Chamber and committees

That is an interesting question. In the consultation, we consulted on charging for waste collection, but we have not brought that forward in the bill.

You make a good point about the standardisation of charging and what it would look like to incentivise and support people to do the right thing. We will now need to take that forward with local authorities through the code of practice. We do not intend to impose that on local authorities through the bill; I would like to develop it with them through the code of practice.

Do you mean the support measures?

No, there is no staging approach to implementation as the householders’ duty of care already exists. Issuing a fixed-penalty notice of £200 pounds is absolutely intended to be, as Janet McVea said, a last resort when there is no basis for supposing that the householder made an attempt to meet their duty of care. The measure is to tackle persistent and repeat offenders.

On other work that I am doing in this space, I have met Gumtree—twice, I think—to talk about how the company can support its users and customers to do the right thing. One of the things that we have suggested to Gumtree, which I believe that it intends to implement—this is not something that we are legally obliging it to do—is that people who advertise white-van-man waste services should post their waste management licence. That would enable the householder to complete their duty of care, because they could point to having seen a waste management licence number.

That is an example of measures that we can help online platforms and other services to put in place, so that the householder can say that they have met their duty of care.

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the order, which will change the amount that is payable under a fixed-penalty notice for fly-tipping offences from £200 to £500. That is the maximum level that the fixed-penalty amount can be set at by order under section 33A(10) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

We are taking this action to show that we are serious about tackling waste crime. Updating the amount of the FPN for fly-tipping is a commitment made in the national litter and fly-tipping strategy and in the year 1 action plan, which was published in June 2023. It will strengthen the existing enforcement regime for fly-tipping so that the fine issued by a fixed-penalty notice will now be a flat rate of £500.

The increase has broad support from the public and relevant organisations. The response to the public consultation on the national litter and fly-tipping strategy, which concluded in March 2022, showed strong support. The analysis of responses showed that 84 per cent of the 925 responses supported the increase, and 90 per cent of the 79 organisations that responded supported the increase to £500.

There are small financial implications for enforcement bodies such as local authorities, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park and Police Scotland, which will, as a result of the increase, incur minor administration costs in changing notices and internal procedures, although I note that those organisations were among those who responded positively to the increase during the consultation process.

Increasing the FPN is not the only action that we will take. It sits alongside a range of other measures that are set out in the national litter and fly-tipping strategy and year 1 action plan, such as publishing research into the enforcement of littering and fly-tipping, working to develop more effective collaborative working across organisations such as SEPA and local authorities, and supporting SEPA in offering a grant scheme to private landowners so that they can find ways to deter and deal with fly-tipping.

That is a very good point. The guidance for local authorities has been published only recently, so it is probably not in the wider public domain. Therefore, yes, absolutely, we can have a think about that.

That is a really interesting point, on which, if Monica Lennon will indulge me, I will go into in some detail. Under the first provision of the bill, which is on the circular economy strategy, she will note that, under section 1(5),

“The circular economy strategy must be prepared with a view to achieving consistency, so far as practicable,”

with the “climate change plan” and the “environmental policy strategy”. That is the link that brings in the just transition elements. When we develop the circular economy strategy, we must include all those elements. It is right there in the bill that we must tie those things in.

With respect to the bill’s shape, there was a target in the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill. The context is quite different here, in two ways. One is that, in the context of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill, we were looking at Scotland’s contribution to a UK bill that already existed. There was already a target in that space, and we were looking at our piece of it. The second difference is that, with climate, there is one target, which is on carbon emissions—that is the one thing that we are looking at. In the circular economy space, there are many different metrics that could be looked at. There are consumption targets and sectoral targets—there are a lot of different things that one could look at.

When choosing to set targets, there are risks around, for example, setting targets that cover reserved matters. If the Scottish Government set targets that did not cover solely devolved matters, we would be risking setting targets that we had no control over achieving. We are in a different space with the circular economy targets, in that we are still at the cutting edge of establishing the metrics and targets, and how to measure and make progress on them. In this case, that work needs to be done in parallel with the setting of the strategy and the targets, because the science has not moved along and is not as mature as it was in the climate space. Also, there is no UK-wide legislation and targets that we are slotting into as we were with the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill.

Would any of the officials like to come in on that?

Ailsa Heine has the full details on that, but this is only one part of the enforcement regime around fly-tipping. SEPA has a separate range of civil penalties that it can issue for offences under section 33(6) of the 1990 act, including fly-tipping. Those penalties include monetary penalties of £600 and variable monetary penalties of up to £40,000, which is the maximum fine upon summary conviction for these offences. Those remain unchanged. Criminal proceedings are also possible, including conviction on indictment through a jury trial, imprisonment of up to five years and an unlimited fine.

However, fixed-penalty notices are intended for small-scale crime. A £1,000 or higher penalty would not be proportionate for the dumping of a sofa. If we are getting into serious waste crime, however, there are much more punitive measures.

At this point, I will hand over to Ailsa Heine.

That is a specific example, but when waste that has been fly-tipped can be identified, the provision in the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill would allow a fixed-penalty notice of £200 to be charged against the homeowner.

No, no—that is a good suggestion, convener. If the member would be content with that, we can certainly take the discussion out of this space, if that would be convenient.

That just shows how effectively you can scrutinise secondary legislation using the negative procedure. Well done.