Chamber and committees

Yes. I hope to be able to do that before recess—that is my intention. There is a requirement for the statutory instrument that the committee is considering to pass through Parliament before I can lay that one. I am not the Minister for Parliamentary Business and I am not in charge of the timetable, but that is the intention.

That is an excellent question, convener, and I am happy to go into it in detail.

As you all know, the urgent matter that we have before us is that the regulations that have been passed by Parliament say that our scheme will go live on 16 August, which is during the parliamentary recess. The urgent matter is that we deal with that so that businesses do not have to launch a scheme this summer after we have committed to delaying it.

The other part of the SSI is practical amendment to the regulations with regard to the size of miniatures and online takeback. We worked with industry for months to establish all those things, including the changes to online takeback, that we know are part of a working scheme. We owe it to the industry to follow through on our promise to deliver on what it worked on, which is why we are bringing those two matters forward. With regard to fitting in an expedited process before recess because of the 16 August cut-off, it would have been very risky to try to get that through Parliament. To make sure that we do not put businesses in the position of having to launch the DRS on 16 August, that was the smoothest process through that time, but I realise that it is not ideal.

Ailsa Heine may want to comment on that.

Although that mechanism for passing regulations that we know will need to be amended is, as the convener has said, a bit clumsy, it is the smoothest in terms of not having to recall Parliament while still allowing for the full scrutiny process instead of an expedited one. Once this SSI passes, I will immediately bring another one before Parliament, which will set the October 2025 date. That will allow for a normal amount of scrutiny, not some accelerated process, as we will have passed that 16 August cliff edge by passing the SSI that you are considering today.

I am aware of the written question that you have lodged on that and that Zero Waste Scotland does some work on the deposit return scheme through part of its budget. I do not have the breakdown of its budget; that might be information that we can get for the member.

The UK Government is, of course, aware of the changes but, because it has not put its regulations or its scheme in place, there has not been any co-development on these matters. The amendments have been developed with industry. We have been working with industry for months—for example, with the hospitality industry and small producers—to bring these changes to define Scotland’s deposit return scheme, which I remind the member is a fully devolved matter. The amendments, together, fully define Scotland’s deposit return scheme.

I will be discussing with Minister Pow how the UK Government wants to develop its scheme. I very much hope that it will look at our complete set of regulations and the work with industry that went into them, and take the learning from that forward into its scheme.

It is not for the UK Government to agree matters that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament—

The question from the member does not make sense. These amendments have been brought as the result of discussions with industry about Scotland’s deposit return scheme, and we are amending Scotland’s deposit return scheme—the regulations that were passed by this Parliament in 2020. We are not required to agree amendments to our legislation with the UK Government.

As we go forward to develop an interoperable scheme with the UK Government, we will of course discuss what is going to be best for the whole of the UK.

I am happy to discuss tomorrow’s meeting and to provide some clarity on that point. The meeting with Minister Pow is to take a baseline of where we are with what the UK Government means to do with the conditions that it has imposed on us. However, the minister will absolutely not be able to answer questions about what the deposit level will be, what the labelling requirements will be or what will happen with miniatures and sizing. She will not be in a position to answer any of our operational or detailed questions that might affect this.

We are therefore going forward with this SSI, partly because it was laid before the interference through the internal market act, but also because it represents our commitments to industry on what the deposit return scheme will look like. As you have said, it is not for the UK Government to veto or agree any particular part of legislation that we pass at the Scottish Parliament.

However, at the meeting with the minister tomorrow, I will be able to present a developed Scottish system, the expertise of CSL and what I hope is a working proposal—that the UK Government can take on board our learning and CSL’s experience as the best and smoothest way of launching its scheme, rather than its duplicating effort, coming up with something entirely different, then imposing it on us.

However, I anticipate that we would have to bring forward yet another set of regulations at some point before 2025—if only to take glass out of the scheme, although other things may also be imposed on us.

I am very happy to do that. The regulations as passed by the Parliament in 2020 were deliberately quite broad, to allow industry to find a route to compliance that would suit it. The amendments cover five areas that have been the result of extensive work between us and industry.

The first is the requirement for online takeback, which is an important part of the scheme when it comes to equalities and people who are housebound or otherwise disabled and not able to get to a return point to return their scheme articles.

Originally, the regulations required anyone who sold any container to implement an online takeback service. That was difficult for small producers such as gin distillers who might sell only 500 bottles per week. They asked how they were to put in place an entire takeback scheme with vehicles to go and collect such items. The obligation has been restricted to the largest grocery retailers who already have the infrastructure, vehicles and IT systems to handle it, which will make the scheme both accessible and not overly burdensome for small businesses.

Another amendment is the provision on low-volume products, which is specifically aimed at supporting small producers but in fact will apply to all producers. It says that runs of products valued at less than £5,000 will not incur a deposit and therefore will not have to meet the system requirements. That will remove 44 per cent of the smallest producers from the scheme altogether, but it will also reduce the materials for the scheme by less than 0.5 per cent. It therefore does not undermine the scheme’s environmental benefits but does provide the crucial support for small producers that we all agree is important.

Another amendment is on the minimum container size, as it will apply to miniatures. There are practical issues around how tiny bottles and barcodes can be made recognisable by RVMs, but that change largely involves a simplification of the scheme that will help producers. We think that it will remove only 0.2 per cent of the total scheme articles. Again, we are providing significant support for business while not undermining the environmental aims of the scheme.

The fourth amendment applies to hospitality retailers. Originally, in the regulations as passed, any retailer who sold any article covered by the scheme would be required to apply to be a return point, unless they were granted an exemption. We have widened that out at the specific request of hospitality retailers, who sell more than 90 per cent of their items in a closed loop. I am sorry to use that technical phrase; it means that they sell things that are to be consumed on their premises. If someone goes to a restaurant and buys a bottle of wine they do not take it off the premises; they consume it there and then they leave. That is an example of a closed loop. However, if they go to premises and buy a can or a bottle of juice and then leave with it, that is an example of an open loop. Hospitality premises, 90 per cent of which represent closed loops—which will include most restaurants and many nightclubs and bars—will not be required automatically to be return points. That will remove a substantial proportion of operators from the scheme. The rough estimate that I had from the industry was 50 per cent or so, but David McPhee might correct me on that.