Chamber and committees

Of course. That comes back to the earlier point about what happens if something else enters the market that looks different or whatever. Obviously, we will be alive to anything that happens, in a four-nations approach, where that might be the case and might cause any dubiety. For the moment, I think that the single-use or disposable vape has a fairly obviously different appearance from the rechargeable type.

We want to take single-use vapes—or disposable vapes, as they are better known—out of the economy altogether. For a number of reasons, there is no ability to recycle them, even if they make it to recycling plants. The process is quite a manual one. Disposable vapes are not designed to be taken apart or to be recycled.

I have spoken about the volume involved. If local authorities had to recycle disposable vapes, it would cost them £200 million. There are a number of advantages to taking them out of the equation completely. First, they will not be littering our streets. As everyone here will have noticed over the past few years, once we spot one of them in the street, we spot 10 of them. When they go into a bin, they are going in with the general rubbish. As I mentioned, there is lithium in there, which is a very precious resource. We often mention that there is not enough lithium available for the larger batteries that we need for EVs. Cumulatively, vapes have a large amount of lithium in them, which is ending up in general waste.

The ban will have a health impact, too. We know that many of the uptakers of the single-use vapes are likely to be under age. They are getting hold of them somehow—that is what teenagers do. The vapes are very attractive. They often have flavours associated with them that are attractive to younger people. If we take them out of circulation, younger, underage people will be less likely to access vapes, because they will not be likely to buy a rechargeable and reusable one, for so many reasons. There are a number of advantages to the measure.

Fires have been associated with vapes. If they are not disposed of properly, they are likely to go into general waste and cause a fire in a bin lorry. There have been so many instances of that happening already. As I say, there are a huge amount of advantages to the ban. The draft instrument is a set of environmental regulations, but they reach more widely than that, including into health.

As things stand, we are all going forward as one, and we want to go forward as one. Obviously, a new Government is in place, and I need to make sure that everything is still in train, so I am writing this week just to get confirmation of where the other nations are and to let them know that we have laid our regulations and started the process.

Should I get an answer that says, “Actually, no, we are not ready to go on 1 April,” a couple of options are open to us. If the period is quite short, we could decide to change our regulations to come in at a date along with everyone else’s. If it is only a couple more months, I do not think that there is any harm in that. However, if it is a couple more years, that is a different question altogether, and we would need to think about how we might go forward, because that would be a couple of years of those items still being on the streets, still in our bins and still causing the problems that they have caused.

As things stand, I have not had confirmation that the implementation date has changed. I think that I signed off on a letter to the UK Government yesterday, to say that we are ready for 1 April and to ask whether others were ready and whether that was still the plan.

I am not sure that I am able to go into that level of detail, but the point is that the system involves the costs of dealing with the waste being met by the fund, not the other way around. It is not a case of “This is what we collect and this what you’ve got”; it is, effectively, a case of “This is how much it is going to cost us to deal with this packaging, therefore this is the money that is required.”

I want to say a couple of things before I directly answer your question. One of the issues that we brought to the table when we were talking about the regulations was the fact that a lot of our local authorities cover rural parts of Scotland and we do not want them to be disadvantaged in relation to urban local authorities. Therefore, we managed to get “must” changed to “may” in the regulations and that kind of thing, in order that that is taken into account in looking at the funding that is given as a result of the activities that are happening at a local level. Rurality is taken into account. Highland Council is in a completely different situation to Glasgow City Council with regard to how it manages its waste. That adaptation was made to ensure that the process did not disadvantage a lot of rural councils. I think that the Welsh Government was very sympathetic to that for similar reasons.

On your substantive point about the scrutiny of how the money is spent, allocations will be given to councils, so we will be able to scrutinise how that money is deployed at a council level. However, on the system administrator coming here to give evidence, it will be a UK-wide system administrator role, but I would say that it is probably good sense for them to engage with all four Parliaments to ensure that they are scrutinised as much as possible. Of course, the Scottish Government will want the data as it relates to our local authorities, and it will be essential that we have that.

Yes.

The enforcement of anything that we bring in is absolutely crucial.

First, there is the communication that we would have with retailers around what the ban means for them. Twenty-nine of the 32 local authorities were supportive of the proposal. Their trading standards officers already have the powers to deal with any kind of illicit goods being sold, and these regulations add to that.

However, as you will remember, beyond the enforcement powers that trading standards officers already have and the offence provisions that are in these regulations, the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 amended the regulation-making powers in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to enable enforcement officers to issue fixed-penalty notices as an alternative to prosecution for offences. The shorter, sharper and more effective approach of fining—rather than prosecuting, using the whole court process—will be a lot more straightforward than some of the processes that we have had, and that might release a bit of capacity in the system.

The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government is the person who you have to ask about finance for local government; it is not really for me to answer that. However, as with any ban, there will be an initial concentration of activity until everyone gets used to the fact that single-use vapes are no longer available and then there will be a tailing off. Those products just will not be in the system any more and retailers will get used to that. All the mechanisms for the public to report anyone selling them will be open, as well.

The sale of anything online is subject to the same regulations as the sale of anything on the high street. If it is illegal to sell something online and it is a UK-based business that is doing so, that business is subject to the regulations that we have here, so it would be breaking the law.

In the case of online sales from outside the UK, there will be increased funding from the UK Government to the Border Force and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to deal with that. They are preparing for the fact that there will probably be an issue with people purchasing single-use vapes online, although not necessarily from the UK. If you purchased something such as a dangerous weapon or illegal pharmaceuticals, those would be subject to customs searches. In the same way, Border Force and HMRC are alive to the fact that people might try to bring in single-use vapes from outwith the country by purchasing them online. Therefore, more resources will be put into those mechanisms at UK level.

I want to make it clear that every one of the four nations wants the DRS to be up and running well before that.

Thank you, convener. I understand the intentions behind your amendments. It is not appropriate to throw litter from a vehicle, and I understand the frustration that we all feel about the amount of litter on our roadsides.

The bill as drafted creates flexibility for the Scottish ministers to set the civil penalty charge at an appropriate amount and will also allow for consultation with local authorities and other stakeholders in respect of the amount. For those reasons, I cannot support the amendments.

Proposed new section 88C(5) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, as inserted by section 14, provides a regulation-making power to ministers to set—and to increase—the amount that may be imposed by way of a civil penalty charge. The civil penalty regime provided for under section 14 allows the registered keeper of a vehicle to be issued with a civil penalty charge where an authorised officer is satisfied to the civil standard—that is, on the balance of probabilities—that a littering offence has taken place from the vehicle.

Amendment 119 would set the civil penalty vastly higher than the current fixed-penalty charge amount for a littering offence; I understand why you would want to do so, convener, but I note that the penalty is currently fixed at £80 and can be increased by secondary legislation to a maximum of £500. The amendment, therefore, would make the civil penalty amount for a littering offence from a vehicle disproportionate in respect of the nature of the offence—