The Good Food Nation (Specified Functions and Descriptions) (Scottish Ministers) Regulations 2025 were introduced on Monday 27th of October. They will be subject to the affirmative procedure, meaning that they will need to be considered and voted upon by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee and a lead committee, in this case the Rural Affairs and Islands committee. Both committees will have 40 days to gather evidence on the draft legislation, and must publish their report by 5th December 2025. The committees usually hear from the minister responsible, here the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands, and their officials, but they may also consult with experts. The lead committee will vote on whether to recommend that the regulation becomes law, and then the whole Parliament will vote based on this recommendation. Rejections are relatively rare, and when they happen the Government usually withdraws its draft before re-laying a new version. Once these regulations are approved, Scottish Ministers will be able to add to the list of specified functions and descriptions when required, although this time under the less strict negative procedure. A similar set of regulations applying to Relevant Authorities will also need to be drafted once Section 10 is triggered. This will require a dedicated consultation exercise, but the draft legislation will be subject to the negative procedure.
The general idea behind specified functions and descriptions, as described in this note published alongside the Proposed National Good Food Nation Plan, is to avoid the unnecessary requirements of a blanket “have regard” duty on policy areas unrelated to food, and clearly link the plan with the most relevant parts of Government activity. The regulations were drafted based on the suggestions received during a public consultation and extensive engagement with policy teams within Scottish Government. The proposed draft consists of two schedules. The first covers specified functions, which are duties or powers given to Scottish Ministers by sections of other Acts or Regulations. The second schedule is a list of subject matters on which the Government may exercise its more generic function of making policies, strategies, plans or guidance. Whenever Scottish Ministers will want to exercise a power defined under a specified function or description, they will need to “have regard” to the Good Food Nation plan, meaning that they will need to prove they have taken the plan into account and give clear reasons for departing from its contents.
According to the policy note published alongside the draft regulations, the list of specified functions and descriptions aims to cover the policy areas mentioned in the Good Food Nation Plan. Depending on how some of the matters listed are defined, the scope of the draft instrument could be quite broad, as seen in the summary below. At the same time, a number of important Acts and policy areas are notably absent, like for instance plant health, fair work, or the duty to prepare a rural support plan under the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024. It remains to be seen whether these will be picked up during the Parliamentary scrutiny.
Specified functions
Under the draft regulations, specified functions are the following powers conferred to Scottish Ministers to:
- make arrangements and disseminate information to promote and encourage breastfeeding [section 38A of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978]
- amend description of pupils entitled to free school meals (by regulation) [section 53(8) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980]
- specify nutritional requirements for food and drink provided to pupils in public schools (by regulation) and issue relevant guidance to education authorities on nutritional requirements and the application of the principles of sustainable development [sections 56A(1), 56C and 56(E) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980]
- establish (by regulation) schemes to provide benefits for improving the nutrition of pregnant women, mothers and children [section 13(1) of the Social Security Act 198]
- make schemes to provide grants and (by regulation) provide loans to crofters [sections 42(1) and 46A(2) of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993]
- make codes of practice or issue guidance on animal welfare [sections 37(1) and 38 of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006]
- issuing guidance about the carrying out of functions to community planning partnerships [section 15(1) of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015]
- amend (by order) duties placed on local authorities to provide allotments and issue guidance about the carrying out of functions related to allotment provision [sections 112(5), 112(6) and 137(1) of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015]
- issuing guidance for local authorities or childcare providers with respect to the operation of the milk and healthy snack scheme [sections 17 and 18 of the Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2021]
And the duties to:
- review, revise or amend the National Planning Framework [sections 3AA(1), 3AA(3) or 3CC(1) of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997]
- lay a revised land use strategy before Parliament every 5 years [section 57(6) of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009]
- prepare and adopt or revise a national marine plan [sections 5(1) and 8(1) of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010]
- review and revise the environmental policy strategy [section 47(9) of the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021]
- prepare, review or revise the circular economy strategy [sections 1(1), 4(1) or 4(2) of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024]
Specified descriptions
Scottish Ministers must also have regard to the GFN plan when making policies (including proposals for legislation), strategies, plans or guidance about any of the following matters (specified descriptions):
- breastfeeding
- child poverty
- community food growing or allotments
- diet-related health conditions
- diet-related health inequalities
- eating disorders
- education about food or nutrition
- food advertising
- food labelling
- household food insecurity
- food security
- food waste
- nutrition, including nutritional recommendations, information or requirements
- organic production or organic standards
- the food business sector
- the procurement of food
- the provision of food
- welfare food schemes
- the welfare and health of animals in the food system
- deer management