Chamber and committees

Thank you, convener. My interests are the same as those noted in my entry in the register of members’ interests: I worked for Orbital Marine Power at the time of my election and worked out my notice with the company after I was elected, and I am a member of Unite the union.

I will hand over to John Speirs for a bit more detail on that.

The border target operating model and the Windsor framework are two different things, but I will hand over to John Speirs to get into the weeds of it.

I will give a summary and then hand over to John Speirs. Putting the border controls in place is all part of the progress of Brexit. There have been controls for high-risk goods, and now the controls for medium-risk goods are being put in place at the borders.

I ask John to give us some detail about how the businesses find out.

I absolutely share that concern. That is exactly the transition that the border target operating model represents. When we were a full member of the EU, we were able to trade goods without border checks. Trading with the EU has been relatively low risk in the interim period since Brexit because our regulations and requirements were in line. We will inevitably diverge over time, however much we would like to stay in alignment, so we must have border controls now that we are outside the EU. That is why the border controls are being brought in. Trade has been relatively low risk, but the risk could increase over time.

We are taking a risk-based approach. High-risk goods are already being checked, by both documentary means and physical inspections. That is being done at the place of destination, not at the border. Those high-risk goods are already being tracked and managed, and we are now bringing medium-risk goods into the regime, albeit with various exemptions that I would be happy to go into. Essentially, there is a phased roll-out of border controls.

John Speirs may wish to add more detail.

Thank you, convener, for making time today to consider the draft Plant Health (Import Inspection Fees) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024. The regulations are being made to amend Scottish legislation on plant health to legislate for fees for new checks on medium-risk plants and plant products that are imported to Scotland, as set out in “The Border Target Operating Model”, which was published by the United Kingdom Government in August 2023. Of course, the model is required only as a result of Brexit. The Scottish Government continues to believe that the best trading relationships for Scotland will be found as a European Union member state.

The Scottish Government has been frustrated by how the UK Government is developing the border target operating model in relation to devolved issues. I appreciate that last-minute decisions by the UK Government have meant that the committee has not had the agreed notice period in which to consider some UK statutory instruments, including the one related to the Scottish statutory instrument that is before you today. When it is within our control, we will always endeavour to ensure that the committee has sufficient consideration time, as we have done with the Scottish statutory instrument.

The draft SSI is linked to a UK statutory instrument: the Plant Health (Fees) (England) and Official Controls (Frequency of Checks) (Amendment) Regulations 2024, which the committee considered at its meeting on 28 February. The committee agreed with the Scottish Government’s decision to consent to the provisions being included in UK subordinate legislation, which was welcome. The UK SI makes changes to the official controls regulations to reflect the introduction of plant health checks on certain medium-risk goods, along with similar amendments to the Official Controls (Plant Health) (Frequency of Checks) Regulations 2022, which introduced the current risk-targeted inspection regime.

The 2024 regulations now introduce the Scottish import inspection fees that correspond to the fees for England that are set out in the UK SI. They provide that for a period—currently up to 30 October 2024—no fees are payable for checks relating to medium-risk fruit and vegetables from EU member states and Switzerland and, similarly, for any goods from those countries and Liechtenstein that enter via a west-coast port. That is in line with the UK SI and the border target operating model. The fees in the 2024 regulations are in line with the Scottish Government’s approach to achieving full-cost recovery of service delivery from businesses that use relevant services.

The regulations are, therefore, necessary and appropriate. My officials and I are happy to take any questions from the committee.

Many larger businesses already work in this space—for example, Amazon has a charity that it sends its unsold and returned goods to. Lots of businesses are already working on the issue because they know that they need to get to net zero. It is not good for their bottom line to waste materials. As I said, there are examples. France has already introduced such a ban; it is not a new thing and there are models.

I absolutely hear what COSLA is saying and understand that it has concerns about the possibility of imposing penalties. I will make a couple of points on that. One point is that the Verity house agreement commits to evidence-led policy, and the evidence tells us that voluntary codes of practice and targets are not sufficient. They need to be mandatory, and that means that there must be consequences for not complying, as there are in Wales.

We have also committed to making that sort of penalty a last resort. The intention is to support councils to deliver good services, not to penalise them, but there must be consequences for not meeting a mandatory obligation. I will be honest and say that, as we develop the code of practice with local authorities, I feel that those local authorities that invest heavily and do the work to comply with it will feel frustrated if other local authorities are simply not bothering to comply. Through that process, we will probably get to a point where they revisit that view, because it would be unfair for some local authorities to put in so much work to meet the targets if other local authorities simply decide that they will not bother.

The provision is not that burdensome—

That is where the detail would come in regulations. The intention is that we cover larger businesses. It is all about the significance of the impact and about proportional implementation. Where such measures have been implemented, they have concerned large companies that produce significant amounts of goods. The bill is not at all intended to target small or medium-sized enterprises.

You are right that there are concerns about what the measures would look like, including in relation to where export fits in.

The bill might need to include provisions to address people trying to get round the legislation by deliberately contaminating clothing and textile waste so that it cannot be reused. Secondary legislation needs to capture all that.