Swinney’s price cap plan gets ‘zero support’ from food sector

A Scottish government proposal to impose a price cap on essential supermarket goods has reportedly received zero support from the food and drink sector.

In a behind closed doors meeting this week, first minister John Swinney consulted Scotland’s retailers, producers, farmers and fishermen, as well as other business organisations, regulators and anti-poverty charities.

Stakeholders had already expressed their objections to the flagship policy last month, when 23 food sector organisations, including Salmon Scotland, wrote to Swinney, warning that the proposal was “unnecessary, ineffective and likely to deliver significant adverse consequences”.

During the roundtable at Holyrood on Tuesday, an apparent bid to repair relations with the industry, every attendee criticised the plan, according to reports.

Ignoring pleas

SNP ministers are ignoring pleas from businesses and insisting the price caps will be brought in by the end of the year. However, the draft legislation is likely to be contested in the courts.

After the meeting, David Thomson, chief executive officer of Food and Drink Federation Scotland, told the Daily Mail: "The summit had participants from farming, fishing, manufacturing, poverty groups, academia and the public sector. From the conversations I heard everyone agreed that people should not have to choose between food and other essentials.

"However, not one person from these very different groups thought that price capping food in supermarkets would achieve that aim. You can’t have been an SNP minister listening in to the conversations without getting the clear message that this policy should be dropped now."

Profound concerns

Ewan MacDonald-Russell, deputy head of the Scottish Retail Consortium, added: "The Scottish Retail Consortium welcomed the chance to reiterate our profound concerns about the ill-considered price cap policy directly to Scottish ministers.

“It remains true statutory price caps run the risk of increasing the cost of a shopping basket, of shortages of capped products, and of damaging our vital Scottish supply chain.

"One thing is clear, after this summit Scottish ministers cannot credibly claim the deleterious unintended consequences of this misbegotten scheme are unforeseen."

The SNP has launched a consultation on the plans which closes in November.