Chamber and committees

In the past six months, we have seen a substantive shift in the UK Government’s position on the matter. In January, it clearly said in its documentation that it was for devolved nations to take decisions on those matters; in May, it said that it would not grant exclusions for those nations and that it wants interoperability. It looks like the mechanism for that interoperability is potentially one of imposing those things instead of working co-operatively. Of course, I very much hope that we could work co-operatively and genuinely to everybody’s benefit.

Scotland is years ahead of the other UK nations. We have done so much work and gathered so much expertise in the industry and in getting ready—much of which is encapsulated in Circularity Scotland and in our other bodies such as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency—that the other nations of the UK would be able to pick up from where we are and run with it, if you like, which would make the most sense for smooth implementation. However, it is not at all clear to me that that is the UK Government’s intention, although it might be its intention to develop a separate scheme, which it would then impose on us. I will ask Minister Pow those exact questions tomorrow.

It is my view that the Scottish Parliament should be able to legislate on fully devolved matters and that the deposit in Scotland is 20p. That number has not been plucked out of thin air; it is the result of many years of work to develop the right amount for the deposit. When the UK Government sets its deposit, it would make sense for it to look at the work that we have done and to work together with us. We need to have co-operation and discussion on those things, but that is not what we have had. Instead, we have had an 11th-hour intervention saying, “We might change this”—

It depends on what the convener considers to be a majority decision. We know that the Welsh are considering a scheme along the lines of ours—for example, they have included glass. Are you measuring a majority decision by the largest nation? Are you suggesting that the largest nation should impose that decision, or that we are a group of four nations that should agree on a level that is based on how many nations wish to go ahead with a different scheme?

I think that that would have reduced scrutiny time, but I will pass over to Ailsa Heine for the detail.

We, of course, take industry confidentiality seriously.

It will have to go through the same process as every other SSI.

It would be wonderful to have the same level of deposit across the UK. We have passed regulations that state that the level here would be 20p. However, we do not know what it might be in the rest of the UK, so I cannot comment on that.

—but we do not know what that might look like.

It absolutely has not been discussed on a four-nations basis, which is why the internal market act exclusion is so impossible for us, because the UK Government is saying, “You must comply with our deposit level,” but it has not even begun the work to establish what that deposit level will be.

Certainly. Gateway reviews are done periodically on a big delivery process such as the DRS. The purpose of a gateway review is to give a snapshot of progress on delivery, to help us to understand how our on-going engagement is working—both in delivering that project and in working with industry—and to give us guidance on how to move forward.

That gateway review was a snapshot of project delivery in March. Of course, since March, we have had substantial changes to the scheme, including the delay that was announced to 1 March 2024. Since then, we have also had the intervention through the internal market act, which has created a necessary change to our schedule.

In parallel with the gateway review—as part of the on-going assessment that we always do—we announced in April a set of changes to the scheme to address some stakeholder concerns. Work to deliver the programme necessitated those changes, and we revised the governance arrangement and put in place a system-wide assurance group, with the ministerial strategic assurance group and sector-specific groups. Those groups had already started to meet. We were working together towards that practical delivery.

We had developed the regulations that are being discussed today, which change the scope of the scheme, and bolster our resource. We have a much larger DRS team now to help to deliver that.

All the work that was done was focused on a 1 March delivery date. However, now, of course, we are looking at delivery in October 2025, with an entirely different set of legislation, which has yet to be defined. All the work that was done was to deliver the legislation as passed by this Parliament. Now, we have an entirely different scope, which is to deliver as yet unknown legislation—in October 2025, I hope, but, because the regulations have not yet been laid, we do not know that.

That is the situation. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since March, and we are in a different place now.