Official Report 789KB pdf
Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025 [Draft]
Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland (Designation of Scheme Administrator) Order 2025 [Draft]
Item 3 is consideration of two draft statutory instruments. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee raised points in relation to both instruments. In relation to the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025, it has reported a defective drafting issue under reporting ground (i) and seven issues under the general reporting ground.
In relation to the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland (Designation of Scheme Administrator) Order 2025, the DPLR Committee has reported one issue of defective drafting under reporting ground (i), one issue where the meaning should be clearer under reporting ground (h) and two issues under the general reporting ground.
The Scottish Government has committed to corrective action on most of those points. Further detail is set out in the clerk’s note on the instruments and, of course, in the DPLR Committee’s report.
I welcome back to the committee Gillian Martin, Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy, and her supporting officials for this item: Giles Hendry, policy officer, deposit return scheme; Ailsa Heine, solicitor; and Haydn Thomas, producer responsibility unit head.
The instruments are laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that they cannot come into force unless the Parliament approves them. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider two motions recommending that the instruments be approved. I remind everyone that Scottish Government officials can speak under this item but not in the debate that follows under the next item.
I invite the acting cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.
Thank you, convener, for the opportunity to discuss these two instruments, both of which were laid in Parliament on 2 May. The Government has been committed to the introduction of a deposit return scheme since 2019 in order to promote and secure an increase in recycling of materials by applying a deposit to single-use drinks containers.
Since a DRS in Scotland was delayed in June 2023, we have worked with industry, stakeholders, the UK Government and other devolved Governments to agree the principles of a DRS that will operate compatibly. That work culminated in the publication of a joint policy paper in April 2024, which set out the broad design of the schemes that had been agreed with industry and between all Governments at the time.
The Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025 amend the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020. The 2025 regulations alter the implementation date for Scotland’s DRS to October 2027, remove glass from the scope of the scheme and make other amendments to support the operation of our DRS in an interoperable way with other nations.
The order designates the UK Deposit Management Organisation as the scheme administrator to operate a DRS in Scotland. That follows an open application process and a joint assessment alongside the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. It also confers functions on that body as the scheme administrator. The organisation will also operate the scheme in England and Northern Ireland.
Once the DRS scheme administrator is formally designated, subject to Parliament’s approval, it will begin the process of implementing a DRS on behalf of industry.
Together, the instruments provide the legislative framework for a DRS in Scotland, ensuring that the schemes in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland can operate seamlessly with each other and launch jointly on 1 October 2027.
The DRS forms part of the Scottish Government’s response to the global climate emergency by ensuring that plastic and metal drinks containers are kept out of our bins and off our streets and instead are recycled for future use, bringing both environmental and economic benefits.
We will continue to engage constructively with industry and with the other nations across the UK to support the successful delivery of our DRS in 2027, joining the other 50-plus deposit return schemes in operation over the world.
I look forward to our discussion.
Thank you, cabinet secretary. We move to questions, and I will start us off. What substantive changes have been made to the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025 in order to align with the scheme in England and Northern Ireland?
I am happy to answer that, convener. I will take you through the substantive changes to the current regulations for Scotland. The first thing, crucially, is that the timeline is revised to launch the DRS in October 2027. Glass is removed from the scheme. The minimum container size has increased from 100ml to 150ml. Producers will be required to register with the scheme administrator rather than SEPA. Supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores and newsagents will be required to host return points unless their premises are less than 100m2 in size and in an urban area. Take-back services may be provided voluntarily and organisations must register to operate take-back services.
10:30I mentioned the designation of the new scheme administrator, UK DMO. It will have additional functions. The scheme administrator must issue a logo and a machine-readable code, and it may issue a logo identifying multipacks containing scheme articles. It will determine the deposit level, which may be a flat or variable rate. Those who want a review of the rate can request one from the scheme administrator. Any scheme administrator will also determine applications for an exemption from operating a return point.
Those are the substantive areas in which there will be a change.
Those are quite significant changes. What impact will they have on the outcomes that will be achieved compared with what was proposed under the Scottish DRS, particularly in relation to the environment, carbon emissions, businesses and consumers?
The most substantive change is the removal of glass. We want recycling rates for glass to accelerate and improve. The Scottish Government, as has been well documented, wanted to introduce a scheme in 2024. It would have been up and running, I think, in March 2024. We have effectively lost a year of deposit return items being recycled, so that has had a material impact on our recycling targets in the past year.
The biggest difference is the exclusion of glass. That is why Wales has decided not to go forward with the regulations as we are. Its recycling rates are very good—they are the best in the UK. Wales wanted to include glass in order for the scheme to make a material difference to its recycling rates.
As you will remember, convener, the previous UK Government denied an exemption from the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 to allow glass to be included in the Scottish scheme. Our view is that a deposit return scheme that deals with aluminium cans and plastic bottles but without glass is better than no scheme at all. It is expected that the implementation of a deposit return scheme will take 0.8 megatonnes of CO2 out of Scotland, and it will increase the recycling rate of those materials to about 76 per cent. There were different estimates for the previous regulations, which included glass. We are also working on implementing the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 and are working with local authorities on how we can have general improvement in recycling rates. A number of strategies are being taken forward.
There is no doubt that a UK-wide deposit return scheme, which we have signed up to in concert with the previous UK Government, the current UK Government and the Northern Ireland Government, will make a substantial difference to recycling rates. However, the impact will not just be on the recycling rates but on the amount of litter, as I mentioned in my statement. As you know, a lot of litter, particularly on our roadsides and in our coastal areas, is single-use drinks containers of the type that will be in the scope of the regulations. I am looking forward to a situation in which we no longer see cans and bottles littering our streets and our roadsides, because they have a material value associated with their return.
The changes have quite a substantial impact on the overall benefit of the original deposit return scheme, given the exclusion of glass from the new scheme.
Why have we not had a consultation on these changes? How is the Scottish Government engaging and ensuring that the feedback from key sectors and stakeholders is fed in, given, as you outlined in your initial comments, the quite significant changes that have been made in the past two years? Have any particular concerns been raised by smaller producers, local authorities or non-governmental organisations?
I will hand over to one of my officials, Haydn Thomas, in a minute, as he has been in the weeds of all this. Obviously, we have been having a great deal of discussion with stakeholders on all of this. When it comes to signing up to the principles of these regulations, we have been having a continuing dialogue with producers and, indeed, vendors.
One of the things that the smaller producers were very keen to see was that there was no mandatory take-back system. To my knowledge, there is no other scheme in operation that has such a system; in fact, I remember that, when the regulations for the original DRS were being taken through the Scottish Parliament, microbreweries and so on expressed concerns in that respect, as such a move would have put an overhead cost on them that they were not really able to meet. Because it is now voluntary, I think that we have bottomed out a lot of those concerns.
It is fair to say that the Scottish Grocers Federation, which I met last week to discuss the issue, still has some questions about what the scheme administrator will do about handling fees. We have made it absolutely clear that we want handling fees associated with DRS to be proportionate, and we have discussed the issue with and had that assurance from the UK Government. However, the Scottish Grocers Federation is asking for more assurances from the scheme administrator, which, once in place, will obviously be able to answer quite a lot of the concerns. Of course, its board members will represent a great many of the stakeholders involved.
I will hand over to Haydn Thomas, who will be able to detail the discussions that we have been having with stakeholders over the past year or so.
I am happy to take that one.
First of all, we can look at the consultation issue in a few ways. We consulted on the principle and design of Scotland’s DRS in depth before laying the original regulations, and these amendment regulations still leave the scheme as a whole substantially unchanged. The regulations do make substantive changes, but fundamentally, the scheme is doing the same thing and achieving the same outcomes. Indeed, many of the changes that the cabinet secretary has outlined are operational ones instead of necessarily getting at what the scheme fundamentally does. That consultation has already been carried out and published.
As has been outlined, the key change relates to glass. We consulted on whether to include glass in the scheme; as you will know, the Scottish Parliament previously reached a different conclusion, which was to include glass. The question of glass has been the subject of very considerable feedback from business, NGOs and the public; indeed, it has probably been the main point on which we have engaged with businesses over the past five years or so, and it is also something that the UK Government consulted on as part of its consultation. It reached a different conclusion, which was that glass would not be in its scheme. As the cabinet secretary has said, given the requirement to align with the UK Government, we have taken the decision to take glass out through these amendment regulations.
It might also be helpful to outline what is required of the scheme administrator with regard to consulting and working with affected stakeholders. The draft designation order requires the scheme administrator to consult representatives of producers, retailers and wholesalers, including small retailers, in making certain decisions. The scheme administrator, therefore, has the duty to consult to ensure that, as it rolls out the scheme, it takes all views into account and works with producers and vendors to make the scheme efficient and ensure that it does not have any unintended consequences for any of them.
I welcome those answers, because the issue of small producers and retailers is huge and one that I certainly raised in the first instance.
You did not clarify whether there had been any discussions with local government or NGOs in the drafting of the current regulations.
We have been engaging with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on this, and indeed did so ahead of signing up to the principles in, I think, April last year, just before the general election. Before we sign up to anything that would have an impact on waste recovery, we will consult with COSLA. We are doing so regularly, and, as I have said, we did so right up until the general principles were agreed and then beyond.
Thanks. I will come back later to ask about some of the changes that have been made.
I call Douglas Lumsden.
Cabinet secretary, I want to look at the regulations for return points, the proposals for which are a bit different from what was proposed before. The regulations say that a groceries retailer can apply for an exemption from operating a return point if there is an alternative return point within reasonable proximity. Who decides whether a retailer would be allowed an exemption or not?
The scheme administrator would decide that.
Would there be any appeal against that?
Yes. That is one of the changes that have been made. In terms of the associated fees or a review of whether there should be an exemption, there would be grounds to appeal, but, once these regulations go through in Scotland—obviously, it will be the same for England and Northern Ireland, too—it will be for the scheme administrator to lay out exactly the processes in this respect. You are right to highlight this, as it represents a fundamental change from our previous regulations, in which Scottish ministers would have determined whether to grant an exemption. That responsibility has now been conferred to the scheme administrator.
But there would still be an appeal process—it just needs to be ironed out. Is that right?
Yes. I think that it is one of the ways in which these regulations strengthen things: vendors can ask for a review of decisions that the scheme administrator makes.
I will bring Ailsa Heine in here.
I just wanted to clarify that there is a right of review to the scheme administrator for these decisions. It is set out in the designation order.
But the matter will still go to the scheme administrator.
Yes.
Okay.
Cabinet secretary, how do the regulations ensure that there is a good distribution of return points, especially in rural areas and on the islands?
That is a good point, and it is something that the scheme administrator will take into account. You have rightly pointed to rural areas, where there might be no larger supermarkets and the small convenience stores might be the only vendor in the area.
The scheme administrator will look at the spread of return points. Supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores and newsagents will be required to host return points unless their premises are less than 100m2 and in an urban area. In a rural area, there will be an expectation that a convenience store—which might be the only such store on, say, an island—will have a return point. After all, we do not want to disenfranchise people living in island communities; they will be paying the deposit on their drinks containers, so they will want to get that back. The scheme administrator will be working with small vendors to ensure they have that capacity.
The administrator will also have a map of all the return points. It will be voluntary in urban environments, but we should bear in mind the business case for having a return point when it comes to competition. It will be far better for you if your grocery store or supermarket has a return point in your grocery store or supermarket, because of the associated footfall; if people are returning their cans and bottles, they are more likely to spend money on their way out of your shop or to redeem their vouchers there.
At the moment, then, this is voluntary in urban areas, while in rural areas, there is an expectation that there will be an acceptable spread of return points to ensure that people in those areas are not disenfranchised.
10:45
So, will people get money back or, as you just mentioned, a voucher?
The scheme administrator will bottom all that out. That is for it to decide.
We do not know that yet.
No, it will be for the scheme administrator to decide.
From what I have read, hospitality is now out of scope for returns. What if I, for example, go to the pub with my pals on a Friday night, and they all have a pint of lager and I have a can of Diet Coke? Am I expected to keep my can? If it is poured for me, what happens to that can at that point?
Mr Lumsden, you can do whatever you want with your can. I imagine that, if you wanted the 20p back, you could just put it in your pocket.
So will it be 20p?
I have no idea; the scheme administrator will decide that. You can take the can back—I do not think that anyone will stop you walking out with it.
Where do I take it back to? I would have to take it with me for the rest of the night, wouldn’t I, if I wanted to get my money back?
Douglas, this is why men need bags. I do not know your habits, what you take to the pub or—
I am just trying to ask the question. If somebody goes to some hospitality place—a cafe, for example—and buys a can of Coke, they will have to take it with them if they want to get their money back. Is that correct?
Haydn Thomas can try to answer that. I think that you can take it with you, and you can get the money back.
It does not matter where you buy the drink. If I bought a Diet Coke from Tesco, for example, and if the local convenience store in my village had a return point, I could take it back there and get my money back. I think that that would apply, wherever you bought your drink.
If you go to a cafe and buy a round of drinks, you will not be able to get the money back from that hospitality place any more.
No.
You will have to take all the empties.
You always pay a premium for drinks when you are seated in a cafe or pub, but if you want to hang on to your can in order to get your money back, you are perfectly within your rights to do so. Haydn, is there anything to add?
To clarify, when we talk about hospitality being exempt, it is from the requirement to act as a return point. What remains unchanged is the situation for what we call closed-loop venues—indeed, your example of the pub is a good one in that respect—where the general expectation is that the can never leaves the building. That would have been the same in the unamended regulations. In that situation, the pub does not need to charge you the 20p when it hands you the can or pours it behind the bar; that 20p never does the loop through your hands. You do not have to worry about what happens to that can.
It can, in theory, be argued that if you have not been charged the 20p at the bar, you can pocket the can and take it somewhere else. That can always happen, and there might be leakage, but it is then for the business to decide how it deals with people potentially taking their Coke cans home at the end of the night.
So there is still an option to have, as you have said, a closed-loop system.
That is right.
The container never leaves the premise, so no money is added to the cost of it.
That is correct.
That is perfect. Would the same apply to, say, Murrayfield, which was campaigning to be a closed-loop premise?
I think so. The question for the business is how much risk it is willing to take and how leaky it might be. If a coffee shop, for example, were not charging consumers for the deposit and half of its cans were being taken away, it could be losing that money, and it might then take the business decision to charge the deposit to ensure that that money was not being lost from the system. However, that would be its decision.
Okay. Thank you.
I have this image in my head of folk leaving the pub at the end of a night with a bag full of empty cans and heading to the reverse vending machine.
On that note, I will pass over to Mark Ruskell.
I am interested in how the exclusion of glass affects the overall economics of the deposit and return scheme and in the impact on local authorities. Can we start with the first of those? How does the exclusion of glass impact on the economics of the DRS?
I can give a high-level view. There will be variation. Some local authorities collect glass through kerbside collections. In some areas, such as mine, people do not get a kerbside collection of glass but go to whatever drop-off point the authority has put in place. There is value associated with the material that is recovered, although there may be local authorities that do not do any recycling of glass. The economics point will be variable around Scotland.
On the material difference, I will hand over to Haydn Thomas, but it is important to say that it was our intention to have glass in the scheme. An aspect that was convincing for me was the amount of broken glass that we have in our town centres and on our streets and our beaches. If there was a value associated with taking a glass bottle back, we would be less likely to see broken glass. I felt that the safety element was a strong case for the original regulations, as well as the economic argument.
The most important thing for us is the recycling rates. It will be economical. I will hand over to Haydn Thomas to take you through that, but the biggest saving relates to the materials—the recovery of the plastics and aluminium that will be associated with the deposit and return scheme. That represents a larger saving for society and indeed for our local authorities given their clean-up operations. Will we see a situation in a few years’ time where politicians will go to beach cleans and not see drinks containers any more? There will be a material impact on the amount of litter and the amount of clean-up that local authorities are charged with doing.
Can I pick up on the council issue before you bring Haydn Thomas in? My understanding is that the inclusion of glass in the DRS would have meant that many councils could have wound down or reduced their kerbside recycling operations and saved money as a result. Are you expecting any changes due to councils having to maintain glass recycling—at a cost to them, because they do not make a profit from it—as a result of glass not being included? I am interested in where the cost will arise. Will it come to local authorities or will the extended producer responsibility kick in, with local authorities getting money for running such schemes? They will still have to collect and deal with what is a bulky, expensive and difficult-to-handle material.
I am glad that you mentioned the extended producer responsibility. We will talk about that later in this session, but glass is included in EPR—the polluter-pays principle will apply to it. The DRS will work alongside EPR in that respect.
With EPR, funds associated with the recovery of packaging materials will go to local authorities, with the desirable outcome that local authorities will be paid by producers for a lot of the recovery that they do. I hope that, over time, producers will look at reducing the amount of packaging that they use so that they do not have to pay the fees, so there will be less for local authorities to recover.
Your point is well made. If you want details of the analysis of the cost, I am sure that we can provide them, but the point is that glass is covered by EPR but not by the DRS. Wales is taking a different view. As you will remember very well, when we looked at schemes across Europe, we saw countries that had decided to extend their schemes and include glass at a later date. At the moment, however, the scheme covers plastic and aluminium.
Okay. Haydn, will you comment on the economics of the exclusion of glass?
Yes. The net present value for the amended scheme—that is, without glass—is estimated to be £366 million over 10 years, so it still has a clear net present value and economic benefit. With glass, there was a higher net present value, which is why including glass was originally our preferred option, but the removal of glass still leaves a significant benefit.
On the question about the costs of glass to local authorities, the minister’s answer covered it well. The basic principle is that there should be producer responsibility for all these materials. The default is that the material is covered by EPR if it is collected at the kerbside. The DRS offers producers a way to have a separate system that is outside EPR. That is what we have now for metal and plastics. Glass would have been taken out of the EPR system and into the DRS. Taking glass out of the DRS means that it goes back into EPR, so those costs are still covered.
Will EPR meet local authorities’ costs and enable them to invest in and expand glass recycling? Will a point come where it can only go so far in dealing with that line of waste?
My understanding of EPR is that, in general, the funds that will go to local authorities will allow them to expand their recycling capabilities into a lot of the areas that we discussed when we created the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024. Of course, the funding is not ring fenced and it is up to councils to decide how to do that. The polluter-pays principle means that we are putting funds into local authorities, but the main point of EPR is to incentivise producers to reduce the amount of packaging. I think we will see massive innovations in packaging because of EPR.
It is for individual councils to decide how to respond to the twin opportunities of the DRS and the fact that they will no longer be dealing with the same volumes of plastics and cans, but also what to do about glass versus—or in addition to—the other things that they want to do to expand their waste recovery, reuse and remake, and circular economy objectives more widely.
You mentioned earlier the environmental outcomes and the increased emissions from not including glass in the system, so we do not need to dwell on that.
Wales is going ahead with including glass. I think that you said that that is primarily because Wales has a very high recycling rate and sees this as a way to drive it to the next level. How will the Welsh scheme be interoperable with the scheme that Scotland will now be part of? Are there discussions about how that interoperability will work and about the internal market act implications of the regulations in Wales? That is pertinent to the discussions that we had in Scotland a couple of years ago. Can Wales actually go ahead with this? Will it work with the scheme that you are now signed up to?
I have regular discussions with my counterpart Huw Irranca-Davies, the Deputy First Minister of Wales, about this. He is very determined that Wales will have a scheme that includes glass, so Wales has opted out, as you rightly put it, of the DRS regulations that we are putting forward as the three remaining nations. I not want to speak for him, but he hopes that he will get an internal market act exemption to be able to do that, in the same way that Scotland did. My officials have been working with Welsh officials on how we thought that we could do that in order to assist them.
11:00We continue to discuss the impact of the internal market act not just on DRS but on devolved competency and responsibility. The issue is still very alive. The Scottish Government’s position is that we would like the act to be repealed in full to allow devolved Governments to make their own decisions in the way that we should.
I am supportive of what Wales is doing. It is up to those in Wales to decide how they will do it. They are still in negotiation with the UK Government on that and are looking at how any scheme that they come up with will be interoperable with the scheme in the rest of the UK. That is for them to decide and they will be given the space to do that.
If Wales is granted an internal market act exemption, it will be somewhat bittersweet for you and for the Scottish Government, but would it provide a route for you to come back at some point and include glass within a UK and Scottish scheme?
I think that there is always a route. I mentioned that some other countries have looked again at their deposit return schemes after five years or so and decided to change their regulations and include glass, so it can be done. I remember the cabinet secretary at the time of our regulations saying that there is a cost associated with that, because the scheme will have been set up to take the original materials. That includes the reverse vending machines and everything else that we have talked about today. That is one of the reasons why we wanted to include glass, because, if you start with glass, there is less cost associated with changing the scope later.
It will be very interesting for Scotland, the UK and Northern Ireland to look at what happens in Wales, because if it is able to have its own scheme that includes glass, it will give us a template. We will be able to look at how it works and at the recycling rates and learn from them. The beauty of having devolved Governments is that we do learn from one another. It would not be the first time that Scotland had adopted something that Wales had done first or vice versa.
Sarah Boyack has a supplementary question.
There was a big discussion previously about the money—I think that it was the best part of £1 billion—that the Welsh Government gave local authorities to improve their recycling processes. Will you give us a bit more information on the parallel discussion in Scotland? You mentioned local authorities’ kerbside collections. Some local authorities have lobbied the committee because they get an income from that. Is a discussion continuing about how we can use a mixture of the EPR regulations and the fact that glass is not included in the DRS requirements to improve those recycling processes?
Some constituents find it harder than others to take glass back, and having it picked up at the kerbside outside their homes is a lot easier for them. Will you talk about the income for local authorities and how we could make things work more effectively to increase the recycling rate for glass?
All that I can say to Ms Boyack is that I am open to having discussions with COSLA and any local authorities on how we can improve recycling rates and whether there are ways in which we can help them. That is why the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 put the route map in the hands of those who deliver on waste recovery—our 32 local authorities—for them to work together on ways to bring the recycling rates up and the waste levels down in many areas.
I make that general offer if certain local authorities think that they can do more with regard to glass. With the landscape that we have, which includes the DRS, EPR and the circular economy route map, I am absolutely open to having those conversations, and I regularly have them with COSLA anyway.
Can you give us any stats that show the differences between local authorities’ collection rates and income generation?
We can pass that information on if we have it. I do not have that in front of me now.
That would be useful. I know from being in various local authorities recently the differences between places where people can drop materials for collection 5 feet away and places where they have a long walk to recycle things. In the latter case, it is just not happening.
You make a good point about the variability of services across the 32 local authorities, so that information is important. With the circular economy route map, which has been worked on by all 32 local authorities and COSLA, we can see that some local authorities are doing things differently for particular reasons. We can look at their recycling rates and ask what other local authorities can learn from them. Every area is different and they all have their particular geographical opportunities and challenges, but your point is well made. We need to see the variability and we need to be able to pinpoint and address where things can be improved.
It is also important to consider how the glass is used. I remember being lobbied about that last time we discussed this. There are companies in the private sector that want to repurpose and reuse glass. It would be really good to get some feedback on the economics of that.
Yes. Clear glass in particular has a high value and we should make sure that we capture that.
Douglas Lumsden has a brief supplementary question.
Earlier, cabinet secretary, you said that a DRS for cans and plastic but not glass is better than no DRS at all. What has changed between now and June 2023, when you could have proceeded with a DRS with just cans and plastic? You might then have saved a lot of money on Circularity Scotland and also the court case that I think that Biffa is now taking against the Scottish Government.
I do not think that anyone here would expect me to comment on a live court case. The deposit return scheme that we wanted to have in place included glass. What happened was that the UK Government at the time did not give us an exclusion from the internal market act to facilitate that, so we decided to work with the UK Government and the other devolved Governments in putting forward a scheme that is interoperable and workable. That is all that I will say on the matter.
You were given a limited exclusion that meant that you could have proceeded with a DRS for plastic and cans. I am trying to understand what is different now, when you are willing to accept that scheme, compared to June 2023, when you were not willing to accept that scheme.
I ask members to reflect on the fact that the regulations for a DRS including glass were voted for by a majority of the Parliament. The will of the Parliament could not be exercised, because there could not be an exclusion according to the UK Government at the time. What is important now is that we look forward and that we have an interoperable DRS that will mean that we do not have aluminium cans and plastic bottles littering our roadsides, because those materials will have a value associated with them, which will improve the recycling rates.
You could have had that in June 2023.
I ask the cabinet secretary to reflect on the fact that it was not just the exclusion of glass that was required in the internal market act exemption; it was an alignment of the deposit value with a scheme in England that did not exist at the time. Was that not the real reason why the scheme could not go ahead at that time? It could have gone ahead without glass but not without an answer to that question, which was an unanswerable question back in June 2023. I assume that there is now certainty about what the deposit level will be in the other schemes that the Scottish scheme will have to align with.
The interoperability of the schemes in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland is the way forward. Everything will be put in place by the scheme administrator, which will be the same administrator across those three nations. Mark Ruskell makes a point about another challenge at the time.
I should maybe ask a question about whether the scheme will recycle brass necks, which I think that we have seen in this committee recently. However, I want to ask about the scheme administrator.
The scheme administrator will be for Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. What was the Scottish Government’s involvement in the process of deciding what the powers of the scheme administrator will be and appointing the scheme administrator? We have heard about handling fees, the consultation requirements and some powers that the Scottish Government would have had under the previous scheme but that the scheme administrator will now have. It is important to know what that process was like and what the Scottish Government’s involvement was.
I can take Bob Doris through that. Ministers decided that UK DMO Ltd will be designated as the scheme administrator for Scotland’s DRS, although obviously that is subject to approval in Parliament. DEFRA and DAERA have appointed the same organisation. The administrator is responsible for the operational design and delivery of the scheme.
Interested parties were invited to submit applications to be designated as the scheme administrator for the DRS in Scotland, and that window was open from 2 December to 3 February. The application process requested essential information about the applicant and information on operational plans, financial management and cross-cutting issues. Officials assessed the applications in accordance with the three-nation process. All three nations were involved in deciding on which applicant became the scheme administrator. Based on the assessment of the applicants, ministers from the three nations concluded that the UK DMO Ltd application was successful.
So, at official level, Government officials were working with other Government officials elsewhere in the UK. I assume that those officials must have been updating Government ministers periodically and you were content that the process was a robust and transparent one in which the Scottish Government’s views were heard.
Yes, absolutely. Of course, before the scheme administrator could be appointed, I was required to accept the recommendations and approve the scheme administrator, as was Northern Ireland and DAERA.
A decision was made that it would be a single body. I know that the Scottish Government could have decided to have a DMO for Scotland, but it would have had to have dovetailed nicely with the administrator for England and Northern Ireland, so it was decided to have one scheme administrator. Are there any implications to be worked through in that? For example, rurality could have a significant impact on a deposit return scheme in Scotland, as we have heard already. Local authorities’ voices in Scotland can be projected strongly to the heart of the Scottish Government, but that might be more challenging at UK level. Also, the fact that we have island communities might have a certain impact on how the scheme operates.
Given that we will not have a specific administrator for Scotland, how can we ensure that all those voices are heard at the heart of the UK scheme?
I will bring in Giles Hendry, as he has been very close to the appointment of the board. One of the duties of the administrator is to set out an operational plan, which will take into account the rurality of Scotland and the different geographical challenges and opportunities in all three nations. Obviously, in Scotland, we have particular issues in making sure that what is rolled out is fair and equitable for rural and island communities.
Giles Hendry can give you more detail on that.
Officials from the Scottish Government were involved with colleagues from the UK Government and Northern Irish Administration in developing the assessment process. We each contributed questions for the applicant about what mattered to each Administration. We were careful to include questions about how applicants planned to make sure that rural and island areas would be well served by return points. That information was included in the applications to ministers.
I have no reason to believe that the scheme administrator will not do a very good job. However, fast-forwarding a few years, if we find that the Scottish voice is not being heard by the UK scheme administrator, what power is there for on-going discussion between the Scottish Government and the scheme administrator about tweaking things to ensure that the unique positions of remote and rural communities, island communities or local authorities are being heard at UK level?
11:15
Mr Doris used the word “dovetailed”, which is important. We are talking about the same administrator but three separate systems. The administrator will be answerable to us for how the Scottish scheme operates. If we feel that certain tweaks, as you say, need to be made, we can have that discussion with the scheme operator in Scotland. It is a Scottish system that links with the English and the Northern Irish systems in terms of interoperability. We are talking about three systems, but the same company is the scheme administrator for all. It is not a UK system. There are three separate systems.
It is helpful to be reminded of that.
I think that we have already heard the answer to my final question, but we can put it on the record again. Can you summarise any significant changes that have been made to the role of the scheme administrator compared with what it would have looked like under the previous Scottish system? I am not talking about glass. I am talking about other matters. For example, how will fees work for small producers? Has that changed under the new dovetailing scheme? Has the process for setting deposit levels changed? What are the differences?
I will point to some of the things that have been put in place, which I think strengthen the regulations. People will be able to request a review of the scheme administrator’s decisions, as Ailsa Heine pointed out. Also, the scheme administrator will determine any exemptions and associated fees. Those matters will no longer be for Scottish ministers. Exemption from operating a return point will also be in the gift of the scheme administrator. Those are probably the headline differences.
Thank you.
Douglas, do you have a supplementary on the deposit?
We have heard that the deposit level—we do not know what it will be yet—could be different for different sizes of containers. Is that right, cabinet secretary?
Yes.
Will the system administrator be subject to freedom of information?
It is not a public body; it is a private company.
So there will be no special status for it.
No—it is not a public body.
Thank you.
How are you monitoring milestones, and when will they be met? To what extent will that be publicly reported as we approach the deadline of October 2027? What do local authorities need to do to ensure that this happens on time?
The date by which the scheme should be operational is 1 October 2027. I hope that Parliament will agree to the regulations and that the scheme administrator will be in place. All three nations that are involved will be checking in with the scheme administrator on the milestones to ensure that it is ready to deliver by 1 October 2027.
As the scheme goes live, we will monitor its success. As I mentioned, it will be interesting to look at our recycling and recovery rates for certain materials in Scotland once the scheme is operational. It is important to stress that the DRS is not there to collect money; it is to improve the recovery of materials and the circular economy.
Sure. Just to clarify, what is your timescale for publishing regular updates on the milestones?
The scheme administrator must provide an operational plan to SEPA for approval by 31 March 2026, so I guess that that is the first milestone.
That is just under a year away.
Will voluntary return points be part of that process? Will it be possible to feed in to the decision on where they will be to ensure that people can access them?
Yes. That is a very important point. People must be able to know where the return points will be in their locality, and that is something that the scheme administrator will be assessing. When the approaches from vendors to have voluntary return points come in, it is important that there is an assessment of any gaps. Particularly for Scotland, it will be important to know whether there are any areas with gaps, because the scheme must be equitable; we expect people to have equal access to the scheme.
That is really important. I previously visited a few of the vending points that had been established. It will be critical to be able to map them to ensure that people can easily access them.
That was a critical consideration in the process of appointing a scheme administrator. Questions were put to the applicants about how they would do those things.
Thank you.
That concludes questions from members.
Item?4?is a debate on motion S6M-17469. I invite the cabinet secretary to move the motion.
Motion moved,
That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Gillian Martin]
I invite committee members to make a contribution to the debate.
I admit that, at the start of today, I was not planning on contributing to this debate, but, as the morning has gone on, it seems that more and more unknowns about the scheme have been discussed, and they probably need to be addressed.
We have heard that there has been no consultation on the changes to the previous Scottish scheme that had been proposed, even though the changes are quite considerable.
I am glad that officials managed to step in and clarify some of the points about closed-loop premises, but there are still some questions about that. I asked about Murrayfield because I am not sure whether it will be allowed to be classed as a closed-loop premises, as it has wanted to be in the past. I still think that there are question marks about that.
We do not know what the deposit level will be. At one point, 20p was mentioned, but the level is still to be set. There could be different prices for different sizes of containers. We also do not know what the handling fees or charges will be.
Just now, there are too many unknowns. I would like to see a lot more information before the regulations are approved.
As I said, what has changed since June 2023? At that point, the Scottish Government did not feel that it was appropriate to have a scheme without glass, but it does now. I am being accused of having a brass neck for asking that question, but, as committee members, we should be asking such questions, because we need to know, fundamentally, whether the scheme will work. Two years ago, the Scottish Government thought that such a scheme would not work, but it now thinks that it can work.
There are too many unanswered questions so, for that reason, I am not in a position to vote for the regulations today.
We need to get on with this, because there have been far too many delays. That has not been good for businesses, producers or the hospitality sector. People need to know what is happening. It might seem as though October 2027 is a long way off, but it is not.
The critical issue is that there needs to be more work with local authorities, which need investment now so that they can address issues with glass recycling. There is an opportunity right across Scotland, but geography can be different even within local authority areas. Local authorities need support to ensure that recycling rates increase, and our constituents need to be confident that there will be progress.
My view is that we need to get on with this. The monitoring of recycling rates is critical, as is making progress in implementing the scheme. Right across the business sector, people need to be confident that, this time around, this will happen and that, when investment is made, it will benefit the wider economy and, critically, our environment. We need to get on with this and ensure that the Scottish Government’s monitoring approach is transparent so that people can relate to it and see the progress that we need to make.
We need to get on with it. We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good, so now is the right time to push ahead with the scheme that is in front of us. It is very regrettable that the scheme does not include glass—we have gone through the impacts on the environment, on our communities, on climate change and on the economics of the scheme—but now is the time to move forward with what we have.
A solution has been found in operating on a three-nation basis, but I think that the Welsh Government is going down the right route. There will be a lot of learning as Wales looks to secure an exemption to the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and, I hope, successfully rolls out a scheme that includes glass. It will be bittersweet if Wales is successful in that and we realise that that could have been us back in 2023. Impossible conditions were put on the previous scheme. It could have gone ahead without glass a couple of years ago, but there were a lot of other conditions, which meant that we could not move forward at that point.
However, we are losing time. We are in a climate emergency. I see the impact of litter in our communities all the time. We are talking about really low-hanging fruit. Such a scheme is the simplest thing that the Parliament can do to tackle some of these issues. We should have got on with it years ago, but there is now an opportunity to pick up the reins again and move forward. I am pleased that there is now some movement on the issue, which is why I will be voting for the regulations.
That concludes contributions from committee members. I invite the cabinet secretary to sum up and to respond to the issues that have been raised in the debate.
Douglas Lumsden has made it clear that he is not in favour of this, but the scheme administrator has the power to respond to a lot of his questions and to implement answers. I will leave it there.
The question is, that motion S6M-17469, in the name of Gillian Martin, be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
There will be a division.
For
Boyack, Sarah (Lothian) (Lab)
Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
Macpherson, Ben (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (SNP)
Matheson, Michael (Falkirk West) (SNP)
Ruskell, Mark (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)
Abstentions
Lumsden, Douglas (North East Scotland) (Con)
The result of the division is: For 5, Against 0, Abstentions 1.
Motion agreed to,
That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.
The committee will report on the outcome of our decision in due course. I expect that committee members will agree that it makes sense to produce one report on both the instruments that we are considering today. Are members content to delegate the authority to approve the draft report’s publication to me, as deputy convener?
Members indicated agreement.
Item 5 is a debate on motion S6M-17470. I invite the cabinet secretary to move the motion.
Motion moved,
That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland (Designation of Scheme Administrator) Order 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Gillian Martin]
Does any committee member want to make a contribution to the debate?
I will be brief, but I want to respond to the cabinet secretary’s comment that I am not in favour of the scheme. That is not my position. My position is that, given that there is so much information that we do not have just now, it is too difficult to say whether I am in favour of the scheme. I will leave it there.
No other members have indicated that they want to contribute, so I invite the cabinet secretary to sum up and respond to the debate.
I have nothing to add, convener.
The question is, that motion S6M-17470, in the name of Gillian Martin, be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
There will be a division.
For
Boyack, Sarah (Lothian) (Lab)
Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
Macpherson, Ben (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (SNP)
Matheson, Michael (Falkirk West) (SNP)
Ruskell, Mark (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)
Abstentions
Lumsden, Douglas (North East Scotland) (Con)
The result of the division is: For 5, Against 0, Abstentions 1.
Motion agreed to,
That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland (Designation of Scheme Administrator) Order 2025 [draft] be approved.
The committee will report on the outcome of our decision in due course. I repeat that I propose to wrap consideration of both instruments into one report. Again, do members agree to delegate to me the authority to approve the report’s publication?
Members indicated agreement.
I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials. I will suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a change of witnesses for our next item.
11:30 Meeting suspended.Environmental Regulation (Enforcement Measures) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2025 [Draft]
Item 6 is consideration of a further draft statutory instrument. This instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that it cannot come into force until the Parliament approves it. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has drawn the instrument to the attention of the Parliament on the general reporting ground, in light of a misplaced footnote and the typographical error in the reference to the title of the principal order.
The acting cabinet secretary remains in her place. Her supporting officials for this item are Alex Brown, packaging senior policy adviser; Ailsa Heine, solicitor; and Haydn Thomas, producer responsibility unit head. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider a motion recommending that the instrument be approved. I remind everyone that Scottish Government officials can speak under this item but not in the debate that follows. I invite the acting cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.
This year, we will be commencing the packaging extended producer responsibility—EPR—scheme. It will have a transformative effect on the packaging industry, impacting the packaging that we see on the shelves of our supermarkets and shops and the funding model for local authority recycling and waste management.
Packaging EPR will implement the polluter-pays principle and place responsibility for funding the collection and disposal of household packaging waste on to the businesses that produce it. The order that is before you will enable SEPA to use civil sanctions in relation to offences under the UK EPR for packaging regulations—the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024—which came into force on 1 January 2025.
The order provides SEPA with access to civil enforcement measures, such as fixed and variable monetary penalties, rather than relying on criminal offences. It confers no additional responsibility on to SEPA but provides it with a wider range of enforcement powers to allow a flexible and proportionate response to offences. These powers will support the implementation of packaging EPR by ensuring that SEPA can take appropriate action against businesses that do not fulfil their obligations, enabling the correct funding to be available for local authorities and creating a level playing field for compliant businesses.
Thank you.
I have a couple of questions about the practical changes that the SSI will make. First, the cabinet secretary referred to the polluter-pays principle. What is the estimated income that will be generated for our local authorities in implementing this piece of work? Also, what are the estimated costs to SEPA of implementing these enforcement powers, and can it generate any income from this?
First, I thank Sarah Boyack for highlighting the fact that local authorities will get increased access to funding. The current estimate is that there will be around £160 million a year for local authorities to support the collection of household packaging waste. The payments will start in November 2025. That is a significant boost to waste management in Scotland at local authority level. I said in the earlier session that one of the positive things about this is that, over time, local authorities will be able to divert a lot of their efforts in waste reduction and the recovery of materials into things that they may not formerly have had the scope or capacity to do.
The other aspect, of course, is the inevitable change that this will make to types of packaging. Packaging producers will be innovating in this space, and I am very hopeful that they will reduce the amount of packaging associated with household goods.
I want to put on the record what that means in practice. Is it moving from plastics to cardboard or reducing packaging entirely?
That is a really interesting question. Packaging producers and producers of household goods will be discussing how they can reduce the carbon footprint that is associated with their packaging. I cannot determine what is going to happen. It will happen in the private sector, where there will be innovation. EPR has been put in place because we have not seen enough reduction in the amounts or types of packaging. It will be exciting to see what our supermarkets look like after five to 10 years of implementation. Hopefully, they will look very different.
We are already seeing some of the packaging associated with household items changing in anticipation, with the use of cardboard over plastic and a reduction in overpackaging—that is certainly my experience as a consumer.
We have given SEPA powers to impose three different civil sanctions. It will not require any increase in capacity, because we are just giving it the powers to impose the sanctions: a fixed monetary penalty that is set at either £300, £600 or £1,000 depending on the nature of each offence and whether it has been designated as low, medium or high; and a variable monetary penalty that is equivalent to the maximum fine that could be imposed on a summary conviction, which is £10,000. We have given SEPA the powers and, in our discussions with it, we have not seen that any increase in capacity will be required. To my knowledge, SEPA has not made any ask of Government in that regard.
On that last point, I am struggling to see—given the breadth of different product categories and retailers and everybody who would be involved in this—how SEPA’s current capacity is adequate because, presumably, there will be a need for investigations. This is not just about issuing fixed-penalty notices. It is about the investigatory work.
I am thinking about the example of the single-use packaging regulations that have come in. I still see polystyrene containers being used by takeaways and other shops in my community. I do not think that that is allowed but, clearly, the fact that it is still happening suggests to me that there is already a gap in SEPA’s research and enforcement work, and this is an order of magnitude bigger than that. This is about all product categories, not just polystyrene takeaway containers. It covers a huge amount of product categories. I am struggling to understand how SEPA is going to enforce this with the capacity that it has at the moment, given that it already seems that it is not enforcing as much as it could.
I have just been reminded by my officials that I should have mentioned that the registration fees associated with EPR will cover any costs that SEPA has for investigation, which may or may not lead to the issuing of these fixed-penalty notices. I should have clarified that, of course, there is a cost associated with that, but it will be covered by the registration fees.
Scotland’s environmental regulator has a number of functions. We have made sure that its resource positions it to lead on the new duties that are associated with EPR. We have just introduced fixed-penalty notices for single-use items as well, so it is at local authority level as well. Some of the issues that Mark Ruskell mentioned to do with the types of materials that are used for things such as takeaway items are for the local authority level rather than SEPA. This is for the regulator to deal with those that are registered as part of EPR.
A number of things are happening at local authority level. I understand that but, of course, if people are using materials that they should not be using, it is for the local authority to investigate.
SEPA has said to you, “Yes, we will need an increase in capacity, but we do not need an increase in capacity beyond what we are going to get through the fees.”
Yes. I should have clarified that. My official has clarified that, obviously, there are new duties associated with EPR and there are new fixed-penalty notices. There are also registration fees associated with EPR that go directly to SEPA, so I apologise for that comment—it was a bit misleading.
It is a full cost recovery model.
Yes.
Thanks.
That concludes contributions from committee members.
Item 7 is a debate on the motion. I invite the acting cabinet secretary to move motion S6M-17471.
Motion moved,
That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Environmental Regulation (Enforcement Measures) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Gillian Martin].
I invite contributions from members who want to raise any issues.
11:45
One thing that strikes me here is that significant changes will be taking place, which includes new duties for local authorities and SEPA, but there is gap in relation to advertising the changes. How will our constituents know about them? We need there to be publicity, led by the Scottish Government, so that people will understand what is happening, because it will impact their everyday lives. The changes that the cabinet secretary has mentioned are pretty significant.
I would also like there to be monitoring and analysis of the registration fees that SEPA will receive. Although no concerns have been raised about that, that will enable us to see what practical change is taking place once delivery is under way.
Providing a lot more information on and giving a lot more publicity to the issue would be very much welcome.
Okay. As no other member has indicated that they want to contribute, I invite the cabinet secretary to sum up and respond to the issues that were raised.
I will just briefly respond to Sarah Boyack. I appreciate her point. It is important that the public understands the changes that are taking place with regard to our joint efforts in progressing a polluter-pays principle and reducing the amount of associated packaging. I think that that is something that really exercises people.
The beauty of EPR is that consumers will not have to do anything. It is the producers that will need to act, and we hope that they will reduce the amount of packaging. Local authorities will get money for dealing with the packaging as well.
This is one of those instruments in which we are not necessarily asking for any behavioural change from consumers, but they will, I hope, see a big impact with regard to what they buy for their households. We all go into schools in our constituencies. Young people, who are concerned about litter, climate change and our carbon footprint, regularly bring up with me the amount of packaging on products that they and their families buy in shops. I am hopeful that this instrument will lead to a real change in that over the years to come.
Okay. Thank you.
Motion agreed to,
That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Environmental Regulation (Enforcement Measures) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2025 [draft] be approved.
The committee will report on the outcome of the instrument in due course, and I invite the committee to delegate authority to me, as deputy convener, to approve a draft of the report for publication. Do members agree to do so?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Service Vehicles (Registration of Local Services) (Local Services Franchises Transitional Provisions) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 (SSI 2025/137)
Our eighth item is consideration of an SSI. The instrument was laid under the negative procedure, which means that it will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annul it. No such motion has been lodged.
The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has drawn an instrument to the attention of the Parliament on the general reporting ground for a minor drafting error in regulation 7(1)—the reference to “paragraphs (2) to (4)” should be a reference to “paragraphs (2) and (3).” Do members have any comments to make on the instrument?
I very much welcome that this SSI has been introduced—it is the final SSI in a suite of regulations that are needed to introduce franchising. However, a number of questions arise from this and previous SSIs that need to be answered.
When the previous SSI came to the committee, the Government committed to getting back to us with more information about the guidance that would be produced. I do not think that we have seen that yet, so it would be useful if we could write to the Government to ask it where the guidance on franchising is.
It would also be useful to ask about the timescale for implementation. I am aware that Strathclyde Partnership for Transport might be making a decision in September about whether to go down the franchising route, so I would be concerned about any delay in the production of guidance delaying that process. We are already quite delayed in Scotland compared with many of the mayoral authorities in England that have already taken advantage of the legal changes there and have gone down a franchising and municipalisation route. More information from the Scottish Government on that would be useful.
I am also aware that SPT has raised a range of concerns about the risks that are associated with the suite of franchising regulations. It would be good to reflect those concerns in a letter to the Government and to get a response from it on those concerns at this point, given that SPT is preparing for a potential decision to go down that route in September.
I feel that there are a couple of loose ends that it would be worth this committee following up on with the Government—its commitment to us on guidance and our raising with it a few of the concerns that have come out of SPT’s considerations.
Beyond that, I am happy for the instrument to come into effect and that we have the legal basis to allow bids for franchising to be developed.
You have made a number of reasonable points, and we should write to the Scottish Government to ask it for an update on those. I am happy for us to do that.
I very much agree with Mark Ruskell’s points. The committee’s evidence sessions on the topic in previous weeks have been useful in considering how to make buses more accessible and affordable, and even in relation to whether services should exist. Important opportunities come from franchising. One thing that is quite helpful is the reference to the requirements for transport authorities to have time to ensure that services are retained for passengers in the event of operators reducing or withdrawing their services before a franchise framework comes into operation. That is an important provision.
For me, part of the issue is about the sheer length of time that the franchising process will take. The requirements are too onerous. The process needs to be simplified—it is too complex and too time consuming. Compared with the process in England, there are a lot more requirements placed on any authority that wants to use the franchising process, and that is not helpful.
I very much agree with Mark that the statutory guidance must be issued as soon as possible. I know that Strathclyde Partnership for Transport is looking at franchising, although I understand that it is not a cheap process; it could cost it £15 million. We need to make progress. However, we also need a reality check, because it could be 2030 before we see bus franchising in Scotland. That means that people will not get the bus services that they need. Although I support franchising, much more needs to change.
I thank the Get Glasgow Moving team for raising that issue with me, to make sure that we focus on making this possible for the benefit of our constituents, because the timescale for this happening is way off into the future.
I briefly want to agree with Mark Ruskell—I, too, am in favour of writing to the Government to ask where the guidance is. I do not know what the next step would be after that, considering that the Government committed to issuing the guidance at the end of 2024. I just wonder what the next step would be to try to make the Government honour that commitment, convener.
Does the committee agree that we should write to the Scottish Government on the matter?
Members indicated agreement.
I suspect that any next steps will depend on what we get in response to our letter. It would then be for the committee to decide on what to do, such as whether it wants to call the Cabinet Secretary for Transport before the committee or to hold a wider evidence session.
In the meantime, we will write to the Scottish Government and ask for ministers to respond.
Does the committee agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you. We will now move into private session.
11:55 Meeting continued in private until 12:10.Previous
Planning and Infrastructure Bill