Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, February 28, 2013

Official Report 655KB pdf

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Enough Food for Everyone If Campaign

The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-05450, in the name of Sarah Boyack, on enough food for everyone if Scotland plays its part. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament notes the recent figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations suggesting that 870 million people, or one in eight, were affected by chronic undernourishment in the period 2010 to 2012; welcomes the campaign, Enough Food for Everyone IF, which was launched on 23 January 2013; understands that this has the support of nearly 100 organisations across the UK; notes that a number of these bodies are also members of the Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland, which recently organised the Scotland v Poverty Exhibition that travelled to various venues around the country, including the Lothians, to draw attention to Scotland’s response to global poverty and hunger; understands that the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign calls on the UK Government to meet its promise of spending 0.7% of national income on overseas aid and to use its presidency of the G8 in 2013 to push for global action to tackle tax dodging by multinational companies, end land grabs affecting poor farmers in developing countries and introduce greater transparency by companies and governments in order to enable citizens to hold the powerful to account and ensure that resources are used to help poor people; understands that the campaign has also launched a Scottish manifesto that argues that the country can play its part in ensuring that there is enough food for everyone if it supports the Climate Justice Fund, actively supports fair and ethical trading through its procurement processes, contributes to the global debate on land rights, invests in global citizenship education and audits the impact of Scotland’s public and private sector on developing countries, and hopes that the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign is a success.

12:37

I welcome the opportunity to lead the debate, and I thank members from across the Parliament who signed my motion. I place on record my thanks to the enough food for everyone if campaign for its support in briefing members ahead of the debate and to groups such as Oxfam, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund and Save the Children for giving us such superb briefings.

My motion starts with the simple statement that, around the world, 870 million people, or one in eight of the total population, are affected by chronic undernourishment. Every year, 2.3 million children die of malnutrition, and those who survive experience long-term health impacts that limit their development. Those facts are a global scandal and highlight the inequalities that still exist between the world’s developing and developed countries. Of the 870 million undernourished people in the world, the overwhelming majority live in developing countries. They experience higher levels of poverty and have low incomes and poor healthcare, education and nutrition. In the developing world in particular, those challenges are compounded by conflicts, natural disasters and climate change, which put further pressure on food security.

In recent decades, action has been taken on hunger at international level and some progress has been made, but not enough. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization stated, in publishing its latest figures on undernourishment, that the millennium development goal of halving the proportion of hungry people by 2015 is still achievable. However, although the proportion of people who are hungry dropped from nearly 19 per cent to 12.5 per cent over the past two decades, the world’s population has grown, so the reduction in the number of people who are hungry has not been as pronounced. Despite initial progress towards the MDG target, we now have the impact of the global financial crisis. In fact, in Africa, the number of people who go hungry has increased in recent years. Research by Save the Children shows that, in 2012, the number of hungry children in the world rose for the first time in a decade.

The if campaign is crucial in putting the issue on our agenda. It is the largest coalition of its kind since the make poverty history campaign and brings together nearly 150 development organisations that cover a broad range of interests, including some of the United Kingdom’s best-known and respected charities. More than 50,000 people have signed up to support the campaign, and there have been more than 90,000 tweets about it. The campaign has backing from high-profile figures such as Bill Gates, Desmond Tutu and Joyce Banda.

We need to reach a tipping point at which the calls for action are so loud that world leaders cannot ignore them. This year, 2013, can be the beginning of the end for global hunger, but only if we act together at all levels of government and society. Many of the Scottish organisations that are involved have embraced a proactive approach, through the network of international development organisations in Scotland—NIDOS—whose recent travelling exhibition, Scotland versus poverty, drew attention to our response to global poverty and hunger. I was proud to welcome NIDOS to our Parliament in January.

This Parliament and Scottish Governments past and present have rightly sought to support international development. Our close links with Malawi, in particular, will be visible this year as we celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of David Livingstone. However, as the if manifesto points out, there is much more that we in Scotland can do now to support, protect, inspire, learn and improve as part of our commitment to the developing world.

For example, we can take action on climate change. Crop yields could fall by half in parts of Africa by 2020 and up to a third in Asia by 2050. Support to help smallholder farmers to adapt to extreme weather is fundamental to tackling hunger. Our Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 has been described as world leading; we now need to go faster. The if campaign has an on-going commitment from the Scottish Government to the international development fund and the climate justice fund. Given that the Government supports those funds, I would be interested to hear from the minister how they will be developed in future.

There is also Fairtrade fortnight. At the start of this week, it was announced that Scotland has achieved fair-trade nation status. We should be proud of that achievement and do more to support fair trade and ethical purchasing. As the if campaign points out, tax avoidance by big business and wealthy individuals denies developing countries vital resources that could be used to combat hunger. There are opportunities for the Scottish Government to lead by example and further support ethical purchasing decisions through the forthcoming procurement reform bill. Transparent reporting, to assess the direct and indirect impact of the Scottish Government’s policies on the developing world, would strengthen the approach.

Support for the development of sustainable agriculture is key. The poorest farmers are losing out, because land grabs are taking away their agricultural land, which is being given over to non-food crops.

The if campaign highlights that the responsibility for tackling the problems that face the developing world rests with all of us. Fantastic work on global citizenship is going on in Scotland’s schools to teach young people to understand international issues and their role and responsibility in bringing change. However, demand for development education centres, which provide professional support for that fantastic work, is outstripping supply, so some teachers and pupils are missing out. I hope that the minister will reflect on that challenge and say what the Scottish Government is doing to ensure that there is enough support for global citizenship learning throughout our schools.

At a recent meeting of the cross-party group on international development, the minister said that the Scottish Government is giving close consideration to the objectives of the if campaign. I hope to hear today from the minister what he and his Government will do to provide active support.

The campaign’s four main themes at UK level are aid, land, tax and transparency. The UK takes on the presidency of the G8 this year, so we should be well placed to set a positive example and put world hunger firmly on the agenda. Today, I hope that we will show that the Scottish Parliament continues to be fully engaged with and committed to the issues. I hope that we can send a message to the Scottish and UK Governments that we want everyone to make 2013 the beginning of the end for global hunger.

12:44

Let me be the first member to congratulate Sarah Boyack on securing this debate—I must apologise to Ms Boyack, because I will not be able to attend her reception next week. The enough food for everyone if campaign is an excellent and important initiative, which is well worthy of debate. I also congratulate all the organisations that are involved in the campaign. It is good to see them coming together in that fashion.

“If you, if we, if everyone believes

in no hunger or despair

We’ll change the world for everyone.”

That is the chorus to a song that was written by Whitelees primary school in my constituency and performed at the launch event for the campaign. I was very happy to visit Whitelees primary on Monday to see that song performed, which was excellent and reaffirmed the school’s commitment to concepts of global citizenship, which have been well entrenched by its headteacher, Ann Kay. The school has done work of that nature before; in fact, it wrote another song for fair trade and worked on it with SCIAF. I know that the school hopes to record its current song and work with SCIAF to do a bit more fundraising. I wish it well in that regard. While I am at it, I invite the minister to come and visit Whitelees if he gets the opportunity. I know that he would be made welcome and I am sure that the school would love to perform the song for him as well.

Earlier this week, the prophet Isaiah was mentioned at time for reflection. I am reminded of one of his commands, to “undo the heavy burdens” of the oppressed. I think that we would all agree that doing the best for their children is a human imperative for all parents. I know that when I am with my children, that is the imperative that I have. Trying to do the best for one’s children should not be viewed as a heavy burden, but for too many around the globe it is. No one should see their child die before them, least of all because of hunger, yet we know that four children die every minute because of malnutrition. That is why the if campaign is important.

We know the four key aspects of the call on David Cameron to use the UK’s G8 presidency this year to take action on the root causes of the hunger crisis in the poorest countries. We know that it is about stopping farmers being forced off their land; trying to get Governments to keep their promises on aid; trying to get Governments to close loopholes to stop big companies avoiding tax in poor countries; and forcing Governments and investors to be open and honest about the deals that they make in the world’s poorest countries. Those would be far better aims than redirecting international aid to defence spending, which has been suggested elsewhere. I hope that the UK Government will respond to the call and I am sure that the Scottish Government will put pressure on it to do so.

Malnutrition also affects children’s life chances. Sarah Boyack talked about the health impacts on those who survive malnutrition. Save the Children has told us:

“Malnutrition can undermine children’s future earning potential by as much as 20% and inhibit economic growth by as much as 3% of GDP”.

That is perhaps not something that we think of when we consider this challenge. It is an important point to make, because the life chances of those affected by poverty have to be part of the equation as well.

I hope that the Scottish Government will respond to the calls from the campaign, which has set out a number of ways that we can help here in Scotland. I thought that one of the interesting ones was to try to reflect on Scotland’s historical experience of land-rights issues in the Highland clearances and the Lowland clearances and perhaps to host a global land hearing to discuss how lessons from Scotland’s experience can help inform better practice around the world. I will be interested to hear how the Scottish Government can take that forward. I congratulate Sarah Boyack once again on securing the debate.

12:48

I welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues in the chamber today. The resources of so many organisations working together can help focus minds on important global issues such as the ones raised by the if campaign and the motion: land grabbing, tax dodging and the impact of Scotland’s public and private sectors on developing countries.

Hunger is a devastating, debilitating crisis for a shocking number of people around the world and it is right that we take every action we can to make sure that people have fair access to the resources that they need to feed themselves. The problem is often framed as hunger, but really hunger is not the root problem; rather, it is a horrifying symptom. Not to investigate the root problem will lead to continual sticking-plaster solutions that we should not be content to accept.

The if campaign recognises that. Its ask for global citizenship education is to increase our understanding of the complex root causes of hunger and to help people recognise their own role in tackling it. Global citizenship makes the connections between the political decisions and actions of powerful people and companies, often in rich countries, and the poverty, inequality and hunger that we see perpetuated around the globe. The powerful influence of some multinational companies, many of which are based in the UK, allows them to avoid tax here and operate in poorer countries at criminally low rates of taxation, extracting natural resources without fair reward for those countries and jeopardising their ability to develop their economies on their own terms.

The issue of tax dodging is on the table today and available for large non-governmental organisations to campaign on because of the bold and creative campaigns of direct action by the likes of UK Uncut, many of whose members are treated as domestic extremists by the UK Government. The Scottish Government can set an example and provide leadership through the forthcoming procurement bill by putting ethical and fair-trade considerations at its core and through a robust, well-resourced and loophole-free revenue Scotland.

This month, a light has been shone on the convoluted, murky supply chains of the meat processing industry that supplies our supermarkets. It reminds us of the power of corporate interests in the food chain, which has an impact on the poorest people in rich countries, as well as on poor countries. It is vital to remember that our approach to global food issues must be informed by the hundreds of millions of farmers in developing countries, and their communities, not just by the Department for International Development or NGOs. Food sovereignty is the unifying call of the amazing La Via Campesina and other farmers’ movements. Food sovereignty means returning control over the food system to farmers. We must learn from such movements. We can also learn from the work, perspective and experience of NGOs that are not officially part of the if campaign.

Biofuels are highlighted in the motion. The if campaign says that we must stop poor farmers being forced off their land by biofuels. Demand for biofuels is driven in the UK by an ill-thought-out, mandatory policy that demands that there is a percentage of biofuel in all UK road fuel by April this year. It was introduced by the Labour Government and urgently needs to be reviewed by the European Union.

The UK Government has presidency of the G8 this year. The if campaign is timed to put pressure on G8 countries to change practices that lock too many poor people into hunger. We should not allow the G8 Governments to make warm commitments but deliver little. That just fuels cynicism and anger. The G8 should not be used by David Cameron to burnish his and his Government’s credentials, while cynically promoting a toxic free-market system that widens inequality and removes people’s ability to develop on their own terms. Events at home illustrate the need to move away from immense corporate domination of our food chain, which, for too many people, does not work. We need to look outwards and use our new fair-trade nation status to promote positive choices that ensure that people throughout the world are free from a system that locks in poverty and that they are able to develop and feed themselves.

The if campaign is putting world hunger on the agenda. A commitment to end world hunger will need structural change. Here in Scotland, we must play an active part in achieving that change.

12:53

I congratulate my colleague Sarah Boyack on securing the debate—a debate that is particularly welcome during Fairtrade fortnight. I also congratulate the towns, cities, schools, colleges, universities and church groups and all the other people and organisations that have contributed so much towards Scotland’s achievement of fair-trade nation status. It is some time since the intention to aim for that status was first announced, but I do not say that as a criticism. For me, it was always about how many people and organisations we could persuade to join us on the journey and not about getting to the destination quickly or first.

That people go to bed hungry today should be the greatest scandal of our age but the greater scandal is that they go to bed hungry in a world that has enough food for everyone. Save the Children tells us that 2 million children die every year or have their development damaged irreparably because they do not have enough food. It also tells us that malnutrition is the underlying cause of death for some 2.3 million children every year. We know that if someone is not well, and is hungry in the first place, their resistance to everyday diseases will be much more weakened.

We also know that families in the developing world often have to choose between, say, paying for education and buying food, particularly, it has to be said, when there are girl children in the family. Families should not have to make those choices in this day and age.

Oxfam, Save the Children, SCIAF and the other 147 organisations that support them are right to identify this as a topic to be considered as we approach the next G8 summit. Those organisations are to be congratulated on their imaginative approach to campaigning against this outrage by drawing our attention not just to the problem but to its root causes, and demanding that action is taken to tackle it. They are right to say that the G8 needs to take action to enhance food security and transparency, accountability and governance throughout the food system.

I was going to contrast the ideal of that demand with the horsemeat crisis that we have experienced in recent weeks, but Alison Johnstone has more than adequately addressed that, so I will not bother going back over it. It is welcome that the UK Government plans to use the G8 to focus attention on this issue, but it must go further. It must also look at its commitment to development, and deliver on behalf of us all.

I mentioned fair trade at the beginning of my speech. Of course, one of fair trade’s aims is to provide better working conditions for farmers. Many of those working on the land in developing countries are finding rivers diverted, land contaminated and, in some cases, land grabbed from them by wealthy conglomerates. Add to that the fact that climate change disproportionately affects the most vulnerable people in the world and we have a perfect storm of crisis throughout large parts of the world.

The if campaign has identified the problems and the solutions. It is up to us all to make 2013 the year in which we begin to tackle global hunger.

12:57

I thank Sarah Boyack for raising this subject and securing the debate. The briefing material that we have had from Oxfam, Tearfund, SCIAF and others has been impressive.

There is a lot that we can say and there are a lot of figures that we could quote, which others are doing in the debate, but I will focus on two main points. First, we need fairer systems, including for trade and land ownership. Secondly, we need to increase overseas aid. In one sense that is one point, because I believe strongly that we need to do both things.

On the one hand, some would argue that the need is so great today that the issue should be about immediate aid: giving people food. Just yesterday, I received an email from Tearfund, which asked for money for its appeal for Syria. There and elsewhere the need is present right now, not 10 years ahead. Some would argue that the longer term is a luxury that we cannot afford.

On the other hand, others would say that short-term aid would just need to be repeated and is not worth while, so all the effort should be in long-term investment: changing the rules and changing land ownership. If I can make one point today, it is that we need to do both those things, not either/or, and I am glad that most of the briefings that we have received from different groups have covered that.

I will make some points about a fairer trade system. At a time of economic pressure, such as the one we are in just now, for many in our society the need is to buy the cheapest product—the cheapest food and clothes—and perhaps not worry too much about where it came from. For some in our society, that has to be the case, and we do not criticise them for it.

However, the reality is that many of us can and do make choices about what we buy, how much it costs and where it came from. The reality is that, if we take this country as a whole, we are a rich country. If we reallocated our own income and wealth more fairly in Scotland and the UK, many more people here would be able to pay a fair price for the goods that they buy.

Within the system we need more transparency in company accounts, which is recognised as key. I am an accountant and I whole-heartedly support that concept. It has been estimated that developing countries lose something like £100 billion per annum from tax dodging, and I have seen higher figures than that.

We used to think that it was only developing countries that were being fiddled out of their corporation tax as profits were moved away to western investors, but we now realise that the UK and Scotland are also losing out as multinationals move their profits around. For all those reasons, we need accounts that show the prices at which goods are crossing borders and hence the turnover and profit in each country in the supply chain, which at times, as we have been reminded, can be extremely long.

Land ownership is key to all of this. Our own land ownership, which has been a problem in the past, has been updated but we probably need to go further. Even here, however, we have seen resistance from rich landowners to the reallocation of land ownership. I certainly do not advocate marching into other countries and changing their laws like some colonial power but we can work with and, I hope, support local groups that are seeking to improve land ownership. The Bible has an interesting concept that all land should revert to the original family every 50 years, but that might be a bit too radical for some.

Finally, we need to give more overseas aid. It has often been said—indeed, we cannot say it often enough—that we should be meeting the 0.7 per cent target and trying to hit 1 per cent in due course. I believe that it is better to give as much of that aid as possible through the third sector rather than through Government; I certainly have more faith in many NGOs than I have in many Governments.

To those who say that we should help those at home before we help those overseas, I say that we are a rich country and can do both.

13:01

I, too, congratulate Sarah Boyack on securing this important debate.

The world produces enough food for everyone but not everyone has enough food. One in eight people go to bed hungry at night, and each year 2 million children die because they cannot get enough to eat. The enough food for everyone if campaign aims to turn people’s shock and anger at hearing those statistics into the will to make a difference, and it asks all of us to unite in saying that the situation is unfair, unjust and totally preventable.

This inspirational campaign, which mobilises people from all walks of life, has a manifesto for Scotland that clearly sets out why we should be involved and what could be achieved here through supporting, protecting, inspiring, learning and improving. I am certainly committed to playing my part.

There is no doubt that the countries most affected by climate change are by and large those that have contributed the least to it, and they are poorly resourced to respond to the challenges that it brings. As a result, I welcomed the introduction last year of the climate justice fund and I support the calls for the fund to match the international development fund by 2016. I look forward to hearing what the minister has to say in that regard.

Scotland can and ought to lead by example. We should use the opportunity of the procurement reform bill to ensure that public sector purchasing decisions do not support trade where goods or services are produced through the use of environmentally damaging methods or the exploitation of workers in poor countries. That purchasing power, which is worth around £9 billion a year, should be used to support change around the world.

SCIAF has pointed out that unfair trade means that smallholder farmers still receive only a tiny proportion of the price that we pay for our food. Despite producing food for a third of the human race, the majority of the world’s hungry people are small-scale farmers; indeed, 80 per cent of the world’s undernourished people live in rural areas, the majority of them on small farms. Scotland has a good record in supporting fair trade—indeed, it has just become a fair-trade nation—and we must build on those foundations.

According to Oxfam’s briefing note to members, global citizenship education is about understanding the need to tackle injustice and inequality and having the desire and ability to work actively to do so. It is a way of thinking and behaving; it is an outlook on life and a belief that we can all make a difference.

Oxfam also supports the development education centres in Scotland that play such a vital role in providing professional support to teachers and youth workers and equipping them to deliver global citizenship education.

In my region in the north-east, the Montgomery development education centre in Aberdeen is doing sterling work. It has an extensive library of resources that explore, for example, global awareness, citizenship, human rights, the environment and sustainable development, and it supports schools and communities in their quest to include those issues in the curriculum.

Some schools start out on the journey by introducing their pupils to the rights respecting schools award while others highlight more familiar issues surrounding fair trade but, however the journey starts, I am quite clear that this teaching encourages a new way of thinking not only about life in other countries but about how our own communities operate and how to bring about a fairer society.

Although the Montgomery centre works with many schools in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, it is currently working in a more immersive way with all staff in six primary schools to embed citizenship education more quickly and thoroughly. Aberdeenshire Council, which Liberal Democrats have been involved in running since its inception, has a member of staff who is seconded to the role of citizenship development officer and she works closely with the centre.

Last summer, a number of primary school teachers from Aberdeenshire travelled to Uganda as part of the global teachers programme, which is run by the Link Community Development charity and funded by the Wood Family Trust.

A global citizenship mindset is key to unlocking a fairer and more just Scotland, and it is important that the good work of the development education centres, which are currently operating on a shoestring budget, is protected and enhanced. I urge the Government to invest more in that area.

I give my whole-hearted support to the campaign.

13:05

I thank Sarah Boyack for bringing this campaign to the Scottish Parliament and for securing a debate on her motion, which I am delighted to support.

I declare an interest as a farmer and a food producer, a very deliberate and conscious career choice at the age of 21, when I returned home from university to run our family farm and produce food for a then hungry world—more than 40 years ago. Regrettably, little has changed: the issue of world hunger is still one of the most serious development challenges that the world faces.

As Sarah Boyack’s motion states, nearly a billion people around the world do not get enough food, and undernutrition holds back the growth and development of millions of children. As has already been said, each year 2.3 million children die from malnutrition and 14 per cent of all women, men and children go to bed hungry every night—a truly shocking statistic.

Food prices have recently been at their highest in decades and are increasingly volatile. The high prices affect not only developing countries: even in the UK, many hard-working people struggle to find the money to feed their families, as highlighted this week in north Ayr, in my constituency, where 33 per cent of children—or one in three—are born into and reared in poverty. As anyone who visits a supermarket can see, there is enough food for everyone, but people cannot afford to buy it. The rising number of food banks in South Ayrshire and across Scotland is further testimony to that, if one was needed.

There is little doubt that climate change is having an impact on global food production, and extreme weather events are also causing food price spikes as well as concerns over security of supply. Last year, the Scottish Government announced that it would set up the climate justice fund, and the first funding commitments were announced in June of last year—well done.

The UN summit at Doha this year was a key opportunity to promote the work that is already being done in Scotland and in the UK, and I encourage all countries, particularly those in the EU as they deliberate on the reform of the common agricultural policy, to understand the importance of food security and the implications of climate change and to join us in taking steps to mitigate its impacts.

The motion calls on the UK Government to do more to tackle food poverty and to protect land from abuse. I will outline briefly what is already being done on a UK level. Under the coalition Government, UK annual spend on nutrition has almost doubled from £19.3 million in 2009-10 to £37.5 million in 2011-12. Last year, during the London Olympics, ministers used the international exposure to hold a global hunger summit, which led to the commitment to develop and deliver drought-resistant and vitamin-enriched crops that could help to feed millions of people. As has already been mentioned, women and children are often worst affected by hunger and poverty. By 2015, the UK will have reached 20 million pregnant women and children under five with nutrition programmes.

The if campaign calls for the UK Government to meet its commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product on development spending and to take full advantage of the UK presidency of the G8. This year, the UK Government will become the first G8 country to meet that commitment, and ministers plan to use a major event before the G8 summit to drive further global action to reduce hunger and malnutrition.

The UK Government will also drive forward progress on the G8 new alliance for food security and nutrition, which aims to lift 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years through sustainable agricultural growth.

Another concern relating to the provision of food and sustainability of crops is the issue of large companies avoiding paying taxes, thus depriving developing countries of the funds that are necessary to implement food security measures. The Prime Minister has put tackling tax avoidance at the top of the G8 agenda, but this is a global issue that needs to be tackled on a global scale. In the Prime Minister’s recent letter to G8 leaders, he highlighted that they can lead the way in information sharing to tackle abuses of the system, including in developing countries, so that Governments can collect the taxes that are due to them.

This is a matter of enormous importance to those who are less fortunate than ourselves and to my constituents at Riverside church in Ayr, who have drawn the if campaign to my attention. I look forward to hearing from the minister what further help the Scottish Government is able to give in support of the enormously worthwhile if campaign.

13:10

This has been a good debate. Like other members, I am grateful to Sarah Boyack for raising the issue. I recognise her commitment to international development, which, from reading her biography, I see extends outwith this chamber, as she had a passion for the subject even before she was elected to the Scottish Parliament. I am pleased that we are debating this issue.

Contributions across the chamber have been excellent. Jamie Hepburn, Alison Johnstone, Alex Fergusson, Alison McInnes, John Mason and John Scott all did the subject justice. I have only a short time in which to speak, so I might have to give some weighty issues a relatively cursory response, but I will try to address as many as possible of the issues that members raised.

I will start by reiterating the support of others in the chamber for the objectives of the if campaign and its focus on investment, land tax and transparency in support of development. The if campaign manifesto requests that a number of actions be undertaken by Scotland, and the Scottish Government will consider them with care. Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting some of the key spokespeople in the if campaign to discuss the manifesto, and I hope that we will make progress on those matters. Members will appreciate that it has been only a month since the launch of the manifesto. The discussions will be on-going, and we will keep members updated. However, I can give members an outline of what I see as the general direction of the response to the calls of the if campaign.

The launch last year of the climate justice fund—mentioned by a number of members, including Sarah Boyack, Alison McInnes and John Scott—by the First Minister and Mary Robinson, with a £3 million contribution, was a significant innovation. The first of the projects associated with it was announced recently. I note the if campaign’s request for additional investment from the Scottish Government in the climate justice fund so that it matches the international development fund by 2016. That is a reassuring sign of the success of the climate justice fund. In the short term, we have announced our intention to host a major international climate justice conference in Scotland in October this year. Campaigners can rest assured that we are consistently thinking about how we can improve that internationally recognised, innovative fund.

On development education, members will know that enabling young people to develop into responsible global citizens is an integral part of the curriculum for excellence. That was mentioned by Jamie Hepburn in particular. I am more than happy to visit the school that he mentioned, should that invitation come. I am only sorry that he did not give us a rendition of the if campaign song.

We want our young people to have an understanding of Scotland’s place in the world and our ability to make informed ethical choices on matters that will affect them now and in the future. We recognise and value the contributions that are made to global learning by Scotland’s development education centres, be they in Alison McInnes’s region or any other part of Scotland. Therefore, we are pleased to have announced the co-financing arrangement, which followed the successful application to the European Commission. The funding will support valuable projects that raise awareness of issues, including poverty and its effects. More importantly, as Alison McInnes said, those projects will sow the seeds of humanity and compassion in our children.

It was clear, throughout a number of the speeches, that the forthcoming procurement bill is of great interest. It will play a central role in the if Scotland protects element of the campaign. As we know, existing public procurement legislation permits the exclusion of bidders who have been convicted of offences relating to bribery, corruption, fraud or non-payment of taxes.

The procurement bill will establish a legislative framework for substantial public procurement that supports Scotland’s economic growth. Among the areas that the bill will look at are public procurement processes that are transparent, streamlined and proportionate; taking account of social and environmental sustainability; and dealing with inappropriate conduct and poor-performing suppliers.

Meetings have already taken place on the specifics of the bill involving Scottish Government ministers, non-governmental organisations and officials. I know that, as the bill is developed, the issues will come to the fore. Guidance will be developed over the coming year to help public bodies comply with the requirements of the forthcoming bill. I am sure that members of the if campaign will take a keen interest in that.

My colleague John Swinney has said clearly that a planned consultation document on a future tax management bill will consider the issue of tax avoidance further and that the Scottish Government is committed to establishing a fair and transparent corporate tax system to attract genuine economic activity and retain it in Scotland, which will adopt rigorous institutional accounting.

A number of colleagues referred to the fact that this debate takes place during Fairtrade fortnight and a few days after Scotland achieved fair-trade nation status. However, as Alison Johnstone quite rightly said, this is not the end by any stretch of the imagination; it is simply the beginning.

The request that the Scottish Government monitor and improve its impact on global hunger and poverty is an important one. The Swedish approach to civil society reporting on Government will be discussed at a forthcoming NIDOS conference that I will attend, so I will be interested to hear about that.

The suggestion that Scotland use its history to inform current global debates on land tenure is innovative. I will attend an Oxfam event in Helmsdale on Monday, and I look forward to hearing more there about that element of the campaign. We recognise the crucial role that land reform plays in a country’s success by improving or preserving the relationship between land and people.

Looking at the wider national if campaign, a number of its asks are currently outwith the gift of the Scottish Government. I will refer quickly to just some points in that regard. The if campaign has requested that the UK Government meet its commitment to the 0.7 per cent gross national income target. I welcome the UK Government’s insistence that it will meet that target. It will be the first G8 country to do so, an achievement which is extraordinarily overdue. As we have said, should we have control over international development powers in the future, the Scottish Government would commit to the 0.7 per cent target and look towards achieving 1 per cent.

What is more important is that Scotland would look to develop clear policy coherence for development across Government, building on international best practice, and to ensure that our other policies do not harm the international development policy. With that in mind, I was particularly concerned by the Prime Minister’s recent proposal to use aid money on defence. I hope that he will reflect on that further and abandon the proposal.

By giving the issues that the if campaign highlights as much attention as possible and getting the Parliament to speak with a unified voice on them, we can do the issues a great service. I commend Sarah Boyack for bringing forward the debate. I will continue to keep members up to date about our progress on the if campaign manifesto, and I am pleased to close the debate on behalf of the Government.

13:18 Meeting suspended.

14:30

On resuming—