Chamber and committees

There are no regulations to specifically prevent the export of waste collected through DRS. Waste will be channelled to appropriate recycling facilities. Decisions on appropriate recycling facilities are made by Circularity Scotland in delivering the scheme As stated in our response to the second report, the Scottish Government accepts recommendation 18. We want to be able to manage more of our own waste within Scotland and strengthen public confidence in where their recycling goes.

The DRS is expected to improve the quality of collected materials, resulting in high value recyclate that will incentive investment in reprocessing infrastructure in Scotland to handle material, and for drinks producers to return it to food-grade plastics rather than export for other purposes.

Research shows that co-operatives, and other inclusive business models, are fair and inclusive places to work and as a result enjoy financial and social resilience. Co-operative business models can play a critical role in economic recovery, supporting the Scottish Government’s aim to create a fairer, stronger and more democratic economy.

We will continue to work through Co-operative Development Scotland (CDS) and the enterprise agencies to support the growth of co-operative and other alternative business models. The funding distributed by Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise to cooperatives is an operational matter for each agency and I have therefore asked the agencies’ Chief Executives to respond to you directly.

RIF funding awards are predominantly still at planning or early implementation stages and there has therefore not yet been an evaluation of the impact of the projects in terms of waste reprocessing capacity (or increased collection for recycling). Information is currently available relating to two projects.

Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme has been based on successful schemes across Europe. The Minister has been thoroughly briefed by Zero Waste Scotland on relevant research findings throughout the policy’s development.

Research was undertaken by Zero Waste Scotland, who designed the scheme, and met with a range of international scheme administrators and operators, including those from Norway, Estonia, Sweden, Lithuania, Germany, Iceland, Denmark and Finland.

This research and briefing has meant that the minister has been fully appraised of the main characteristics of schemes across Europe and has not therefore personally travelled to the countries listed or personally met the chief executives from these schemes.

The regulation of consumer protection is reserved to the UK Government. As such, the Scottish Government does not hold the requested information.

However, the Scottish Government is determined to take action where it can to try and prevent consumers experiencing harm as a result of activity which breaches regulations, particularly throughout the cost of living crisis.

One of these actions is the funding of an Energy Efficiency Measures Coordinator Post in Trading Standards Scotland to support work in tackling energy marketing scams.

We recommend that householders should always call the Scottish Government’s Home Energy Scotland service for advice before deciding to make energy efficiency improvements to their home.

The Scottish Government first set a national target for the college sector to deliver full-time equivalent (FTE) student places in Academic Year 2012-13, with Academic Year 2020-21 being the last year in which this target was in place. The target in each of these years was 116,269 FTE places.

The Independent Review of the Skills Delivery Landscape will be published before Parliament goes into recess at the end of June.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-18143 on 31 May 23. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

There are currently 72 NHS CT scanners operational within NHS Scotland. In addition, three mobile CT scanners have been deployed to provide additional capacity to support waiting times recovery.

The Scottish Government is currently engaging with stakeholders taking into consideration their ambitions and priorities to develop an International Education Strategy which works for Scotland.