Chamber and committees

On that, we have written to the UK Government to reiterate the position that we had signed up to with the previous Government before the general election. We had said that we would work in lock step with the other nations to roll out the DRS. In the same vein as the previous discussion around vaping, I have been in touch with them about moving ahead on that on a four-nations basis. I will keep you updated on that, but our position remains that we want a DRS working as soon as possible.

The thing is that you cannot give assurance about future budget settlements at all, Mr Lumsden, as you know. I am not in a position to say what will happen in future with regard to council tax settlements. However, it is about the fundamental principle that, with regard to waste management, the four nations of the UK are, as a whole, moving towards the responsibility for paying for the handling of waste coming not from the public purse but from the producers of the items that we use.

I do not know whether David McPhee wants to come in.

That is my understanding. Maybe my officials can help. Is your point that the enforcement officers might take items that are not single-use vapes in error?

I am going to have to bring in my officials. The WEEE regulations concern things such as the take-back of rechargeable items. Now that the regulations that we are considering today are coming in, there will not be that take-back responsibility. Can I bring in my official on that specific point?

We will always do that. When the regulations land and once they are enforced, we will keep an eye on how they are working. If any issues come up that have not been considered, of course we will look at that again. However, that point has not been raised—hence my initial confusion as to your question. I hope that my officials have been able to give you certainty that that has not been an issue.

We have absolutely been in touch with COSLA throughout the whole process. I am really pleased that the UK Government has brought forward these regulations, and I hope that the committee will agree that they really represent a step change in the management of waste; instead of its being a burden on the taxpayer and on the public purse, there will be a vehicle for the manufacturers of products to pay for the management of their packaging waste. I think that it will mean a number of things, and I think that COSLA is supportive of it.

What effectively will it mean? It is expected that £1.2 billion a year will come to local authorities UK wide, and with the consequentials, that will translate into £120 million a year for Scotland. That is what is anticipated; it might be more or it might be less, but that is what it is anticipated will come to local authorities from the scheme administrator as a result of its handling of waste packaging.

What that will mean, initially, is that authorities can invest that money in improving their recycling processes without—and this is crucial—putting the burden of dealing with the waste on council tax payers or on the funding that they get from Government. Initially, there will be two streams of funding, because authorities will have to put in place a certain amount of adaptation with regard to the waste management that we ask them to do. Effectively, though, the money that will come to them as a result of EPR is going to help them to significantly improve their waste management.

It is exactly that. You point to the fact that, if the regulations are passed, the ban will not be in force until 1 April. There has in fact been more notice, because the retail industry has known about, and seen, the regulations, which went out for consultation. We have had live consultations with retailers as part of the process. In addition, the proposal was in the programme for government last year, and it has been a topic of conversation in the Parliament for quite some time, with many MSPs lobbying for a ban on these products for very good reasons.

There is the official notice period: if Parliament agrees to pass the regulations, retailers have six months to run down their stock. There will always be an impact associated with not allowing retailers to sell a profitable item—there is no getting away from that. In the past four years, these items have exploded on to the scene. Initially, I think there was a single digit percentage of people using them, but that has gone up to about 50 per cent of people. They have become extremely popular.

If we look at the demographic of people who use them, we see that—as the convener said—many are younger people. I am quite shocked to hear that people can get a vape with their ice cream—that takes me back to the 1980s, when the rogue ice cream guy would sell you a single cigarette and a match when you went out to get an ice cream. I think we all recognise that that kind of thing used to happen—I did not realise that it was happening with vapes, but I am steeped in that experience.

The flavours associated with vapes mean that they are attractive to younger people. Of course, I am not saying that retailers are selling them to young people; young people are just doing the same as has been going on since time immemorial. Kids outside the shop get hold of a guy who is going in for his messages and say, “Can you buy me one of these?”, or older siblings or friends, or whoever, are buying them. That is just the way that teenagers operate—we know that.

With regard to the business case—yes, retailers will no longer be able to sell that profitable item, but they have notice in order to run down their stocks. They can decide whether they want to start selling the reusable products instead, alongside the refills for those; there is another stream of income in servicing the demand that might come from people who used to buy single-use vapes, legally, as their preferred model. There will be a market there, and it is for retailers to make that business decision.

I will give you a bit of background. We contacted every vape retailer in Scotland. We identified those through the register of tobacco and nicotine vapour products retailers. Seven thousand retailers in Scotland are registered. We contacted them all and invited them to provide feedback on the draft regulations, as part of the development of the business and regulatory impact assessment. We conducted the Scottish firms impact test—the SIFT—and we interviewed 11 businesses that came forward. With them, we worked through some of the potential impacts on them. The themes that were identified included funding for enforcement and the potential for illicit sales—going underground. A variety of businesses responded.

Of course, that is not the end of the consultation. Once the regulations are approved—as I hope they will be—by the Parliament, we will get in touch with every single one of the 7,000 members on that register, to alert them to the fact, if they have not already seen it, that the regulations have been passed.

Initially, there were obviously a lot of questions around what it might mean for them and a discussion about what influence they would have in the design of the EPR. The administrator put together a steering group, because it was important that businesses had an influence on how the EPR would be designed—obviously, this is a UK instrument that is coming to us to agree on. It allowed members of that steering group to perform an advisory role.

Indicative producer base fees were released in August and gave businesses indicative accounts of what they can expect to pay per tonne under the EPR. Those have been dealt with at the four-nations level, because the business community has been involved in the design of the EPR from the get-go.

It might be important to say that I am genuinely looking forward to seeing how businesses and producers of goods and packaging adapt to that. I think that what we will see as a result is an improvement in our packaging, as they will not want to pay a lot of money for the soft packet plastics and so on. I am excited to see how that will develop. I think that we will see a revolution and innovation in the way that packaging for our goods is manufactured and designed, because businesses and producers will want to take the waste plastics away as much as possible. I hope that the fact that this is getting moved across all four nations means that they will see a market for better packaging—not only are there market opportunities for those producers, but they are also looking at how to bring down waste at source.

I will make it as short as possible, convener.

The committee will recall that, during the passage of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill, amendments were lodged by the Government to ensure that various pieces of legislation that would apply to Scotland’s other public bodies would also apply to Zero Waste Scotland. The transition follows a decision that was made by the Office for National Statistics for Zero Waste Scotland to be classified as a public sector organisation, as it is primarily directed and funded by Scottish ministers. Work is well under way to ensure an orderly transition, and—subject to how the committee votes today—we fully expect the change of status to take effect from 1 October. Zero Waste Scotland will be subject to the same provisions on public finance and accountability as other public bodies in Scotland, and it is important that the organisation has a designated accountable officer as part of routine good governance.

Zero Waste Scotland will not be part of the Scottish Administration under the Scotland Act 1998. That means that, for the purposes of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000, the permanent secretary, as principal accounting officer, cannot appoint an accountable officer for Zero Waste Scotland. However, article 2 of the draft order requires that Zero Waste Scotland be audited by the Auditor General for Scotland, which consequently engages the relevant provision of part 2 of the 2000 act.

Where a body’s accounts are subject to audit by the Auditor General, the permanent secretary will then be given power to designate an accountable officer for Zero Waste Scotland under section 15(3) of the 2000 act.

I hope that that gives a summary of what we are doing; I will close there.

I welcome the support for the regulations’ intentions and for the approach that I am taking on any flexibility that we might need, should other nations not be ready. I do not know about that for sure, but the point is taken, and it is certainly my view, too.

Concerns about flavouring and packaging, which Douglas Lumsden raised, will be addressed in UK legislation—the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. He is absolutely right about the people who have marketed them. Let us face it—there has been a marketing attempt to attract younger people, and they might try the same thing with the more reusable vapes, although I would suggest that they are harder to hide from parents. Those points are being taken on board at UK level as well, and we support that.