Responsibility for trade and industry should be devolved to Holyrood, according to one of the UK’s leading experts on nutrition.

The move would allow Scotland to take charge of food policy, improve people’s diet and tackle the nation’s appalling health record.

“We have to have a grasp on food and that means trade and industry,” said Professor Mike Lean, chair of Human Nutrition at Glasgow University. “To have it reserved - and to have the supermarkets laughing at us - means we are up a gum tree.”

Lean was speaking in response to the call from Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, for a national food policy. “We have a policy already,” said Lean, referring to the Scottish Diet Action Plan (SDAP), published in 1996 and reviewed by an expert panel last year.

“It’s a good policy which has stood the test of time but the implementation of that policy was not taken seriously when we wrote it. We set all these targets and the bottom line is that we are either nowhere near them or in the case of some, actually heading in the opposite direction.”

Lean said that his experience of Finland, before it joined the EU, and of New Zealand had demonstrated to him that a nation needs to take control of both its health policy and food industry to truly have an impact.

“In New Zealand, they don’t have [another country] controlling all its shops and they don’t have the EU controlling legislation and labelling. Before Finland joined the EU, they put in place some pretty dramatic measures, including labelling, which prompted the food industry to change what they were providing and health to improve,” he said.

Lean added: “By increasing powers in the trade and industry sphere to have some influence over food would be valuable. Health is already devolved but one of the things that influences health - food supply - is not, so there is a mismatch.”

Lochhead has convened meetings of health and food industry experts to formulate a policy which addresses health, environment and economic issues. He plans to present a paper to the Cabinet and to launch a debate in Parliament.

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