Chamber and committees

I will go through my amendments, most of which I see as clarification amendments.

The purpose of amendment 83 is to set out that, for the purposes of this section, unsold goods cannot be defined as waste if they are in perfectly good condition. The aim of the amendment is to discourage the defining of unsold goods that are in perfectly good condition as waste and therefore not to be included under this part of the legislation.

With amendment 86, I am asking the Government for a list of goods that will be exempt from the unsold goods regulations. Off the top of my head, I am thinking of things such as medical goods, which we might not want to be defined as unsold goods in this section.

I missed out amendment 84, but I will go back to it now. We spoke earlier about not wanting the legislation to be overly burdensome for businesses. Therefore, we will be looking for the Government to set out the value of the unsold goods that would be covered by the regulations. I realise that there are potential issues around doing that, and maybe this is a bit of a probing amendment. Is one screw an unsold good or does it need to be a bigger packet? Which value do you go on? Maybe there needs to be a bit more work on that.

The value of goods will also decrease over time. For example, an unsold laptop will have a high value but, after year 1, its value will be less and, after three years, it will be even less. After five years, it will probably not have any value at all. The amendment is meant to make it clear how we would work around that issue.

On amendment 88, if we want enforcement, we need to ensure that the body that is responsible for that is resourced adequately to carry out that function.

I had been thinking that there might have been some confusion, but I was not quite sure myself. Last week was a long week.

I will sum up on a few points. I was trying to intervene on Bob Doris, who was actually intervening on someone else. He had made the point that public bodies are already doing quite a lot on procurement procedures. The minister also mentioned having climate change duties for many such public bodies.

I listened to what Sarah Boyack said earlier about trying to increase the issue’s profile and get it further up the agenda. If a lot of that work is being done already, it should not place too much of a burden on public bodies to create their own circular economy plans. That would be a good thing for raising the profile and getting bodies to think about the steps that they can take. Much of that work will be there already and could be fed back to ministers for approval. Such an approach would not place a great burden on public bodies at all, but it would help us get to where we are trying to go.

The aim of my amendment 82 is simply to firm things up. The minister said that a lot of progress might happen in the future, once its approach goes through co-design. However, my amendment would put urgency at the forefront by saying that it must happen and that the Government must report. If the Government has nothing to hide, I am sure that that will be accepted. It should commit to doing so.

I will also speak to amendment 12. As we have heard, and whether it likes it or not, the Scottish Government has missed out on its past 12 emissions targets, and there have been no repercussions at all. The point of amendment 12 is to say that if the Government is serious about hitting its targets, there has to be some penalty. It cannot just be the case that it misses its targets every year but nothing happens until the next year, when the targets might be missed again or they might be hit. The aim of amendment 12 is to say, “If you do not meet it, something is going to happen. There is going to be a fine.” It is to get the Government to step up. There is a good set of amendments in this group.

I will press amendment 82.

Will the minister take a further intervention?

I agree that more probably needs to be done by the designers of products to get us to a circular economy, but how does the Scottish Government fit into that process? For example, once my phone battery starts fading, I will probably get a new phone. What steps can the Government take to influence manufacturers on that?

When I was listening to you, I was thinking of fly-tipping, because I can see some real benefits to your suggestion. If someone sees something get dumped when they are out somewhere, they might not know which local authority they should report the incident to, and they might have to try to give a description of exactly where they are. With an app, they could give a location using the global positioning system and take a picture of what has been dumped. There could be real benefits to having an app. I imagine that such information would be fed back to the local authority for it to decide whether to take action. It is about making things easier.

In our evidence taking, we visited Leith and went to the Edinburgh Tool Library and the Edinburgh Remakery. It is not only local authorities that have a part to play here; for example, men’s sheds could play a big part, too. Does the member envisage the funding for such organisations always going through the local government route or would there be a role for the Government in directly funding some of the organisations that provide services in our communities?

Amendment 82 is on the annual reporting of targets. There is no point in us doing any of this work if we are not going to monitor our progress towards a circular economy so that we can see what additional steps are needed, what is working and what is not working. For me, annual reporting seems to be a sensible approach and I am hoping that everyone can support my amendment, which seeks to ensure that there is not a drift in the move towards a circular economy. As Maurice Golden has stated, the debate on a circular economy has been on-going since 2016. Without having an annual review of the targets, we will not be able to see where we are going wrong, what adjustments need to be made and where we need to move forward. It seems to me to be a simple and sensible approach.

I will.

I will set out right at the start that my amendment 87 is not an attack on devolution; it just aims to make sure that anything that is passed complies with the devolution settlement and does not overstep it. We heard from Mark Ruskell that the DRS was impossible, but that was not Circularity Scotland’s view. However, I agree that the dialogue between the two Governments was not what it was meant to be. I lodged amendment 87 to make sure that that dialogue takes place right up front. I heard what the minister said about the engagement with the UK Office for the Internal Market, but that is different from what we heard when we took evidence from people from that office—well, we did not take evidence from them, but we met them in an informal session. They said that there had been no dialogue with the Scottish Government on the bill, so it is good to hear that that has now taken place.

Whether we like it or not, we have got into a situation in which there is a lot of blame between the two Governments on where things are falling down, and the internal market act is being flagged up. As I said, there is no hidden agenda here and no attack on devolution. I just want to make sure that, before regulations are introduced, discussion has taken place and that there is nothing—

The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 is often discussed and argued about in this Parliament. The aim of amendment 87 is to ensure that discussions take place between the Scottish and UK Governments ahead of the final regulations being voted on.

During a previous evidence session, we heard that the former minister had not spoken to the Office for the Internal Market because she had not felt that that was necessary at that point. We also had a meeting with the Office for the Internal Market, and I think that it had expected that there would have been more engagement from the Scottish Government, but that had not been forthcoming at that time. Therefore, there appeared to have been no early engagement between Scottish ministers and that office.

I totally accept that the Scottish Government does not like the 2020 act, but it exists and, while it does, we have a duty to pass legislation that complies with it. If issues are not ironed out ahead of time, there will be conflicts between the Scottish and UK Governments. That will add more expense, take time and bring uncertainty, so surely it is better for dialogue to take place up front to ensure that regulations that are passed comply with the 2020 act.

I am nervous about some of the cross-border implications of the bill. For example, there are potential issues relating to unsold goods and the extended producer responsibility. We need to consider the 2020 act in relation to such issues, which is why it would be best to have provision in place to ensure that things are ironed out before the legislation reaches its final stages.

I move amendment 87.