Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-03195

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 4 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what options it is considering to ensure that glass does not exit closed-loop recycling, if the forthcoming deposit return scheme does not include a re-melt target.

Section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, as amended by the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012, requires any person who manages controlled waste to apply the Waste Hierarchy set out in Article 4(1) of Directive 2009/98/EC (the “Waste Framework Directive”) and to take reasonable steps to increase the quantity and quality of recyclable materials, with the desired outcome being closed-loop recycling.

The scheme administrator for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme will therefore have to ensure glass is sorted and processed in a way that maintains the recyclate in a high-value state.

Question reference: S6W-03207

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 4 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what material impact its policies and enforcement measures have had on incidences of waste crime over the last five years.

The Scottish Government continues to work with and support Scotland's environmental regulator SEPA in tackling waste crime.

The introduction of the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 introduced additional enforcement measures for SEPA to utilise which included Fixed Monetary Penalties, Variable Monetary Penalties and Enforcement Undertakings. This has expanded SEPA's toolkit for tackling environmental offending and allows a greater range of remedies targeted at both punishment of offender and remediation of environmental harm.

SEPA participate in several multi agency initiatives such as the Scottish Organised Crime Task Force and the Joint Unit for Waste Crime, a cross UK initiative to allow greater collaboration and operational impact on serious waste crime , particularly those who operate cross border.

In respect of tackling the ongoing issue of litter, a review of the National Litter Strategy was completed in 2019 and published on the Scottish Government website earlier this year. The review provides a snapshot of the activities that took place between 2014 and 2019 and also outlines areas of success and good practice case studies. Work has begun to refresh this as a National Litter and Flytipping strategy, which will be published in early 2022. Enforcement will be one of the four key themes this strategy focusses on.

Data on waste crime convictions is available from SEPA's website ( www.sepa.org.uk/regulations/enforcement).

Question reference: S6W-03206

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 4 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on establishing an annual appraisal of waste crime impacts.

Waste crime has a serious and detrimental impact on our environment, communities and compliant businesses. The Scottish Government’s Serious and Organised Crime Strategy recognises waste crime as a strategic threat.

In respect of an annual appraisal of waste crime impacts, SEPA contribute to the Scottish Multi Agency Strategic Threat Assessment (SMASTA) on an annual basis, which now includes a section on Environmental Crime. This is compiled by Police Scotland with input from relevant partners.

Question reference: S6W-03194

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 4 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much glass it anticipates would exit closed-loop recycling and be recycled as aggregate if the forthcoming deposit return scheme does not include a re-melt target.

Question reference: S6W-03193

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 4 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether 1 July 2022 continues to be the go-live date for the introduction of the deposit return scheme.

Question reference: S6W-03205

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 4 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to develop a dedicated framework to support businesses to report and act on nature-related risks, and what funding it has committed to such work.

The Scottish Government is engaging with the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) a market-led, UN supported, international initiative, which builds on the model developed by the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and aims to create a framework for how organisations can address environmental risks and opportunities. We are supportive of the objectives of this work, and will ensure that there is effective coordination with Scottish Government policies.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing the impact of Scotland’s consumption on nature and societies, including our impacts in other countries. This is an outcome sought by our Environment Strategy, and our progress was discussed in the 2020 report Scotland and the sustainable development goals: a national review to drive action. Reducing the impact of our consumption on the natural environment is an important driver of our work to create a more circular economy. The Scottish Government will continue to work with partners and through our own policies and legislative proposals to reduce the impacts on and risks to nature from consumption in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-03192

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 4 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of what the impact would be of including a re-melt target for glass collected under the forthcoming deposit return scheme.

As per the answer to question S5W-33510 on 2 December 2020, the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) Full Business Case ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/deposit-return-scheme-scotland-full-business-case-stage-1/ ) was developed on the basis of glass being collected whole under Scotland’s DRS. Glass collected whole is suitable for re-melt, subject to minimal handling losses.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-03204

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 1 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure that all nationally significant infrastructure projects deliver a net biodiversity gain.

The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 sets out six outcomes to which a future National Planning Framework (NPF) should work towards, including securing positive effects for biodiversity, and we are developing new proposals which deliver positive outcomes for biodiversity from development without the need for overly complex metrics.

We will lay a draft NPF4 in the Scottish Parliament this autumn and will carry out extensive public consultation at the same time. We anticipate producing a final version of NPF4 for approval and adoption around spring 2022.

Question reference: S6O-00245

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to promote sustainable public procurement.

Question reference: S6W-03196

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 29 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment has been made of future opportunities for kerbside recycling of glass packaging containers that are not included in the forthcoming deposit return scheme.

No specific assessment has been carried out for kerbside glass recycling. However, the Scottish Government is committed to review the Household Recycling Charter’s Code of Practice, which aims to bring more consistency in household recycling services, and encourage higher participation in waste prevention, recycling and reuse. This review will directly consider the impact on kerbside recycling of measures like the introduction of Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme, and reform to Extended Producer Responsibility, and enable the Code of Practice to evolve in line with developments across the waste and recycling sector.

We are working with the other administrations on the introduction of an extended producer responsibility system for packaging that will recover full net costs from producers and allocate funding to local authorities for the provision of effective and efficient kerbside recycling services. This will support improved recycling for all packaging types, including glass.