Chamber and committees

A recent example comes from the regulations for the deposit return scheme, which allowed retail businesses of certain sizes to apply for exemptions and which exempted producers that produced fewer than 5,000 items of a particular product line. It is absolutely possible to draft regulations so that they target the businesses that have the most environmental impact, and that is the intention.

That just shows how effectively you can scrutinise secondary legislation using the negative procedure. Well done.

Yes, absolutely—that is what the evidence tells us. The approach to implementation in Wales, which is an excellent model, is that fines are an absolute last resort. If a council has not met its targets, there is a conversation about why that is. Of the ones that did not meet their targets, only one had a fine applied to it, and even that might have been waived.

I will bring in Janet McVea.

Absolutely. Just to reiterate, section 8, on the disposal of unsold consumer goods, does not apply to food and perishable goods.

The strategy and the high-level targets absolutely do incorporate food waste, but the specific provision in the bill that the member is alluding to is the one that refers to the reporting of waste and surplus.

Section 17 of the bill would require businesses to report on their waste and surplus. The intention is to use those provisions sector-by-sector, with food waste being the first one that we are considering, because that is such a high priority—as the member rightly pointed out. I would like construction to be the second sector that we look at, for exactly the reasons that the deputy convener mentioned.

The requirement is for businesses to publicly report on the waste and surplus of food; again, that is looking at large businesses. Several large businesses already do reporting of that kind voluntarily, including Tesco, Hovis, IKEA and Unilever, so there are already good models of what that looks like in the voluntary space. About 300 UK businesses already do voluntary reporting and about 60 of those operate in Scotland. It is about taking that good practice and spreading it across industry so that all large food-related industry businesses have to do such reporting.

The intention is not to put any targets into the bill. I have the section on targets in front of me, and it uses the phrase “consumption of materials”. It says:

“In considering the imposition of targets ... the Scottish ministers must have regard to”

the fact that the

“processes for the production and distribution of things”

and

“the delivery of services”

are designed

“so as to reduce the consumption of materials”

and so on. The targets that we set must be about the consumption of materials.

We are in agreement about the kinds of targets that we want to set; the discussion is about what those targets are and where they are captured. As I set out earlier, developing those targets will be a process, because there is no consensus on methodologies or data sets yet. That information is just not available, so work needs to be done to decide what the targets would be, how they would be effective and fit within our devolved powers and how we would measure and report on them.

The member is right that there is an urgency in relation to the pace. Of course, because of the Verity house agreement, I am not comfortable with imposing things on local councils in primary legislation without going through that process. The member is right to identify the code of practice as the route for that.

We have the Zero Waste Scotland facilitation of best practice and knowledge sharing, but the route to implementing it would be the mandatory code of practice that the bill proposes. We are proposing to develop that code of practice with local authorities. There would then be targets associated with that, which would not come into play until 2030. I understand if the member feels that that is quite a lengthy time period. During that time, our councils can invest in infrastructure and build new facilities. We would need to do a lot of work before we were in a position to impose targets on councils. I am confident that we have the route to get to where we need to go, but there is a lot of work that we need to do with councils and a lot of investment that we need to make collectively to make sure that that can happen.

That is an interesting provision in the bill. If the convener will allow me, it is worth my going into that in some detail, as it is an important point. I have the letter from COSLA in front of me. Councillor Gail Macgregor says:

“There is no need to make the Charter for kerbside collection services mandatory. All 32 Councils have signed up to it.”

However, only a third of the councils actually implement the charter. That is the problem with a voluntary charter: there are no consequences for not implementing it. You can sign on the dotted line and then not do it.

The bill proposes a move to a mandatory code of practice to be developed by councils so that we know that it is feasible and that it provides for different geographies, tenancy types, building types and built environments. It needs to have all those provisions, and it needs to take into account where councils currently are. As we know, some councils are very nearly at their 60 per cent target and some are a long way away from it.

Given all the development that needs to be done, the bill proposes a mandatory target. The reason for that is evidence based—it is because that is what works elsewhere. We have international examples of that. Wales is, of course, our closest example. That is how Wales has driven recycling to the levels that they are at there.

In Scotland, recycling levels have stalled at just over 40 per cent on average—between 40 and 45 per cent. We have stalled, so we have to do something new. We have to bring in what works. The Verity house agreement commits to co-design, but it also commits to being evidence led, and the evidence tells us that we need to do this.

I do not have the data on that but, if the information is with SEPA, I presume that we can write to the committee with it.

The question, as I understood it, was about the timescale for national targets.

Absolutely. We need to work with local authorities to set out what we want local authorities to deliver and what they are prepared to deliver, and then, of course, we need to set out how that investment will take place.

Do you want to come in, Janet?