Chamber and committees

Yes, because it will be in touch with them.

My understanding is that, ahead of the regulations for non-waste anaerobic digesters being put in place, we will put them out for consultation, but SEPA is in touch with those whom the regulations will affect. If you want detail on that, I can certainly get it from SEPA, and I can write to the committee with it. I am happy to do so, even though I do not have the exact figure in front of me right now.

I hope that that clarifies the matter, Mr Ruskell.

As I have indicated, we are not waiting for the EU to decide something and then saying, “How do we figure out the alignment bit?” The SRUC is doing work on good practice, and it has a route into working with land managers in order to evidence what is happening at the moment, the acceptance of mitigation measures and how widespread that good practice is. That will inform what we would do, if the EU were to decide to bring in regulations on that. Obviously, we will assess that at the time.

I will just move it, convener.

Motion moved,

That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Gillian Martin]

Motion agreed to.

I was just checking with my officials that the previous applicants will be transferred to the new system by SEPA in-house. The information that I have about the build-out of the digital system is that the digital service will be in place to manage the volume of applications expected by the start date of 1 November. The new website pages will be published by 1 August. A number of registration-level authorisations are expected. The existing end-to-end digital services for those regimes will be updated between 1 November 2025 and 1 April 2026. The digital system is on track to be ready for new applications by 1 November, and the oversight group will monitor progress on that.

You have picked on quite a niche aspect by mentioning hot-tub owners. I do not know whether such owners could be in the list of stakeholder groups, but it is possible that, if SEPA has not already done so, it will have to communicate that. We would hope that hot-tub owners would dispose of their waste water responsibly, as they would with any waste water, and not put in it anything that should not be there that would cause harm to the environment. I imagine that if something in there were to cause such harm it would also cause harm to anyone sitting in the hot tub. Anyway, I digress.

The new website pages will be published on 1 August, and they will include all the guidance that is associated with the issue. The fact that there have been quite a few consultations means that stakeholders—I am not sure whether hot-tub owners are in that group—who will generally be using SEPA for the existing regulations and the new regulations have already fed into those consultations, so there is widespread knowledge that the changes will happen.

You make a good point: it is important that whenever SEPA changes anything operationally, or when new sectors come into regulation, it communicates the changes with stakeholders.

There have been stakeholder engagement sessions on the draft regulations with SEPA and some of my officials in the Scottish Government. It was made clear to those stakeholders that the existing GBRs under the water environment regulations were going to be brought into the regulations, and that some new GBRs were going to be added.

SEPA will be able to give more detail on its plan to communicate the new regulations to businesses to make sure that they are aware of them and to provide any kind of advice, as it does.

At Government level, we support Farming and Water Scotland, which has been very helpful in developing a range of fact sheets and collating frequently asked questions on changes to the binding rules that are being disseminated to stakeholders.

I hope that, in the round, that acknowledges that there has to be a communications strategy around this, which SEPA and others are undertaking.

It has been recognised that cadmium can occur naturally in certain areas, so there have to be exemptions in place because of the geology of a particular area.

You mentioned islands. Many islands will have naturally occurring cadmium in their soil as a result of their geology. Exemptions could be put in place for that. The draft regulations will reduce the maximum concentration of cadmium that is allowable in soils for spreading sewage on land. The reason for that is that there is evidence of cadmium uptake in wheat, for example. Where cadmium levels are above the maximum concentrations, it is taken into growing wheat.

Scottish Water and SEPA identified that reducing the maximum permissible concentration of cadmium in soils could lead to unintended consequences in areas where there are naturally occurring levels of cadmium; in island situations, there can be limited options for the disposal of sewage sludge, and we do not want a situation where an island community cannot dispose of their sewage sludge within their geographical area. That would be an unintended consequence of reducing the maximum permissible level, given their geology. So, we have drafted the regulations to allow SEPA to provide an exemption for those reasons.

You mentioned grassland and the fact that it is not used for growing crops for human consumption. There could be another exemption there. SEPA has determined that there may be exemptions for grassland, if that is the only thing that the land is used for.

My understanding is that exemptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

It is for SEPA to decide what is waste and what is non-waste. However, I might have to bring in my officials, because I am not an expert on feedstocks and what is categorised as waste and non-waste. If Phil Leeks wants to jump in and say anything, he will be most welcome.