Chamber and committees

I will go through all those matters in turn. First, I make it very clear that fixed-penalty notices are only part of the enforcement regime. As I have said, SEPA has a range of civil penalties available to it, including variable monetary penalties of up to £40,000. A fixed-penalty notice is just that—a fixed-penalty notice—and increasing the fine above £500 is getting into territory where it becomes disproportionate. As Ben Macpherson has highlighted, we sometimes get a little bit of fly-tipping next to the bins in Leith, and slapping someone with a £1,000 fine for that would be disproportionate. A fixed-penalty notice does not allow for variability—its intention is to deal with low-level offences.

You are absolutely right that organised waste crime is a serious concern, but that is why the higher penalties and offences exist. Ailsa Heine has more detail on that, so I will hand over to her in a moment to tell you how the hierarchy of enforcement works.

I am not supportive of ring fencing, because that would not be in line with the Verity house agreement. However, as discussed in the context of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill, councils can make decisions on their enforcement choices based on what revenue they might get or what cost savings they might make through enforcement that could, for example, prevent them from having to take on clean-up costs.

I am aware that access to recycling centres has been restricted, partly due to Covid and other concerns. We are concerned about that and will be looking at it.

I welcome the committee’s report, which had some useful information in it.

The information in the financial memorandum is the best information that we have. We can go through in detail how each of the estimates in there was produced. They were produced in consultation with local authorities and businesses, where we have the relevant information, and by examining the costs of parallel or roughly equivalent projects that we have undertaken in the Scottish Government, for example, using data from Zero Waste Scotland.

In relation to assumptions around things such as fixed-penalty notices, the assumption in the financial memorandum of a payment rate of 100 per cent relates only to the provisions that introduce a new civil penalty regime on littering from vehicles. A range of costs associated with enforcement were included. Robust data on payment rates is not held centrally. I recognise that we could probably benefit from a comparative figure, but it is fairly marginal in the overall costings of the financial memorandum.

When it comes to anticipating the costs, the convener is right to say that there is a range. That is because there is a substantial range in relation to the variability of the current readiness of our councils and their existing recycling rates, which vary from about 20 per cent all the way up to around the 50 or 55 per cent mark. We are aiming for 60 per cent as a country, so some of our councils are very nearly there and some are a very long way away.

The convener can imagine that the cost of bringing councils over that line will vary enormously. It depends entirely on what we agree to be the code of practice and the target. The comparative number that we have set out is £88.4 million, which is Zero Waste Scotland’s estimate for bringing all councils up to the current code of practice, which is a voluntary code of practice to which most councils do not adhere.

Those are the best numbers that we have available to us.

Of course I am concerned about the equality impact of these matters. It is absolutely true that improved enforcement can benefit deprived communities because, in many cases, they are the ones that are suffering most from the impacts of litter. Wherever we take action on litter prevention and give local authorities and SEPA more powers on litter prevention, we intend to benefit deprived communities.

Yes, we absolutely share that concern. Dealing with POPs waste is a regulatory requirement; it needs to be incinerated safely. However, I would note that sofas that have fire-retardant chemicals on them are perfectly safe to use and reuse. We need to look at how we get those items into the reuse stream and not consider them to be waste when they are still perfectly good to use. It is only when they come to the end of their life that we need to ensure that they are disposed of properly.

The deposit return scheme also covered importing goods, so the legislation had to have provisions on that. That scheme is a good example because the regulations for it stipulated the size of businesses that would be affected and gave a variety of exemptions for smaller businesses at the retail end and the producer end.

The regulations to address disposal of unsold goods are intended to deal with businesses that have the most significant environmental impact. That can be informed by consultation of the businesses that would be affected. The intention is absolutely not to impact small and medium-sized businesses, whose carbon footprint and footprint of goods are necessarily small, so including them would not be proportionate.

Absolutely, and not only for the mainstreaming aspect that you mention—to make sure that everybody participates—but to get the best value for the recyclate. I know that you have taken evidence on that. The larger the volume of good-quality, clean recyclate that we can collect, the more it will be worth and the greater the value we can get for it.

That is an interesting question. I would need to look at international examples to know what we are looking for there.

I am sorry to interrupt, Janet, but I think that you are talking about local authority targets. Mr Ruskell, are you referring to the national targets?

We will look at that in consultation. It is necessary to ensure that goods are not being produced and then sent straight to incineration or landfill. I am sure that the member can appreciate that, during a cost of living crisis, it is absolutely in our interest to ensure that perfectly usable goods—

I have not had any conversations with it. I do not know whether officials have had any.