 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the 13th meeting of the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee. Before we begin, a reminder that social distancing measures are in place across Holyrood, please take care to observe these measures. We have apologies from Natalie Dawn. Collette Stevenson is in attendance as committee substitute. At agenda item 1, we have consideration of whether to take agenda items 4 and 5 in private. Item 4 is consideration of the evidence heard on the single-use plastic subordinate legislation. Item 5 is consideration of the committee's work programme. Are we agreed? That is agreed. Items 4 and 5 will be taken in private. Our first substantive item today is an evidence session on the environmental protection single-use plastics products, Scotland regulations 2021. These regulations are subject to the negative procedure. That means that they will come into law unless the Parliament agrees to annul them. Last week, the committee took evidence from the Scottish Government on the subordinate legislation, and afterwards we agreed that we would take evidence from stakeholders. We appreciate that these invitations went out at short notice, so we are very grateful for our two guests joining the committee this morning. I welcome to our panel Jim Fox, Associate Director of Public Affairs, Food and Drink Federation Scotland, who is attending in person, and Ian Gilland, Chief Executive, Zero Waste Scotland, who is joining us remotely. Thank you both for joining the committee this morning. I also put on record that we have also written to the Law Society of Scotland, seeking their views on the regulations, and we have received short submissions from the Federation of Small Business, David Lonsdale of the Scottish Retail Consortium and Inclusion Scotland. Thank you both to our panel members for joining this morning. Before we begin questions, let me just check if either of you would like to make a short opening statement to the committee, or should we just move straight to questions? I'm happy to go to questions. Great. Thank you once again. Let me start with the first question. What do you see as the real-life business impact of those regulations in Scotland? Do you think that the impacts have been fully and satisfactorily investigated by the Scottish Government in developing those regulations? Jim, I'll put that question to you first. In short, yes, I don't think that there will be very much impact at all for Scottish businesses. This has been trialled for a long time. I think that most businesses that pay attention to these matters will already be well on their way to ridden themselves from any of the items that you are regulating. I don't see a problem, and I've checked with several businesses before coming here today, and they've anticipated this for quite a long time. It's already enforced in England, it's already enforced in Europe. We don't see a problem. Thanks very much, Jim. Ian, same question to you. Thank you, and good morning. I think that I will echo what Jim is saying. I think that we are already seeing a shift in businesses around moving away from the products that are under consideration. Obviously, at Zero Way Scotland, we did support the Government through the development of these restrictions. We were heavily involved in helping them with the consultation, particularly on the stakeholder engagement. We also supported the development of the business impact assessment, which demonstrated that. I think that the figures that I'm sure colleagues have said that. 95 per cent of the plastic products are imported into the UK, so there are very limited impacts on the value chain here in Scotland. When we look at polystyrene and EPS, although there is more of that developed in the UK, we've already spent quite a bit of time investigating what was happening in Scotland. We really couldn't find any companies in Scotland who were going to be impacted on it. Those who were producing EPS were doing it at a much greater scale, not the products that have been mentioned more about insulation. Even talking to the key stakeholders involved in EPS was a recognition that people were moving away from these products quite quickly. Thank you both for those responses. Let me bring in the deputy convener, Fiona Hyslop. Thank you. This is obviously just a key stage in looking at the regulations. Part of that will be the guidance that the Scottish Government will provide. Just from your different perspectives, do you think that the sufficient guidance on the implementation from the Scottish Government in relation to the regulations? Or is there anything additional guidance that you think would be helpful to see the successful implementation of these regulations? I think that we're broadly supportive of the approach. I think that we welcome the change in the plastic straws, the disability issue there, and that was the last remaining hurdle, I think, for industry. Thank you. Obviously, we're supporting the Government with the guidance, and we'll continue to do so. Obviously, in the run-up to the implementation in June, it's the guidance that will evolve. We will continue to work directly, communicate directly and engage with stakeholders right across the value chain to ensure that the guidance is reflecting on any considerations that they have. Absolutely, the stuff around exemptions, straws and so on needs to be articulated quite clearly in terms of hospitality industry, particularly in some of the other aspects, but we're engaged. Obviously, we'll continue to engage with all of those people. From other work that we've done, we need to be proactive in making sure that every part of the hospitality industry, every part of the supply chain that all purchasers understand what's happening, so we'll continue to do that on an on-going basis. We might not just be guidance, but it's awareness as well. I know that it's been a long time coming, but do you think that there's sufficient awareness? Obviously, big companies will certainly be very cognisant of it, but there's some smaller outlets or smaller organisations that may need to be alerted to that. Any sense of that? I think that everyone knows what's happening, or is there more communication required about this? I've not taken any soundings from very small businesses, but certainly medium businesses and large businesses. The large businesses have been aware of European regulation for a long time and are exposed to the trade associations' briefings on that. Medium businesses fall into two camps, those that are aspiring to be trade association members, and they will be well informed, and others who may not be keeping up with this. I'm not really aware of anybody at that level, so I really couldn't speak about how well they would be informed. Our colleague from Zero West Scotland. As we always say, we shouldn't get complacent, but awareness levels are very high. Obviously, we've been talking about plastics in general for a number of years now, and consumer pressure has led to a lot more awareness in front of the house, but within the supply chain, as I've said, is evolving already. Awareness is high, but as we get nearer to the implementation date, we need to be more proactively engaging, not just with individual businesses, but with our trade associations and other supply chains. It's something that we will continue to do. If the regulations come in, a business or a person who manufactures or supplies certain plastics commits a criminal offence with a fine of up to £5,000. The law society suggests that pushing that to a criminal law sanction might not be justified or proportionate and might not be the best way to ensure compliance. It suggests that civil sanctions, which have been used in other similar legislation, might be better. Do either of you or other relevant members take a view on the use of a criminal sanction in those regulations? Ian, first of all. To be fair, that's very much what my area of expertise is. We do not have a view on that. We would obviously take guidance from both Government lawyers and others. We are not part of the regulatory regime or the implementation of the scheme. I am going to say the same thing. Thank you, Gents. I thought that there was certainly a risk that you might say that. You might give a similar response to my follow-up question. The investigation and enforcement of this and this criminal sanction will be done by local authorities. Again, you may not know this, but is there any way of knowing whether local authorities feel sufficiently resourced and indeed able to do full investigation and enforcement? Again, I am not aware of any specific resource requirements or capacity. Again, as part of this, we will be communicating with local authorities and talking to COSLA about the guidance that is available to them to carry out any duties that they will have going forward. I am not aware of them flagging up any issues at this moment. I will answer a short piece of that. I think that we are generally concerned about the abilities of the authorities to regulate or to administer the regulations as they come. Not particularly these, but there are several now that are coming to the fore on environment. DRS is just one of them. In general, we are very concerned that the authorities that should be trying to protect our interests will not be able to, with the best will in the world, they do not have the resources for that. We have asked several times during the conversations, during the evidence sessions on DRS, and we were never given a real example of what is going on. We were still left with concerns. We have a DRS system that will cost us many tens of millions of pounds, and if fraud kicks in, that will be multiples of that. There is a big gap between England and Scotland in terms of the implementation of that. We do not see any real issues by the authorities to be able to control movements of goods between England and Scotland. They are already hard pressed to control things like tobacco and drugs and even people at this stage, so trying to control things like single-use plastics might be a step too far. I am very grateful. Thank you very much. Liam, just to follow up on that point, because it is a slightly wider point about resource at local government level. What personnel additional resource do you think is required at local government level to monitor this properly? Convener, I think that there is a problem. I have no reason to volunteer on what I think should be done about it. I am not an expert in that area. I just know that we are concerned that we will be exposed to fraud. No understood. Let me bring in Jackie Dunbar. Thank you, convener, and good morning. Can I just touch a bit further on what you were saying just now? You were speaking about the implementation of the DRS. Do you expand a bit more in regards to the oxy degradable plastics and the wet wipes? What do you think the priorities for those should be? I think that game might be more qualified, but I will talk about the oxy degradable. We are very concerned about having controls on the type of plastic that goes into any recycling project. If we get it wrong, then the impact on the rest of the plastics in that chain will be negative. If you mix different types of plastics together, and one of them is less than the other, then you come out with the lowest common denominator. Iain, would you like to add anything? Obviously, the oxy degradable is not included at this moment. It is a complex area. The Scottish Government is seeking further information on that. We need to remind ourselves that this is not the throw of the culture or reducing demand. We need to think seriously about what we can do to bring future restrictions in place for those things. If we are going to be consistent with our approach. The other thing that you asked me about was the... It was round about the oxy degradable plastics in the wet wipes. Wet wipes? As you will know, during the public consultation, 94 per cent of respondents thought that action should be taken on wet wipes, although they were not part of the original list. You heard last week from the minister that the Scottish Government is working certainly in liaison with the UK Government on what action could be taken on them to bring that forward. Considerations on what more could be done to reduce the impact of wet wipes. I have another question. Will I ask it just now? What do you think the economic and social opportunities are around the shift away from single-use items? How can Scottish businesses and communities capitalise on those opportunities? Do you think that there is any extra support needed? That is maybe a wish question. I cannot answer that. I am not an expert in that area. I mean, if you are talking about single-use plastics particularly, I mean, I can talk more widely about DRS, but not about single-use plastics in terms of economic impact. Ian? So, yes, I mean, as part of the wider circular economy, we have obviously provided evidence in the past around the economic impacts of that in terms of jobs and business opportunities, particularly around reuse and refurbishment of goods, et cetera. But, certainly in reuse, we are seeing a lot more growth at a local level of packaging-free shops, for instance, zero-use shops popping up all over. Obviously, we have supported, through grants, a number of those initiatives across the rural parts of Scotland, particularly in the islands, to accelerate that opportunity not just for dedicated zero-use shops, but other shops to have that type of facility. Obviously, there is increasing demand by consumers. That meeting increased demand from consumers as well. Absolutely. I think that the shift away from the throw-away culture towards more circular is going to create much more economic opportunity and internal investment and social benefits as well. Okay, thank you. Thanks very much, Jackie. Collect Stevenson, please. Yeah, good morning, and thanks very much for coming along. I know Jim yourself having visited the site in East Kilbride as part of my constituency in Coca-Cola's European Pacific. You did have your challenges in terms of finding a straw and attaching that on in terms of some of the products that you use to produce a East Kilbride plan. What I was wanting to ask both of you was, in terms of the regulations that are going forward, do you see how does it create any challenges around procurement, whether that be from the public sector or other businesses? Maybe, Jim, you could drop on that in terms of what you have managed to do to solve that problem there. I'm taking back in particular your reference to straws. We have straws, we use straws, and there is a particular product called Capricorn where there's a straw on the park, you may have seen it. And we are probably our second or even third iteration of trying to get a paper version that works for that straw. We know McDonald's have gone through the same problem. So paper doesn't work as well as plastic, but of course we all recognise that's the direction we've got to go. So we're just about there. We think we've got a solution that works now, but we've had our problems in getting there, but that's pretty much behind us. As for most other people, if you look at some of the other companies involved in this, they've had to change the way they think, but I've not heard anyone at all saying how this would be the wrong direction to go. It's really been about how we do it as opposed to why we're doing it. OK, Ian, do you want to come in on that? Yeah, certainly. I mean, I think all of, you know, with the lead-in to these regulations and the discussions that have been on-going, I guess, around plastics does lead to innovation. And, you know, I think there are opportunities, as Jim said, we are aware that, not just in the UK, but across Europe there's a number of companies now bringing forward products, particularly to meet that challenge around straws, to move away from plastics most substantially. So I think that's to be encouraged and that's what happens, I guess, when you bring in legislation that the market innovates. I think in terms of public procurement or absolutely, you know, there's always an opportunity, you know, ahead of the regulations, and I know I've been working with a number of public sector agencies over the last couple of years around reducing the impact of plastics within their, you know, states. You know, they've already been making changes. So, you know, putting the run up to the legislation there's no need to wait till the summer. I think there'll be an opportunity for further changes to procurement from within, you know, across all the public sector, also from some of the main suppliers as well. Can I just touch upon that and the work that you've carried out in so far? We've linked to local authorities and whatnot. In terms of particularly in procurement, whether there's some sort of clause in there where there should be a trail in terms of end product destination? Yeah, so we... There isn't a specific clause, but absolutely, this is the type of conversation that we're now having, or we have been having with, not just local authorities, but other parts of the public sector. It's not just, you know, it's not just where, what the product has been made of and where it comes from, but what happens at the end of life. Obviously, you don't want it to have an end of life. You want to have something, you need to be buying things that are repairable, remanufactured or can be reused again and again, and we're beginning to see those changes within the supply chain as well to support some of those initiatives. Ultimately, yeah, we still ask that question of local authorities to understand what happens to their waste, what happens to the products that they are either using in their own estates but also collecting from households and businesses what is happening to them. I think that's an important part, and we're all very aware of the impact of our particular plastics that I've had in other parts of the world that have been exported. And again, as well as the kind of moral issue that we need to take on board here, again, it comes back to that economic you know, I've said this quite often, for every one job there isn't just collecting materials for recycling, there's another eight jobs in the reprocessing, remanufacturing and repurposing of those products back into the supply chain. So we're really serious about harnessing those economic opportunities for Scotland and we need to think about doing something more constructive with the materials here in Scotland and hence the circle economy. Okay, thanks. Do you see that again opportunities there to maximise the circular economy benefits or supporting enterprises innovating more in that that's a kind of area? Yeah, absolutely. That is at the heart of the circular economy is what can we do. Not just, as I said, just doing something clever with waste but we're actually designing a system so we can maximise the use of all of the products and materials that we already have so we're reducing demand because ultimately the real pressure on the climate is from our kind of linear economy but we're taking more and more stuff producing stuff, manufacturing it and ultimately throwing it away quite often after one use what this discussion is all about. Okay, thank you. Can I just add to that? Absolutely. You worried about exporting problem materials. Most of the countries that we would look to export are already moving in the same direction so that these materials wouldn't be welcome there either. I mean, Europe's already moved I hear now that China is even regulating this I didn't mean that to sound derogatory towards China but there are countries all around the world that are moving in this direction and big multinational companies will look at that and decide that they might as well produce one type of whatever it is than several and therefore the direction of travel is to eliminate these all over the place. It's not a Scottish problem, it's a global problem. That's good to know. Thanks, Tim. Okay, thanks Collette. Mark Ruskell, please. Thanks. Is there any potential threat from the UK Internal Market Act or are we going to move towards alignment over regulations across the UK? Are there any industry sectors, industry players who are still holding out for a market, for drinks draws or anything else? Internal Market Bill, but I would say, Mark, that the Court of Public Opinion will probably resolve some of those issues. Any big business or even good medium-sized business would not want to be seen not to be on board with these types of regulations. Ian, have you got anything to add on that? Yeah, I agree. The Internal Market Bill is out with my scope of expertise. Any differentiation of standards would definitely have an impact. I think I echo what Jim says. There's a lot more deli consumer pressure and even from the big business, the big corporates and the supply chains are really taking this much more seriously. I don't think we will see that alignment. OK. Thank you, Mark. Monica Lennon, please. Thank you, convener. What we've heard so far is quite encouraging in the sense that businesses are already very engaged and prepared. We've heard that Scotland isn't a first mover in some of these issues so we know we can learn from practice elsewhere. I know Zero Waste Scotland has been really involved with disability organisations including Inclusion Scotland who have given us a written submission so we know about the plastic stores advisory group so it might be turned to Ian in a second but Jim, you gave the example of Capri Sons which I'm sure many of us are familiar with, especially anyone who's involved with small children. Thinking about the target exemptions for example if someone buys a Capri Sun in a cafe or somewhere where they're going to sit in and they request a straw the Capri Sun it's quite a narrow little straw so what is the expectation on different businesses in terms of the cover range of straws that they might have to have if people do a request because we understand that from the request system employees won't be able to ask people why they're asking for the straw and we won't have always any stigma so is this something that businesses have to look at in a lot of detail or can they just have one plastic straw in the cupboard? I've got to say we've not looked at it in a lot of detail but I would volunteer that we are talking about the straw and not the container so it would be quite easy to decan the contents of the container into a suitable vessel, a tumbler or a cup so that a normal sized straw could be used we've not considered that we've not had any problems up until now and this regulation has given us a problem that we need to move from plastic to paper but the disability issue is not something that we have considered in the past but we will do you know I've not known that we've had a discussion on that yet Yeah well it's absolutely essential that the disability and equality issues are considered so I know Ian Gulland at Zeroway Scotland's had more direct involvement in this so Ian interested to hear what level of guidance will be required because if someone is requesting a plastic straw because of the targets they don't have to give a big explanation but they might not have their own cup handy and they might feel at disadvantage so I wonder if you can speak to that given the close involvement of Zeroway Scotland in that advisory group Yeah no thanks so yeah so as well as doing the business impact assessment we've been heavily involved in the equality impact assessment even the island's impact assessment in the fair of Scotland impact assessment so you know we've been quite intensively discussing these things and obviously yeah quite closely with some of the disability groups about this so we're well aware of the potential challenges that you know are coming down and hopefully the guidance will reflect that I think you know when I get into the absolute detail of every single circumstance I mean you know from our experience though this is where you know innovation and application from you know people in the front lines so to speak and you know again going back to that point of continually updating the guidance being out there proactively listening to people how they're going to to some extent solve some of these individual issues that are going to arise potentially and we'll you know make them update the guidance as we go forward and look for clear channels to communicate this to other people that are struggling potentially ahead of the regulations coming in because what we don't want to do is you know wait for those situations to arise and yeah I guess I'm just reflecting on another implementation you know a carrier bag legislation and others you know that's been the course of our engagement right talking with people right on the front line not people within the supply chain but people potentially in the hospital industry who are going to have to serve customers and what they think would be the challenges on that as we go forward so yeah very absolutely you know that we know that these are particular issues that we're going to have to address and we're working directly with the groups that you've mentioned Thank you Ian yeah that engagement is very important wipes have been mentioned already and I asked the minister about this last week and what other items may be covered by future restrictions I think you quoted a figure of 94% of the public being in favour of a ban on wet wipes so it looks like the public are way ahead of governments on this issue from a Zero Waste Scotland perspective Ian what more could be done to minimise the use of single use wet wipes and when would you think that the Government in Scotland could look at this issue again and perhaps add that to the list of restricted items I don't understand 94% people wanted a ban I'd have to check the consultation certainly they wanted action on wet wipes whether it was an out and out ban but certainly we felt that further action on wet wipes would be productive again the reason the list that is going forward is that there are already alternatives readily accessible alternatives to that list so whilst there are alternatives to plastic and wet wipes cellulose layer there is still some work to understand still what the impact of that is within the wider environment in terms of the gradeability so there are some other things that need to be just worked through in terms of the technical aspects of it but clearly it's been highlighted as still a massive issue particularly around the beach surveys here in Scotland and across the UK so it's not just a Scottish issue it's a UK issue hence there's a selling opportunity to work at UK level if a ban or further restrictions are going to be put in place so I know from discussions with the Scottish Government that it's something they're keen to pursue looking to at pace it's obviously on their agenda at this moment in time Thank you and thank you for the clarification Thanks very much final question from me the plastic, single plastic use regulation we're considering this morning it's part of a wider series of environmental environment-related regulations that will be coming into force over the next coming months and years ahead I wonder Jim if you want to take this opportunity to give your views on what future regulations may have more of an impact on business which may cause your members some concern Thank you, convener, I welcome that All the regulations that are coming our way are largely the right things to do but in more common wise not necessarily in the right order you know we have we've worked on DRS for a while now and we think that's the right way to go we've been supportive of that for four or five years we're struggling just to get to that end game at the moment and I know the ministers considering a delay and we hope that she does give a delay because there are some parts of the industry that are ready to go and some parts of the industry that are not ready to go on DRS it can't be delivered in parts it's got to be the whole and our best estimate of the really the right time to go on DRS is September 2023 that still gives industry a problem because in England and in Wales they won't be ready until late 2024 and that was the issue on fraud that I alluded to because over £4 a case more expensive in Scotland in England you will start to see people trying to make money on that on EPR again exactly the right thing to do we have largely supported of it we still can't get governments and I'm saying governments probably Westminster but some part of that would be in Edinburgh who can't say whether DRS is part of an EPR scheme we've been waiting two years perhaps three on a VAT rolling from HMRC so we've got and this is the thing about getting it in the right order we've got EPR coming in in between Scotland DRS and England DRS so EPR comes in in the middle of that you know that's really confusing and will be a problem we've got single use plastics in the background I don't think that actually impacts on any of that but what does is plastics packaging tax which comes in next April now we've employed a plastics packaging tax we need to be able to use recycled content up to 30% now we're already doing that in the business I work for there are lots of other businesses already doing that but as you put that pressure on people more and more people to use at least 30% recycled material the right thing to do but you don't have the material to use because DRS is not up and running you start to see the disconnect DRS should be up and running to give the good materials that allows people to move to recycle material content all of this is all directionally right but in the right order at the wrong order sorry that's how I would sum it up here that's very helpful thank you Ian did you have any thoughts on the same question I sympathise with what the gentleman is saying we are in a climate emergency and we do need to take action we're serious we're serious about ending our contribution to climate change we're going to have to tackle our throwaway society and our waste issues and we're going to have to do that at pace there are things that are being done quite quickly because of consumer pressure because of the things that are happening at a UK level in terms of legislation around produced responsibility that Tim has already mentioned we in Scotland are ourselves and the Scottish Government we're supporting the Scottish Government to develop a route map for achieving our own targets by 2025 and looking beyond that in terms of the climate ambitions hopefully that gives us an opportunity in Scotland to look at what's already happening in terms of regulation but to try to set out a clearer pathway in how all these things fit together in the sequencing but it's quite a dynamic space for all the obvious reasons this is about climate change we need to take action and there's this huge momentum in the public that we need to tackle some of these issues and we need to do them quickly OK, thank you very much that wider perspective is actually very helpful I appreciate it because it will help guide the committee in the months ahead in terms of when we begin to look or continue to look at some of those issues I think that brings us to the end of the questions we have in this session thank you once again Jim and Ian for joining us, for joining this session enjoy the rest of your day that brings us to the end of this public session we will suspend the meeting and rejoin the session after this change of agenda item thank you welcome back agenda item 3 is consideration of a negative instrument the water environment controlled activity Scotland amendment regulations 2021 I refer members to paper number 3 the instrument is laid under the negative procedure which means that its provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annull it no motions to annull have been laid the delegated powers and law reform committee considered this instrument on 23 November and determined that it did not need to draw the attention of Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit do members have any comments on this instrument Mark Ruskell thanks convener welcome the broad intention of this instrument particularly given COP26 and the commitments that were made around methane reduction but also the need to prove the ecological condition of our fresh water resources my slight concern with this instrument is just around where the cut-off point has been chosen for transitional arrangements for the larger farms and we have to move really quickly into dealing with salari in a more responsible way but for the smaller farms there will be a delay there a transitional period of up to five years these regulations are not really taking effect until 2027 that leaves us just three years before we are meant to be meeting that 30% methane target so I suppose what we have before us is before us I do not object to it but I would like to find out more information from the Scottish Government about where they drew the line in terms of with the smaller farms allowing them to adapt over a much longer timescale and just some more information on that I think would be useful in terms of understanding Scottish Government's thinking on that and perhaps where some of the lobbying has come from trade bodies and others that seems a sensible suggestion to me does any member want to add to that are we agreed that the committee will write to the Scottish Government on those terms excellent okay great apart from that I invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to this instrument are we agreed we are agreed thank you very much I now close the public part of the committee meeting thank you