Chamber and committees

As I said in response to an earlier question, on the basis of the actions that will we have been required to take, we do not believe that there is any requirement to pay compensation.

We have significant investment in the scheme. The delays to which you refer need to be properly explained. According to the regulations that were passed in 2020, the scheme was due to go live last year, in 2022. We had the Covid pandemic and Brexit, however, which substantially changed the circumstances in which businesses were operating.

To support businesses, we provided the first year’s delay until August this year. That was the launch date towards which we were working until, from February this year, the Secretary of State for Scotland put some doubt in the public space about whether the internal market act would be used to veto and block our scheme. He managed to make good on that threat in May and vetoed and blocked our scheme from being implemented as the Scottish Parliament had passed it.

The latter delays were specifically around interference with the scheme using the internal market act. None of them had to do with any suggestion that the scheme was not progressing operationally.

That is an excellent question, convener, and I am happy to go into it in detail.

As you all know, the urgent matter that we have before us is that the regulations that have been passed by Parliament say that our scheme will go live on 16 August, which is during the parliamentary recess. The urgent matter is that we deal with that so that businesses do not have to launch a scheme this summer after we have committed to delaying it.

The other part of the SSI is practical amendment to the regulations with regard to the size of miniatures and online takeback. We worked with industry for months to establish all those things, including the changes to online takeback, that we know are part of a working scheme. We owe it to the industry to follow through on our promise to deliver on what it worked on, which is why we are bringing those two matters forward. With regard to fitting in an expedited process before recess because of the 16 August cut-off, it would have been very risky to try to get that through Parliament. To make sure that we do not put businesses in the position of having to launch the DRS on 16 August, that was the smoothest process through that time, but I realise that it is not ideal.

Ailsa Heine may want to comment on that.

Although that mechanism for passing regulations that we know will need to be amended is, as the convener has said, a bit clumsy, it is the smoothest in terms of not having to recall Parliament while still allowing for the full scrutiny process instead of an expedited one. Once this SSI passes, I will immediately bring another one before Parliament, which will set the October 2025 date. That will allow for a normal amount of scrutiny, not some accelerated process, as we will have passed that 16 August cliff edge by passing the SSI that you are considering today.

I am aware of the written question that you have lodged on that and that Zero Waste Scotland does some work on the deposit return scheme through part of its budget. I do not have the breakdown of its budget; that might be information that we can get for the member.

The UK Government is, of course, aware of the changes but, because it has not put its regulations or its scheme in place, there has not been any co-development on these matters. The amendments have been developed with industry. We have been working with industry for months—for example, with the hospitality industry and small producers—to bring these changes to define Scotland’s deposit return scheme, which I remind the member is a fully devolved matter. The amendments, together, fully define Scotland’s deposit return scheme.

I will be discussing with Minister Pow how the UK Government wants to develop its scheme. I very much hope that it will look at our complete set of regulations and the work with industry that went into them, and take the learning from that forward into its scheme.

It is not for the UK Government to agree matters that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament—

The question from the member does not make sense. These amendments have been brought as the result of discussions with industry about Scotland’s deposit return scheme, and we are amending Scotland’s deposit return scheme—the regulations that were passed by this Parliament in 2020. We are not required to agree amendments to our legislation with the UK Government.

As we go forward to develop an interoperable scheme with the UK Government, we will of course discuss what is going to be best for the whole of the UK.

I am happy to discuss tomorrow’s meeting and to provide some clarity on that point. The meeting with Minister Pow is to take a baseline of where we are with what the UK Government means to do with the conditions that it has imposed on us. However, the minister will absolutely not be able to answer questions about what the deposit level will be, what the labelling requirements will be or what will happen with miniatures and sizing. She will not be in a position to answer any of our operational or detailed questions that might affect this.

We are therefore going forward with this SSI, partly because it was laid before the interference through the internal market act, but also because it represents our commitments to industry on what the deposit return scheme will look like. As you have said, it is not for the UK Government to veto or agree any particular part of legislation that we pass at the Scottish Parliament.

However, at the meeting with the minister tomorrow, I will be able to present a developed Scottish system, the expertise of CSL and what I hope is a working proposal—that the UK Government can take on board our learning and CSL’s experience as the best and smoothest way of launching its scheme, rather than its duplicating effort, coming up with something entirely different, then imposing it on us.

However, I anticipate that we would have to bring forward yet another set of regulations at some point before 2025—if only to take glass out of the scheme, although other things may also be imposed on us.