Chamber and committees

I am not sure that I am able to go into that level of detail, but the point is that the system involves the costs of dealing with the waste being met by the fund, not the other way around. It is not a case of “This is what we collect and this what you’ve got”; it is, effectively, a case of “This is how much it is going to cost us to deal with this packaging, therefore this is the money that is required.”

I want to say a couple of things before I directly answer your question. One of the issues that we brought to the table when we were talking about the regulations was the fact that a lot of our local authorities cover rural parts of Scotland and we do not want them to be disadvantaged in relation to urban local authorities. Therefore, we managed to get “must” changed to “may” in the regulations and that kind of thing, in order that that is taken into account in looking at the funding that is given as a result of the activities that are happening at a local level. Rurality is taken into account. Highland Council is in a completely different situation to Glasgow City Council with regard to how it manages its waste. That adaptation was made to ensure that the process did not disadvantage a lot of rural councils. I think that the Welsh Government was very sympathetic to that for similar reasons.

On your substantive point about the scrutiny of how the money is spent, allocations will be given to councils, so we will be able to scrutinise how that money is deployed at a council level. However, on the system administrator coming here to give evidence, it will be a UK-wide system administrator role, but I would say that it is probably good sense for them to engage with all four Parliaments to ensure that they are scrutinised as much as possible. Of course, the Scottish Government will want the data as it relates to our local authorities, and it will be essential that we have that.

Yes.

The enforcement of anything that we bring in is absolutely crucial.

First, there is the communication that we would have with retailers around what the ban means for them. Twenty-nine of the 32 local authorities were supportive of the proposal. Their trading standards officers already have the powers to deal with any kind of illicit goods being sold, and these regulations add to that.

However, as you will remember, beyond the enforcement powers that trading standards officers already have and the offence provisions that are in these regulations, the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 amended the regulation-making powers in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to enable enforcement officers to issue fixed-penalty notices as an alternative to prosecution for offences. The shorter, sharper and more effective approach of fining—rather than prosecuting, using the whole court process—will be a lot more straightforward than some of the processes that we have had, and that might release a bit of capacity in the system.

The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government is the person who you have to ask about finance for local government; it is not really for me to answer that. However, as with any ban, there will be an initial concentration of activity until everyone gets used to the fact that single-use vapes are no longer available and then there will be a tailing off. Those products just will not be in the system any more and retailers will get used to that. All the mechanisms for the public to report anyone selling them will be open, as well.

The sale of anything online is subject to the same regulations as the sale of anything on the high street. If it is illegal to sell something online and it is a UK-based business that is doing so, that business is subject to the regulations that we have here, so it would be breaking the law.

In the case of online sales from outside the UK, there will be increased funding from the UK Government to the Border Force and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to deal with that. They are preparing for the fact that there will probably be an issue with people purchasing single-use vapes online, although not necessarily from the UK. If you purchased something such as a dangerous weapon or illegal pharmaceuticals, those would be subject to customs searches. In the same way, Border Force and HMRC are alive to the fact that people might try to bring in single-use vapes from outwith the country by purchasing them online. Therefore, more resources will be put into those mechanisms at UK level.

I want to make it clear that every one of the four nations wants the DRS to be up and running well before that.

No. I think that we have covered it comprehensively.

I need a bit of clarification on your question. Enforcement officers will have the powers to go in and seize single-use vapes. What is the issue?

The new UK Government is now in place and I have written a letter asking for confirmation of the go-live date for the other three nations. I made the point that we do not want to diverge. There are very good reasons for us all going at once, including the obvious environmental reasons and some of the other issues that have been raised today.

I made the point that if there is a small gap we would still want to move at the same time as everyone else, but that a gap of years would be a completely different question. I am hopeful that such a gap will not happen. We have had a general election, there is a new Government and the Government machine has probably had to pause, which might have had an impact. I do not know about that because we have not had any confirmation.

We are ready to go. I have laid the instrument. We all agreed the date of 1 April 2025 and we need to get ready. If other Parliaments and Governments are not in that space and there is a time lag, we will look at our go-live date. Why would we go live two months before the rest of the UK? That would not make sense. However, if the measure comes off the table—I do not think that it will—or the gap is years long, that would be a completely different question. If I was told that there would be such a gap, I would try to convince them that it cannot be delayed for years.

Yes.