Chamber and committees

You have reflected on the IMA’s role within the decision-making process. Given that you have reflected on and have spoken to businesses to get an understanding of their view of the exemptions process, do you have thoughts on whether the process is working effectively? I will use the example of the deposit return scheme. The UK Government granted an exemption for a DRS in Scotland, with an exclusion of glass as part of the scheme. A requirement was that any scheme that was brought forward in Scotland would have to align with an English scheme and the rules around that. However, that has effectively provided a block, because there is no English scheme to align with, which means that there is a lack of clarity around what the future rules might be. Of course, in the past couple of weeks, the current UK Government has announced that it will not be moving forward with an English DRS scheme until 2027.

From what you have heard from the businesses that you speak to and your reflections on that process, do you think that we have an ideally functioning process at the moment? There is now a lot of uncertainty about the direction of the regulations in England, and, given the announcement that has been made, it feels like there needs to be another stage in the process where businesses can say that the position needs to be revisited. I do not know, but it feels as though the voice of those who are affected by such decisions is not built into the process.

I am trying to tease you into reflecting on all the evidence that you have gathered from businesses and to say whether you feel that the process in relation to DRS has left us in a place where businesses can get certainty around what the market for glass and other recyclates is going to be through deposit return.

I appreciate that you are here to make a pitch for your use, but it feels a bit odd. If you have a critical role in the process, it should surely be codified. You are an independent voice, and you are able to gather the evidence and present it to all Governments. Certainly with the DRS, and certainly on one side, it felt as though the political decision making was led by what the Secretary of State was reading in the Daily Express. Now, that is a very political statement, but I think that there was a role in that situation for an independent body to gather the independent views of businesses and ensure that evidence was presented to all parties so that a rational decision could be made. Instead, we had a very amplified argument and discussion in the press and in politics, which perhaps masked the genuine issues in the integration of schemes in the market that were operating in the UK.

The Scottish Government is under new leadership, and one of the first changes that was made in the Cabinet was to remove the word “wellbeing” from the economy minister’s job title. There has also been quite a shift in the language in the last week or so. There is much more strident use of the term “economic growth”, and I think that I even heard the First Minister go back to using the phrase “sustainable economic growth”, which I had not heard for some time.

I am interested in your thoughts on that, because you are painting quite a positive picture about what has been happening up to now in terms of the review of the performance framework and the inclusion of a more well-rounded picture of what sustainable development means in that context. What are your thoughts on what the Government’s direction might be, given those very public, headline indications about its priorities, which are for economic growth?

[Inaudible.]—regulations. We discussed them in this room, actually.

Good morning. Thanks for joining us.

I would like to hear your reflections on the UK Internal Market Act 2020 exemptions process. I presume that you will be reluctant to talk about individual decisions, and their merits or otherwise. What are your reflections on how the process by which IMA exemptions are granted or denied has worked in various sectors, given the number of different policies that have been in place over the last year or two?

I will return briefly to the issue of the DRS. Mr Macbeth, in effect, you are saying that it would not have been possible for the OIM to offer advice because, although the rules of a Scottish scheme were clear and were there in the regulations, there was no clarity on what an English DRS scheme would look like. That lack of clarity remains, so it would be difficult to go to businesses to ask what they think when the scheme does not exist and we do not know how it would interrelate with a Scottish DRS. Is that correct?

So, if an English scheme came forward and the rules were clear, you could do some work on that.

I am asking you to comment on whether you think that it is working.

But you could have been asked for an opinion on what the view of businesses might be and what the impacts might be.

I am not trying to get you to comment on the merits or otherwise of the decision, but what I am seeing is a process that is very uncodified and I am struggling to see what the role of the OIM is within it. You are, not an arbiter, but a sort of independent body that is able to gather evidence that is useful for ministers when they make decisions within a common framework, but I do not see that your role is codified in the way that, say, the role of the Climate Change Committee is in relation to decisions on climate. I am struggling to see where you should and must fit within that process. It feels that we have had some decisions that have created a huge amount of business uncertainty and are certainly now subject to an enormous amount of criticism in this Parliament and at Westminster. However, we are still struggling to see where you might have fitted within that and where you may fit in the future.

Do the other panel members have brief comments? I have one more question as well.