Chamber and committees

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.

No. I think that we have covered it comprehensively.

I need a bit of clarification on your question. Enforcement officers will have the powers to go in and seize single-use vapes. What is the issue?

The new UK Government is now in place and I have written a letter asking for confirmation of the go-live date for the other three nations. I made the point that we do not want to diverge. There are very good reasons for us all going at once, including the obvious environmental reasons and some of the other issues that have been raised today.

I made the point that if there is a small gap we would still want to move at the same time as everyone else, but that a gap of years would be a completely different question. I am hopeful that such a gap will not happen. We have had a general election, there is a new Government and the Government machine has probably had to pause, which might have had an impact. I do not know about that because we have not had any confirmation.

We are ready to go. I have laid the instrument. We all agreed the date of 1 April 2025 and we need to get ready. If other Parliaments and Governments are not in that space and there is a time lag, we will look at our go-live date. Why would we go live two months before the rest of the UK? That would not make sense. However, if the measure comes off the table—I do not think that it will—or the gap is years long, that would be a completely different question. If I was told that there would be such a gap, I would try to convince them that it cannot be delayed for years.

Yes.

Yes.