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This from Written Questions on Tuesday 10/12/08 in Scottish Parliament:

Fair Trade

James Kelly (Glasgow Rutherglen) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to promote fair trade. (S3W-18190)
 

Linda Fabiani: The Scottish Government remains committed to promoting fair trade and supporting the Fair Trade Nation campaign. It is for this reason I am pleased to award the Scottish Fair Trade Forum an additional £20,000 for 2008-09 to assist with high visibility advertising and marketing to reach a broad number of people and further increase the public awareness of Fair Trade and Scotland’s Fair Trade Nation campaign.

 
James Kelly (Glasgow Rutherglen) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it has taken to ensure that Fairtrade products are used by agencies across the public sector. (S3W-18191)

 
Linda Fabiani: Guidance issued in 2005 recommends that public bodies should support fair trade and explains how this can be done within procurement legislation by inviting suppliers to include fair trade options in their tenders and by working on a voluntary basis with suppliers once contracts have been awarded.

The Scottish Government leads by example to the public sector and has successfully put this guidance into practice. By working with the catering contractor, the Scottish Government currently offers a wide range of Fairtrade or ethically traded products (including tea, coffee, sugar, juice and snacks) in its staff restaurants. In addition, Fairtrade tea, coffee and sugar are used as standard hospitality for meetings.

I have also written to the Secretary of State for International Development, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Minister for Europe at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the European Commission Office in Edinburgh seeking their views on this matter.

 
James Kelly (Glasgow Rutherglen) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many public agencies are working towards Fairtrade status. (S3W-18193) 
 

Linda Fabiani: This information is not held centrally although all public agencies have received a copy of the guidance issued in 2005 recommending that they should support Fair Trade.

Research indicates that, at present, eight local authorities in Scotland have achieved Fair Trade Zone status. These are Aberdeen, Dundee, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Glasgow and Stirling.

It has been a busy, busy few weeks since I last wrote.

First of all, our first ever Scottish Fairtrade Campaign Day in Dundee on 29 November was attended by over 90 activists from around Scotland. Highlights included workshops on ‘The Future of Fairtrade’ by Veronica Pasteur of the Fairtrade Foundation, feedback from Scottish Fair Trade activists on what they want to do locally and how the Forum can help them (given in my workshop), and a closing address by Andy Good of Equal Exchange.

On 5 December, Scottish Government Minister for EU, External Affairs and Culture, Linda Fabiani MSP, announced the Scottish Government was giving us a funding boost to help us better spread the word about Scotland’s Fair Trade Nation campaign and raise awareness and understanding of Fair Trade in general. To see the full press release, click here. We look forward to the capacity this now gives us to produce promotional materials and reach a broader audience over the next few months.

Aileen Campbell MSP last week introduced a motion in Scottish Parliament (S3M-3040) supporting our joint statement with the National Farmers Union Scotland. The Wales Fair Trade Forum has subsequently followed our lead to work with its own local farmers union to issue a statement agreeing to work together to recognise that farmers everywhere deserve a ’fair deal.’

And, last but not least, today the award letters and cheques for our Small Grant Scheme go out in the post. We received over 20 applications and are giving away over £10,000 in this first round to groups from Arran to Linlithgow to Inverness to boost the Fair Trade projects they would like to carry out. Our second round of grant applications will be open until January 14; applications and guidelines can be found here.