Chamber and committees

Absolutely; there will need to be investment. I am looking now at the amount of money that we have given Glasgow in this area. It has had £21 million from the recycling improvement fund. The member is correct that there needs to be investment in infrastructure, especially, in order to enable the scheme. That is why we have the recycling improvement fund, and that is why we invested more than £1 billion through the strategic waste fund between 2008 and 2022.

There is an interesting point, though, around designing recycling systems to make things easier. I also live in tenement land, where we have big bins in the streets, and I know that one of the improvements from the recycling improvement fund in Edinburgh is the change in design of the bin lids to make it more obvious what type of material should go into the bin. Similarly, East Lothian Council has a scheme involving some very clever trucks that makes it easy for people to put in the right type of recyclate and more difficult to put in the wrong type. Those sorts of design improvements make a big difference to decontamination. Some of it involves fairly cutting-edge research about how people interact with recycling systems. Sometimes, it is not enough to give people information; you need to make it easy for them to do the right thing. If it is difficult for people to get the big black bin bag into the recycling bin, they will not do it; instead, they will recycle properly.

Particularly in the code of practice, I want to work towards having common good design. That means that, where councils across Scotland are getting good results, we can share the knowledge from those areas with other councils and work together to have the best type of recycling. It is not about just investment. That is one of the challenges that we have seen through the investment in the strategic waste fund. Although that was more than £1 billion, it did not bring us up to the kind of recycling rates that we hoped for, so more is needed. That is why some of the provisions in the bill around targets and the co-design process, which will allow for that information sharing, are also needed. This is not something that you can just throw money at; it needs that design element as well.

It is more about having a proportionate level of scrutiny. With any number of single-use items—cups, vapes, plastic bags—one can imagine that requiring primary legislation for each of those products would not only be burdensome on parliamentary time but mean that we would not be able to react as quickly. Primary legislation would take a great deal of time and mean that any potential pollution problem would last for the many years during which the primary legislation was going through its stages. Secondary legislation allows the Parliament to be nimble in reacting to new products that come on line and allows the level of scrutiny that committees and members of the Parliament deem to be appropriate.

The provisions will also have gone through the co-design process, which will be transparent and will have had input from the stakeholders.

That is exactly the point that we have been discussing, which is about the framework. Look at the example of the plastic bag charge. Businesses are allowed to recoup their costs for that charge. If we had a single-use cup charge, it might be managed along those lines, but it might be managed differently. We do not have that information available because it has not yet been developed to that level of detail.

That is because those things are being developed. Extended producer responsibility is being developed UK-wide, led by the UK Government, which is engaging with businesses on how to develop that scheme.

There is a principle that we would not double charge businesses, so, once the UK-wide deposit return scheme gets going, businesses that have those sorts of packaging will do their producer responsibility bit under the deposit return scheme. They would not be double charged with the EPR. In fact, my understanding is that the deposit return scheme will cost some businesses substantially less than what they might be getting charged under a standard producer responsibility model for packaging. That will drive businesses to want to get the deposit return scheme up and going. It is a big shift in our society from having public funds cleaning up our environment to making sure that private interests, under the polluter-pays model, do it, too.

There is a big point here that I am grateful to Jamie Halcro Johnston for raising. This is also about incentivising businesses to become more efficient and to choose to use packaging that is easier to recycle. At the moment, there is no penalty or advantage, and a business may just decide to use material that is not very recyclable. Once extended producer responsibility for packaging comes in, the fee amount that they will be charged will depend on how recyclable their material is. That will incentivise businesses to change their practice. There is a provision in the bill about reporting on sectoral waste and surplus. It has been shown that, when businesses implement good practice, it helps them to focus on reducing waste and, overall, it reduces their costs. This is part of a big shift in our economy to the polluter-pays model and to efficiency savings. We can drill down into each provision of the bill, if the member wishes, and talk about specific ones.

No, and nor would it be appropriate for there to be one. The relationship between the SNIB and Circularity Scotland, the private business that I believe that you are alluding to, was between them. The Scottish Government was not involved in that.

Absolutely. That was the result of work by Zero Waste Scotland. Alex Quayle can give us more detail on that.

This morning, I counted 11 different provisions in the bill. Many of those provisions will require co-design. I think that the member imagines that, if we were to do co-design on single-use cups and other products that we do not even know about yet in different industries in respect of reporting, we would then have primary legislation on each of those provisions—

I absolutely understand that businesses and local authorities need certainty. That is why we have committed to the co-design process. I cannot second-guess what the outcome of that process will be, but the policies will be developed over many months following the co-design process, after which they would have the opportunity to come through Parliament, whether that is through a Scottish statutory instrument affirmative procedure or negative procedure, so that they can be scrutinised. All the details for each specific policy introduced would be worked through and developed with councils, businesses and, indeed, householders so that there would be clarity for each policy as it comes through. We will definitely work with the councils to deliver those outcomes. This is not something that will be imposed centrally.

On enforcement costs, as we go through the financial memorandum in detail, we can look at which provisions allow councils to increase their fixed-penalty notices, for example, so that they are given more opportunities to balance their costs. However, all the enforcement costs for local authorities are at their discretion. Each will look at how much it wishes to spend on enforcement versus the benefits that it might receive from the enforcement. For example, the household requirements for waste are about contamination of the recycling stream. The powers in the bill are for the councils to use should they decide to do so. There is no requirement for councils to enforce in any particular way, but they may decide that their recyclate is becoming so contaminated that they are losing money because they are having to pay for it to be incinerated or to go to landfill, or they cannot sell it for its full value. In such cases, the amount of money that they are losing would make firmer enforcement more worth while, but that would be entirely a calculation for local authorities to make.

Thank you, convener, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with the committee today.

The Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill will establish the legislative framework to support Scotland’s transition to a zero waste and circular economy, significantly increase reuse and recycling rates, and modernise and improve waste and recycling services.

The bill takes powers to give ministers and local authorities the tools that they need in order to achieve our ambitions for a circular economy. Those represent a package of new powers and responsibilities that will be underpinned by support and investment, such as the £70 million recycling improvement fund. That builds on over £1 billion of funding provided through the former strategic waste fund between 2008 and 2022 to assist local authorities in the implementation of a zero waste plan.

At the heart of many of the bill’s provisions is the recognition that co-design, based on the principles of the Verity house agreement and the new deal for business, will be central to delivering the transformation that we need.

Regulations made under the enabling powers in the bill will be subject to further consultation, parliamentary scrutiny and impact assessments, including business and regulatory impact assessments. As a result, the financial memorandum provides strategic-level cost-and-benefit data. That will be refined as part of on-going work with local authorities, householders, businesses and other stakeholders through, for example, the development of the waste route map.

The bill is necessarily narrow in the topics that it covers. It sits in the space where the Scottish Government needs new powers to take action: between powers that are reserved and matters that are devolved on which we have already taken powers.

Legislation is, of course, only part of the solution. A wide range of other measures is in train. Alongside the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill, we are developing our circular economy and waste route map, which will provide strategic direction for how we will deliver our system-wide, comprehensive vision for sustainable resource use and Scotland’s circular economy to 2030. An updated draft route map will be published later in 2023 for further consultation, and it will be finalised in 2024.

Extended producer responsibility for packaging, which we are introducing alongside other United Kingdom Governments, will require producers to pay local authorities the full net cost of operating an efficient and effective household packaging collection service. That will provide substantial funding to local authorities, which is estimated to be £1.2 billion per annum across the UK.

Let me finish by underlining that building a more circular economy is an environmental imperative, but it is also an economic opportunity for Scotland. It will open up new market opportunities, improve productivity, increase self-sufficiency and provide local employment opportunities.

I look forward to answering your questions.