Chamber and committees

There is a really good example of that. One of the things that we considered in the consultation was whether to apply those regulations to food, but we decided not to do that because food businesses are already doing quite a lot in that space, so we felt that legislation would not be necessary.

You are absolutely right that it looks as if regulation might be necessary here. It is estimated that about £22 million-worth of items that would be covered by that provision are destroyed by landfill and incineration in Scotland each year. That is £22 million-worth of perfectly usable items that are going not to the needy or to people who could use them, but straight to landfill or incineration, both of which produce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.

We need to address that by developing the regulations and through consultation. We also have the French model. I am sure that we all want to achieve that; nobody wants perfectly usable goods to end up on the bonfire. Having that provision in the bill is an important step.

As for Mark Ruskell’s question about specific examples, I do not have any specific examples with me. Officials may have some, or we could write to you about that.

I am happy to go into that. I listed all the elements of the bill that could relate to reuse in answer to Ben Macpherson’s earlier question, so I will not take up the member’s time by going through that again. The bill contains substantial provisions throughout to increase reuse, specifically those in section 6(3). The regulations that can be created under section 6(1) may set targets for one or more of the following:

“reducing the consumption of materials, ... increasing reuse, ... increasing recycling, ... reducing waste”.

That is what is in the bill. We can set targets around increasing reuse and around the consumption of materials.

The nitty-gritty is what those targets would be and who they would apply to, whether it be local authorities, businesses and certain other sectors. We need to do some work to understand exactly how those targets would apply.

I am sure that everyone in this room agrees that sectors, businesses and local authorities would need to understand and be involved in developing those targets. We need to do that work together. Realistically, we are likely to be looking at a suite of targets, because things will be different for businesses as compared with local authorities, for example.

—such as hygiene products and clothing, get into the hands of the people who need them.

I am not concerned about that. Section 50 of the policy memorandum shows that an existing duty of care in legislation already

“requires that waste producers must take all reasonable measures to apply the waste hierarchy when disposing of goods and must also ensure that the waste is managed”.

Businesses already have a duty to do that, but we must ensure, as in all things, that we are making progress and moving forward. Banning the disposal of unsold consumer goods is the next step in that direction, but it is something that many companies are already doing.

Absolutely. The approach would need to be developed in the spirit of the Verity house agreement. We need to develop the processes, systems and intentions at the same time as the funding regimes.

There are, of course, significant opportunities for setting up businesses—especially businesses that are associated with local authorities. I will flag up again Moray Waste Busters, which is an excellent example of a business that is associated with a local authority. It triages the waste that comes in and captures items that could be reused. Not all local authorities have such facilities, but where one has something like that in place, it is not only leasing a bit of land to a business, but that business is removing from the waste stream items that the local authority would otherwise have to pay for.

The issue is not always about supporting local authorities with costs; sometimes it is about supporting local authorities to find opportunities for savings—or even for increased revenue, such as through pre-recycling.

That is the question. There are different approaches to that. Some of it will depend on the built environment. I live in a tenement flat. In such places, we are not going to have room for multiple different boxes. However, in East Lothian, there is an excellent separation scheme, and there is good evidence that separation by the householders works in that type of built environment.

That is an interesting question. Certainly, reporting on food waste and surplus is helpful to us in meeting our waste targets. We are currently off track for meeting our food waste targets. If we—not just the Government but industry—understand where waste and surpluses arise, that can signpost us to mechanisms for dealing with those matters.

As we have said, we did not include food in the proposed ban on the destruction of unsold goods; we are looking at just reporting. Once we have the data, the policy would need to consider how we can support industry in doing better. However, the evidence suggests that, once industry is clear on waste and surplus, reducing it in the first place and finding good use for it follows along naturally.

That is what the meeting that I have arranged with Ewan MacDonald-Russell of the SRC is about. I have arranged to meet some of his members who already do such reporting to understand what good practice looks like, and then we will be able to develop the standards from that. There is no need to reinvent standards when there is already really good industry practice. About 60 companies in Scotland already do such reporting, so I want to understand what they already do and move forward with that best practice.

Because the bill is largely a framework, it does not have any implications for the internal market act. However, Bob Doris is right that the enacting of some of its provisions may have such implications.

The single-use cup charges are substantially different from the deposit return scheme. The deposit return scheme covered items that cross borders—imported goods and things that are carried across the border between Scotland and England. The single-use cup charge is for someone who is physically in Scotland selling an item to someone who is physically in Scotland. No border crossings are involved. We therefore believe that we can draft the legislation for single-use cup charges in a way that does not affect or come into contact with the internal market act and would therefore not require an exemption.

I ask Ailsa Heine to explain our thinking on whether matters around the reporting of the disposal of unsold goods might require an exemption to the internal market act.

I will make a quick comment then hand over to Ginny Gardner again.

The intention of the common frameworks is to manage divergence. The challenge over the past year has been that the UK Government has discarded the common frameworks and made decisions outwith them. There is a question about how functional the common frameworks process is if UK ministers discard the work that is done under it. That is a frustration for us. I am not sure that the UK Government would be happy with me discarding the common frameworks, but it feels free to do so. The intention is to manage divergence, but that depends on all UK nations having some tolerance of divergence, and the political landscape has shifted in that regard.

There are some examples of the process working. For example, we were granted an exemption in relation to single-use plastics, but we were not granted one in relation to the deposit return scheme, and the UK Government went ahead with the consultation on wet wipes outwith the common frameworks process. I have clearly been struggling with that process.

I do not know whether Ginny Gardner wants to come in.