Chamber and committees

Following up on what my colleagues have asked, it seems that cumulatively, between this bill and the UK Internal Market Act 2020, there is a significant hampering of devolution in Scotland. Instead of having legislation that allows Scotland to actively diverge on areas of environmental protection, packaging and so on, in order to protect our environment and to implement recycling schemes, we are reduced to saying whether it is okay for the UK Government to impose UK-wide legislation on us. It does not sound like we are able to actively diverge on those matters any more.

I turn to the text of the bill, at the start of which two statements of intent are set out. The first is to

“reduce economic and wealth inequality”—

I can fully get behind that—and the second is to

“support economic growth in and across Scotland”.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on how we measure economic growth, because witness after witness at our evidence sessions has told us that GDP is not a good measure of what we are trying to achieve with the bill. Is there a way of measuring or describing the economic success that we wish to achieve, other than by using GDP to measure economic growth?

I have two questions that are largely about exploring the same theme slightly more. If I understand correctly, the intention of the bill is to allow the UK to align more closely with the EU. Is that written into the bill or is that just how the current UK Government has said that it intends to use the bill? Could a different UK Government use it to diverge from the EU?

While discussing community wealth building, we have heard a lot that community and employee-led businesses are so important for community wealth building but, when people want to start a co-operative or other such organisation, the resources to do that are not necessarily available. I would appreciate that being discussed.

I have a couple of specific questions about the bill. First, the bill provides for three years for bodies to come together and create a community wealth building action plan. From the evidence that the committee has received, a quarter of councils—eight out of the 32—are already doing something on community wealth building. I do not know what that means for the rest—whether they are doing nothing or not enough.

Three years seems like quite a long time, because it will be three years after the bill has been passed, which will be several months off. As councils have already started on that work, could we make that period more ambitious? Would it be reasonable to say two years?

That is brilliant—thank you. My second question is about the intentions behind the bill and how we measure success. Right up front, the bill says that its intention is to

“reduce economic and wealth inequality ... and ... support economic growth”.

In various evidence sessions, we have heard how we might measure economic growth or success. If economic growth is measured simply by GDP, that does not necessarily measure the things that we are trying to achieve with community wealth building, such as quality of life, crisis management and the human connection piece that we know is so important but is not necessarily captured in GDP.

How do councils and COSLA measure economic success? Do you have standard metrics? Is there something that you look at? How would you decide whether the bill was working in your areas?

We have spoken about guidance already, but would you suggest anything else that should be included in the guidance? For example, during the committee’s visit to North Ayrshire on Monday, we heard that they had had good success by taking as their starting point the inclusive growth diagnostic and a map of regional land and assets. In that way, they knew where the problems were and where their assets were so that they could understand what they were doing. Would that be a good place for our new community wealth building partnerships to start? Is there anything else that should be in the guidance to make sure that this works?

You mentioned supply. My question is substantially about demand, because the market by itself will not demand recycled plastics, as they are more expensive and might be lower quality depending on how they have been manufactured. Are Governments willing to force demand by essentially putting in place taxes on new plastics so that recycled plastics can compete?

We are in a cost of living crisis. One of the unpalatable things that people have to come to terms with is doing things such as taxing polluting products such as new plastic. Are Governments willing to do that? Do we have that appetite?

I have a more general question for you. The committee went on a wonderful visit to North Ayrshire on Monday, and one of the questions that we put to some of the organisations there, which are on the ground and delivering community wealth building with projects that are benefiting people, was about how we measure the success of community wealth building. People in the room talked about building connections, crisis support, quality of life and other opportunities. Some of my concern is about how we measure that in the bill. In the proposed statement, ministers must set out how they intend to

“reduce economic wealth inequality”,

which is fine—I do not have a problem with that—and

“support economic growth”.

I am worried that “economic growth” will be explicitly interpreted to mean an increase in gross domestic product at the expense of all of the other lovely things that we know are so important, such as opportunity, crisis support and quality of life. Is economic growth the right way to measure the success of the bill, or are there better ways to do that?

I will dive into a bit more detail about what Daniel Johnson has discussed. Looking to the big picture, I am glad to see that there is a plan to transition a fossil fuel refinery to projects such as recycling and using the fuels of the future.

One challenge with plastic recycling is simply the ability to make money from it—to make it financially viable. Producing plastics as a by-product of fossil fuels is ridiculously cheap, which is why plastics are so ubiquitous. However, recycling them is expensive.

To build on what Daniel Johnson said, to make recycled plastics economically viable, there would have to be regulatory change. That would mean having measures such as taxes on plastic, which are of course not within the remit of the Scottish Government, or, as the minister alluded to, extended producer responsibility for packaging, which would make producers of plastic packaging pay a fee that could later be used towards recycling it. The deposit return scheme is one such measure. However, there would have to be other regulatory changes, such as introducing a required percentage of recycled plastics in plastic goods, because, if left to its own choice, the market will always go for new plastics as they are much cheaper than recycled ones. What appetite is there for such regulatory change? What discussion has the minister had with the UK Government on the foundational regulations that would be needed to make business plans in that area viable?

I thank the witnesses for coming in today. I have a quick question for Jane Martin and then more general questions. We heard last week from Neil McInroy about the intention of the bill to pivot how we support businesses. Is Scottish Enterprise ready to pivot to supporting co-operative social enterprises and employee-owned businesses? Is that part of your plan?