Chamber and committees

Good morning and welcome to the 30th meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee in 2023. We have received apologies from our convener, Collette Stevenson, and from Roz McCall.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on whether to take business in private. Do members agree to take item 3 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

We can roll them together due to time constraints, convener.

My question is on whether the data on fly-tipping is robust. In my experience, there is almost hidden fly-tipping. Local authorities across the country have bulk uplift charges, which can be prohibitive at times, so local residents often put their household waste—such as old baths, cookers and televisions—beside communal bin areas, but those are not covered by the local authority’s uplift policy. That is eventually deemed to be fly-tipping and is collected at a cost to the council. Is that captured in the data? Scottish Government stats refer to 60,000 annual incidents. Is that an underestimate? Do we have a clear definition of what fly-tipping is?

I know that there are time constraints, convener, but it is important to ask that.

I think that Rhona Gunn did address it. In many urban areas, there is a prevalence of people putting household goods for disposal at bin locations, when those goods are not covered by local authority uplift. I understand that the waste sits there for some time and is then classified as fly-tipping, and is uplifted at a cost to the local authority anyway.

We need to standardise data collection across the country to see the extent of the problem and, as Rhona Gunn said, find more efficient ways of tackling that issue. I think that Rhona agreed that it is an issue, but that we do not have robust data collection.

Yes. I thank Mr Ruskell for letting me come in at this point. I have a specific constituency question for Mr McCulloch, as he might have anticipated. I was pleased that the Scottish Government provided £21 million of RIF funding to allow Glasgow City Council to carry out a much needed overhaul of its recycling facilities—it has probably been waiting a decade for that investment. I hope that that will bring about a transformation, but I am obviously keen to know when the Blochairn recycling facility, which is a significant blight for many of my constituents, will finally close and more appropriate facilities will be used. It would be helpful to know that. Is that £21 million investment sufficient to allow Glasgow City Council to be on track to dramatically improve the current recycling rates? What percentage do you think that you will get to over the next few years, once the new facilities and the new kerbside collections are in place?

Can I follow up on that briefly?

Before I move on to Professor Macdonald, I have a short follow-up question to Lucy Kenyon’s reply.

I have no reason to doubt anything that you have said, Lucy, but, if the day job of the HSE is to look at emerging evidence and patterns in work-related deaths, injuries and ill health, are we legislating to fix the inadequacies of the HSE, or are we legislating to complement an existing mechanism? I will ask Lucy to respond to that, and then, Professor Macdonald, you can answer both of those questions. That would be really helpful.

Thank you very much, professor. That was very brief.

That is fine; of course. People often say that.

That is really helpful.

Professor Macdonald, to remind you, the question is about whether the bill might create duplication and whether the Health and Safety Executive has a primary role in properly delivering on work-related deaths, injuries and ill health that might also be covered by the bill.

If we have time constraints, I will bring Lucy Kenyon in, if she wants to say something. I can always follow up with the professor later.