Chamber and committees

I would just say thank you very much to Callum Isted for bringing the matter to our attention. He is absolutely right: we should all be working towards using fewer single-use plastics and using reusable, long-term containers and packaging. I thank him so much for his work.

Callum Isted’s petition is specifically about a proposal to replace single-use bottles, which were what were being used in his school. Many schools already have in place solutions to that, such as water fountains or jug and cup schemes. That provision is already in place and we do not want to solve a problem that has already been solved in many schools. We know that schools are working towards the sustainability objective. We also have in place national programmes to tackle single-use plastics, such as our deposit return scheme. The process to move away from single-use plastics is well under way.

I recognise Callum Isted’s hard work on the issue and the work that he has done with his school, but it is not necessarily the correct solution for every school, and it is up to schools and local authorities to put in place the correct solution for them.

I do. Thank you very much.

I congratulate Callum Isted on the incredible effort that he has put behind the petition and the campaign, and for raising £1,400 to buy reusable bottles for his school. His work has been an inspiration to us all.

I and this Government are committed to this agenda and are seeking to dramatically reduce the amount of single-use plastic products that we consume and throw away in Scotland. That is why we are working hard right now to implement Scotland’s deposit return scheme, have banned some of the most problematic single-use plastic products and are introducing a minimum charge on single-use beverage cups by 2025.

Scotland’s deposit return scheme, which will cover the kinds of single-use bottles that we are talking about today, will alone reduce littering by a third and cut emissions by the equivalent of 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over 25 years. That is an average of around 160,000 tonnes of CO₂ each year, which is the equivalent of taking 83,000 cars off the road in the United Kingdom. However, I agree that that is only part of what we need to do. Education authorities and schools have a key role in leading the way.

Callum’s petition has requested that the Scottish Government provides local authorities with funding to enable schools to give reusable metal water bottles to schoolchildren when they start in primary 1. Although I welcome the spirit of the request made in the petition and absolutely share the same ultimate goal—to reduce to a minimum the consumption of single-use plastics in schools—it is for local authorities, as autonomous and democratic organisations, to agree their annual budgets, taking into account their statutory duties and national and local priorities.

The law says that all schools must make sure that drinking water is available free of charge for all pupils at all times of the day, including at meal times. It is for each education authority and school to decide how drinking water is provided, and it is important that we respect that, so that they can provide water in the way that works best for their school and their pupils.

The Scottish Government is clear that that decision, like others made by schools, should support our broader environmental goals. I know that those who provide catering in schools actively consider sustainability as part of their thinking about the delivery of their services. Sustainability is also reflected in the learning for sustainability cross-curricular theme, which encourages schools to take a whole-setting approach to it. That means that all school buildings, grounds and policies in the school should support learning for sustainability, including making sure that the school is taking steps to be more sustainable, which includes reducing the use of plastic.

I know that, in practical terms, local authorities use sustainable approaches to reduce the use of single-use plastic in schools. That includes the provision of water fountains, ensuring that water jugs and reusable cups are available in dining halls, and encouraging pupils to bring in and use reusable bottles. Furthermore, in direct response to the petition, my colleague Shirley-Anne Somerville wrote to the directors of education at all local authorities, drawing their attention to the petition and their obligations to provide drinking water to pupils, and further encouraging them to do so in an environmentally friendly way. We will continue to build on that progress.

Thank you for inviting me here today. I look forward to answering your questions.

Schools may interact with the deposit return scheme in several ways. Large schools that have, for example, a cafeteria that sells drinks would be part of the scheme. They would charge the 20p, as any shop or cafeteria of that style would, and they would have an obligation under the scheme to decide whether they would operate as a return point. They would have the same options as any other cafeteria or similar venue: to operate as a manual return point, to install a reverse vending machine or to apply for an exemption from being a return point based on health and safety grounds or any of the other grounds that are available.

Schools that, for example, do free school meals and provide a free bottle have a couple of options. They could run as a closed-loop system, as many restaurants will. For example, when you buy a bottle of wine in a restaurant, you do not take that bottle away with you—the restaurant takes it back—so you will not pay a deposit on it. That is called a closed-loop system. If schools were to offer an open-loop system with free school meals, they would have to incorporate the price of the deposit in the cost of the meal, because the child would be able to take the container away and collect the 20p when they returned it.

There are different ways in which schools may interact with the scheme. Of course, if schools moved away from using single-use plastics as a way of providing drinks, specifically water, that they are required to provide, they would not be required to participate in the deposit return scheme.

The member raises excellent points. Those are exactly the sorts of tools that we have as we move towards a circular economy and begin to get rid of waste. We are talking particularly about plastic waste, but waste of any materials or energy in our society is no good.

The extended producer responsibility scheme for plastic is a UK-wide initiative. It was two weeks ago, I think, that we passed at the committee the Scottish statutory instrument to start collecting data for the scheme. From 2024, large packaging producers will need to report on what their packaging is made of and how much packaging they produce—that sort of thing—and in 2025 they will pay fees based on how much packaging they produce. Those fees will be collected and distributed to local authorities to help them pay for recycling. It is another producer responsibility scheme in which the cost of handling materials at the end of their use will be passed to the producers of the materials, rather than being borne by the public purse. It is an exciting initiative that will, I hope, transform our recycling and the design of packaging materials, because it will incentivise producers of packaging to use more sustainable materials, more recyclable materials, and, I hope, less material altogether. It will be advantageous to them to do that under the fee scheme.

The other thing that you touched on was the circular economy bill, which is largely about establishing new powers. One of the things that was consulted on for the bill was powers to put charges on single-use items, and one of the things that we will look at next in the single-use space is single-use beverage cups. The bill is intended to establish powers so that we can be adaptable as we go forward and use targeted approaches, much like was done with plastic bags under our current powers. We know how effective that was in reducing litter and damage to the environment.

I do not know the answer to that.

The fees structure is intended to cover just the costs, and, where reduced inspections are required, that means a reduced cost. The fees are not a money-making mechanism. If we have to use fewer resources doing fewer checks, we do not need to charge as much.

Again, I will give you a general overview and then officials can come in with more detail.

The statutory instrument and the fees relate only to high-risk products that are commercially imported in large quantities for business interests. One plant in a person’s hand luggage is not a high-risk product—it is low risk. Checks on low-risk products have been delayed by another 18 months. The legislation is specifically about high-risk products. It is about commercial things—imports that we know about that we can the trace through the country. It is about ensuring that they are right. We can, of course, check up to 100 per cent of them; in fact, the default fee is for a 100 per cent check. If, for example, as Caspian Richards said, there were woody products that posed a very high risk, checks of up to 100 per cent could be done, because such materials can be traced. If there is a lower risk, the number of checks can be lowered on the basis of the risk assessment.

I do not know whether my officials want to add anything to that.

I will you give my layperson’s interpretation, and officials can come in with technical details if I miss anything. Due to Brexit, it is now necessary to do these checks on all high-risk products coming from the EU in addition to those coming from the rest of the world. Therefore, these checks aim to bring how we treat products from the EU into alignment with how we treat products from the rest of the world. Obviously, the Scottish Government did not wish for Brexit to happen or for these checks to be necessary, but it is important that we have alignment between how we handle products from the EU and how we handle products from the rest of the world. England and Wales have already put in place such a risk-based scheme.

The EU scheme, which, of course, is what would have been used to check these products as they came into the EU is also a risk-based scheme. Therefore, it is the same principle and the same structure of scheme, but we must now bring that into Scottish legislation.

Again, I will give you the layperson’s view, and officials can come in with the details. The new regime involves the same kind of risk profiling as the existing scheme. As plants come in, we have to check that they are the correct plants, as identified, that they are healthy and that they are not bringing in pathogens. Risk assessments will be based on what we grow here, what pathogens might spread in the UK and what might create risks for our crops and commercial interests. My officials might like to add some detail.