supply chain—that’s facilities for collections, distribution and storage. We need technology and innovation for economies of scale. We need to aggregate demand and we need an approach to public procurement that recognises the social value of supporting a sustainable food system. That involves investing in a professional workforce and building confidence.</p>
<p>Let me end, Dirprwy Lywydd, on a note of optimism. There are some good people doing good things. People like Professor Kevin Morgan—and I would heartily endorse Jenny Rathbone’s recommendation of his new book, which I was pleased to see a number of us were present at that launch of—and others like Katie Palmer, Simon Wright, Edward Morgan, and many others in the Welsh good food movement, are doing outstanding work.</p>
<p>Our universal free-school-meals policy is an incredible foundation stone, and we need to leverage it, we need to use it. So, let’s do that. Let’s put booster rockets under our community food strategy, let’s look at Scotland’s Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022, let’s encourage the farming community to embrace this opportunity, and let’s harness the networks of good people doing good things in the good food movement. This is the well-being and future generations thinking in action, and there is cross-party support for it, so let’s get behind it and do something about it.</p>

<p>I’m Simon Wright, I run Places to Eat in west Wales, and I write and broadcast about food. And I’ve recently been working intensively on the Cook24 project in Carmarthenshire, which teaches kids and people in the community to cook. And, today, we’re launching a new organisation called Cegin y Bobl, which will be a charity to continue that work. I also sit on FPAC.</p>

<p>To venture into the world of hammer-related similes, legislation is a sledgehammer and we need to be sure we are not cracking nuts. Whilst we have the power to legislate, we need to also look at every other possible solution before using legislation, to ensure we avoid holding a hammer and treating every problem as a nail.</p>
<p>As such, the committee spent a lot of Stage 1 examining the need for legislation. We heard very compelling arguments around the fruits that could be borne from a joined-up food policy, and an invest-to-save argument that this Bill would reduce burdens on public services through positive outcomes such as a reduction in obesity. For example, we heard from Simon Wright of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Wright's Food Emporium, who told us that existing food policy and legislation is an area where he thinks we've got a serious problem with working in silos.</p>
<p>However, we also heard that the Bill could be overly bureaucratic, and an expensive way to address the issues it seeks to resolve and that it may not deliver the desired outcomes. And so, after examining all the evidence available to us, whilst Members unanimously supported the policy objectives of the Bill, we could not come to a unified position on the need for legislation to deliver these objectives. As a result, the committee cannot give Members a recommendation on how you should vote today.</p>
<p>Whilst the committee could not come to a position on the need for legislation, we do agree that food policy is an area the Welsh Government needs to focus on and prioritise. It was very clear from the evidence received that there is at least the perception of misalignment of food policy, with departments working in silos. The Welsh Government must act to improve its approach to the food system. As Peter described, this Food (Wales) Bill sets out a series of food goals. In response, the Minister sent the committee a letter outlining the Welsh Government's food policies against those goals. This was the first time members of the committee had seen the Welsh Government's food policies set out in one place, and we very much appreciated seeing the Welsh Government's policies set out clearly against the Bill's goals. The committee also welcomed the inclusion of food goals in the Bill, although we did believe the goals as drafted were too sectoral. Those goals would be underpinned by targets set by the Welsh Government. The committee also supports the inclusion of the targets in the Bill. However, we feel that there must be a strong mechanism in place to evaluate and measure progress.</p>
<p>The Bill would establish a food commission—something that would be no small task. Members heard compelling evidence for and against the food commission and could not come to a settled position on its establishment. However, Members feel strongly that something should be established to co-ordinate food policy. We support the Minister’s suggestion of an internal Welsh Government board, or alternatively a new position within the future generations commissioner’s office with responsibility for oversight of the food system.</p>
<p>A key area of the Bill that Members are very supportive of is the national food strategy. For example, Dr Robert Bowen of Cardiff Business School told the committee that a strategy for the food and drink industry is essential, especially considering the challenges that the industry faces in Wales at present. This was the area of the Bill that had the most stakeholder support. Even stakeholders who did not back the Bill in general supported the call for a national food strategy of some kind. Therefore, it's important that the Welsh Government listens to those views and seeks to establish a national food strategy with the aim of joining up food policy.</p>
<p>The Bill also includes provisions that would require certain public bodies to produce local food plans. Members support the inclusion of the food plans in the Bill and have suggested amendments to strengthen local procurement of food and the involvement of community-based organisations in the plans' development. We hope the plans would build on and complement the good work already being undertaken at a local level, for example by local food partnerships across Wales.</p>

<p>Diolch, Cadeirydd. If I could touch on the issue of resourcing, we've had evidence on both sides. We've had Simon Wright and the Nature Friendly Farming Network say that the Bill will save money in the long term, but we've also had local authorities raise concerns, in particular Swansea Council, around the cost being underestimated when it comes to the Bill and that that might have a knock-on effect on council budgets. They cited in particular free school meals as a potential unintended consequence. How would you respond to that?</p>

<p>Diolch, Cadeirydd. If I could just touch on the question of resources briefly. You've said that Bill is resource consuming. Hefin David touched on capacity, and you also mentioned there's no money, but we have had evidence that the approach set out in the Bill will potentially save money in the long term around people's health and environment. Simon Wright and the Nature Friendly Farming Network have been some of the people arguing this point. In fairness to you, I think it's fair to say you've agreed that there's a need for some long-term thinking here, but would you not see this Bill as a potential investment in the long term?</p>

<p>I want to come back to the Agriculture (Wales) Bill and the sustainable land management scheme. Having been involved in the Stage 1 scrutiny of the Bill in a minor way, people like Simon Wright were absolutely clear that we need targets for the way in which we're going to use the sustainable land management scheme to address the sustainability of what we're doing with our land. And I just wondered, in your conversations with the rural affairs Minister, what action you expect the agriculture Bill to do to support emissions reductions.</p>

<p>Thank you. And Simon Wright.</p>

<p>Welcome back to this meeting of the Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee. We'll move now to item 4 on our agenda this morning, and this is the second evidence session that the committee's holding to consider the general principles of the Food (Wales) Bill. May I extend a very warm welcome to our second panel today? Before we move to questions from Members, can I ask the witnesses to introduce themselves for the record, and perhaps I can start with Simon Wright?</p>

<p>Hi, I'm Simon Wright. I'm director of Wright's Food Emporium in Llanarthney and I also work for the University of Wales Trinity Saint David as director of food and rural economy.</p>

<p>And Simon Wright.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Thank you for joining us while you're on holiday. We appreciate that very much. Simon Wright.</p>

<p>Hi, I'm Simon Wright, I'm a director of Wright's Food Emporium in Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire, and I'm director of food and rural economy with the University of Wales Trinity St David. I apologise for my informality—this is how I dress all the time. [<em>Laughter</em>.]</p>