 Yr grwp yn fawr i'n gwybod i'r 27 gynhyrchu o'r Gweithgaredd Daenergiol a Ynrygiadau Fersbryd Cymru yw yw 2023. Yn rhaid i gweithio'n gweithwyr yma yw ein cyfnod yn cymhwyl yn cyflaid. Felly mae'r cyfnod o'r wych yn ymgyrchau cyflwyno 5, 6, 7 yn cyflaid. Ymgyrchai 5 o'r cyflwyno 5 yw cwm ni'n gwneud ychydig oherwydd yna ar y Cyflwyno Cymru a'r cyfrwng yn cyflaid. Item six is to consider the evidence that we will hear today on the deposit return scheme. Item seven is to consider the approach to the second supplementary LCM on the energy bill. Do we agree to take these items in private? We are agreed. Our first item of business is an evidence session on the part of the committee's stage one scrutiny of the Secretary of Economy, Scotland Bill. The purpose of today's session is to hear from a panel of representatives from Scotland's business sector. Provisions in the bill will have an implication for Scottish businesses, including new duties on reporting of waste, minimum charges for single-use items, restrictions around the disposal of unsold consumer goods. We are looking forward today to this discussion. Sadly, we are one panel member, Dan Stacey Dingwall, who is the head of policy and external affairs for Scotland, and the Federation of Small Businesses, unfortunately, is ill and could not take part remotely, because unfortunately she's lost her voice. So a double whammy and we're sorry to miss her. But we've got Cat Hay, head of policy for food and drink Federation Scotland, Ewan MacDonald Russell, the deputy head of the Scottish Retail Consortium, and Colin Smyth, the chief executive from Scottish Wholesale Association. Thank you for joining us today. We'll move to questions from the committee, but I'm going to start it off just by asking in very general terms, are you concerned that the bill is really enabling legislation and doesn't have a lot of the detail behind it on what will be implemented? So it just tells us what can be done, not what will be done. As a Parliamentarian, that concerns me. Colin, does it concern you? I think very much so and getting straight in there. If we actually compare it to previous legislation where it was at this stage, the deposit return scheme was very much similar to what we were looking at here, and it was a piece of enabling legislation that ultimately had huge consequences for industry, for business and eventually for the Scottish Government with its demise, because actually going back to when it was at committee at stage one, it wasn't scrutinised in the way that it should have been, and indeed certainly that is a big ask of the committee here that we actually really scrutinise the circular economy bill that we're here to give evidence for, because it still has a potential to explode or implode depending on which way you look at it. In the same way as DRS, if the scrutiny is not undertaken at this point, DRS was supposed to be scrutinised at stage two, or secondary legislation and it wasn't, because generally it can't be. So that's why it's extremely important that the committee here do that scrutiny. I know that you have written to Mary McCallan asking for detail more on the implications of the Internal Market Act, which was only one of a number of issues that brought down DRS. It was about another 49 unresolved issues when the scheme was postponed in Scotland. You have written, and as for more detail in IMA, also detail on what the charge on single use items might be. That is a big one. While the Scottish Wholesale Association, we sit on the single cup advisory group and there are concerns that they still don't have the detail on how that might operate, how that might work and what other products might be included in a single use charge. We have seen in Vancouver, we put it in our consultation response, that Vancouver introduced a single use cup charge and is actually repealing it after a year because of the impact it's had on small businesses specifically, the unmanagability of it and also the cost to the consumer and the industry. That's where we are today as well, that everything that's gone before is not a reason to postpone our next iron ambitions and put policy in place, but it's an unintended consequence to the building of all the different legislations from across the different nations, across the international waters, EU and what that might do to what we're looking to do within the Circular Economy Bill and the other charges that might come down the road. OK, Ewan, Colin mentioned the internal market ramifications and some concerns. If you'd like to pick on the internal market, I'd be grateful to hear your comments on that and any concerns you have. Thank you, convener. Good morning, everyone. A sort of obvious provider almost. Retail industry is absolutely committed to delivering the circular economy. Our members are doing a huge amount of space in the internal market and perhaps how we operate is a good starting point. Most of our members, most retailers will tend to operate at scale. That scale might be whether you take one shop and you want to make five because the proposition works. That can be UK-wide, that can be Europe-wide or indeed worldwide. We tend to work on scale. Therefore, if we look at public policy, our starting premises, how can we do this in the most efficient and similar manner in different places? So, when we look at some of these policy measures, lots of them are great. Lots of them seem like perfectly sensible things. We've lots of experience on charges. We did carrier bags. Our experience of a carrier bag charge was basically great. We'll do it. Can we do it in the same way under roughly similar ways? When we look at other public policy initiatives, I mean the pricing of alcohol, great policy initiated in Scotland and you'll see if we ask elsewhere. Let's do it just like that. So where policy originates, and this comes back to that starting point of the our premise is always great. If it's a policy we're kind of supportive and behind, can we do this in a way that's efficient, that works for consumers and works at scale? And I think therefore, when we look at specifically at that framework legislation in principle, great to lay out the kind of the broad principles. I think we're slightly nervous, particularly in some of the specifics in here on other right protections and considerations in there. I think broad so we get the right framework is good. Some of the specific elements here are very broad and I think make it quite hard for us to understand where it goes. Colin is absolutely right to highlight our experience. There's some other legislation where the framework part was very broad. Secondary legislation can be very technical and actually probably very important to our members. And this establishment doesn't necessarily have the same opportunity to scrutinise there. So I think getting it right here is really important. It's probably what our comment would be and I'm happy to elaborate further when we get into the nitty gritty. I'm sure you will. Ann Cat, is the Food and Drink Federation nervous as well or are you relaxed? Good morning, convener, and thanks for inviting me along today. Well, ultimately we're the part of the supply chain that's providing the product into Ewn's members and to Colin's members. So really the same applies. It's looking at the global scale. What I would say is in terms of the make-up of our membership, a couple of things. One, largest manufacturing sector in Scotland, beating heart of the economy. And again, ambitions to be very much beating heart of the circular economy as well and the opportunities that provides. In terms of the internal markets, yes, I would say our members are looking UK wide when they're thinking about supply and product. And that's just the way that our industry is structured and it's the way our supply chain is structured at the moment. So anything that could involve interrupting that does create additional burden for businesses. So same thing, it's caution. It's not concern, but it's just that level of scrutiny is very important as the others have outlined. Thank you. And those with the easy questions. Now the difficult questions come and you're going to start those off, Jackie. Thank you, convener, and good morning panel. Thank you very much for taking the time to come along today. We really do appreciate it. I'll ask an open question and I'm just going to look at whoever wants to answer it first. And basically, I'd just like to ask what do you think should be included in the circular economy strategy to maximise benefits and provide certainty and clarity for businesses to plan for the future? Ewan, you've caught my eye, because if you're away, it's fine. Colin went first last time, so it's definitely my turn. I think it, to a certain degree, there's large parts of this which I guess are just for government to concern about. I guess the two parts that really interact with our members. Firstly is the right infrastructure and so forth in place in Scotland that's going to let my bit members do the right thing, also let our customers do the right thing, and those two things are probably where we're particularly interested to specifically when we look at the recycling infrastructure. I think it's still astonishing we can't manage to have a single system for the same bins across Scotland. It's not that big a country. It shouldn't be that difficult. It's that sort of level of the, at these quite practical things we know work. How does government kind of put those building blocks in place that we can work around that? It's making sure we've got the right recycling infrastructure in place for different products. Our members never want to dispose of goods. They'll always try and find the best way to get value out of it. It's the right thing to do. It's also in our economic interest. So what we're really looking for is how does the government's approach in Scotland, how does that synergise with great work that my members and everyone else is kind of businesses are doing. It's synergised with the work across the both the UK and European Union. We operate on that scale. So how do we get those crossover bits and how do we get that commitment so that we can invest with confidence and government I think has a great leadership role there in setting the parameters that we can follow. We want to do it, but we almost need a bit of confidence that we're doing the right thing. I hope that's helpful. I agree with what you and I were saying there. The Scottish Wholesale Association represents the food and drink wholesalers and distributors based in Scotland. So they're the ones that are supplying into the 5,000 convenience stores, 30,000 hospitality, tourism and leisure venues, as well as the public sector. I think that, as you said, the food and drink supply chain is complex actually. We are operating, not just across the UK, but operating across Europe. Our members aren't just wholesalers and moving boxes of food and drink. We are also importers, we're exporters, producers, manufacturers, we own retail stores, some of our members even own hotels. Wholesale is a complex chain. Our members are complex. They're not homogeneous. When you've got a sector that's so diverse and actually 90 per cent of our membership make-up is Scottish SMEs, the clarity that you mentioned is something that is fundamental to any legislation, any policy. We need the confidence to know what is expected of us, and often that is missing from policy and is left to others to make the decisions on how they interpret legislation, whether that be at local authority level, your environmental policy power, whoever it might be. What we need is a clear pathway, route map and clear defined roles of what is expected of us. Those expectations also need to be just for everyone. They need to be manageable for every business sector, regardless of size. Otherwise, we are going to continue to fracture the industry, the food and drink industry specifically, because that's who I'm here to represent, that we have seen across our policies the DRS, the EPR, that's going to be coming in single-use plastics. Then we're starting to get into the more niche of the sugar taxes, HFS, all the legislation that business is expected to cope with, but it's not an isolation to everything else that's going on across the UK and the EU and all the other legislation that we need to deal with. Clarity is a big key for us, and it goes back to that scrutiny. If we don't have the scrutiny, we can't get the clarity. I'm hopeful that answers your question some way. It does, thank you. Cat, do you have anything to add? I was just going to add about, I think for us, the focus should be on the enablers within the bills. The others have mentioned things like moving to more consistent how-told collections. It's not for the industry to tell local authorities how to do that, but we have seen a long history of voluntary approach to moving towards more uniform collections and we haven't seen that happen. Our members really need to get that valuable material back out of those bins and back into, you know, a criss-packet, back to a criss-packet. These are valuable food-grade packaging materials, and we can't afford as an industry to lose them, so we need the bill to look at how we make sure that we enable those ambitions that the industry has. I'd also echo Colin's point about the kind of size, so there's a definite large versus small going on here. The businesses that I represent cover some of the largest companies in the world we represent, but also some very, very small individual operators, so the bill needs to look at the complexity of the supply chain, as Colin outlined, but also the burden that that places on businesses. If you're a large conglomerate, you can employ somebody to look at data reporting. It's a pain, but you can do it. If you are a single family business, it becomes very, very challenging, and actually it takes away from investing in your business and getting the products out to your consumers. So that enabler anything that the bill can do to de-risk and allow businesses to take risk in relation to circular economy. Some things will work, some things will not, but how the bill can do that would be really useful. I think for me, and I put this in the submission, was about the global good. So again, recognising that Scotland is part of a global supply chain, a global community, the Scottish Government indeed has published their exporting strategy, so materials are going to always flow in and out of Scotland. We're not a circular economy on our own. We need to consider a place within that global family and think about the global good as well. Okay, thank you. So how do you think a circular economy strategy should be aligned with a wider Scottish Government's economic and trading strategy? You were speaking earlier about how they should all fit together. And how can the aim of reducing consumption be reconciled with the aim of growing the economy? I'll start with you this time. I think that that's the challenge we put back in our submission, was circular economy is two words. So circular, yes, we're all talking about, and I think there's a huge amount of focus on the circularity, but the second part is economy. So if we don't have an economy, we don't have any circularity because we're not doing anything, we're not making anything. So there is to me a question in my mind about that there's an export strategy. Is this going to work alongside a circular economy strategy? The answer is it should and it can, but there needs to be a high level overview of a lot of these big pieces of policy. And I think that's great what it's a cross-party committee, is that when you've got that level of scrutiny you start to look at the intersection, and we've seen a lot of challenges with that. We know the climate change plan update is coming within hopefully the next year. There'll be a ton of new policies within that. How does that intersect with circular economy bill? Are these things being joined up? And I think that's where things like the new deal for business really comes into its own, but if government's engaging with the business community we can help to navigate some of that from our perspectives. Okay, thank you. I guess I've got a skin in the game on consumption. We could prefer to think about sales, but you're quite right to phrase it that way. From a retail perspective, I guess there's a couple of parts that roll if we do with this. Firstly, and I'm going to be the first one to name the global agilitation thing. We have a climate action roadmap. It's all about the steps our industry's taking to move to net zero, and how we look at sourcing as a huge part of that. So how do we move to make sure that supply chains we're sourcing from are sustainable, both from that greenhouse gas perspective, or the materials? How do we move away from using virgin materials to recycled, reused materials? How do we change consumer culture and consumer behaviour, getting them away from throwaway into things which are potentially higher cost, but also higher value, and how our businesses can interact with that when people don't want clothes? Can we use the textiles? Can we find different markets? So there's a huge work on actually converting that and moving it from the throwaway thing to something that is that more circular. That works for us as an economic model and if you've been to anything from a clothing store to a DIY business or anything, you'll see this. You'll see that the way that products are being reused and we're moving away from those less sustainable approaches on something we're committed to, we'll remain committed to. I think there's something on the business part as well, and I think this has touched on. This is a very complicated bit of public policy area. There's all the work that happens at a UK level with the extended producer responsibility changes, plastics tax, there's a lot of elements at a Scottish government level, local authority interactions too, and on top of that there's a lot of other regulatory work. I think something that is very difficult for government to catch, we really hope is going to caught through the new deal for business work, is how do we get this overall picture of regulation to stop unintended consequences? We don't want a world in which we're trying to do something in the health space, something in the environment space and an economic incentive, and they need to cancel each other out or they lead to undesirable outcomes. So I think there's something that needs that real quite laser focus to make sure that when we ask customers to do something we give them clear messages because if we confuse customers they definitely won't do what we want to. Okay, thank you. Colin, do you have anything? I don't know if I've got enough more to add to what Cat and Ewan have said, but certainly I echo what Ewan was saying there in terms of industry is already doing a lot to reduce consumption, to move to more sustainable goods, more sustainable business practices. What we don't want to do is undermine that good work that is already being taken. That would be crippling of today's economy and Cat picked up on the economic impacts. I think that we've got to be taken nice and sort of what we're doing in the one hand might impact the economic development and everything that we're trying to do and the other, certainly like Ewan and the FDF as well. We've got our own sector route map, wholesale sector route map at a national level and at a Scottish level, and actually we hope to be net zero by 2040 if the right policy enablers were put in place. What we're talking today is part of that strategy and how we decarbonise the wheels to the food and drink industry because the wholesalers sit in the middle of Cat's members taking those producers goods on the journey to the convenience and food service outlets. Within that, we're supported by the Scottish Government looking at how we can get more local produce into our warehouses, into the vehicles, into the schools, into the retail convenience stores, et cetera. That alone is decarbonising the food supply chain. When it comes to looking at the materials that food is stored in or where people are getting their coffee in, I think that we've got to recognise that there needs to be integrity of the food that we're supplying and the containers that are being used. You can't just throw a ready meal into a cardboard box without the properties that maintain it to keep it freshness and prevent it from going mouldy so that the consumer can get it fresh. Likewise, you're not going to go into a convenience store and ask for a coffee and take it out in your hands like a bowl. You need a receptacle. If we look at the growth of Scotland's economy, the local growth of the high street and now demise, the growth of the high street was because of coffee shops, because of new European culture. That required single-use items. I'm not saying that if we suddenly got rid of all those single-use items, what would have happened to those coffee shops? What would have happened to the high streets? What would have happened to the employees? I think that when we come to looking at everything, it needs to be looking at the life cycle of products and not just that this is a single-use, this is vital actually, but then go to a multi-use product or what's the impact of washing that cup and plate and et cetera? What's the carbon, the energy use and the water use involved in that? So it's got to be balanced. Balance and not disrupting what's already in place is key here as well. Thank you. I think it is about changing people's perception sometimes as well and getting everyone to take a little bit of responsibility. Thank you, Jackie. I'm just gently going to say to the panel, could you help me in the sense that I have to live with this committee beyond today and if I don't get them in with all their questions, it will become quite difficult and I might be recycled on that basis. So just to say there's 20 odd questions we crack for in the best part of 20 minutes. We could be here for a very long time, which we don't, we can't be. Short answers, always appreciated and it saves me getting into trouble. Mark, you wanted to come in briefly before I go in. Yeah, just briefly. It's prompted by your question about parliamentary scrutiny. My understanding of DRS as the enabling legislation was a 2009 climate act. What then came out of that was a piece of secondary legislation that went through a very lengthy, superaffirmative process in Parliament about three to four months in 2019. Were you involved at that stage? Did that give you enough opportunity to put your views in as an industry to how that scheme was going to look and how does that relate to this bill and the SI's that might come out of this bill? I'm happy to go first. I was involved in 2019 in that process. It was, the committee did absolutely everything possible. I remember the session. We had not much more time than we had now. I think there must have been 15 people from every part of it in a single oral evidence session. So there's lots of written opportunities but I think it was very difficult for the committee to scrutinise our perspectives properly effectively but to get everything that they might possibly have needed within that. I think I wasn't involved in 2009 so I can't comment on that. I'd say that that's probably a very unusual piece of legislation. It's uniquely more complex but certainly that's the example we kind of come to on. There's lots of things we didn't necessarily know then but it was certainly a very abbreviated discussion and I'm not sure that was actually in anyone's interest. I think if we'd been able to have a full process like we have here we'd have got much better legislation and we wouldn't have had to do it again which I don't think anybody has enjoyed. We'll come to the deputy convener next, Ben Macpherson. Thanks convener. Building on some of your previous answers as was just said a lot of the considerations around this primary legislation is about behaviour change. Actually it's stated in the policy memorandum it's about moving towards sustainable consumption and production. However, a lot of that behaviour change is already happening and the question for us as a Parliament is do we require primary legislation and how should that primary legislation be considered and implemented in order to accelerate the change that I think you've all communicated is a shared ambition. A lot of that innovation is already taking place so how should the Scottish Government and indeed the Parliament in its scrutiny ensure that any future targets introduced using the powers of the bill strike the right balance between encouraging innovation and investment in circular business models without disrupting that innovation that's already taking place? I think one of the biggest hills you're going to have to climb is changing consumer behaviour. That's a huge hill still to climb I think businesses have a reputational and in some cases a shareholder demands on them that mean they have to change certainly again for my members our customers are going to demand it so again Ewan's members and others will be absolutely scrutinising and demanding that we are becoming ever more circular but that's a huge hill to climb in terms of the consumer so I guess the question back will be how can we get our consumers to value these products as much as we do really really challenging I think it's about that high level overall mapping of what's already going on in industry and we can help provide that back to the Parliament organisations like ours who represent wide business community can certainly feed into that process these are the voluntary achievements that are already happening and also gather the feedback from industry to coalesce around some key things that we need going forward to unlock that innovation so for my members there's a lot around the decarbonisation issue around net zero where we're asking for again that de-risking support to make sure that we're moving towards decarbonised energy and again the enabling of unlocking the recovery of materials that I mentioned earlier on as well we've got a question and I guess we'll get into this my being one of the later questions around some of the data gathering and the two-way conversation of what does the Government need to enact the enablers from the industry in terms of data and reporting and what just becomes a burden on businesses just in that is there a need to have a consistency of expectation from businesses because some businesses are already undertaking innovation more than others how challenging is the industry of others and say for example less commitment to sustainability right now to some businesses who are being more sustainable think well that's not very fair I'm putting all this effort and cost into trying to do my part why is my competitor not doing the same will this bill help in that regard I think it's a bit self-policing to be honest I think having talked to my members and to say large and small global businesses and family operators everyone has got a mission to be more sustainable I've never come across any business doesn't feel that so we have seen the culture change universally I think there's an absolute acknowledgement that collectively and I include those around the table from the political side as well that there's an ambition to save the planet it's not a new concept it's very much a concept that we all can get behind but again I think it's about economies of scale and size so again it's that if you are a global business with thousands of employees on this if you are a very small family business you might have huge ambition but it's do you have the investment capacity and the knowledge within your business to drive that change and that's again where there's political certainty and long-term sensible policy that can help to drive that certainty and then businesses can invest themselves I have very little to add beyond that in the sake of that I think I would simply note that the legislation can be very valuable is where specific tools are needed for quite tangible and carefully considered purposes I'm sure we'll talk about externality charges later and happy to come on to that I think that's potentially very valuable if it's set up right and having a mechanism set up now that can work for I know they speak about cups and this but for other items it's great if that can be done the same way that's a lot easier I think the only note of caution I would say is that there's an opportunity cost to any of these measures to businesses that are told they must do certain things they will follow that regulatory obligation that can have an impact on innovation this is not an argument for leave us alone and everything will be fine it's just how do we balance that opportunity cost and that is both financial and just people resources in the current climate Thank you and just building from that going into the next question convener there are as a convener opened with there's much of this bill particularly in the part with to yourselves that is a framework bill and you spoke about how in certain circumstances it may be beneficial to see more of the detail on the face of the bill and I imagine we will get into this into stage 2 of this process but if there's anything at this juncture that you would want to highlight I think that would be useful to know it's very normal for there to be framework of legislation in which secondary legislation then provides the detail on the greater policy analysis but sometimes it is important as you've highlighted to consider what could be on the on the face of the bill and I know that Colin Smythie talked about the right policy enabler so in a previous answer if there's anything related to that that you might be wanting to add it here that would be interesting or as a follow up I think it is just you know spoke of the scrutiny of secondary legislation that doesn't that didn't happen in DRS and going back to the question in terms of there was only one oral evidence session on DRS and I was involved along with you and the 20 other industry bodies that is not enough of time to really look at the detail so I take your point on that but there are any other bits of legislation where secondary legislation has worked effectively on being scrutinised well so we should learn the lessons as you articulate them but also put everything on the face of this bill would be impractical I would argue so it would be good to hear any I think that there are any specific changes to the face of the bill I'm happy to come in on that I think just getting really into specifics there was a question asked about the waste and surpluses within the response there was a question about the ministers having powers to require persons to publish information on anything they store or dispose of now to us that just seems completely over the top if you're talking about a food manufacturer can potentially have hundreds of ingredients you're talking about personal protective equipment you're talking about stationery within their office functions to report on everything that they hold within a factory to me just seems complete overreach quite frankly and I think that's something that is probably not very useful within the bill it would create huge burden on businesses and actually the outcomes of that would be unclear the change that that would drive would be very unclear I guess there's a separate question about reporting of surplus and waste but that particular anything that they hold is just unacceptable for us quite frankly I'd agree with that on a specific one on to the discussion undisposed with unsolved consumer goods but consumer goods is an incredibly broad term it covers pretty much everything we sell and so for us to even consider what that might or might not involve it's a very very big way to look at it and I think it's not getting rid of the whole thing but it's how's that caveat or how's that framed to be a bit more specific because I suspect it's probably not to do with leftover donuts or whatever but that's the kind of risk that we start having to consider it in that sense and that's one of the points on reporting we share that as well Thanks very much all Thanks community Thank you and we're going to move on to Monica Lennon you've got quite a few questions Monica Thank you Keener Yeah but they're all kind of related it's about the restriction on disposal of unsold goods so they're good to get in a bit more of the detail I think I'll start with you in your view with the need to restrict the destruction of unsold goods in Scotland and are you aware of the extent to which this is done within the sector that you work in I think we're not sure is probably that the perhaps slightly ambiguous answer and that's really because the way our members will deal with unsold products at the moment is predicated on to be honest firstly what's the best economic option we have within this so it's always best product if that can't work can we redistribute it and then can we recycle it to get the value out the only times that there'll be any requirement to dispose of products generally through incineration rather than landfill would be if there was no viable alternative there wasn't a way to actually deal with the material so I guess when we look at this proposal if we're talking about products and again that's why we're a bit nervous about the very broad term if we're talking about products where there is recycling infrastructure from our members perspective it's probably slightly redundant it's not the right approach for it anyway it's in our interest as much as the regulatory one where there isn't a viable kind of recycling option we would effectively have to effectively it would have to be moved to somewhere else out with Scotland which is probably not desirable either so I don't think we necessarily object to it if it's being predicated on the right structures in place right recycling materials it's that question of the if we're just kind of trying to ban something because we think it might be a problem on to when this perhaps goes into secondary what those conditions triggers and the quite specific detail around it it's very broad at the moment and that's just the nervousness members came back to me quite a few different ones because they all sort of asked oh would this particular product be affected obviously I don't know the answer and I guess that's where we're coming from on this but our starting point would always be to find the best solutions for the afterlife of used or returned products that's in our interest kind of regardless of the legislation thank you yeah I just add a few points to that I suppose to Eun's point about for us it doesn't make good business sense to have surplus product we want a product to find the home that it's intended for food and drink is quite obviously quite different to say clothing where it has a shelf life we've got to get those products to the right places as soon as possible and then I go back to the earlier point the jacqueries is a bit kind of the intersection with other policies the recent publication of ending use of food banks which again we don't take a position either way on but if you're talking about food surplus one of the avenues is to make sure that that food surplus is getting to people who need that and finding a value for that product so again thinking about that in the round is quite difficult and again just to Eun's point about pushing waste elsewhere so I think for us where there is a product that can't be find a new life can't be donated can't be donated to surplus or to food banks there is an unintended consequence that becomes somebody else's problem so it leaves the manufacturer and goes to retailer perhaps goes to a food bank or a redistribution charity and then they're left with that product in the end so to me there is a there's an unintended consequence about moving that elsewhere that needs to be thought about carefully okay I'll come to Colin Smith that you want to maybe develop that notion of unintended consequences that could be helpful similar to cat on our side there is food and drink so the last thing we want to do is have any food go to waste and we do work with fair share and community food banks food hubs etc and actually during Covid when markets crashed and we had lots of food in our warehouses there was a sudden transition that we had to find new routes to market for our product and that has stayed to this day that those new routes and enablers to help us ensure that we didn't have food waste remains I think that one of the unintended consequences might come where and we'll probably come on to it the reporting of waste and actually the wholesale channel who are the larders for the hospitality industry convenience stores etc as I articulated earlier that we suddenly end up with more food stored in our warehouses because the end users that we supply if it comes to food waste we are reducing their food wastes to order less but more frequently that means that we are having to store more but equally the unintended consequence there is also that A we could end up with more food waste but we also end up with a higher carbon footprint because we're needing to do more deliveries with less product because the end user is cutting back on the stock of food that they're holding to allow them to have a lesser food waste reporting Okay I would be helpful to hear more about the opportunities to redistribute unsold goods rather than disposing of them we've mentioned a few examples around food banks but we could hear a bit more on where you think there is real innovation happening I'm also aware that there's now legislation in France where there's a legal requirement on supermarkets to redistribute unsold food so I wonder what your view is on that and is that something that makes you nervous or you think that should be looked at as well maybe come to cat first of all in terms of the innovation point one of the organisations that we work very closely with is an organisation called Company Shop so they take some of the products that are absolutely perfect quality not short-dated but maybe they have a slight issue with the labelling maybe that printing has come out slightly squint and I was privileged to go down to their redistribution facility where they take in these products they have a fantastic team who can relabel products and get them out back out to their company shops so that's where any business who's kind of related to food and drink manufacturing can go and access these and do shopping for everyday goods in an environment they recognise a supermarket environment with dignity and they're still cost for those but they're very much discounted they also have community shops within their organisation and there's two in Scotland one over in Wester Hills a community can go and do a shop in dignity with their own money there's no vouchers required access really good products this is a perfect quality not short-dated and it's that kind of dignity and affordability it stops those products going to waste so that's a really really good initiative just as an example there I'm happy to talk about supermarkets since that's kind of up my baliwick I think from our larger members' perspective the potential French legislation would do very little I think we're slightly nervous about how it works on the very marginal products or where we have products which there isn't somewhere the charities we work with might not have the supply chain to take on chilled or frozen products it's that sort of thing we get nervous about we always are our large members actually pretty much all our members try to find different routes to the products we'll try and sell them at a discount first we're happy to do the right thing but if there's a bit of money to be made first that will always be the approach we've put a lot of investment into that there's just food donations but there's also a huge amount of investment particularly in the pandemic to help support food banks and the big charities that kind of work alongside that that's something we'll continue to do but also working with things like OLEO too good to go a lot of our food to go members have got into those that you could look at and you are able to pick up a mystery parcel and that sort of actually doesn't relate to this legislation but it's a good example of crossovers where we're a bit nervous about some of the provisions potentially in restrictions on high fat salt and sugar we start saying oh you can't discount products but it's like we want to discount the product at the end of the day so it doesn't have to be thrown out so there's just tensions about resolve these things and I think something we always look for is government to give us a hierarchy what's the priority do you want us to insure the food goes somewhere do you want us to not be selling the unhealthy thing we don't mind but we'll follow what the path is it's where there's a challenging interaction okay thank you I just wanted to pick up on sorry I've got lots of post-it notes here the point that was made about I think the power being too wide where ministers could have the power to require any persons to publish anything they store Cattie you gave the example about what's in the stationery cupboard and so on although there can be a lot of you know a necessary purchasing goes on in stationery cupboards but what would be an alternative if that is too wide how would you like to narrow that for this still to have meaning but to strike a better balance I don't know if the panel have any thoughts on that I think it's quite an important point that's been made yeah I just I don't think as I say for every business to need to report on everything that they hold within a business makes any business sense and I think that's something that the new deal for business would look at and query so I suppose to say the question back from the food and drink businesses that I represent was what's the purpose of this and that's close for quite a few of the things that were in the circular economy of Wales not that we're concerned or that we are opposed but it's just understanding the rationale for some of these reporting we consistently get told by politicians we need more data and then you say what data do you want to do with that data so there is already a huge amount of data in this space that is coming out through voluntary commitments like the courthold commitment food waste reporting through that the plastics pact these things that the Scottish Government are supporter of there's tons of data coming out of that there is UK level the food data transparency partnership which is potentially transformational looking at sustainability data amongst other things so there's already a lot of data out there and I understand the Scottish Parliament's desire to understand what's going on in Scotland but it comes back to our earlier point about we are part of a global supply chain and so splitting off Scotland I understand the reasons why but it can be very challenging to do that so I guess it's about understanding what do we need to allow our policy makers then to make good policy where are those data gaps and we will see how we can fill them I can't believe you named all of the different things we do I have nothing further to add on that Just final question from me to pick up on the definitions of consumer goods and unsold goods keen to understand if you think there is enough clarity in there and if you have a view on what goods should and shouldn't be included I might come to Colin because you've had a rest I think he's just going back to what Cat had said earlier that consumer goods that also defines or food and drink is defined within that or could be defined within that and I think that we've got to watch what that actually means to the bill that we're looking at and the impacts of what then might be imposed on food and drink manufacturers, retailers wholesalers if we've to start and if consumer goods is captured or food is captured under consumer goods and we're getting a bit tongue tied that I might be passing to actually Cat who might be able to expand on that slightly more I think that absolutely in terms of consumer goods we had some good engagement with the Scottish Government officials and asked the question what do you mean by consumer goods and the answer was what we're keeping it broad so that it's a catch-all because we understand it's primary legislation but again when you're talking to businesses and they say that you and you mentioned that earlier would my products be in scope well we don't know yet the doubles in the detail perhaps is a bit of an exercise that could be carried out would be looking at the I think there was a circularity map produced recently for Scotland which showed material flows so maybe is instead a bit of a priority looking at where do we think those materials are leaking out based on evidence that might help to kind of refine down for specific areas within consumer goods to be looked at and I wonder if food waste is seen or food and food waste is seen as something separate or something together with other goods I don't know the answer to that I think it's a good legitimate question to ask but to say the uncertainty piece is always the challenge for our members so clarity would be good I think from our perspective and perhaps from a non-food perspective some products which captured I think the French legislation which is referred to in the policy memorandum covers I think durable goods I know that lots of those are covered under things like the we regulations where there's a duty to actually recycle to use these things that seems probably a more sensible framework to look at where are there already obligations which businesses should be following I think that works because it sort of separates the virtuous and those perhaps who are avoiding things if you're actually following the correct regulatory process at the moment then you shouldn't necessarily be too affected by this there are people out there who aren't and certainly in some of the space particularly around things like textiles some consumers some electrical goods you've got a huge number of very small businesses or individual businesses some in Scotland some out with Scotland who are trading through online marketplaces so a third might come up on a very well known website the reality is there's a very small business at the back of it they may not always be the ones fully following that process so it might be a way of capturing that that is a burden that probably falls on smaller businesses but it's more likely to fall but it will certainly be the more likely to fall on businesses who don't do the right thing at the moment so perhaps similar to what Kat was saying on the circularity framework where have we got kind of regulatory duties already and dovetailing with that almost perhaps as a stick on top of the carrot thank you commuter there's one or two follow up questions and to help myself I'm going to say to the people who are doing follow up questions could you try and limit it to one person on the panel so Douglas followed by Moog I'll ask you it's just around the unintended consequences is there a risk that retailers will just simply move their distribution network south of the board or whether the reporting and the penalties could well be different I think it would have to be quite a stringent policy to make that happen these things tend to be pretty well established where you're distributing products from it's thing that would definitely be considered and if there's a certain product that there's no way to deal with it in Scotland you might choose to move it out of a DC that's elsewhere but it's possibly a hypothetical I think it's more plausible when you get returned goods that come back into there if you can't do anything with it in Scotland it's going to have to be distributed elsewhere with a kind of concurrent impact on carbon emissions so that's to be avoided but again I think if we're focusing this on goods and products where there is recycling infrastructure then it shouldn't have that impact I think that nuance is quite important okay thank you I've just come back to that issue about on sold consumer goods and those goods that could be problematic I think SRC and their submission talked about mouldy clothes as being difficult to recycle I mean that feels pretty niche to me but are there are there you know, defined categories of consumer goods where it would be quite easy for you to say look this is problematic that's not problematic and that could then be included in guidance presumably at later date I mean it's something that I think would be a huge exercise because of the sheer scale of things we sell we're talking so many different products that fall within so many different types so even if you look at textiles you're talking about different materials different conditions and mouldy clothes is the example which was given to me by a member and that's by the way not that there's a tiny mark somewhere but if something's got significant damage or it's perhaps been left in the wrong conditions perhaps there's perhaps a distinction here between things that are damaged or things that customers haven't looked after and come back into retailers versus pristine products, pristine products we as a rule of thumb would be able to do things that's probably the easier distinction to make rather than the third categories but it's certainly saying we're happy to discuss further with our membership to be honest I'm not qualified on every category okay so I was just looking to see if anyone's going to jump up and down I thought you would try to do that cat so if you want to come in very briefly on that very briefly the thing I should have said earlier around unsold goods for us would be around product recalls so again in terms of unintended consequences if there's a product that's withdrawn from sale because there's an undeclared allergy or there's a contamination it's really really important that we acknowledge that that would be something that we would not be looking to resell for very obvious reasons okay thank you thank you for those back to the deputy convener Ben I'm going to move us on to the section 9 of the bill to do with the considerations around charges for single use items so you've touched on this somewhat already but it would be good to hear what potential impacts do you foresee with the implementation of charges on single use items what are the key business opportunities and risks and what lessons should the Scottish Government learn from its approach to previous environmental charges such as the single use carrier bag charge and aspects of the deposit return scheme when introducing any further charges on single use items and note the point that Colin Smyth made earlier about in certain circumstances you need a reciprocal and while we want to encourage people to use reusable products where they can the circumstances are different in terms of buying a beverage and going to a supermarket or any shop for physical goods so can you talk through some of your considerations around while it's the same issue in principle actually the circumstances are quite important I'm happy to go first not least because I've been doing this long enough that I was around when we brought in the single use carrier bag charge which was a great success it's eliminated single use carrier bags in a huge way it actually generated a huge amount of revenue for good causes and charities and it was something consumers got on with quite quick it was a probably a quite uniquely helpful product to go after there wasn't a good need for it I think the lessons we take from that firstly are what's the consumer impact is a consumer impact simultaneously is it low enough that this isn't regressive and disproportionate but high enough to cause behaviour change I think that's a really challenging thing and it's going to be different every time and I think what someone will pay for a expensive coffee is probably different from other items I think there's something about government owning any charges that come forward a carrier bag charge, a minimum price of alcohol, two great examples of policies where government was absolutely crystal clear to consumers we are doing this because if your thing has changed we have collateral we could put in stores that matters because it's shop workers on the floor who have to actually articulate these things and it's a lot easier to point at the sign and say the government are doing this rather than have to justify externality policies so I think there's something really valuable there I think there's just something about consistency in terms of putting this in place so we can do the same thing for different charges in the future but making sure it doesn't interact in a problematic way with other cost and hidden costs extended producer responsibility or plastics tax put a cost on a product before we start putting an externality in an inflationary time that's a thing and a very specific thing we'd say and I alluded to it with the single use carrier bag charge we were able to use the net proceeds to any good cause or charity that mattered that meant that my members were able to support their national charity partners they were able to support the local football team it was quite broad that the proceeds were used on that the proposals in here which are almost hypothesising it towards just environmental causes that feels it's oddly specific in very general legislation we'd have really significant problems on that because what worked to the carrier bag charge was actually giving businesses both large and small that autonomy on the proceeds so they didn't get any money out of this but they actually had the opportunity to help the community, it's a good bit of PR for the business it allowed the charge itself to be seen as a positive in the community that the football team's got a new strip because people are paying a charge for carrier bags so I think there's something quite valuable in there and we're slightly concerned at that narrowing there but broadly we think they can be really useful I think framework legislation is exactly the right place to bring forward this sort of charge anyone else want to add I think that what we need to understand and again it goes back to the scrutiny pieces is what is the intention of putting a charge on a single use item is it to reduce the consumption is it because it's more environmentally sustainable to use the reusable and I think there's it would be good for the committee to ask the Scottish Government what the impact, what the cost to businesses they perceive of those charges and what is the unintended consequence because as I said before there is a place for a single use item specifically when it comes to potential safety of people or safety of the product in certain areas where alternatives are not feasible to sport study for example and then if we're saying we're going to use reusable and sport study what does that mean for the consumer are they going to be able to get their product because it all comes down to commercial decisions we can apply a charge but it's still up to the business whether they offer that product and that container to the consumer that if it's unfeasible and unprofitable for the business to make that product available to the consumer the consumer loses out because the business goes I'm not going to bother it's too difficult it's too onerous so we've got to balance and understand why are we putting the charge on in the first place and actually is there phased approach is there exemptions to that charge and where it might apply to allow the consumer to still get their goods services whatever it might be where they want it and when they want it so yeah there is a balancing act and that clarity comes back to we need to business needs to know when a charge might apply what it applies to and what it is then supposed to do after that charge applies and if I can just come back because it would be remiss of me not to bring back in the DRS I mentioned about the DRS failures in the IMA there was other elements that DRS failed and are linked to single use cup charges we still didn't have clarity on the fact on the deposit and how that is managed within accountancy and to the consumer we also didn't have clarity in terms of the actual advertising of a deposit or a charge in this instance because these weren't devolved powers use were reserved to Westminster and we didn't get the clarity on those so again it comes back to how does the Scottish Government going to overcome those aspects because it followed through to the single cup or the single use charge thank you the next questions come from Ash Regan Ash hold on we'll wait till she flicks up on the screen there she is good morning to the panel I'll just follow on there from the direction of questioning that Ben was taking obviously there was issues around the process that was taken to get to DRS and possibly the engagement with businesses around more of the detail about the DRS lessons will be learned on that taking that opportunity to reflect perhaps on that what should the Government or how should the Government process what would it look like in terms of if the Government are trying to decide what single use items should have charges and obviously we've touched on there certain categories that it may not be appropriate what should that process look like how should it be different to what we've seen before and how also do you think they would best engage with business on this topic you sort of raised your questions hand quick so you first and then Cat I think there's lots of opportunities for this to dovetail with the work being done on the new deal for business that the Scottish Government's committed to I think in particular I'd note that the work to refresh the Bria framework so the business regulatory impact assessments and to make sure that those are done in a really strong way there are various measures coming through there's also a role I think for making sure the equality assessments are really good we talk about unintended consequences there was the move very quickly we had to ban single use plastic items perfectly good policy our members charged forward and did that very quickly and then we realised afterwards there were quite significant equalities considerations to people for losing things like plastic straws so it's making sure we capture those things because as businesses a lot of the time we'll be told you must go this way and we'll get on with it so the Government needs to almost make that to cover off that aspect for us so we can invest in faith I think from that Bria process and indeed also things like the regulatory review group coming back it's actually listening I don't think any policy issue has ever had more engagement than the positive return between Government and industry we did endless meetings but that didn't necessarily perhaps change the policy direction and that's perhaps the real challenge for Government is to try and and we need to differentiate too between things which are we don't like it but we can make it work and this is going to cause big challenges and I think making sure the Bria process and that engagement process for business differentiates those things between things that are a pain to do and things which aren't going to actually help Government with its objectives I think if we can get closer to that sweet spot particularly with things like charges I think that can work well that we do a lot our coffee shop members do a huge amount on already trying to change customer behaviour we always try and sell reusable containers a lot will provide discounts or incentives to do so so it's just how would that frame into that as a hypothetical example of a potential charge so it's not that we would oppose it but how could we tailor it to work so that the business is doing but with the policy direction that's required Cap? That's helpful. Anyone else? Ash, Cap was keen to come in can I let her in and then come back to you? Thank you, convener just very quickly in terms of these kind of high level bills we're not generally in favour of creating exemptions for specific businesses or sectors but one of the things we put in our submission that I do want to flag is around single use items that are for food hygiene and food safety it's linked to my earlier point about unsold goods and recalls for safety I think that there needs to be consideration about engagement with the business community about what single use items might they need and I guess the same would be true in the NHS and other places to make sure that hygiene and safety are considered so personal protective equipment, gloves etc etc that would be really important and then I would echo Yoon's point about the engagement and also agree with you on the business impact assessment process Ash, back to you You might be aware that the committee has run a little bit of community engagement on this topic and one of the themes that came across quite strongly from that was that consumers were kind of lamenting the fact that they're always the ones that are paying extra charges to have their responsibility to drive that change and that consumers thought that manufacturers and retailers should be taking more responsibility so I'm interested in the panel's views on that Kat I think certainly from my members and again this is true of many people a lot of people don't actually see the work that's going on within a food factory because they tend to be anonymous grey boxes in an industrial estate so there's already a huge amount that is going on that maybe the public aren't aware of and we tend to talk to as an organisation we tend to talk to politicians to policy makers to the business community but maybe we're not getting those messages out there to the consumer and that might be because you are making an own label product for a brand so there are reasons for that and the other thing which is perhaps slightly off pieced with regards to the food and drink federation who we represent is interesting to know when that consumer research was carried out what do they perceive as single use and just to give a very brief example of that we were talking this morning about festival tents and it was a festival where 80% of tents were left behind because clearly the consumer consciously or unconsciously perceives those as single use so it's very obvious where there are things like single use cups but actually there's other things and any research on that would be really interesting to think about how we can respond to as a business community Colin, do you want to come in? Yeah, I think whatever policy comes in and please I'm here to support our members, I'm here to support the work that we are doing collectively to be more circular reusing repurposing and certainly drive to net zero but with everything that we do there is a cost attached to it and when the wholesale sector works on a gross net margin of 1.3% so when there is additional burdens placed on business to comply with legislation that will inevitably increase our costs that involves bringing in specialist people potentially to upgrade software to help members comply with the regulatory process but equally it also meant that when the Covid the Ukraine war all those price increases that were coming through we were unable to absorb so we need to pass them on to the end user which ultimately gets passed on to the consumer and unfortunately that is the way of life that we are making commercial decisions on what we do and what we don't do what product we bring in what product we dealist are no longer offered for sale because it's not available to do that so I do understand the consumer frustration that all they are saying is inflation upon inflation rising costs of everything that they buy that is just a consequence of the policy and legislative landscape that we live in and the only way that we can potentially stop some of that is to actually re-look the policy and legislative landscape to say what is it that we really want to do and what is the most effective use of policy making decisions to have the biggest impact as opposed to potentially putting legislation in that it's so wide reaching that there are unintended consequences that there's more costs borne by the consumer so I think Ewan's going to jump in he said there was little and then you've got cut off so I'm sure there's something you want to say very very briefly I think sometimes consumers think that we'd like more things to happen to business and the cost of that of course get passed on to product shelves as we've seen recently so I can understand why that but I think everybody likes to think it's somebody else because to take action rather than themselves which might be perhaps driving that when you look at the cost we have coming through things like extended producer responsibility the cost to come in from all these measures I think it's very significant how much money business is already spending on this and externality charges might be a good way to make customers recognise the impact of their environmental choices you mentioned there you're in the UK's extended producer responsibility so I just wanted to finish up by asking the panel what your views are about that coherence potentially in other parts of the UK and obviously we've seen issues before with the UK Internal Market Act as well and presumably that might affect proposals for this bill what are your views on that and how do you think the Scottish Government potentially should approach that I think this bullish government, potentially, should approach that. Ewan's jumping in quickly. I am not remotely. We could do an entire evidence session on extended producer responsibility. I guess the couple of observations we've made. There are some problems, I think, at the moment with the way that that's being kind of pushed through in that we... I think our members and it had to be delayed because our members didn't really know what they were going to be charged. They didn't know what the costs were going to be and that's pretty challenging. It's such a powerful tool if it's set up right. It should be incentivising us to use the best materials all the time. But it should also hopefully... EPR should generate revenues which are going to allow government and local authorities to be able to put the right collection materials in place. I think we have a slight nervousness that that money isn't necessarily hypothecated and we worry that that's going to come as a lump sum in various parts of the UK and might well go to the many other priorities that face particularly local authorities at the moment. I completely understand why that would happen. But we really feel very strongly that we want to see the revenues from extended producer responsibility absolutely devoted to improving recycling to making... getting us to this sector of economy. There's going to be a very, very significant revenues occurring from this which our members are all contributing to. I really hope the Scottish Government ensures those are used in the very best way possible and one of the things that would really help with that is as close to a more uniform approach to recycling across the country so we can tell consumers what to do. OK, Ash, is that you complete? Yes, thank you, convener. Thanks very much, Ash. The next question has come from Douglas Swamston, Douglas. Thank you, convener, and thank you for the submissions. I found them really interesting and really helpful. We touched on earlier about reporting on waste and surpluses and you've came from a different sort of approaches in your submissions. You and you mentioned about... there's already quite a lot of reporting done at the UK level. Can't you mention the difficulties and ingredients and how it changes so rapidly? Colin, you were talking about the calculation of food surplus can prove difficult and we need to take into account other demands being placed on business just now. Are you worried about the cost and the burden of reporting? Is there a balance to be met? Clare White says yes. We're always concerned about the burden of reporting and I refer to my earlier point about it's the need and it's about the understanding of where data already exists. As I say, I'm sure you and members hold a lot of information about the products that are being manufactured, the carbon impact of that, various other things. I query the need for that data and the purpose of gathering that data is what do the policy makers need to help us then to unlock and move towards a more circular economy. Obviously, I agree with that. I think there is a fiscal cost to these things. There's an opportunity cost. There are so many things that our members are able to do and able to report upon. The circumstances, particularly post-pandemic, are very, very optimised. There are not huge numbers of people particularly working in these areas. They have an awful lot of priorities to work with. If there are extra reporting requirements, if they're really valuable, great, that's a good thing to do, but that will come as a trade-off of other things. By necessity, regulatory requirements are going to come before voluntary requirements. We have to do what we must be to be compliant. The more reporting that gets asked for, the more that's going to squeeze the ability to look at other more innovative approaches. So it's about balance, exactly, as Kat says. Some things are there. There's a lot of reporting done already on a huge number of areas. Our members report to us on some issues. They report through courtholes and others. I think that the first step should always be what data can we use and only really where we need it perhaps to go into this space would be our position. In your submission, you seem to suggest going away from a four nations approach might be difficult for some of your members. Would that be correct? It's delineating it by anything that goes beyond the scale that a business works at. It adds complexity. We tend not to report internally. Lots of our members won't operate particularly on that basis. They'll operate by distribution centre, where stores are, that they'll carve the country up by population. It might not necessarily be on the political lines. So it can be done, of course. We do it in certain areas, but every time it's effectively a bespoke job, it's not just pulling something easily off the spreadsheet. So that's why it creates cost and complexity. Colin? I think certainly the reporting needs to be... Whatever the reporting is, we need clarity on why we need it and what it's going to be used for. Equally, the reporting metric that is to be used needs to be standardised, it needs to be proportionate, fair and unjust for everyone. Because, as I said earlier, the SMEs don't have the same resource in the articulated world. They don't have the same resource as a bigger multinational organisation. So it then becomes a burden, and any burden becomes a cost, and it then becomes a disincentive to business operators and makes them question, potentially, why they're doing things, why they're investing, and the local community, the local employers, if all they seem to be doing is having to comply, as opposed to just getting on and doing. One of the things... We've got ahead of sustainability. We've brought in to help our membership and our members in our sector, decarbonise and look at food waste and everything that that includes. Coming from an external to food and drink point of view, reporting could be a game changer if we're looking at product in the reuse. So I can't mention about the tent. Extending the life of a product, you need to take it out with your current circle. That means sharing information of what we're when with other people, other resources, other industries. That's where reporting can be useful, but again it comes down to what is the purpose of it and how would it be used to ensure that product gets to that new market and reused in a different way from what it is currently. I guess probably from a Government point of view, they would say that the more data you have, then you can actually measure the problem and then try and improve it. So do you not feel that there's advantages to some Scottish businesses by actually reporting more, better use of technology, you mentioned software upgrades earlier, that might try and enable your members to reduce the amount of waste they have and then in return reduce, increase their profitability? Absolutely, but it comes back to... We can't just ask for information for information's sake. So what we are doing, we are working with one large wholesale member to help them to look at their waste, to monitor it and how they reduce it and then how we repurpose. What we are trying to do as an industry, as a trade body is then use that as an example that we can then share best practice with other members to instill the confidence that actually reporting doesn't need to be on us and actually there is a commercial benefit to it if it then allows product to be repurposed, reused. And we'd like to think as a sector we'd throw very little to waste because we do try and repurpose, we do send it to the company shop, et cetera. And actually some of our members are taking product, food product from elsewhere and making it into meals for local communities. So it's taking a carrot and potatoes and that and making it into a soup. If I do this, pick up on that. One of the barriers though to doing more of that is that those commercial kitchens are unable to take in product from suppliers that are not within their supply chain because of the fidget legislation and the tracking and monitoring. So there is barriers to actually enabling more food to be repurposed and given to, I'll say, good causes. Anyone else want to add to? I can add just briefly from a manufacturer's perspective reporting you're absolutely right but internal reporting is, again, it's the question versus what do the policy makers need to know, what do the public need to know and that's not about hiding things, it's about improvements. So if you come to any food and drink manufacturers you'll see boards everywhere about waste, about efficiency, about product planning, about manufacturing schedules to make sure that the minimum waste is always minimised because there's a cost implication there. And the other thing I think about public reporting is sometimes that that data can be quite a blunt instrument and how that's interpreted publicly can be a bit of a challenge. So if you are someone who is creating a lot of byproducts in your process, it's not fit for human consumption but it would come across as having a huge amount of waste because, well, that's food waste. That's things that could be going to feed people, well, not if it's bones and shells and buildings. Thank you. Finally, what criteria should the Scottish Government apply when deciding what waste streams should be subject to reporting and maybe some exemptions as well? Do you have a view on that? I think I might go back to what I said earlier about that circular economy map and, as I see, we haven't looked at that very closely as a sector but there must be material flows that are of particular concern. So I guess if we had a bit of a conversation with policy makers about what those are and what our members are making that it falls within those flows, maybe that could be an area we could look at from a food and drink manufacturing perspective. I think there's also that question of what's already being done and can that be worked on? Can we use the same thing? So if food waste is saying that our members or our large members would tend to report on on a UK level, can we do that using a similar metric or can we use a similar baseline? And there's something on reporting here about as soon as you create a new criteria that reporting isn't very helpful for the first couple of years because you're baselining off zero. So I do think that if there's established data that can be used, even if we can then take that and redo it for Scotland or that, that's a lot better. I think there's also a feasibility question and that's something which I can't give a general answer to because it will genuinely be almost issue by issue. There'll be some issues where retailer systems will broadly work and every retailer's got a different system but there will be times where actually it'll be very difficult. I won't have the specifics on exactly that but I think that business consultation of speakers sometimes this will be really easy and it might be a case of actually government sponsored voluntary regulations the right place to go. Can we get the scale we need from some businesses? We've done that sort of work on various areas but it's quite issue specific and we'd have to consult before giving you exact answers. Thank you Camino. We've talked about the re-use of food and that's not been sold in various outlets. You mentioned, Colin Smyth, that there are some barriers just in your last answer. I wondered if you could maybe follow up with the committee in detail on what those are because it would be really helpful potentially in the process of this legislation and there may be opportunities to change some of that. What I would like to do is go back to the membership and ask for more examples of that and I can feed that back to the committee. It was just something that we restricted repurposing of food during Covid specifically maybe bringing a meet into a production kitchen where the production kitchen didn't have the facility to handle me or they had the ability to handle it because of their processes, but if I can come back to you with more detail on that. That sounds like a reasonable restriction in some ways but if there are considerations where less waste can be achieved for the benefit of providing food in communities then it would be good to be aware of that. Sorry, Cat, hey were you? Again, just very briefly I was just going to add that I'm aware that it was done by Zero Waste Scotland around barriers to food redistribution so I'm happy to point that the committee in the direction of that research. Thanks very much, both. Very useful and if you could send that information to the clouds when you've got it they'll make sure it circulates to the committee. Mark, I think you've got some questions. We've had a number of submissions that refer to the importance of education and skills development. I just wanted to get your reflections on that whether you think there's something still that would help to strengthen the development of that. So open question really. Cat, you're nodding. I'll have a go there. I suppose this is a bit off the top of my head but we are very much involved in skills work. We get Scottish Government funding to administer a programme called A Future in Food but that's very much about upskilling the industry and encouraging new recruits into the sector but you're right, there's definitely opportunity. Maybe it's not so much skills but it's about training and knowledge. So again it's making sure that if you are operating within a food factory you understand the correct processes and procedures on place to take anything that is potentially fit for human consumption or surplus to make sure that it's being stored appropriately, labelled appropriately so we can make sure it can get to where it needs to get just as an idea. I think that would be something that would be quite useful. I do remember one of my first food factory visits going to visit for resource efficiency and watching somebody pouring a large vat of caramel down a drain and we were taking pictures saying this is what you don't do. The guy pouring it thought he was doing a great job, big thumbs up, big smile, great, getting rid of my waste efficiently. How can we help enable in business training around circular economy. There's definitely a role that Scottish Government and agencies could help support with that I think. I can't get that image out of my mind but what a waste. Just generally then in terms of maybe invite you in and calling to come in as well but just generally in terms of innovation and how you drive innovation and the role of skills and education within that. I'm still fishing to see if there's something here that the bill could and should be addressing on that. I don't know if I can really add much to the skills piece to what Kat has said but I think the innovation piece we put in our submission and Kat did as well. If we actually look at waste and product coming to market in the future and the way that manufacturers label the product we've got technology coming fairly close that actually is RFID chips or Radio Frequency ID chips and QR codes that will replace the barcode, indeed the barcode that you see currently on products will be redundant by the end of this decade. What that allows it to do is more product to be embedded within those barcodes and RFIDs not from point of manufacture when it was manufactured, the cow that the milk came from but what the RFID chips allow you to do is track a product all the way through the supply chain from manufacturer to waste without actually having touched a till or a scanning checkout or backdoor when it comes in into our warehouses and every chip is individual to that container so suddenly you have a mechanism you can track everything from manufacturer to the bin and potentially the person that actually purchased it as well so you then have accountability a bit like DRS then? That would have been the solution for DRS you would have had a DRS system but at Kerbside you wouldn't have needed the investment in all the machines that are now redundant in the supermarket car parks and indeed there's trials going on in Brecon Beacons and Wales on a digital DRS it's not as advanced as what I've just described that you know these chips are a potential game changer and the circular economy moved to net zero when we're trying to achieve and I think that if we really do want to make a change we need to look at the technology that is in front of us and actually when I spoke about ARFID chips five years ago and I gave Evans to the committee as well and I spoke to Roseanna Cunningham about it it was like no no it's too far away it's not going to happen it's going to happen and in fact the QR codes are already in place within the dairy industry if you look at your two litre jug of milk there is information not necessarily all the information I've just described but there is technology there that will solve a lot of the problems that we are talking about here today I think innovation is a very hard thing to legislate for I think that tends to be the sort of thing that happens perhaps out with I think the driver for so much of this in waste is in the business commercial interest I got there in the end to actually do lots of these things to make sure it's more environmentally friendly and also to use less of it to extend shelf life so those drives there there may be something in the strategy part of this the government to look at how agencies are encouraged to be able to share that information to those businesses that don't have the large R&D budgets that are driving this my large members will have teams who work on this who have got the ability to take risks with different types of packaging and vacuum packed steaks and all the rest to see how that works R&D or that ability to offset so I think there's something about how that can be communicated to help businesses be more commercially effective as well on the skills part I don't know if it's directly related perhaps to legislation but there's still there's probably something about how we use the apprenticeship framework which our members are very supportive of it would be good if we could look again at the funding of apprenticeships to help businesses get more support to take on and use more apprenticeships rather than having to fund it ourselves that's a discussion perhaps for another time okay thanks for that and last question from me is just about is there anything else that you think is missing from the bill and I think that you think needs to be on the face of the bill obviously there's been a number of areas which have been consulted on including direct variable charging for householders is it you sort of content with where the bills got to or do you think there are other things that could be brought into the bill right now I think we think there's quite a lot on the bill already for our members we're quite content with there not being any any further potential regulations on our members at this time there is one thing we noted in our submission under point 39 it's not strictly for the legislation it might be more for the committee though is that we're campaigning at a UK level on extending the current VAT relief on product donations to charities to actually take that wider for onward sale to products and so forth it's just to really make it easier and more helpful for businesses to be able to do more donations it's not a matter I know but it's a sort of issue that we think is quite important to just make sure the fiscal incentives are lined up so that businesses are not penalised for doing the right thing any other comments from our side of things there was nothing that came back from our members that they said was missing within the bill again just a lot of areas to be clarified and very much welcome the scrutiny that committees will provide on that okay thanks very much I'm just looking around to see if there's any more questions I think it's been a very interesting session and I would just make an observation as a parliamentarian framework legislation terrifies me as a government I'm sure it enthuses them because it allows all things to happen but I think the points you've made this morning on various issues are very helpful regulatory divergent definitions all those points you'll be listening to the evidence sessions and I'm sure you'll want to feed back into the committee on the basis of what we've heard today more information to help us make our decision would be very useful so I'd like to thank you on behalf of the committee for giving up your time this morning and I'm now briefly again to suspend the meeting to allow a change over of witnesses and I'd ask committee members to be back here at 10 1045 three minutes brief okay and welcome back our next item of business the consideration of a draft statutory instrument the deposit return scheme for Scotland miscellaneous amendments regulations 2023 the instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure which means that parliament must approve it before it comes into force the main purpose is to amend the full implementation date for Scotland's deposit return scheme to the first of October 2025 now for those allies of you within the who've read the committee papers you will have noticed there was an error in 0.1 where it said 2024 but it is actually 2025 so just to make that point the minister will move the instrument under the next agenda item but before that we are having an evidence session on the instrument and also to have a more general update on DRS and I'm pleased to welcome Lorna Slade to the minister for green skills circular economy and biodiversity and the solicitor David McPhee the deputy director of the deposit return scheme and Hayden Thomas the head of the deposit return scheme unit for the Scottish Government thank you for joining us today and I remind everyone the officials can speak today under this item but not under the next item minister I think you want to make a brief opening statement thank you convener I last appeared at this committee to discuss our DRS long after we've received the fatal decision in the UK government of a partial and conditional exclusion from the internal market act which made the scheme impossible to progress and forced to delay until at least October 2025 it was clear that after intensive engagement with businesses to understand the effect of the UK government's decision that this was the only course of action available to us no business could seriously be asked to proceed when we were unable to say what the deposit would be or what labelling requirements would be in place as a result we halted our scheme and agreed to work with the UK government to develop a UK wide approach including a common start date the regulations you are scrutinising today set that date we have always said that we recognise the need for interoperable schemes and we designed our scheme in good faith that they would be aligned with schemes across the UK when they launched we developed our scheme England and Wales both included glass in DRS and it was only recently that England U turned on glass and reduced interoperability with both Scotland and Wales as a result even the UK government's own analysis shows that glass significantly increases the environmental and economic benefits of the scheme waste management which includes DRS is wholly within devolved competency and is extremely disappointing that the internal market act has been used by the UK government to undermine this Parliament's ability to introduce a DRS in Scotland as a result this has damaged business confidence in DRS Scottish Government officials have continued to work with their counterparts in the UK Welsh and Northern Irish administrations over the summer to develop interoperable deposit return schemes based on the conditions set out by the UK Government's IMA decision letter Much of these discussions have been shaped by the experience and expertise gained through the work on the Scottish DRS While there is positive progress on this it is important that the UK Government sets out its scheme in regulations to maintain momentum build business confidence and ensure DRS launches successfully We are in a climate emergency and we know we need to take action now. Scotland's towns, countryside and beaches remain plagued with littered cans and bottles We need to move away from a throw away culture and embrace new ways to reduce our waste and emissions and DRS will help us to achieve that It is disappointing that Scotland's DRS is not launching in 2023 but we will continue to work in a spirit of collaboration to realise the economic and environmental benefits a DRS will bring when it launches across the UK The onus is now on DEFRA to make a success of DRS and I'm happy to take questions from the committee Before we go into questions I would also like to draw your attention and remind the committee that we did right to the Secretary of State for Scotland before the end of the summer recess and we had a response from him who referred us to DEFRA and DEFRA said that they didn't want to attend the meeting on behalf of the committee to the UK minister asking a response saying that we are not happy being pushed from one arm of government to another arm of government and unfortunately the response is not due till the 30th of September but I do urge the UK Government to assist us as a committee to understand the reasons behind that and that is all I'm going to say on it at this stage obviously once we get a response we can come back and ask a very simple question glass was out cans could be in was something better than nothing and could we have not and should we have not gone with recycling cans Certainly as we said at the time it is possible to operate a deposit return scheme in Scotland with cans and plastic bottles it does seem absurd to not include glass because the environmental and business case supports the inclusion of glass but it is possible to run a scheme without it wouldn't have been as good but we said at the time it is better to have any deposit return scheme than no deposit return scheme but it wasn't simply the glass that was the issue when we had to halt our scheme there were two further issues one was about the other conditions that were laid out in that partial and temporary exclusion to the internal market act and those were around labelling and the deposit levels now we cannot you'll know yourself that businesses require certainty to be able to deliver something as complicated as this and if we were not even able to say what the deposit level would be or what their labelling requirements would be and we know from working with businesses on Scotland's DRS that it requires up to a year and some cases more to change labelling especially for small businesses that they simply would not have been able to deliver a deposit return scheme without knowing those things now we couldn't know what those things are because the UK government has not made a decision to set out what they intend there and so we were left with no option to do that but the convener is correct it is possible to run deposit return schemes without glass have you thrown everything out as far as cans and plastic bottles are concerned surely there was maybe a year to work on it to get the labelling correct and the deposit level correct so that we could have actually gone ahead with that because I think most people in Scotland felt that you know there was a benefit from recycling cans and plastic bottles so it wasn't a matter containers sorry not bottles it wasn't a matter of getting the labelling correct or of getting the deposit level correct it was a matter of knowing what those things were once the UK government had said Scotland we're not going to allow you to set these things we're going to intervene with the internal market act and not allow that we will set them now the UK government does not have a timeline for setting those one of the ideas proposed is that unlike in Scotland under a UK scheme it might be the scheme administrator what they call a DMO that might set that deposit level now the deposit level would therefore not be in place until after the DMO was in place and after they had done their market research to set that so that could be as much as two years away so it wasn't a question of getting it correct we are now at the mercy of DEFRA and the UK government's timescale and their regulations and I cannot say to Scottish businesses that they don't know when the deposit will be set but you still need to get the scheme going in August 2023 or even March 2024 so that's not simply conditions that businesses can operate under I understand that to extend but if you'd set a very low level of deposit on cans and plastic bottles which maybe the UK government would accept you were actually talking about when you were going to introduce the deposit return scheme of having to stick on labels for some small producers so you hadn't even sorted the labelling out so I'm not sure it's possible to just blame everyone else I just wonder were we too premature in throwing it out could we within a year of negotiation and fruitful negotiation hopefully come up with a scheme to allow cans and plastic containers to be recycled through a DRS so I'll address the convener's two points there with respect to a low level of deposit deposit return schemes as envisioned by all of the UK but certainly Scotland scheme are run by the industry themselves so that deposit needs to be set at a level that allows the scheme to operate because it is a business they are running a business to collect these materials and get them recycled now the UK government may consider a scheme where the DMO sets those levels but they will still be obliged to set them high enough for the business to operate the research that we had done had determined that 20 pence was the level that was needed to make the scheme viable on a business case now it may be that when looking at a whole UK wide scheme you would set that number to a different level or even some schemes in the world have different levels for different types of material but Scotland scheme said 20 pence if we lowered that we would be undermining the business case so how can industry run a scheme which is a business without a business case in place so setting the deposit too low just means the scheme cannot operate in terms of labels Scotland does not have the ability the Scottish Government cannot set labelling requirements that is not a devolved power so industry themselves had supported labelling changes now the big companies they are able they have sophisticated systems in place to get their labelling up to spec of course they have much much faster line speeds and stuff in terms of getting product through small businesses they need to buy in quantity to make it worthwhile for them but then it takes them a long time to work that product through so we cannot and did not set labelling requirements but the UK Government might if you see what I'm saying so when I'm saying to my businesses in Scotland saying we're going to put in place a deposit return scheme but I can't tell you what you're going to have to say on the label and I can't even tell you what the deposit is so you can't make a business case that makes the scheme unviable so we were unable to proceed and our clients weren't tied down before we got to the date when the scheme was going to come in Mark, you've got some questions I believe and then Jackie Yeah, thanks, convener I mean I think given all of that and your answers to the convener I'm interested to know what actually now needs to happen to enable this to be implemented by 2025 I mean if you could take us through in your mind as to what really has to happen to ensure that interoperability by that 2025 target Absolutely, I'm very happy to go through what I think is needed so where we are is that the UK Government have committed to delivering the scheme they have yet to decide what their regulations will look like so they haven't yet decided how they're going to set the deposit in terms of what kind of businesses would be excluded they have yet to set for example what producer fees might be or what labelling requirements might be how that will be handled how shelf edge labelling will be handled all the same things that we needed to determine they still now have to decide and they may decide differently than Scotland or they may decide the same one of the things we've been doing over the summer is feeding in to the UK Government all of our learning and all of our work that we did with businesses what needs to do is pass their own regulations so get those through the UK Parliament that will then allow the creation of what they call a DMO what we call the scheme administrator for the UK there would need to be a Scottish version of that a Welsh version, a Northern Irish version and an English version just because of the way the regulations are passed but that DMO or DMOs would work together very closely and they would then undertake to do not only the work that Circularity Scotland did for Scotland which was bringing in investment hiring a team, getting the IT infrastructure starting to build business relationships getting the governance sorted out they will have to do all of that but it's very possible that in addition to all of that they would have to do things like set the deposit level which our CSL didn't have to do here but the DMO in UK might have to do that also UK of course is much bigger than Scotland a much wider variety of businesses and I think among the challenges that we or DEFRA will have is that in undermining Scotland's scheme that undermined around 300 million pounds worth of investment overall in Scotland that went into the scheme but specifically the investment that went into Circularity Scotland was therefore lost how are they going to get anybody any business how are they going to go back to those businesses the Coca-Cola's all the people who invested in Circularity Scotland say okay we took that, we collapsed that scheme but please put money into our scheme so by doing what they have done to Scotland they have undermined their own ability to deliver that so they're going to have to somehow put in place and support that DMO to get the investment that they're required and I don't know what steps they would need to take to do that but that DMO will then need to get the investment do that industry engagement to set the deposit levels to set up all the exclusions and exemptions and small producer support that we did all of that before they can launch and it is their intention to do all of that between next year, the end of next year when the DMO is created in October 2025 I am cynical that that is possible within that timescale but that is their intention okay I think that as a convener has already indicated it would be ideal if we could ask these questions to the UK Government but do you have any sense that those steps are being set up with DEFRA or are they making substantial progress towards step 1 or we have been working with officials over their summer to come up with what we think are sensible conditions for interoperability agreeing how we're going to set the deposit agreeing how exclusions and so on will work so that is in discussion between officials it is now with DEFRA with the UK Government to sign that off and to agree what those conditions are going to be and set those out in their regulations so we are waiting on their timescale I don't have a timescale for that I don't have officials have any more update on so I think UK Government's plan my understanding was to lay regulations early next year I think they'll still try to work that through with the appointment of DMO to the middle of end of next year again that is still the plan but some of this has actually caused a bit of a delay because UK Government officials were originally planning to have to sort all of this out because the Scottish scheme would have been up and running because we would have had the IMA exclusion so actually not having that IMA exclusion changed their plans to some extent but they are still working towards a timeline of kind of getting those regs laid and kind of moving towards the DMO and then as the minister said all the things the DMO will have to do to prepare for October 2025 learning from what Scotland went through they now understand a bit more of that detail just one other point while I was on it just back to the point that the readiness without glass which is related to some of this with the UK Government is in Scotland we had large producers who were very keen on pushing ahead in fact they were very keen on pushing ahead with August 2023 they did not see any reason to delay this they changed their mind when the IMA decision came in because they saw the removal and the change of the scheme at that late stage as a significant change to the scheme which meant they were unable to prepare in time for the March 2024 launch at that point those large producers said no we would rather wait now and go at the same time because it was all about in fact that while glass not being in a scheme is not an end to a scheme changes of the interoperability and glass kind at that late stage meant it was very difficult for producers to be ready so I think it's worth remembering that at that point they came on board with the idea that we should have a UK wide scheme because of that significant change of that late moment and in terms of any kind of phased launch because there are different regulations that could be considered in different parts of the UK is there a kind of wiggle room for that is that a possibility or are we now looking at complete alignment I mean that's a question for DEFRA in terms of how they want to implement the scheme we're absolutely at you know it's with them now to say how they intend for this to operate in the UK okay okay thank you Jackie Dunbar Jackie thank you good morning minister I'd be interested to hear what assessment the Scottish Government has undertaken regarding the environmental and economic implications that are due to the delay of the scheme to October 2025 yeah so I mean we've updated for the instrument that you are looking at today we've updated the area for that so you'll have that in front of you I mean obviously the major change is that with the scheme coming in later that all the carbon benefit and all the waste benefits that we would have had from getting the scheme up and running ideally the intention originally was August this year we're losing those benefits of course because two more years of that kind of pollution, two more years of that kind of waste aren't going to be the case but officials can give you the details on the Bria so sorry I've just opened up to get the figures completely correct and here we might jump in but a recent Bria said that the impact was moving from 2024 to 2025 was 166 kilotons of CO2 equivalent the point is that's moving to 2025 for every year that you move on from that you have an impact on the CO2 equivalent and I think the net present value off the top of my head I'd be able to open up was 18 million impact on the net present value for that one year delay but again every year you have that delay potentially that net present value impact happened so it's not these assessments have been just to look at the delay from 2024 to 2025 but essentially any delay beyond that would have further impact okay thank you I'm not sure did you want to come in Hayden are you? correct figures so there was nothing for me to add okay thank you convener okay you're taking me back to my days with parries table looking up net present values I'm working out how you come to that and which interest rate and tax rate but yes we'll move away from that swiftly to Douglas thank you convener Minister I just want to go back to circularity Scotland obviously now in administration now they believe that the Scottish DRS scheme could have still went ahead without glass were they were they wrong? I'm sorry I was distracted there member could go ahead administration believe the scheme could go ahead without glass were they wrong? I mean as I've already said to the convener it is absolutely possible to run schemes without glass in them that was not the reason why we had to halt Scotland scheme it was this changing of the rules particularly around the labelling and the deposit level we would then be unable to say to Scottish businesses this is what the scheme is going to look like and that level of the deposit is core to how the scheme operates because it's tied into the business model of how the scheme is funded and works so if you don't know what the deposit level is you can't operate a scheme and if you don't have the labelling you can't operate a scheme but had we known those things if the UK Government in their exclusion had said the only thing we're doing is changing glass we would have been able to go ahead there still would have been a case for doing it it's not as strong it's not as good but we could have done so so was there any way to avoid circularity Scotland going into administration could have been avoided in any way by having some sort of scheme if we had been able to run a scheme then yes circularity Scotland would have been able to operate that scheme as you rightly point out they were willing to operate a scheme without glass in it but none of us can operate a deposit return scheme if we don't know what the level of the deposit is so we were unable to proceed would have not been a case to proceed with something to try and make sure that the nine million investment by Scottish National Investment Bank didn't go down the level of the deposit. I mean the member is absolutely right to be concerned about this point and you can imagine that it was a great concern to me as well at the time not only the investment but the people's jobs the employees of circularity Scotland and all the people who had contributed to the work that they were doing building IT systems and so on all of those people were affected by that decision so it was something that it took very seriously but we were unable to proceed with a scheme because when we're working on the deposit return schemes, what businesses need is certainty. Deposit return schemes are enormous and complex, they affect every single person in Scotland and a huge number of businesses, tens of thousands of businesses are affected by anyone who sells, handles purchases or in any way procures these either drinks or their containers is affected and what businesses need and what they were asking for at every single meeting with them was certainty tell us exactly how this was going to work and what it did with the partial and temporary exclusion was throw a huge amount of uncertainty into the works. If I can't even say what the deposit level will be on a deposit return scheme, I can't go ahead and when the First Minister and I sat down at a business around table after that 26th of May when we got that letter in from the UK government laying out this temporary partial exclusion businesses said we can't do it we just cannot deliver this at all with this level of uncertainty we would now prefer even with all the investment that businesses had made they would now prefer to align with the UK so minister back to the point was there no way of saving Circularity Scotland and the 9 million of investment there was no way with the conditions that were imposed on us now the Scottish National Investment Bank and your report out tomorrow should we expect heavy losses coming from this I'm in no way involved with the Scottish National Investment Bank and I don't know what they'll be reporting but the 9 million you wouldn't expect to see that come back in any size Circularity Scotland is an administration so what the administrators are able to manage through that process I'm not familiar with so just back to the point 9 million of taxpayers money looks like it's going to be lost that wasn't done just to pick a fight with the UK government wasn't minister it was the UK government that made this decision it was their decision to undermine our scheme and they are responsible for the impact that it has had I absolutely was fully committed to the scheme everybody at Circularity Scotland was in terms of making it work and as David has just pointed out big businesses, big producers were also fully committed you will have seen RVMs going in in many supermarkets we were fully set up to get operational in August this year but when those conditions came in place even those big producers who had invested millions and in Circularity Scotland said we can't do it, these are not conditions under which we can launch the scheme so minister you take no responsibility at all for that 9 million of taxpayers money now being lost the scheme would have gone ahead in August of 2023 if the UK government had granted a full exclusion on the timeline that we had previously agreed so you take no responsibility and it's all to do with the UK government at that point correct okay, Monica Lennon you've got the next question thank you morning minister and the panel the committee stage 1 scrutiny of the circular economy bill is now under way and we're keen to understand what lessons have been learned about progressing circular economy policy under the UK internal market act and the common framework the challenge I've got there is that the common framework in this case failed to do its job so we had engaged from 2021 with the UK government on the deposit return scheme legislation we went through every step of that common framework so these common frameworks are the mechanisms by which the UK and the devolved governments work together to come to agreement and our officials had worked together I meet with the UK government with my DEFRA counterparts monthly we had worked through this all the way through we had done everything that we needed to do we understood that that meant that we would secure the full exclusion to the internal market act because we had done everything we needed to do in order to secure that full exclusion from the internal market act now we did not get the exclusion that we expected to get which the common framework that was the result of that common framework process that we should have had that nor did we get the partial and temporary exclusion we got in a timely manner very late in the day it came in at the end of May that's something we've been working with the UK government on for years so yes I think we've got a challenge if the UK government ministers are not following the process of the common framework if they're not agreeing to abide by the work of the common framework and in fact can change their mind at the 11th hour on a whim because they haven't provided any evidence for this change that's the other point that the UK government did not do assessments on this change they have not even as far as I'm aware written out saying why they made this change if they can just do that then the common framework clearly are not working because I'm almost certain that the UK government would not take it well if I stepped away from the common framework process and changed my mind about something that had previously been agreed at the last minute I feel that that would go down badly okay so I'm hearing that prior to May there was extensive regular dialogue between Scottish ministers, UK ministers and obviously officials so lots of engagement, lots of discussion but given where we are now and things haven't ended up in a good place what discussions have been happening what engagement is there around the circular economy bill and are you confident minister that we're going to end up in a better place with the circular economy bill or are there risks that you can see when we end up having discussions like this on that legislation so there's two points there, one is that I don't think that those common frameworks are working because they allow a lot of work to be done over years and then ministers to come and swoop in at the end and yay or nay that so there is a larger project not just within my portfolio but a larger project about how those common frameworks work between the two Governments, I suspect that means something about getting ministerial agreement at various points in the process so that people can have confidence moving forward because two years of work together on this by officials that's and thrown out is not an efficient way for any of us to work so there's a bigger picture about making those common frameworks work properly because clearly they have not in this case in terms of the circular economy bill itself my understanding is because it's a framework for the circular economy bill, there aren't inherently any internal market issues without Gail so to come in and correct me if I've got that wrong but should we take forward any specific items from the bill so for example you will know from your session this morning that we want to take powers to be able to put charges on some single use items so that itself isn't an issue but when we come to for example looking at putting charges on a say single use coffee cups that specific piece of legislation could then have internal market act so it depends exactly how that's implemented there's a lot as you had your discussion this morning you know there's lots of different ways that could be implemented there's lots of different places that money could go when it's collected there are lots of different models with that and exactly what model we chose might have more or fewer internal market act implications but Elsa may have some more. I think that that's important and we'll bring you in a second because what we heard from the witnesses this morning is that in some areas of the bill they are nervous about the lack of certainty and because it is a framework approach they are nervous about some of the detail that will come potentially later or we don't know what amendments will come forward so yeah interested to hear from Elsa on those points. I agree with what the minister said there are enabling powers in the bill and it will be at the point that we use them that we can then assess exactly what the impact would be or in relation to the internal market act but I mean the resources and waste framework are aware through discussions with officials of the existence of the circular economy bill so I mean that has been raised and the members of the framework at official level are aware of it. Okay thank you and just to add community thank you for your remarks earlier on because we were all I think frustrated by responses or lack of from UK Government and again I think we would all want to see more cooperation with this committee as well so thank you convener for your stance on that. Okay thank you I'll just look around see if there's any other questions I don't think there are I've got two very quick ones if I may one is an observation framework bills of course are great civil servants love them and so do ministers parliamentarians hate them because they can't scream nice words coming is that a fair assessment minister I understand the frustrations around a framework bill when it comes to the circular economy I think we can all see particularly because of the issue of say disposable vapes that has become an issue very very quickly only in the last couple of years if we had to pass primary legislation every time a new product is brought out that's a challenging problem that would tie up a lot of parliamentary time so by taking a framework power we are then able to react more dynamically for example to emerging products and stuff and manage those things much more quickly and efficiently so we don't know what products might be developed in the future we don't know what environmental impact those might have so by having that suite of tools it means we can react and put in place measures for products of the future which we don't know might exist yet sounds very convincing but it doesn't convince me that it minimised scrutiny by the parliament my final question minister if I may is this SI doesn't remove glass now the UK government said that glass would not be included so in 2025 October 2025 are you going to have to bring another statutory instrument to remove glass from the Scottish scheme or are you going to bring a whole heap more just so the committee knows what's coming down the track at them no that's a fair question so it's almost certain that we will need to revise the regulations again anyway because for example if the DMO is going to be able to set deposit levels we would need to remove our 20 per cent 20 pence deposit from the Scottish scheme and there may be other conditions for example we have written into the regs the exclusion around producers who produce a 5,000 or fewer of a particular line our exemption rules are in our regulations so the UK government might have completely different ideas about all those and we would have to repeal all of that so rather than coming back to parliament repeatedly we will wait and see what the UK government puts into their regulations and provide it is in line with what we have agreed through the common frameworks and what we have been negotiating with them then we would bring those regulations so that you only have to see them once and you don't have to keep doing it over and over okay so we have a lot more to look forward to in 2025 including glass okay if there is no other comments or questions from the committee we will move on to the next agenda item which is the formal consideration of motion S6M09842 calling for the committee to recommend approval of the deposit return scheme for Scotland, miscellaneous amendment regulations 2023 minister do you want to say anything more than what you've said already? no thank you convener okay are there any contributions from members there are not so sorry oh yes how remiss of me I should have asked you to move it minister I assume that you are here to move it but I would be grateful if you confirm it yes convener I'm happy to move the instrument thank you so if there's no other contributions for the members I'm assuming minister you don't want to sum up on what you've heard from members no thank you convener good so therefore the question is motion S6M09842 in the name of launus later be approved are we all agreed we are agreed the committee therefore will report on the outcome of this instrument in due course and I invite the committee to delegate authority me to me as convener to finalise the report for publication are you happy to do that good thank you minister and thank you for your official and that concludes our public meeting and we will now move into private session thank you very much