Chamber and committees

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Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-07131

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 29 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its proposed Deposit Return Scheme, whether it will publish all (a) correspondence, (b) communication and (c) other documents between it and Circularity Scotland related to any conflict of opinion on the (i) detail of estimates of the number of (A) items to be recycled, (B) return locations and (C) Reverse Vending Machines required, and (ii) consideration of the wording and content of Annex F of the Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland Final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA), published in December 2021.

The position taken by Circularity Scotland Ltd (CSL) in respect of container and return point numbers, as I understand it, is set out at Annex F of the amended Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for our Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) published in December 2021.

CSL’s position in respect of number of reverse vending machines is that they expect roughly 3,000 of these as set out in the Full Business Case for DRS.

CSL had no sight of the content of the amended BRIA in advance of publication.

Question reference: S6W-07097

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the proposed Deposit Return Scheme may contravene the provisions on non-discrimination of goods, which are included in the UK Internal Market Act 2020.

Question reference: S6W-07113

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the comments, regarding potential benefits for industry from its Deposit Return Scheme, by the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity at the meeting of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on 25 January 2022, that the scheme "will generate about £600 million a year" and that "there is a lot of money to be made", whether it will provide a detailed breakdown of this figure in terms of any potential benefits to industry, and how precisely any such benefits will arise.

The figure is based on Circularity Scotland Ltd’s assessment of its expected annual turnover as scheme administrator once it is in steady state.

We anticipate that implementation and operation of DRS will generate a range of business and employment opportunities in the extensive infrastructure and logistics required for the scheme, for example in the construction and operating of sorting and bulking centres.

Question reference: S6W-07092

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many businesses in the SME sector it anticipates will cease doing business in Scotland as a result of any additional costs of compliance with the proposed Deposit Return Scheme, such as the bar code and labelling requirements.

Participation of small producers is vital to the success of the scheme and we believe we have taken their needs into consideration in designing DRS.

We have consulted extensively with businesses of all sizes that will be affected by the implementation of Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme. We are not aware that any producers have decided to cease doing business in Scotland, although we are aware that some have expressed concerns about whether they will continue to sell their products in Scotland.

This is one of the reasons why we have applied a de minimis for the SEPA registration fee. This will remove a cost for businesses operating below the current VAT threshold, benefiting around 1,600 of the more than 4,000 anticipated producers selling into the Scottish market

Question reference: S6W-07098

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to its plans to include glass packaging in a Deposit Return Scheme, whether it has considered the impact on overall glass recycling rates of splitting glass into two waste streams for material collected manually and using reverse vending machines.

Section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires those handling waste to ensure that it is handled in a fashion that promotes high-value recycling.

Return points, producers and Circularity Scotland, when handling returned scheme packaging, including glass, will therefore have an obligation to promote high-value recycling regardless of whether the glass is collected manually or by the use of reverse vending machines.

Question reference: S6W-07096

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to its proposed Deposit Return Scheme, what consideration (a) it and (b) Circularity Scotland has given to the potential impact on distributers and wholesalers in Scotland of a need for two separate SKU’s (Stock Keeping Units), in particular in relation to (i) cost and (ii) space implications, in light of the plans for separate labelling requirements for Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Question reference: S6W-07093

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its proposed Deposit Return Scheme, whether wholesalers will be permitted during the course of their normal delivery schedule to use the same lorries and vans for back haul of the collection, and uplift of glass bottles, plastic containers and aluminium tins; whether SEPA has been asked to provide advice on this matter, and, if so, when (a) it was first asked to do so and (b) the advice will be published.

Since July 2021 SEPA has advised that the same vehicle that is used for delivery can be used for the backhaul of scheme packaging provided that:

the haulier is a registered waste carrier ;
where backhaul is carried out in a vehicle used to transport fresh food, there is sufficient separation and a barrier to prevent contamination of waste materials with organic matter.

This advice was published as part of a series of DRS Frequently Asked Questions on SEPA’s website on 8 March 2022.

Question reference: S6W-07108

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 22 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on (a) how many reverse vending machines (RVMs) it estimates will be used in its Deposit Return Scheme, (b) the most recent evidence it has regarding the costs of each machine, (c) which companies in Scotland can supply these machines, and how many, (d) any engagement that it has had with any such companies, (e) which companies outside of Scotland supply RVMs, and any engagement that it has had with them and (f) how it will avoid a potential monopoly situation arising in respect of the supply of RVMs that are compatible with its updated requirements for their use and operation.

The number of Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs) that will be used in Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), was estimated at 3,021. This information can be found in Table 2 on page 19 of the revised Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA).

The BRIA also indicates that the cost of an RVM could vary from around £19,000 to £25,000 for smaller models, and around £30,000 for a larger machine.

The costs associated with operating of Return Points, including RVMs can be found in Table 1 on page 5 of the Full Business Case Addendum .

The identification and acquisition of DRS-compatible RVMs is a matter for the Scheme Administrator, Circularity Scotland Ltd, and retailers to manage. This is consistent with the industry-led approach to DRS.

Question reference: S6W-07110

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 22 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the comment by the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity at the meeting of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on 25 January 2022 that the annual cost of operating Circularity Scotland “in a steady state” is estimated in the full business case to be £92.9 million, whether it will publish full details of that total; what its position is on whether this is an accurate estimate, and, if it does not consider it to be accurate, what its estimate is, and how many employees it anticipates will be employed through these annual costs.

Question reference: S6W-07121

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 22 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the Deposit Return Scheme and the estimates it made of the costs of loss of revenue to retailers caused by the loss of space necessary to accommodate a reverse vending machine (RVM), whether it will state (a) what specific evidence it obtained from Envipco whom it cites as the basis for the figure used of around 0.5 square metres, (b) what discussions it had with representatives of small retailers in connection with the business and regulatory impact assessment (BRIA) of 2019 (paragraph 174) and the Final BRIA of 2021 (paragraph 209), (c) what its response is to reports that many small retailers believe that the space required for the smallest RVM that would permit its location in a shop and its use for its intended purpose, including extraction of recyclate, is 3 square metres of floor space, which is around six times more than what was estimated and (d) what it estimates will be the total annual cost of loss of revenue for retailers that is attributable to the loss of floor space required for RVMs based on the area of (i) 0.5 and (ii) 3 square metres.

The most up to date information available regarding the impact of Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme on retailers, including information about the use of Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs) can be found in the amended Final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA), which was published on 22 December 2021 and can be downloaded from the Scottish Government’s website here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/deposit-return-scheme-scotland-final-business-regulatory-impact-assessment/ .