 Good morning and welcome to the 32nd meeting of the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee for 2023. We have apologies from Mark Ruskell and we are joined by Bob Doris, our new committee member. Bob, welcome to the meetings officially and we are very pleased to have you here. We have to therefore move on to a new member to the first item on the agenda, which is a declaration of interest. Bob, do you have any interests that you would like to declare? First of all, thank you. It's a pleasure to be a new member of this committee. As usual, I'll draw everyone to my regis of interests, but I don't believe there's anything particularly on that that's relevant to the workings and proceedings of this committee. Thank you very much. As any item comes up, if they wish to declare an interest, they may, of course, do say. A gender item, too, is the decision on taking business in private. We have consideration of whether to take item 7 and 8 in private. Item 7 is to consider the evidence heard on the circular economy bill, and item 8 is our work programme. Are we agreed to take these in private? We are agreed. Thank you. Our next item of business is consideration of a draft statutory instrument for parking prohibitions, enforcement and account Scotland regulations 2023. For this session, I'm pleased to welcome the Minister for Transport, Fiona Hyslop. She is joined by Government officials, Elsie McIntyre, the principal legal officer for Scottish Government legal directorate, and Fred O'Hara, the head of road policy, Transport Scotland. Thank you for joining us today. The instrument is laid under an affirmative procedure, which means it cannot come into force unless the Parliament proves it. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited at the next agenda item to consider a motion for the committee to recommend the instrument to be approved. I remind everyone that officials can speak during this item, but not during the debate that follows. I would now invite the minister to make a brief opening statement. Thank you for inviting me to provide evidence on the parking prohibitions, enforcements and accounts Scotland regulations 2023. As you are aware, the Transport Scotland Act 2019 prohibits pavement parking, double parking and parking at drop kerbs and provides for penalty charges to apply where they are contravened. To support that, the regulations laid in Parliament last month provide local authorities with a procedure to follow in enforcing the parking prohibitions. That will enable them to issue penalty charge notices to those in contravention of the prohibitions of £100, reducing to £50, if paid within 14 days. That brings to a conclusion a significant package of work that was progressed following the passage of the act, including regulations brought into force in December 2022, which gave local authorities a procedure to follow to exempt areas of footway in their area from the pavement parking prohibitions. We have also progressed commencement regulations to bring the relevant provisions of the act into force. Passing those regulations will be the final part in enabling those important parking prohibitions to come effectively into operation. As part of the development of those regulations, a public consultation was carried out earlier this year with almost 500 responses received from a mix of individuals, local authorities and community councils. The feedback from the consultation showed that the public are overwhelmingly in support of those regulations to improve accessibility on our roads and pavements. My officials have been working closely with local authorities across Scotland to assist them in preparing for the regulations coming into force. The input received was vital in shaping the regulations that are now under discussion. In addition, my officials will continue to work closely with local authorities in COSLA to identify what further funding will be required to facilitate the implementation of those regulations and to provide support to authorities in setting up back-office functions in order to effectively enforce those regulations. Those regulations and subsequent parking standard guidance, which will go hand in hand with the regulations, are needed to provide local authorities with a procedure to follow when enforcing the parking prohibitions and in line with the powers provided in the 2019 act. It also sets out the procedures to be followed in relation to the appeals process and lays out the circumstances where a penalty charge notice may be appealed. The regulations also lay out the procedures to be followed in respect of the keeping of accounts and the purposes for which any financial surplus can be used. It is important to stress that inconsiderate, obstructive or dangerous parking can and does cause serious problems for everyone and puts the safety of pedestrians and other motorists in jeopardy. The parking prohibitions are aimed at promoting, supporting and advancing the rights of pavement users to ensure that our pavements and roads are accessible for all. Transport Scotland will also be launching an awareness campaign in the coming days to ensure that the public is aware of those new regulations and that local authorities will have the power to issue and enforce penalty charge notices from 11 December should those regulations be approved by Parliament. The campaign will be focused on changing the behaviour of drivers who park inconsiderately and raise awareness of the impact that that can have on all pavement users. I am happy to answer any questions that the committee may have on the content of the regulations. Thank you very much minister. Having followed the Transport Scotland Act through the Wreck Committee and also at stage 1 and 2 and also within the Parliament, it is probably one of the most contentious issues but where agreement was reached on pavement parking but it was refining the details so I will just drill into some of the details if I may. I think that within the bill there is the ability for ministers to give directions on exemptions to councils. Have you issued such directions and do you think that they are sufficient? I am aware and as the committee will know I was deputy convener at the time that this committee studied the exemptions regulations as they pass through this Parliament and clearly some local authorities will have identified and many are still in the process of identifying the roads that they want to have exempted. In terms of that engagement that is an on-going engagement with my officials and different local authorities but it is up to the local authorities to identify which of their roads they want to be exempted. How far down the line have you issued any exemptions or do you think that there is enough time between now and December for you to issue the exemptions that are needed? It is an on-going relation. I think that it is really important that this is done in a co-operative way between central government and obviously local authorities so that engagement continues and I think that it has been done in a very co-operative way but perhaps Fred Harrickan may give an indication of that level of engagement but I would prefer not to be issuing directions of what the invitation is. It is better that it is done in a co-operation. No, no, I think that my understanding is that local authorities can request exemptions in certain areas. I am asking if any local authorities have requested exemptions and whether you have indicated that you will accede to them. Yes, so they are in the process of doing that so some will have done it and some will not as yet but they are in the process of doing that but perhaps Fred Harrickan can give you more information of that actual engagement. Yes, I will come in on that. Basically the exemptions were in front of the committee last year so the exemption procedures are now through an in-parliament statute. The ministerial directions for those at that time were issued back in December last year so that was basically the guidelines of where a local authority could potentially exempt a street. We are in discussions with COSLA and Scots to look at how many exemptions are actually being brought in. The actual process of that is for the local authorities to fall and they have been doing that and we are actively trying to figure out how many are coming through but that is basically still in the process. We are actually issuing a questionnaire later this week to all local authorities to help to guide that and find out exactly where each one of them is and how many they are potentially bringing in so we are trying to get that information more out of the local authorities as we go forward. It just strikes me that time is marching on and unless you have an exemption then you don't have an exemption, you are not exempt so the areas where problems and bottlenecks might fall within the legislation. That is for the local authorities to ascertain where those are. We did fully fund the exemption order procedure process back two years ago now. We issued £2.4 million worth of funding for the local authorities to go and look at the streets they think they need to exempt and some are further forward than others on that and we are pushing to make sure that they use the funding that we have already given them to go and actually assess the streets and be in a position to go there. I'm just cracking on with a few questions that I've got. There are slots on pavements bays where you're allowed to park on pavements and there are some exemptions to allow you to do that. Are you happy that these are sufficiently regulated to make sure that they don't multiply or they're not lost? I think that that would be a common sense approach by a local authority to determine in their own local area if they have such bays or in terms of what they need. I think that it's really important to understand that this is what you've got in front of you, the regulations for the kind of enforcement and the penalties etc. In terms of how they and the degree to which they enforce and also in terms of how they treat the exemptions as opposed to the areas that are designated for parking will be a matter for local authorities to establish themselves in their own local area. This then is a technical question. The fine is issued to the person who owns the vehicle. They may not be the operator of the vehicle that gets the parking ticket. Is there an ability to pass the fine on to the person who is operating the vehicle or is it up for the operator of the vehicle to pay the fine and try to get the money back? The penalty charge is payable by the registered keeper of the vehicle, except in certain defined circumstances that are set out in the regulations, such as, for example, where the person, the registered keeper has sold or transferred the vehicle before the time when the contravention occurred, it would be the person who was the keeper or was in charge of the vehicle at that time. There's various other possibilities. For example, if it's a higher car, the registered keeper would be the higher company. Sorry, I'm going into the voice down. No, I'm happy to understand if you hire a car that you're responsible for it, but there are a lot of situations where, I don't know, within families maybe the registered keeper of the parents or their child is raking up the fines, but they're the parents of the one that's going to cop it and you're happy with that. I think that that's a normal practice for those things. I think that the registered keeper is the kind of responsibility for the fines, and I think that there's an issue in our awareness. I mean, we're obviously going to do a public awareness to everybody, but I think that if you're in a family in that situation, I think that I would be telling my children not to pavement park anyway, because it's the right, you know, they shouldn't be pavement parking anyway, but I don't want them to make me liable for fines. Okay, and the final question I've got, and I know other committee members have got, in some loading bays, for very good reason. There are dropped curbs to allow people to move stuff from lorries up onto pavements. I think I understand it that if it's not being used or it's not designated for wheelchair users, that it won't be caught under this legislation. It'd be helpful just to have clarity that that is the case. Excuse me, I think that's correct. If it's a dropped care but it's outside of a commercial premises or a residential premises, then that wouldn't be caught by the prohibition. Okay, thank you. I think that there's some questions. Monica, did you have a question that you wanted to ask? Yeah, thanks, convener, and good morning, minister and colleagues. I think, convener, you've touched on some of the questions that I had just around that work to survey the streets and see which ones should be exempt, and I think it was, Faisal Hara, who said that £2.4 million of funding had been allocated already to local government, so I think it would be good to maybe get more detail after today's session about how that money has been used over the past two years to resource this exercise and to get an update on which streets, if any, will be exempt. It was just a further question I had around attitude to enforcement, so I appreciate that it is very much for the local authorities to carry out enforcement, but I just wonder if the minister does have a view on the approach that should be taken. We obviously know what the procedures are, but some might call it intelligence led, but sometimes there is a lot of discretion, which leads to a lot of variation. Just to give an example, my office has been asked to look at enforcement around engine idling, so we did some FOIs on that, and we found that most local authorities take a non-enforcement approach, and it's about trying to identify teachable moments to educate. Does the minister anticipate that councils would take a similar approach when it comes to pavement parking, or will it be a more robust approach? A number of things, and I think that the committee itself looked at the clean air enforcement issues more generally, and that was a reflection that, obviously, local authorities would use their discretion, but sometimes, in some circumstances, they have taken a stronger enforcement line when they are trying to persuade people to understand that. Clearly, local authorities have powers in this area, and normally the Government gets criticised for being overzealous in telling local authorities what to do. I think that there is an issue here where we have to respect local authorities, know their communities, know their towns, know their areas and the level of enforcement that they would want to take. Therefore, in terms of the discretion that they have, they have their own discretion to what extent they will carry out that enforcement. We are giving them the powers to enable that, and by using the penalties, we hope that a diversionary implement, however, your point about teachable moments, if that's a phrase that you're using, is really important, because there are many behaviours with cars that we know over many years, whether it's in wearing seatbelts, whether it's drunk driving as to what's acceptable or not acceptable. We all know that in recent years, coming through the pandemic, people have walked their streets more, they own their places more, and they want to be able to do that in comfort. I think that there's a recognition, and all of us have probably been in that situation. Those of us who have children, and I was reflecting that I had two in a double buggy, and the most frustrating thing is that you're forcing women by and large with young children on to streets if you're pavement parking. There is something around that behaviour side of things. We say, look at you, do you know this isn't acceptable? Why don't we just agree that we don't do that? I think that there is a behavioural aspect, which is why there's going to be a marketing campaign to try to do that in a persuadable way. In terms of the enforcement, local authorities have got the tools, the legislation, and they've now got the opportunity to use penalty notices as well. We're providing the tools if they want to use the stick, but at that point, why don't we just as a country say, look, let's stop pavement parking and allow people to use the pavements with freedom? Whether you're using a guide dog, a wheelchair, an elderly person walking dogs in narrow spaces, or whether it's parents or grandparents with buggies, etc. Let's just let people use the pavements. Thank you. You talked in your opening remarks about the public support for the legislation and the aims of reducing the impact of pavement parking on people. You also mentioned that it's important that, in terms of the back-office functions, there is proper resource so that there can be effective enforcement. Are you able to give an update on what a funding picture is for this? We've got some estimates, but we're working with Scots, all the transportation officers and local authorities as to what they think they'll need, etc. Obviously, that's part of that kind of on-going discussion that we're having, both with COSA and with local authorities. Right, there's a whole heap of questions. Douglas Lamstone, followed by Pope Doris. Thank you. I just want to remind the committee that my register of interests shows I was a councillor at the start of this time. In terms of inconsiderate parking, we all agree in the situation that you described of buggies and wheelchairs trying to get down the pavement. I think we're all sort of behind. There's other areas that I'd like to see in terms of hedges overgrown pavements that I think need to be tackled as well, but sticking to the pavement park. I can think of some streets in some of our bigger cities where you might have tenements down either side. The road is quite narrow, so there is people part on the pavement to ensure that there is still space down the middle of the road. I guess if you live in one of those just now, come 11 December, you could be getting a ticket every day. Is there somewhere where residents just now can go and see whether the council is considering them to be an exemption zone on their streets, or is there a process that residents can follow to try and lobby the council to make their street being an exemption, as long as the pavement is obviously wide enough to cope with wheelchairs and buggies, etc? Back in last year, when the committee was looking at the exemptions process and the regulations, that was a process to enable local authorities to identify, and part of that will have been the consultation that they'll have themselves. I don't know what happened in each and every one of the 32 local authorities, but that would be to identify streets where there might be some issues. My understanding is that they would be able to advertise if that was eligible for pavement parking or not, so that's what some of them have done it, some of them are in the process of doing it, but they will need to take that common sense view as to what's practical or not, at the same time as you're saying, is how do we make sure that our streets are. I'm just concerned that we're not that far away from 11 December. Where can residents, because we don't know how many applications there have been, for example, so how do residents know whether they're still going to be able to park outside the house in a month's time? I'll bring Freda to give us the information, but the sensible thing would be for local authorities on their own websites to identify that and to publicise that, but there's also a process that they don't want to go through their own committees about how they're going to enforce that. We know, for example, that in Edinburgh that discussion has just started taking place. They think that they'll be the first, but there might be a period of time before local authorities themselves know that they are ready to make sure that they are going to enforce the penalties that we are providing them the powers to do, or should the committee and the Parliament agree? Yeah, basically the local authority have the powers to put these in, but if they've put an enforcement, if they've put one of those through, they basically need to sign in line where you're allowed to park in the pavement. So it is a national ban unless one of those signing lines are on the pavement outside your house. It's for the local authorities to advertise that process, and that's what was in front of the committee last time, so the exemption order process is there for them to follow. It includes advertising, it includes putting on their website, they can put it in local press if they wish as well. It's very, very similar to the TRO process that already exists for WLIs, et cetera, so it's there. So any local authority's website should have the list of exemption orders that they're already putting through, and any potential ones as well. But have you seen any of those, back to the convener's original? Yeah, yeah, there is some on certain local authorities. We have seen some movement from Dundee, Inverclyde, et cetera, have things up and running, and they're looking at what they need to put in. I've not seen any that have actually completed or are on the ground yet, but that's certainly where the way they're all going, and most of the local authorities are following through with that as well. So would you expect local authorities to maybe have a bit of leeway to start maybe issuing tickets that are not going to be enforced potentially, just to make people aware that they can't carry on with the behaviours that they've already been doing until maybe there's an exemption order in place or whether they can ask for an exemption order? Yeah, but we've actually been through the process with the local authorities about talking about how they handle this in the initial period. Some of them are going out with a kind of soft launch campaign where they're going to put leaflets on windscreens as opposed to tickets, et cetera, and that's really the way they're looking at raising awareness first, and then once they've got the exemption orders in place, they will start ticking. Okay. Minister, you said there's still quite a lot of work to be done in the background in terms of, I think it was, some admin things. Is that all going to be done before 11 December? Well that's up to local authorities again in terms of their own processes, what they'll need to do that. Some are more ahead than others, but in terms of we are providing the powers for them to carry out the enforcement using penalty notices if they choose to do that. That's up to them to be able to work out what is their level of enforcement. You can see some local authorities quite clearly might want to take a heavier hand sooner on later, but I think the more common sense point of view is the point that's just been illustrated by giving people notice in some shape or form to raise the awareness, saying, look, this is coming in now, so whether it's leaflets or whatever in the relevant streets. Thank you. I know I've just declared my interest in none to declare anywhere, but I was listening to the questions. I thought perhaps, although it's not formally declarable, I am paid from a Glasgow Access panel who were based in my constituency in Maryhill, and there's a crossover in relation to some of the work, so not declarable, but I thought for transparency I would put that on the record. A couple of questions, my first question, minister, is in relation to the education campaign, the awareness campaign. I think most people accept that payment parking is pretty much inconsiderate. Drivers know what they're doing, but they're a bit inconsiderate and we have to change that culture, but I think sometimes they're in drop curbs. Drivers are often oblivious to it. It's an unintended consequence due to not willful ignorance, but just a lack of awareness. Will the education campaign take that on board? I think there's a difference in relation to where drivers are in relation to those things. I was very keen to bring forward the marketing campaign because, although there was a lot of awareness at the time, for example when Sandra White started her private members bill, which was then adopted by the Government that then went into the transport act, that act was passed at the end of 2019 and although the ban on that type of parking, whether it's in double parking or indeed drop curb or indeed pavement parking, was brought in 2019, obviously some time has passed. It's going to be really important to remind people saying that that's what the parent passed in 2019, but what's happening now is the delivery, the operation, the final elements to bring us into force by providing the enforcement and the penalty noses process. I think there is something about awareness because that's some passage of time and I think there's a duty and responsibility for all of us to help that, to make sure that people are aware of that because I suspect people might not be and although they might be aware of the pavement parking, they might not necessarily be aware of the drop curb issue. I think that that's probably a challenge because I think that you're saying that you might not be cited for drop kerbs and I suppose that's an issue again for local authorities and our enforcement officers to identify actually is that a reasonable or unreasonable, what's a common sense approach to what's happened in that situation. Thank you minister. I want to ask a little bit about enforcement and the guidance in relation to enforcement. Glasgow City Council, certainly in my constituency, is actually a very good constituency with the ability of scooters who have no access to local services and they'll have that direct conversation with their lived experience and they'll put drop kerbs in to allow them to go about their lives. However, in relation to enforcement where there's breaches from drivers in relation to that, I get that enforcement has to be intelligence led, that has to be practical, that has to be cost effective and that might lead to enforcement in areas where there's other enforcement already taking place in relation to driver breaches, where there's clusters of potential breaches and it might not be in our local communities where those in a mobility scooter or a wheelchair just have a life devastated by not being able to cross the road or have a constituent who will do that almost a one mile alternative route previously because of breaches of drop kerbs. So what guidance is there for local authorities that they shouldn't just focus on enforcement where there's clusters of potential breaches or where it's cost effective to do enforcement, but also to enforcing those individual breaches that could be absolutely devastating to the lives of those with those mobility issues? So I think that's a really important point and again it's a decision by local authorities but I think they should be informed by local communities and I think that continuous dialogue that is helping to inform the guidance which will come out in terms of the parking standards guidance will come out at the same time as we're obviously commencing these should the Parliament agree them in terms of the vote of this committee and also in the Parliament and I think in terms of that responsibility to identify individuals. Individual councillors no doubt will be approached by individuals that will have individual circumstances they can obviously actively take that up with the local authority to ask and request that. Similarly MSPs no doubt will probably get contacted similarly and I think me local authorities are increasingly having the type of access panels that you're talking about and we obviously as a government consult with the mobility access committees in terms of their advice so that would be proper and responsible community engagement and obviously any individual issue that's something that I'm sure with representation can be delivered but I can't make local authorities do that they have to do that themselves. Sorry, minister that's all positive and I absolutely get that like a symptom for local authorities convener on type budgets and enforcement they have to be practical and realistic in relation to where that enforcement's going to take place but is there guidance around this in terms of making sure they don't only focus on it's not profitable but areas where they can get the largest amount of income to make the biggest impact in terms of enforcing breaches vis-a-vis individual cases such as I'm highlighting where enforcement may make a much bigger impact in changing the quality of people's lives. Well the guidance is currently being prepared and finalised I think Mr Doris has made a very good point and I'm sure officials can if it's not already shaping in the guidance that's something that we could consider to put into the guidance because I think it's a very well point it's not you know you have mass impact or do you have quality of life for one individual and I think both are both are important. Thank you. Thank you and now to the Deputy convener Ben. Thank you convener. Good morning minister. Good morning. First of all I just want to say how welcome it is that these regulations are being brought forward to implement these important aspects in the 2019 act and quite understandably during the process of the 2019 act the balance between the needs of business and small business in terms of deliveries and unloading was considered and exemptions were made in section 55 subsection 6 to allow unreasonable circumstances for pavement parking to happen as long as there was one and a half metres at the edge of the pavement and that the parking didn't take place for more than 20 minutes. Unfortunately what happens in my constituency and others in urban Scotland is that deliveries take place in a way that is not unreasonable and there's not adequate space left at the side and it does happen for longer than 20 minutes so in terms of helping to create that cultural change because we don't want to necessarily punish people we want to change attitudes and practices as the minister has said so as part of that in terms of the delivery of the enforcement of these regulations as well as a public marketing campaign will there be significant engagement with the business organisations and the large supermarkets the prominent delivery companies like parcel force or dpt or ups you name it there's a long list because i think it will be important to inform those drivers that there's there's change coming so the answer in terms of that engagement that has been continuous with particularly key and delivery companies in particular that's been part of the process of of drawing this up and in terms of that engagement that's required in terms of the marketing and the communications obviously the marketing will be a general one but in terms of the communications clearly that's something that can be done on a national basis and in terms of you know that engagement i'm keen that that does take place but i would also expect local authorities in the local areas with their local chamber of commerce or their you know particular streets that they know that they're going to they're going to want to enforce this and to have that active engagement with businesses at a local level as well but i can reassure you that in terms of that on-going issue you know that's part of awareness is to make sure that drivers are aware it was something we were just reflecting on that although some delivery vans are obviously branded and white vans and we know who they are that increasing deliveries are in people's own vehicles but it is for a business purpose so therefore you know if they as long as they're abiding by the regulations they're referred to by the member then that would be subject to a penalty notice if they were abiding by that thank you okay i think that's all the questions quite a lengthy list this morning so we'll move on to the next agenda item which is a debate on the motion calling for the committee to recommend approval of the draft parking prohibitions enforcement and account scotland regulations 2023 minister would you like to speak to the motion or move it or just move it i'm just happy to move the motion thank you very much are there any contributions that members would like to make monica thank you not a contribution but given the nature of what's just been discussed i should refer to my register of interests the voluntary section as i am patron of disability equality scotland's just to be transparent on that okay noted does anyone else have any other comments okay minister this could be a very brief question can i ask you to sum up and respond to the the debate good aside the committee for their both the questions and their their contributions and i hope their support for this important final part of these regulations thank you the question therefore to the committee now is motion s6m 10704 in the name of fiona hislock be approved are we all agreed we are agreed the committee will report on the outcome of this instrument in due course and i'd like to invite the committee to delegate authority to me as convener to finalize the report for publication are we all agreed you're looking nervous jackie about that or are you happy yeah thank you very much thank you and thank you minister for your and your officials for attending and i'd appreciate you to spend the meeting thank you okay welcome back our next item of business is an evidence session with the environment advocacy groups as part of our stage one scrutiny of the secretary economy scotland bill i'm very pleased to welcome uh Phoebe Cochran from sustainable economics officer for scotland environmental link michael cook the chief executive officer officer from circular community scotland james mckinsey the secretary economy adviser action to protect rural scotland and kim pratt the secretary economy campaigner friends of the earth thank you for joining us today and thank you for submitting your evidence to the to the committee's call to view i'd also like to welcome myrdo Fraser who is joining us for a specific item with it within the circularity bill now we've allowed up to about 75 minutes for this item and we're going to move straight on to questions from the committee and i'm going to kick it off with a very easy one if i may and i'll give each member of the panel a chance to answer it you won't always get a chance to answer every question but the first one's an easy one um is uh really just to ask the whether you think a circular economy strategy would be useful as part of the bill and should have been part of the bill rather than something that's produced a bit later on james you want to start off with that yeah thank you convener um we do of course support there being a circular economy strategy it isn't clear to us why this should be a statutory requirement when ministers could after all just make their own strategy however the bill as drafted and potentially as amended would potentially enhance the way parliament could scrutinise ministers see how they're being how they're living up to their objectives i think it would be more useful if it had an explicit purpose in the bill i'm thinking of for example the aims in the national parks act or the legislation this bill doesn't do that so it doesn't it has to have regard to various elements of the circular economy but it doesn't have that kind of core purpose in it which i think would help inform the strategy and other policies within the bill thank you uh michael yeah thank you convener um yeah we support the provisions in the bill relating to a strategy um i mean stating the obvious it's better to have a strategy than not have a strategy um having it in the legislation uh will set the frequency it will it can it has the potential to say you got to take into account other forms of legislation um and i agree with what what james said around around a purpose i think we would like to see a bit more clarity around what we're trying to achieve through that strategy and in what time frames so things like a top-down approach to the waste hierarchy um valuing the environmental and social impacts that the circular economy can deliver would be things we'd like to be explicitly stated but supportive of a strategy okay phibi oh thank you yes we we support a strategy in legislation i mean after all we've had a strategy since 2016 and a lot of it has not been delivered on so with it being in legislation and the reporting requirements that go along with it we think it makes it much stronger um and uh we would like the an additional thing we think the strategy should be linked to the delivery of the targets once those have been set which uh as it's written at the moment that's not included okay and kim uh yes so the first thing i'd like to say is generally we welcome this bill and our comments here today about making it as robust as possible um yes we do also support the strategy being included in the bill and um we would like to suggest that the climate change act is a useful template for the framework that we should be looking for for the circular economy bill so um that includes a strategy the climate change plan and that strategy is uh quantified it's linked to the targets and um it sets out plans for each sector and that's what we need for the circular economy bill as well okay so thank you for that that's useful i mean some parliamentarians and i and i put myself in this bracket are very nervous about bills when they are framework bills which allow a lot of things to be uh agreed post the bill coming into force which in my mind does not allow full parliamentary scrutiny um are you concerned like i am or are you happy that it's a framework bill and and the meat will come later i'm going to start in the middle and work out so uh michael you're just about to the middle i think framework legislation has its place um but that by itself it's like a chair with one leg it's it's not stable um you need to um be clear not only what powers you're creating but how they're going to be used what might be the unintended consequences of those powers so i think in this case with this bill um the waste route map is another leg to that chair and um i think that should really be seen alongside the bill um so what is in the waste route map if we have to have the power to create charges what would we plan to use those charges for in what products and how what might be the unintended consequences of that the devil's always in the detail so we are supportive of the powers in the bill um but very keen to know how they're going to be used like like you would be okay james sorry i'm i'm i'm just throwing it around so you're not all predicting where you're going to go next james that's absolutely fine giving her a happy to put on the spot um in general terms i kind of broader than this legislation i do i do show your concerns about the extensive reliance on on framework legislation i think there's a middle position where there's more detail a bigger more detailed framework parameters for how ministers should use powers under under secondary legislation under it um i think and obviously it reduces scrutiny by a time when si comes to this committee you can't amend it it's only it's only up or down you're relying on the government's consultation process primarily um from from our perspective the framework ought to be broader so i'm going to for the first time start talking about producer responsibility there's nothing in the framework on producer responsibility which for us i think we think should be the core of the bill okay um back to the middle phubi uh yeah i mean i think in this these circumstances we do support a framework bill for uh an issue like the circular economy like climate change which is really so the multifaceted it needs to operate at all levels and all sectors and also it's fast changing so there are new innovations and new policy developments coming through all the time and without keeping that sort of that option of of a broad broad scope approach you know i i i think those would you've come across sort of hurdles that that needed more legislation down the line okay and came you predicted you're next yes so yes i agree we do need framework legislation for creating a circular economy um what we need to do is completely change the way that we use materials in our system um and to create those system wide changes we need a strong clear framework to lead us on that path um again i think that the climate change act can be a useful guide for this and there are uh kind of four main elements we see is being needed in the framework for the circular economy bill that are drawn from the climate change act um that was supported by this parliament so we would like to see um consumption uh reduction targets that are set in the primary legislation of the bill they should be science-based and they should be legally binding uh we need a strategy we need monitoring and reporting that is specified in the bill itself rather than by ministers and should include a new independent body to monitor progress and then we also need just transition principles as well which at the moment are completely missing from the bill okay so um mixed messages of support i think is where i'm at there we've got small questions uh monica you're you're next yeah thank you convener and good morning to our panel um kim you've gone straight into targets which i wanted to to ask about but already have heard about the the link between um the strategy and and the targets and what they might be so i'll maybe skip past Kim and come back to you but um Phoebe maybe you can go first um by just saying a little bit more about what circular economy targets you would like to see introduced and if you're satisfied with the framework the bill provides for setting these targets and also the committee would be interested to hear any international examples um that are relevant here um in relation to consumption-based targets so i mean it's a difficult area the targets you know i won't pretend it's it's not but we definitely need consumption-based targets i mean that's the sort of the backdrop to the urgency of this legislation and our climate and biodiversity crises that there are material consumption is the sort of the key driver and increasingly recognised as such so we need targets that relate to the quantity of materials we're consuming and the environmental impact of that consumption and um you know we've proposed that's that there are targets introduced on our carbon footprint and our material footprint and we recognise that there will be arguments against those targets um in terms of the reliability of data but especially for the carbon footprint it's something we already report on um and we've been reporting on for some time but there's been no target associated with it and we've been publishing the material footprint for a couple of years now the data on that is improving so that could also be used for setting a target um the dutch government you know they introduced material footprint targets a good few years ago they were one of the first governments to do so um the european parliament have approved footprint targets um and various other jurisdictions have have footprint targets flanders and um i'm struggling now i've got somewhere in my notes but i i probably came jump in with other examples um so i mean that's that's looking at sort of overall footprints i mean i think um you know on the other hand on the other end the sort of residual residual waste per capita is a useful target for which we definitely have data and that's easy um looking at the most harmful sort of most carbon intensive materials or goods you know food waste is a is a target that should be in legislation and increased ambition on that food waste is is really one of the key areas that can have the biggest impact both on biodiversity and climate in terms of more circularity um so i think probably let others know that it's actually helpful and can come back to to come i'll go along the table so um michael you're next i think targets have their place i mean we've talked so far about strategy and targets but simply targets where do we want to go strategy how are we going to get there um i think in the case of targets targets without in this case systems change are targets that we will miss and i will point to the current recycling targets as as an example of that you know we had a target of 60 by 2020 and we're currently at 43.3% for that for last year so um targets have their place but on their own you won't hit them so the one target we would love to see and we do support Friends of the Earth's Call for a for a consumption target but but one thing i think is missing here is um reuse targets um we have a lot of focus in the bill and indeed in current targets on recycling but um reuse is a lot better for the environment and for people than than recycling so just for clarity you know a laptop if i recycle it i'm recycling the plastic the glass the metal if i reuse it it's remaining a laptop if it's broken i fix it um and it's so much better for jobs it's so much better for the environment so we believe that um site technicality here but a preparation for reuse target so what percentage of material presented at household waste recycling centres local authority sites goes for reuse over other forms of you know be at landfill incineration or recycling would be a huge strength to this bill because at the moment reuse is a second-class citizen to recycling in terms of how money is spent and in terms of how facilities are orientated towards the behaviours that come afterwards and in terms of international examples of that Flanders have implemented a reuse target instead of doing it in an abstract way and they have actually related it to head of population so it's expressed as kilograms of reuse per person living in an area so it makes a city comparable to a rural area for example and that has undoubtedly driven up levels of reuse which has in turn created jobs and made it more convenient and easy for the public to do more reuse and you have a sort of virtuous circle there thank you michael and if there is a perception just now that um reuse is a second-class citizen to use your words compared to recycling um in terms of the waste hierarchy um are you nervous that this bill um might miss that opportunity to redress that balance because there is a lot of discussion about the recycling part of the bill um are you nervous that the reuse is not given the prominence that perhaps absolutely so i mean if you imagine a ladder is as the waste hierarchy the bottom rungs of that ladder are landfill incineration and recycling the top rungs of that ladder are reuse repair and tackling consumption so reduction of consumption and this bill has a huge amount about recycling it has a lot about litter it has a lot of outfly tipping all of those initiatives i think are good and well intended and we would support but um it's really taking our feet off the ground and the bottom few rungs of the ladder and we really should be focusing on on the top and where we need to be um zero waste scotland's report last year on the circularity gap said scotland is currently 1.3 per cent circular um and the problem with bottom up policies you have a landfill ban it drives up incineration capacity you have an incineration review um we we we tackle that and then we start moving on to recycling um we have a target for net zero and 2045 there's not time to take the the waste hierarchy one ladder at a time and in effect building capacity for the next level and then decide actually want to move to the level beyond that so a clear signal to industry to local authorities that we are moving to a reuse and repair economy where we make products last that was the name of the 2016 strategy that that phoebe referred to um of course if something can't be reused recycle it but if it can be that's what we should be doing that's really helpful and james yes so i draw a distinction between targets that government sets for the kind of country as a whole whether or not they have the measures underneath them and targets that government can set on individual producers or retailers or sectors so um completely endorse what michael is saying about focusing on the top of the the waste hierarchy this in many respects is a bill that focuses on on litter waste and recycling rather than that top end but there are really good examples happening right now around europe where there are requirements on producers to build in reuse requirements so in 2020 austria passed legislation that said there must be binding and enforceable reuse target of 25 percent um by 2025 portuguese law said 30 percent of all packaging on the market of any material must be reusable by 2030 so these aren't you know a government target is an ambition so you look at there's an ambition in the in the climate change plan there's an ambition in here to be a circuit but these are requirements in the same way that there were requirements within the deposit return legislation that said you must get this kind of return rate so those really drive action those tell businesses we need to start shifting away from single use this kind of linear economy where we we just it's not even a race to the bottom with the race is finished and we're like almost at the bottom right now so there are plenty of examples like that and we would rather see i know everyone's talked about different sorts of targets and i apologise for a kind of target fest but targets from our perspective that would be very important would be those on producers and producer responsibility and i would really recommend to your paper that was produced and published very recently by zero way scottland and others the title of which briefly escapes me about recovery which focuses on another one of those which is a target on the reduction in the use of virgin materials so that is kind of a market measure it uses commercial pressure to say okay well you can achieve this anyway what you want if you can achieve it through reduction and light weighting that's great if you can achieve it through reuse as michael's talking about that's great refillables that's fine but then you let you you basically you set those targets on industry they have to meet and then it's up to them to innovate how to do it and those are binding a target on a government is never a binding as we've regrettably found out in a number of other policy areas okay thank you and probably to try and get through the next couple of questions really quickly but that was really helpful and i'll come to you chem and if you've got anything briefly to add to that that first discussion but are you satisfied that you'll have the opportunity to engage in the detail of target setting and scrutiny of proposals via second legislation which is set out in the bill what that process might be uh huh so um we feel that we do need targets um to guide the scale and pace of change and that those should actually be set in the primary legislation of the bill so the goal of a secular economy is to make the consumption of our materials more sustainable um so the targets must reflect that and at the moment scotland measures the impact of its consumption in two ways it measures it through its material use and the carbon impacts of its material material use so these are sometimes called our material footprint and our carbon footprint and we would like to see our carbon footprint being used as the primary driver for a circular economy um that's because we have better understanding of carbon we've been measuring it longer than material use um and also it would stop this problem of carbon leakage that we have with our existing climate targets which focus on reducing our emissions within scotland which is important to do but um that is only part of the impact that scotland has and in fact 58 percent of scotland's carbon footprint comes from our imports so that's not currently being included in our climate targets so what we would like to see is the consumption the carbon consumption targets within the secular economy bill being used alongside our existing climate targets um and the two used together to make sure that scotland's progress towards a more sustainable future is effective as as possible and to do that they need to be in the same units greenhouse gas emissions they um both need to have the same goal net zero by 2045 and they need to have the same be set at the same legislative level in primary legislation so that one isn't seen as more important than the other thank you and if you'd be in terms of that opportunity to engage in the process um I can't quite remember what the provisions in the bill were in terms of um but I think there was going to be consultation on on the targets as it sits am I right yeah so I think we would feel that that was adequate if it was stakeholder engagement and a normal consultation in in in terms of developing the targets thank you any other views on that point okay well I've got one more question convener um the bill provides that Scottish ministers may set targets so are um our panel satisfied that this goes far enough um and in the context of the climate and nature emergency what should the time frame be for setting the targets and should that also be reflected in the bill uh I don't know who wants to go first Kim uh yes um so we would like to see mandatory targets within the primary framework of the bill um and the reason for that is that we know that Scotland's consumption impacts already are extremely serious and extensive so Friendsley has Scotland published a report earlier on this year called Unearthing Injustice which looked at Scotland's supply chains for certain materials and it found extensive environmental and social impacts right across Scotland's supply chains so and that doesn't align with Scotland's goals and aims so for example our national performer framework goals includes an economic outcome that our economy is ecologically accountable as well as socially responsible so at the moment that that is um not the case with the way that we use materials we need to change the whole system to make that happen and I would say one other thing on this as well is um that um the way that we don't account for materials in our policy making at the moment is a risk to the success of those policies and I think um the energy strategy is a particularly important example of this where when the energy strategy consultation was published earlier on this year um there was no plan for how we would obtain the materials that are needed to transform our energy systems despite the fact that some of those materials are rare and difficult to obtain um and that is a risk to the success of of those plans thank you any further contributions on that question and I think I think must would make more sense than may um I agree with kim this is this is an urgent situation we're in I'm going to quote if I may very briefly from the zero way scotland paper that I talked about they said it's a UNEP reference a circular economy allows us to end our war on the planet without giving up the benefits of modern life which seems like quite a good objective to me and something that we should really expedite okay so mandatory targets yeah and and the correct targets and the action plan actually one little footnote if it's all right to say that we're with the bill is being considered at the same time as a as a future vision for the circular economy is being developed and doing them both at the same time seems rather peculiar I could see doing the the vision first and then the primary powers to deliver it all the primary powers and then the vision for how you use it but then we're slightly held back by that process thank you um sorry yeah I'm going to bring you in Phoebe I just because the official record any notes what you said um not not the nods um I'm just so so I get this right you all appeared to nod when it said must rather than may is that right yes yeah so you believe it must rather than it it may I think that's clearer for the record uh and some questions from the deputy convener that's been thank you good morning we've heard from yourselves about recycling and reused today but I just wondered what your thoughts were on opportunities that there are to redistribute redistribute unsold goods rather than dispose of them and what initiatives are there already here in scotland to build on that anything you'd like to to cite for our awareness michael if you want to come in on that um so we support strongly support let's go that far the the proposed powers around restrictions on the disposal of unsold consumer goods um at I mean there's been stories in the media I you know that that talk of examples of perfectly good perfectly good goods not being used once and and and going to incineration or recycling um I think the limits in the in the bill as proposed that we would like to see improved is an acknowledgement of the waste hierarchy so reusing a product for its original inter purpose is better than recycling um I think maximising the social impact um is also an opportunity so you know if it can be donated to a charity if it can be redistributed to help the economically disadvantaged um and I think the third thing would be keeping it local and not export um I mean there is uh there is a clothing mountain uh on in the Atacama desert visible from space um so that's uh you know we don't want to add to that um I think when we talk reuse here we these products haven't actually been used once in many cases so it's not even reuse it's just use but that the simple truth is that um a product that has been created has carbon embodied within it it took carbon to run the factory where it was made it took carbon to extract the materials um to to put into that product it took carbon to bring that product to here so whilst there would be certain exemptions health and safety medical um things were the best before date um we do believe that um perfectly good products should have a useful life and that useful life should be maximised so sending a clear signal to private sector um that we can't just destroy these things because it has a brand to protect or whatever would be would be worth doing I think also just to take a couple of words from the bill one consumer um that suggests end of supply chain what about further up the supply chain um and durable goods uh what unsolved unsolved consumer goods what about food and food waste um so uh one of our members is fair share and and they they obviously do a lot around food waste already um but a simple stat from them is that uh food that is fit for human consumption that is eaten is 17 times better for the environment than food that it goes to animal feed um so it we shouldn't have food poverty and food waste in in and so everything around a food waste target would support that but also around you know the destruction of goods could could that include food could it include food further up the waste hierarchy um and you know just to say this is being done in europe france passed a bill in 2016 specifically on food waste spain has passed legislation relating to durable goods being destroyed and and it has seen um greater levels of reuse and all the environmental social benefits from that for me um that that was that was very interesting and just building on that um michael cook so at the moment the relationships whether it's um food providers to fair share or big retail companies to community third sector organisations i mean that happened in my constituency you talked about legislation being a key part of and obviously that we're looking at a bill here but as the practical implementation of the circular economy is there more that the state should be doing to connect these organisations to produce that flow through in order to make sure that the utilisation of of product takes place rather than waste i mean i don't think the i don't think policy makers can get into the warehouse and start you know that the innovation that needs to follow from a clear statement that you can't destroy these goods um hopefully the market would would follow the right um nudge there so that encouraging through legislation and otherwise yeah i mean i think that the private sector but the private sector needs to needs to step up here effectively is what you're saying as well yeah absolutely so um you know these companies and instant retailers for example they're fantastic at logistics that they do that so well um but you know this just requires that same skill set applied to the priority of reducing waste and maximising the social and environmental benefit of those goods so i think the key uh the key thing missing from the bill in my view would be stating that it's the waste hierarchy and it's local over international that should and social benefit as well as environmental i think they're three um protections that would avoid the unintended consequences so i mean the unintended one unintended consequence we would want to be avoid is if there is a a retailer and they already have a partnership with a local charity and they're giving goods to them that this requirement to do it at scale that they might not have been doing it at suddenly creates a big sort of private sector industry and that that charitable enterprise and the local benefits of that gets get swept away and there has been example that with epr legislation in France for example that that happened um it used to be done at a small scale and in the desire to do it more for the planet which is good the people got the social benefits of that uh got got lost and we would want to avoid that so three provisos the waste hierarchy social impact and um don't export to get around the problem okay so and be cognisant of unintended consequences everything can have unintended consequences in such a complicated economy um when you're bringing in more circular practices you've got to be clear it's a balance that's needed thank you i think james mckenzie was looking to come in just a very very brief one uh deputy convener so i completely endorse everything that michael says it's quite extraordinary to find a way to make something worse than make use dispose just literally make and dispose i mean it's a sort of iconic moment of corporate bad behaviour in my view the one thing i would say um as i say completely support all this but we do this is that this is a relatively small problem it's sort of totemically awful but the policy memorandum says on an estimate based on per capita figures from france it's 22 million pounds worth of goods so that's though that should not be happening and i support this in the bill but that is a little less than seven one seven hundredth of one percent of the Scottish economy so it's good that it's in there but let's not overestimate the difference it's going to make thank you did any of the other panels here if you'd be cocking you want to come in thank you yeah i think we've definitely support this element of the bill it you know it does place a responsibility on producers and retailers and and does have the potential to actually change business practice you know at its best it could change the way that producers and retailers are type of goods they they produce and manufacture if they want if they have to deal with returned goods they want that good to have some value so that could affect you know their choice of how goods are manufactured the goods they produce and sell there's an interesting paper a recent paper which does a series of interviews with retailers about this about this problem and it also talks about the sort of they call it the downstream side of it so that problem of actually getting passing those goods on and it talks about third sector organisations like michaels like the members of michaels organisation but also talked about how there are cases where quite sort of big enterprises have have developed sort of with a purpose to refurbishing and managing these goods um and um and this you know as an example of you know a more sort of potentially you know we property that's needed or so what would be even better was if those the organisations and businesses that have produced those goods if they could alter their own supply chains you know incorporate those goods back into their supply chains and that is the best outcome and combined with the reporting requirements it works well together because you need the reporting requirements and other measure in the bill to identify where these surpluses are to raise awareness about them to inform where to apply this restrictions and that's one of the i read that's one of the aspects that isn't included in in france in the ban which means that that has been less effective there okay thank you and kim pratt you're also pushing to yes thank you um yes so we also support um this element of the bill and i agree with what my colleagues have said already um and i would make one further point in the extended producer responsibility could be used to hold businesses to account more to pay for the cost of the cleanup of their products and that could be included in the bill as well can i ask in terms of doing that in a just just here in scotland obviously the many producers are operating internationally so that do you have any further points around that challenge of legislating in one place but actually producers having a wider operation yes so we have the powers to do this through the 2021 environment act so it's within scotland powers to do this um and um i think there's a similar issue with other types of environmental progressive policies is that it can have wider impacts um and that um bringing in those larger corporations that act outside of scotland is something that we want to do at the moment um though the profits being made by these large corporations are not staying in scotland and that money could be used to fund a circular economy that's why extended producer responsibility is so important this is the way that we fund a circular economy in scotland um so it's disappointing not to see um more extended producer um responsibility opportunities being taken within the sector economy bill okay i think we could talk a lot about that particular point about it we should move on computer well just before we move on if we may maybe a chance to develop it is is the opportunity to uh redistribute unsold goods i understand that there is all already an element to that but if goods that are unsold in scotland say in a company that operates across the united kingdom surely the answer is just to pop it on a lorry and send it um south the border to be to be used down there or where there aren't that legislation do you think you know we need to work lock step together across the united kingdom to make sure that this works properly you know can scotland go it alone on this um or does united kingdom have to work together on it because i i can see that happening and maybe i'm seeing bears behind trees but would anyone else want to make comment uh james do you want to say anything oh well computer i think in in general terms if this if there's progressive and sensible environmental policy being developed in scotland and it is in line with what is being developed in the rest of the uk that's that's beneficial you know we um when we look to the deposit return system perfectly capable for scotland to go by itself but compatible systems you know not in every detail are beneficial um in terms of the relevance to to unsold goods i suspect given the scale of the problem it's not going to be worth large distributors changing their distribution habits to you know to stock from new castle carlile rather than rather than the central belt but i wasn't suggesting that i was suggesting if it was unsold in scotland it's very easy to put them on a lorry and put them into a warehouse say in england rather than changing the stocking system yeah and michael said as michael said the closer the better and the next closest place from from distribution or or being given away in scotland is is obviously over the border in england yeah and just with the reference to the question about producers elsewhere in which the deputy commissioner asked us very briefly the normal proxy is to use importer as where you can't directly regulate the producer as when stuff is coming into the coming into the country sorry just say that again on this side so if you're trying to bring in producer responsibility and you're looking at large international supply chains then again as with the deposit system the importer is treated effectively as a producer so that's putting a border on on on to scotland if there's a different uk legislation um it's a strong way of putting it it's we regulate it we regulate for scotland and that would be the or you regulate for scotland and that would be the way of doing that yeah michael i mean i think backing the potential unintended consequences you mentioned i think of real um but i think there are some things that would mitigate against them so i think one is the requirement for waste reporting um and i think allowing therefore scrutiny of what you're doing with your waste um and you know at the end of the day um a story of redistributing goods to hard up households in scotland is better than um trying to get around environmental legislation for for a retailer or a wholesaler i think another one is just the idea that um what this is trying to achieve for people on planet is a good thing waste is not a good thing and it doesn't i actually think one response to it might be that we manage our supply chains better so we don't create surplus stock um which is actually an alignment between what the environment could ask for and what actually is the profit motive for the producer so it might create a more efficient industry and with with the greatest respect michael if we could all make sure that our stock perfectly matched demand and you had the ability to do that you've been very huge demand with some of the big multinational companies but it's not always possible yeah i'm not saying totally but yeah more okay i take the point um bob you've got some questions i think just a couple i think most of them the deputy convener uh can i can work through the kind of questions i was going to ask i suppose just an opportunity to put anything additional on the record because effectively i think we are talking about we need different business models particularly from large manufacturers and large retailers not just within scotland but in an international basis rather than just to take make dispose economy and i'm conscious the word used isn't always part of that either given what we've been talking about do you want to say any more about the business models that are really damaging uh our environment and the circle economy or what would be more constructive would be what other business models are out there that are developing that this bill could incentivise or drive if we could make it stronger so an opportunity maybe put some of that on the record but i think everything else convener the deputy convener is going to cover most of it means i have to nominate somebody and and that's always a dangerous thing james thank you for putting your hand up oh i was inviting you to nominate but i'm happy to speak no no no i'm nominating you oh that's fine um so it's it's the core question of what this bill should be about and uh thank you for asking it um from our perspective as i've said earlier the prior and others have mentioned the priority the way to change that is products remain the responsibility of producers even when they pass through your hands right so that that is that is how you close the loop at the moment we have an economic system which says okay there's two companies competing with each other one of them brings their their used products back in and refubs and puts them back on the market it's a costly process the other externalises their costs onto the environment onto local taxpayers onto society maybe blame the public for littering it but as soon as you require people to close that loop as soon as they can't externalise their costs onto us climate terms waste terms biodiversity loss costs to local authorities then you start to build a circular economy and this is something which Scottish government talked about in 2016 making things last that others have talked about it's a good document said we intend to explore the concept of a single framework for producer responsibility bringing together common elements into one flexible and transparent system making it simpler for businesses who are involved in more than one product type and making it easier to add new materials and products to the producer responsibility regime that's what i would like this bill to do and that is how that is how you close the loop that is how you encourage that's how you give an economic advantage to the companies that handle their products better that design them better that capture them more efficiently that lightweight them that make them easier to reuse or reduce the demand for them in the first place so so that that for me is how that's the absolute core of environmental economics and the circular economy is all producers should be responsible for their products at the end of life and all fillers should be responsible for their packaging unless you've got a really good use case for why that doesn't work and that will take time in some sectors it needs to be considered with delicacy you need to talk to industry you need to work at what can be done when without that principle we're going to stick with a 1.3 per cent circular economy so i'd like to mention one element that businesses will need to incorporate as we transition towards a circular economy and that's making sure that we do that in a just way so at the moment there's no mention of a just transition in the circular economy bill despite the fact that we acknowledge in Scotland that to create the future that we want we will need to do that in a way that incorporates people in that decision and in order to do that the bill has to include three elements of a just transition so firstly we have to think about the way that we support people to transition into more circular jobs and we could be using the just transition principles within the climate change act as a starting point for for those principles and then we also have to think about the way that communities have to change their materials and make sure that they're involved and supported through through that change and thinking particularly of groups like people with disabilities and ethnic minority groups who might have language barriers for example so we need to do that and then also of course we need to be thinking about our supply chains which are extremely unjust at the moment so we need to be thinking about how we can support a global just transition as well and we can do that by embedding just transition principles within the circular economy bill. I'm going to widen your question if you don't mind from just a business model to actually the system which I think both my my co-witnesses have done too so the fear I would have is that this bill will do a lot in favour of recycling but no more than that and I've said that before and I just want to make the point of give some real tangible examples of that so CEPA lists 177 local waste and recycling centres the language we use there you know the fact that they're waste and recycling not resource and reuse but I'll move beyond that quickly we know of four of them four out of 177 that have a co-located reuse facility there why not all of them Greece has passed legislation that says any town with more than 50 000 people in it should have a local authority reuse facility that can be in partnership with the charity they don't have to run it but there has to be one in town at that size the benefits of it job creation I'm a member of reuse the European body for reuse for every 10 000 tonnes of waste that goes to landfill creates six jobs to incineration one job to recycling 36 jobs great let's recycle hang on for reuse up to 296 jobs depending on the material stream it for example being higher than than textiles so it's an opportunity to create jobs those jobs are more skilled it takes more skill to repair a broken laptop than to strip it down I think we can just think that through ourselves and how we were going about doing it I wouldn't be able to repair one I could break it up and it has social impact so the charity retail association for the UK published a report just a couple of weeks ago saying that for every pound invested in charity reuse charity retail your local charity shop you get £7.35 return on that investment for social impact in that area and so that's all on the social side it's good for people it's obviously good for planet it is terrible for the environment to build a product never use it once or only use it once and then because it's got a broken something not repair it not reuse it keep it being used as that product so my in terms of this whole system that we have it is geared towards recycling when we're not getting spectacular levels of recycling 43% doesn't compare well with Wales for example I think the best way to turbo that change is to actually have a top-down approach and I know some of you are concerned about fly tipping Mr Mr Fraser there and here for that but you know actually one of the reasons we have fly tipping is because we have actions at the bottom of the waste hierarchy sticks more than carrots a landfill tax for example and the way around that is to not do the right thing with that resource and take it to the local authority site is to throw it into a beauty spot so you know a top-down approach to the waste hierarchy actually helps with litter and and fly tipping too because we change our relationship with stuff we see them as reusable refillable and that that item has more value just a small question related to that I think you make some very impactful points there Mr Cooke but it's a and also important point is you know accessibility of a facility so you know a council recycling site is sometimes only really able to be reached in a motor vehicle so as we consider this process do we need to think harder and more imaginatively about how there are reuse facilities in the high streets and towns and cities of scotland because you know if you take a laptop for example in my constituency of Edinburgh and Northern Leith there's the remakeery and they are doing remarkable work on laptops but if say for example an iron broke I wouldn't have and my constituents wouldn't have an idea I don't think where to take that to get it repaired rather than buy a new one just using that as an example you could think of many so do we you know could the charity shop network provide innovative possibilities here in terms of retail units that are already in in prominent locations I mean I totally agree with the premise behind your question my reason for wanting reuse facilities at hwc sites is because I visit sorry I wasn't arguing against that just for clarity I visit them and I see perfectly good things being thrown away and and they shouldn't be so but that doesn't mean that from a consumer point of view we don't want to make it more convenient and that could be a shop local to them it could be a collection service and it could you know curbside collections it works for some goods and but for me we need to just change how we think about waste think about it as a resource and make it you know what will change behaviors is we go to fines and bans quite quickly but actually the 80% mainstream middle would respond to it being easier it being more convenient it being more attractive the hours of opening being when they need but all of that requires investment so charity shops can't do that on their own and the very valid point that James made that at the moment the reuse operation is competing with an internet retailer being able to get a new one tomorrow of a cheap cost and and sometimes that's because the costs have been externalised on on people in the supply chain or on the environment either in the manufacturer of that good or in the end of life treatment of that good and we all pay the cost through you know our council tax for paying for the waste to be treated with so we need to level the playing field and and and therefore you know the cost of a product on on the environment and on people should be the price of the product that you pay at the counter and which means produce a responsibility it means a charge for the for the waste but we would love to see that money used and not to perpetrate a system of subsidiser the recus recycling but to facilitate reuse to facilitate repair in Austria and they've just passed that created a scheme for repair vouchers any member of the public can go into a shop local to them and say i want this fixed or or this fixed and they there's no form for them to fill in as the consumer the form is filled in by the shop who then fix that item and they they set a budget for 400 000 items to be repaired by 2026 they have already repaired 560 000 items so they've already the demand for it has been high now you may say that means the cost is high but the advantage of that scheme is you only pay when it's used you don't pay anyway you pay when it's used and if that was paid for out of epr fees the people that are putting the products that get broken that need repairing it could it could fund itself thank you okay uh thanks for that uh Douglas i think you're next with some questions thanks convener i was going to move on to charges for um single use items so what are the key environmental opportunities of the proposed powers for charges on single use items and how should charges be incorporated strategically in scotland and we want to pick that up so can you just repeat the first part of your question yeah what are the key environmental opportunities of the proposed powers for charges of single use items i can start if you like yes of course um so i think it's been shown that charges can be effective in influencing consumer behaviour for single use items and you know the aim should be to reduce the consumption of those single use items so where there is a clear alternative option for consumers the charge can be useful in in doing that and i know it's been mainly thought about in connection with the single use beverage cups for example and there's been quite a lot of work on that um and i think trials have shown that a charge alone would possibly reduce consumption by about 20 percent so this is where really to be very effective if you need parallel mechanisms to also encourage consumers to use alternative cups um so we we think that definitely there's absolutely no place for single use items in closed-loop settings so restaurants sitting cafes hotels even airports festivals canteens anywhere where people don't don't move far from the place to to consume their hot drink you know those or eat whatever they're eating you know they don't you don't need single use items in those settings and also um with cups we think they should be sort of a deposit system for reusable cups and i mean ideally if you could have that you know the bigger the scale the better because then you can drop off your cup you know anywhere so i mean ideally it'd be scotland-wide but you know being less idealistic or city-wide schemes and there's quite a lot of experience of these in germany um but they you know they get around the problem of if people don't carry around a reusable cup with them then they can access a reusable cup for a small deposit and return it um at numerous locations ideally yeah i was i was gonna ask you about that Phoebe from your um your submission you know you talk about a um a national reusable scheme and it's so that's been used in other areas and would that just be like a a plastic cup you get from i'm gonna say starbucks and then you could maybe even return to costa or when you get your next cup yeah i mean ideally you have an unbranded cup so that you know you can return it from one city in another city for example if you hop on the train you know you you don't want lots of different competing reusable cup schemes because then people are you know ideally you don't want people ending up with lots of different reusable cups you want them to maybe have one at home and have access to others when they're out and about if they've forgotten theirs but you know the interoperability of that scheme is really important to make it effective because you know when we're thinking about the overall aim of reducing our material consumption you you know the last thing you want is people having lots of reusable cups because the materials in those cups is obviously considerably more than a single use cup and it yeah and michael i've come on to you about the same sort of topic instead of instead of talking about reusable cups you talk about in your submission about actually trying to ban all single use items where available alternatives exist so i i think if you think of a range of policy interventions from a ban to a charge to a voluntary industry led scheme you know basically they have a higher intervention threshold but i think for example phoebe mentioned you know single use cutlery and single use plates and things like that in a in a canteen environment i think we should just ban that i don't i don't think we need to charge on it i think i think a charge might end up being the same as a ban but harder to influence so because there's really no need for that the convenience there isn't a justification in that environment for it however i think in some cases it could be um it's really clear in the charge option that you distinguish between products for which there is a readily available alternative that the purpose then of the charge is to take what is in effect an unconscious habit on the part of the consumer i buy a cup of coffee and it happens to come in a cardboard cup into a conscious choice because now there's a 20p charge or say something and now i think well do i want to pay that or do i want to pay a pay for the reusable option but that only works when there's an option if there is no option if there is no viable option or the option is really inconvenient or really unattractive then it is just a tax it is just a revenue generating so in the in the first example where there's an alternative the hope of the policymaker is that actually will create that charge or bring in some money that will deliver systems and behavior change and that charge will disappear over time because no one will use that product anymore there won't be a market for it so one is a nudge to change consumer behavior the other is is a tax to generate revenue and i think where the the consumer and the and the voter will be least enamored to a charge is where it's claimed to be one but it's clearly the other so we're doing it for environmental reasons but it seems to just be creating revenue does that make sense so i think it's really clear to understand what the alternative behavior is you want what's the target that you set for it and is the alternative attractive enough to deliver that change and if it's not you have to also invest in the alternative and in terms you mentioned revenue in terms of proceeds from any charges where would you like that to to go you know would you like to see it ring ffenced and use for certain certain things or i think the carrier bag charge which wasn't a tax which enabled the read tailor to set a worthy benefit recipient of that did that that approach did help achieve greater buy-in to the idea less resistance to the idea but i the other point i want to make is that the end user the consumer it does feel like the responsibilities always always been putting on on them and just to echo the point james made earlier in a different context that actually it's the system that gives me two bad choices and then i i feel bad that i don't make the better of the two bad choices and so i do think you know if it was down to to us i think we said in our submission we don't have time to look at one product at a time just say single use products where there isn't a clear medical or health or you know real need for them and have to be stopped used by a certain time go and find an alternative and and and just set a clear direction of travel for that but i do think you know being clear that you need an alternative a positive alternative and it isn't just taxing the consumer if money is coming in it should be used to mitigate the impact the adverse impact on planet of of that bad behaviour okay jub did you sorry kim yes so i just wanted to support my my colleagues here were saying and then also add that for cups we we do recognise that a lot of work has gone into this process so far and we wouldn't want to see that wasted but in general um we believe that we don't have time to change our economy one product at a time there is an urgency to the climate crisis and charges are sometimes not strong enough and in the case of cups we're talking about a product that is not recyclable that has a plastic in it so it shouldn't be incinerated because that's releasing fossil fuels into the atmosphere that also has cardboard in it usually so that shouldn't be landfill because that releases methane so we're talking about quite a harmful product and for really harmful products we should be thinking about bans and in the long term i think the biggest environmental opportunity is where we have a system where producers think carefully when they are designing products and instead of whether it's worth bringing a product onto the market if it is going to be environmentally harmful okay just to provide a little bit of balance so i'd have a submission from the Scottish Environment Services Association said that the use of disposable cups are visible but in terms of waste it's only amounts to 0.036 percent of Scotland's total waste arising and we should therefore we suggest that there are other more pressing parts of the waste management system in greater need of the Scottish Environment's resource which would have a greater impact on carbon savings. James? What Kim said about focusing on product by product this is an example of that and members will remember the interest in straws. Your colleague Mr Golden once explained to me that if you took every straw given away or sold in Scotland the year before the ban and you melted it down it would fill just one of the largest builder sacks so not nothing but that's a national usage so in terms of prioritisation you know i think this isn't this is an easy win this can readily be done the system you know even the packaging and retail sector in the Scottish Government's consultation response said we don't think the charge is the right course of action we prefer the introduction of a mandatory take-back obligation so there's no reason not to do it but we need to prioritise those things which are causing the gravest and most substantial environmental harms. Sorry can I just clarify what's being suggested is things that are single use should just be banned as a group because we don't have time to look at each and every one of them is that what's being suggested? Where there's a practical alternative so where there's a practical alternative? Okay so single use sorry i'm just trying to follow this through so i understand it nappies single use viable alternative cloth nappies with people washing them is that something that you would like to see banned? That's not on my list but it's on Kim's list because she said it's the most dangerous thing that the most dangerous product should go because they contain plastic and microplastics. Yes so i think that is an example of a product that where there are viable alternatives that we should be looking towards making that the main option. I think it's quite a bold step to just to make the comment that you've made and from a legislative point of view it would be open to some disagreements. I think we would need to make sure that people were supported in that process of moving over to those systems and we know with many reusable options that in the long term they are cheaper for consumers so and nappies is one example of that so yeah i think you know we we need to appreciate that there are unintended consequences for businesses of some of these changes but up against that is the climate crisis and the emergency that we're facing right now and we have to balance those two and at the moment our climate is at breaking point and we need to do something. Kim I understand that, I was trying to give a specific example which may cause a problem if we banned all single use items and I kind of regret doing it because I've opened Pandora's box and I know Monica's going to come in and I know Bob wants to come in so Bob was first and then you Monica. I did want to talk about nappies one of my favourite subjects so thank you for that convener because one of the discussions I've had with the government is about the opportunity to amend this bill to make it easier for people to transition away from single use nappies to cloth nappies you know nappies that can be washed and other products like that like period products so the good news is there is a demand there is a consumer demand and I believe some local authorities who have schemes to help people access these products have waiting lists but on a serious point we've had really bad news this week because the trailblazing tox box company based in Glasgow has gone into liquidation and that's 47 people being made redundant but they've been really innovative in terms of you know reusable nappies and other products they supply the baby box for example in Scotland so that is a really serious point because there are difficult trading conditions but are there opportunities to work with not just businesses but nappy libraries the third sector to give people the awareness of these products to access them in an affordable way or a free way I mean North Asia for example has a continental scheme because the council saves money on landfill but people in the area get reusable nappies for free for as long as they need them so do we need to join up these activities and these conversations because the last thing we want to see is really responsible businesses who are innovative going bust when we should be doing more around existing supply chains and procurement so I'll put that out for discussion. Sorry Monica, I'm really conscious of time so I maybe let a couple of people come in and then I need to go to Bob and then I need to go to Jackie. Is more about amending the bill is that an opportunity to be more proactive to put a majority on local authorities? Who would like to start on that Michael? I mean I think your concerns about an outright ban on all single use I totally get that and it's your job it's kind of our job as environmental bodies to ask for it and it's kind of your job to question it and I get that but let me let me maybe use some language that I think would would resonate. We need a pathway to a future where we don't have single use items when there isn't a really good reason and at the moment convenience is trumping the cost on the environment over and over again so I think there are different tools in the toolbox for policy makers to use I think a ban charge investment in alternative readily you know making them more attractive like what Monica has just described with nappies but I think sending a message that we're here we need to be here single use doesn't really have a future for the planet resources are too valuable to use one is the opposite of a circular economy a single use product is the opposite of that because a circular economy is about using resources over and over again and when those products contain damaging materials and have pollution issues have plastic issues micro plastic issues it just compounds that so I'm not an idealist and saying ban them tomorrow but I do think we need a pathway from where we are to where we need to get to and at the moment nappies are a great example of this that we are just externalising the cost and and the environmentally responsible thing to do is less attractive less convenient and we do need policies that change that. Bring Bob in and and he'll then ask somebody else a question and they can answer the one point that Monica raised at the same time. Bob you want to come in? Okay it was actually inspired not by nappies I have to say oh there's clear an interest with a two-year-old a bit significant burden on me to move to non-disposable nappies but I'm willing to be convinced for the environment to convener it's more about the question that convener was making about on a case by case basis we identify straws or bags or cups and we move at a relatively slow pace and we do knock off one at a time is the need for this bill or government more generally to get a cluster of items that we can all agree single use should not exist and to legislate on a group of items rather than simply asserting all single use items should be banned as a matter of course is there a better way of doing it than going one campaign at a time to a cluster of single use items together and to try and legislate on that. James you look keen to come in and then I'm going to go to Jackie. Yeah I think the I mean I kind of would say that wouldn't I but the argument for most products and the thing that allows you to generalise it in the way the 2016 Scottish Government paper talks about is making producers responsible for it so in some ways that kind of that can negate the need for a ban or something complicated in regulation if they're responsible for it and they have a target for how much they have to get back and they have to use it responsibly then suddenly single use becomes uneconomic because the cost that they're putting on to us they're putting on to themselves and so you know I feel there's a kind of socialist argument for this that what we have currently is a system which externalises the cost and socialises the cost and privatises the profits but there's also like an Adam Smith argument for it which is this is the kind of system which then which then gives an economic benefit to those companies who are prepared to innovate and invest and reduce their carbon footprint reduce their material usage and so that for me is that's the framework which and there are complexities with you know I'm thinking that you know we're not going to get to take back requirements on period products there's a there's a you know there are things which are not in that category it doesn't get you out of all the complexities but across a wide range of products and packaging that simple framework then builds the system that delivers the kind of outcome that we need to Jackie and I'll give Phoebe and Kim a chance to answer this one and the others at the same time sorry Jackie. Thank you it was going back to what Michael was saying about the single use cups being Phoebe as well currently being charged 2025p and you were discussing about the folk hiring reusable cups instead because they're more environmentally friendly now for me that would prove to be the more expensive option so were you thinking about maybe that single use cups should be maybe the same price as hiring the reusable so that folk are not getting financially penalised for trying to do the right thing or do you even think that single cup use the use or buy in a single cup single use cup sorry m should be even more expensive than that Phoebe. Yeah I can jump in so I'm sorry if I didn't explain clearly but the reusable cup it would be a deposit so you there would be no outlay you would you would just put a deposit for it which you would then get back when you returned it so there'd be no so there'd be no cost no net cost okay just I mean for just for the period you're using the cup you would speak to someone that's got about 10 reusable cups but I mean is that working in the evidence that we got from SRU I think it was out what they're doing at Murrayfield with with cups there which was a useful bit sorry Douglas back to you with yeah thank you my next question was on the UK internal market act that you'd raised previously and you know in terms of single use coffee cups I don't see that being an issue with the UK internal market act but when we start talking about things like nappies for example then there is a potential I would think that that could be an issue because you know let's say we banned some single use products like nappies or disposable barbecues in Scotland then I guess people could still order online and that could be a potential issue would you agree with that or do you think that's something we could overcome if we if we had to and I know James you'd mentioned UK internal market act before so yeah and I spent 10 years working on deposit return so I became kind of unduly familiar with the operation of this legislation so it is it is clearly a relevant factor we if we talk about charges on on single use that is the condition on the point of sale which is one half of the matters that are covered by the internal market act and would require an exemption in terms of how Scottish Parliament Scottish Government should deal with the internal market act I think our view is that they should legislate to make good policy if it requires a internal market act exemption they should they should seek one and they ideally should be provided with one I think I would probably say if there are two equally good ways of getting to the same objective and one of them requires an IMA exemption I would recommend the one that doesn't just for sort of expediting the process but yeah so bands and charges are really covered by this it you know it very explicitly so you know you see stuff around glue traps being the talk about ban in one part of the UK not in others you end up where you can ban the use of something but not the not the sale of it and so action to protect rural Scotland wrote to the prime minister and to other party leaders with links from across Great Britain arguing that this should be sort of qualified automatic exemption from the act for public health and environmental measures because part of the premise of devolution was we would get to try and do things differently sometimes they would work sometimes they wouldn't carry bag charges an example of that but this is this is one of the merits of a take back requirement which is it's not about the point of sale so it doesn't require an IMA exemption so most of the producer responsibility stuff that I've been arguing for today is untouched by that IMA and so that makes it easier to act in that way sorry Kim did you want to come in yeah I just add to what James is saying there so um I personally ask Scotland believes that the internal markets act must be considered when we're implementing any environmental progressive policies in Scotland in the future but it shouldn't stop us making the legislation that we know is needed in the first place and in the past we've seen a lot of good progress being made where one nation within the UK has taken forward an environmental policy it's proved to be successful and then it's been adopted throughout the rest of the UK and we wouldn't want to stop that mechanism being able to happen so we would like to see legislation still being made regardless of whether there might be an internal market act exemption needed or not if we need if we need the policy then we should be legislating for it but making legislation that wouldn't actually be allowed to go through that that sounds quite a wasteful thing to do wouldn't it well I think we would have to assume that it would go through with an IMA exemption we if we if we decide that we need something like a sector economy bill um then we we should be making that legislation in the first place regardless of not whether there is a potential barrier down the road so James can I just offer one little quote in support of that so um the IMA was amended to include the common frameworks that you'll be familiar with and the resources and waste common framework uh said that where EU directive set minimum standards of targets etc different parts of the UK have been able to set higher standards or targets where they wanted to and often done so for waste issues so the fact that it might require an IMA exemption doesn't mean that it won't you know you can't assume whether it will get one or not you know you just it requires government to take part all governments to take part all four in that framework processing good faith and look at the evidence and then ultimately persuade or not UK secretaries of state whether to bring an exemption to the schedule of the internal market act but it seems like we're not almost in a situation where we can ban the use of something but maybe not the banner sale of something which would be you know in terms of nappies would be quite a crazy situation to be in so but maybe we've run out of time can you know happy to lead it there um yeah we've got quite a lot of questions to go and I I think I maybe just move on to the next one I'd just like to say before we do move on to the next is the committee went and visited a bin group last week and had a very interesting visit to see what they were doing as far as recycling and moving away from from landfill from from where they started and I'm going to ask a very simple question which you can all just say yes to if you like I'm inviting you to do say is one of the things that we heard was there were 32 councils across Scotland with 32 different recycling schemes with bins some of them are the same but some of them are different and you could have five bins in one council two bins in another and the one thing we heard on on that visit that we should have a standard system across all councils in Scotland yes or no answer do you do you agree uh James yes with caveats community okay so I'll take that thank you Michael yes absolutely PB and yes probably with a few caveats in that a very densely urban situation would require slight differences to a sparsely populated rural area and Kim yes thank you I'm going to move straight on to the to the deputy community with his questions and then come to I think murder Fraser uh uh yes murder Fraser afterwards thank you convener um a number of you mentioned considerations around waste crime earlier and that is obviously a point of consideration within the bill and a challenge more widely for all of us so I just wondered if you had any thoughts further to what you've said already as to what additional measures could the bill include to tackle waste crime um this will include of course fly tipping but feel free to broaden any points beyond that and I know Mr Fraser will ask about fly tipping more specifically and I should just state as well that fly tipping is as much of a concern in different ways in urban Scotland as it is in rural and although I appreciate the you know the significant challenges in rural Scotland as well does anyone want to make it Mr Mackenzie if nobody else fancies it I'll have another go um so ending ending fly tipping is essentially moving you from the absolute lowest point you know it's not even in the waste hierarchy we're not dealing with a tool we're just putting it in a sea we're putting it in beauty spots we're we're putting it around the back of Leith walk um so it's it's important to do it's this is definitely a worthwhile objective however um really the priority here the further down the chain you start the harder it is to make change so the point of which you're just trying to sort of police the public's activity you kind of that you've already lost the battle at that point um the the maybe measures that you can do that will have some effect on it but we're within a system where it becomes cost effective for somebody just to say chuck her mattress in a perthshire glen rather than having it reprocessed right so if I know there's stuck record stuff recycler records but if that mattress had it if there was an incentive to get that back to the manufacturers which the industry wants to get it reprocessed right the british industry wants that because they're being undercut by imports that don't do that just to pick one example which I know is quite a common place of fly tipping then suddenly you start to engage the higher levels of michael's ladder of the of the hierarchy so if you're if you're trying to just enforce it right at the bottom you need to start above that you need to start above the local authority level local authorities is picking up the detritus of a linear economy at the best of times anyway so the further up you move it the the as soon as they become incentives to take stuff back in then why would you flight it if you're going to get value out of that if it becomes part of a circular chain so I'm not saying we shouldn't address it right at the bottom it's a matter of serious concern to aprs but the more effective measures are always going to be starting further up the chain um and just on just one example in terms of what enforcement looks like um we recently looked at data of highland council and over the last five years they issued just 19 fines for fly tipping 19 of those weren't paid and then no further action was taken on them their enforcement across the whole of environmental fines this is not just fly tipping every single environmental measure that you might get fine for in highland council five years ago that was 1.7 full time equivalent people right across the whole of highlands but this year 0.15 ft so that's about five hours a week across an area of a third of scotland to deal with all the so the more powers in this area one thing but that's that's the reality that was very interesting so the enforcement is is a point of consideration and being more punitive is potentially a less practical solution and actually creating more opportunities for recycling reuse and upcycling would would be a have greater potential effect for change if you get if you get paid five or ten pounds to hand a mattress back in somewhere rather than having to pay to get it taken away then you're probably not going to go to the trouble of taking in a van in the middle of the night but also it is an extremely difficult crime to enforce right like we the average you know the average borders bit of countryside doesn't have cctv right by the burn you know so it's just about stopping it further up the chain i think would be the priority mr cook and agreement with with james i think one slight lens i would want to put on this it's not the whole picture but i think it's it contains some valuable insight is that fly tipping is exasperated or happens more when we have the policies at the bottom of the waste hierarchy that haven't been totally thought through that i've referred to earlier so i'll give an example a landfill ban when you start saying every tonne of waste you have to pay a certain charge on that you have created the potential for a grey economy which won't charge that and will instead throw it in the nearest beauty spot so the problem is it's too much stick and not enough carrot if you know what i mean by that you know where is the 10 pound deposit on a mattress that if actually i do the right thing why not even 10 pound and you'll collect it from my house make it really easy because when do i need a new mattress when do i need to get rid of a mattress it's often when i buy a new one so hand it back you know take back scheme it's the same delivery driver that can drop pick one up and drop one off and i get 10 pound off so that carrot if you would instead of the the stick at the bottom of the waste hierarchy a carrot at the top and i i do think that you know waste crime if you lined up the whole population into quartiles of how environmentally conscious they are for example there are people that will will go out of their way to recycle something at this end of the spectrum they will take it to the local charity shop to donate it they're already using reusable cups you know all those sorts of things sadly at this end of the spectrum there are people that will break the law either for themselves throw their own things away out the car window or for other people they'll collect goods and and flytip them so whilst we need to deal with that please don't forget the mainstream middle 80% of the people in the middle want to do the right thing if it's convenient it's easy it's attractive and it's cost effective please focus on on creating policy for them that makes it you know far more easier to get your mattress recycled give me confidence in the system that if i send these goods to the local authority site they will be reused or recycled that your pickup take doesn't require me to put it out on the street the night before when it rains and then it can't be reused you know those sorts of policies that just make it easier more convenient for the mainstream middle because fly tipping does even happen you know representing a key member interest of ours we think about fly tipping in terms of beauty spots what can happen is that well intentioned members of the public want to donate to a charity shop they turn up at the charity shop maybe the volunteer didn't come in that day they're not open so they leave the donation outside the shop thinking it's a donation that will be used it rains the weather happens and the next day you know when the shop is open they come in and they have waste to deal with which by the way they have to pay potentially to when when it gets sent for for waste because it can't be used anymore because it's been ruined so fly tipping happens in different ways and you know it's about having incentives not just penalising it i think that's an important point and that is particularly in urban scotland i think a lot of people perhaps fly tip unwittingly anyway i think maybe a good juncture to allow us to come in i'm going to bring murdering but interestingly on that trip that we had last week we heard that it was very easy to print off a waste disposal certificate to allow you to dispose of waste and there were no checks done online and and i would also say and i would declare my interest as somebody who owns land it's it's not the council who pays for it it's the person who's land it's dumped on and that can be prohibitively expensive if you get 50 tyres that are thrown out into a field or whatever but murder i'm sure you're going to talk about that so over to you thank you thank you uh good morning uh still still morning to the panel um yes on fly tipping as you probably know i i ran a consultation on the members bill on fly tipping uh looking at a number of specific measures and attracted broad support for that i have have support to take that forward and it's currently in the drafting process but there are opportunities i think to use this bill as a vehicle to try and introduce some of these these changes which is very welcome and the scudish government produced a national litter and fly tipping strategy that was published in june which again is it's helpful but before i come on to talk about some of the detail of that i just wanted to pick up the point michael and james you both made about barriers because one thing that came really strongly out of the consultation i ran when we asked people around this is that they said if legal routes to recycling were more easily available that would help tackle the problem and one thing we've seen in recent times is local councils reducing access to recycling centres so for example um a number in in the area i represent have reduced their opening hours due to budgetary issues some have introduced a booking system so you can't just turn up you got the book or a queuing system somewhere closed at weekends for example i mean do what extent do you think that contributes to the problem and how can we try and tackle that either either of you or colleagues i mean of course if it's if it's made harder to do if it's more expensive it's more awkward if it if it can only be done while you're at work that these are all going to compound it and again i mean i sympathise with local authorities here they have they have tight budgets and even when stuff does come to them it's essentially they've got no input in what it is how it's made there are no product design role they're just left to deal with whatever has been or sold and ideally used and and so that's a that's a tough job by the time you get to to the waste facilities that should be reused in recycling facilities and it becomes labour intensive it's difficult to manage understandable that they end up shutting their hours they've got reducing their hours but that it's definitely i your argument is is correct and sorry to say it but if there's a responsibility for the producers who made those products then that takes the burden off both the public and the local authorities you know we there's arguments about the costs will get passed through we pay the costs anyway whether it's in immunity whether it's in resource use whether it's in local authority staff time or cleansing time so yeah it's for me it's about making sure that the that there's an incentive right from the start to get everything back in because if that if that exists and it's somebody else if it's not the individual responsibility you're not left with this unmanageable item you know large uplifts or whatever but somebody else has the duty to pick it up but it's the one who made the money out of selling it then it stimulates both the economic activity and reduces pressure at the bottom end of the hierarchy and fly tipping is the absolute bottom below the bottom it's below the bottom i mean i would encourage the committee to invite someone like keep scotland beautiful who are obviously experts in litter and waste crime more than us but what i would say is i mean we just see incrementally so for example that i don't know if the committee are aware but there's concerns around persistent organic pollutants pops and forever chemicals and understandably for the environment more controls are being brought in around the destruction of those now one fear we would have around that is the knock on impact that that would have for flight tipping if it's more expensive for me to dispose of my sofa or my fridge because there's more charging on that it becomes more expensive to do the right thing dispose of it responsibly than to do the wrong thing there is no booking system at the local beauty spot you know just go out and go at night time and you know then it can and it actually from the consumer often it isn't that they do it directly it can often be through an intermediary i'll pick that up i'll clear the house i'll you know and and it's almost sort of small business really so i you know i think it's a problem but i would just still encourage can we lift our eyes off the bottom of the waste hierarchy you know i think doing the right actions upstream would would would help mitigate that you know mit james's mattress example strongly support that make it convenient pick it up and recycle it yes so i think the independent review on incineration that was conducted for the government last year has some relevant points around this in particular it said that there was not enough national coordination of recycling services and that is leading to an imbalance in the system in particular there's this over capacity for an incineration that is pushing us towards that rather than more more circular measures so having that national oversight is important as well thank you so if i can ask just a question about more specific items because i in my consultation proposed four changes now one of them was a enhanced duty of care on waste generators i'm very pleased to see that's covered now by section 10 of this bill but there were other measures that i consulted on and they're also mentioned in the national litter and slide tipping strategy that don't actually appear in this bill so that there are three items one is improved data collection which is mentioned in the in the strategy but it's nothing in the bill about that the second is the point that the convener has just referred to which is the question of liability on the innocent landowner which seems to me an inherent unfairness and the third is the question of penalty so at present the the fixed penalty maximum is 200 pounds now you know all the evidence we've got is that that is nowhere near the level it needs to be to be a deterrent in fact you know we got evidence from environmental health staff at councils that they would actually catch people in the act of light uping who would say just give us the 200 pound fine because it's cheaper for us to pay that and it would be to legally dispose of this stuff so do you think this bill could be amended at stage two or three to try and address the items that i've referred to and is that something you would you would welcome anyone fines i mean i was waiting to see if somebody else would jump in i'm trying not to hug the mic again i think i mean i gave you the example from Highland Council that was after the fines were increased but they just don't have the capacity and they're not doing it and even when they've given an fpn if there's no payment of it then they're not following it up in in actually a majority of the cases um i also i also have concerns and this is more about the the the fixed penalty analysis talks about in the bill rather than the ones that you're talking about that that they will there's a risk that will be disproportionately applied to people who are on lower incomes or with chaotic lifestyles or don't have English as their first language or live in areas where provision is worse and there's another risk which is that they won't get used at all so our friends that keep Wales tidy have been in contact with Swansea council who had have brought in these fixed penalty notices notices around household waste and just this month they said that since 2019 they've issued two of them so i believe it was the first place in Wales to adopt this and instead they're sending out a sort of you know a traffic light system and kind of you know please do better really strongly please do better honestly now um and but that has still led led to two fines and i and i really think that that systemic changes that provide more of a carrot to the right thing where the stick isn't on the member of the public who didn't really have any say in how that was devised i mean Michael's example of persistent persistent organic pollutant is a is a really good one you didn't know that when you didn't know you're buying some toxic waste you thought you're buying a couch now it's your problem to deal with this really complicated thing it should be the producer's problem they should they should they need to be coming and collecting it and as soon as that's the case you remove a lot of the incentives you know why would you pay somebody with a van to take it take it away when you're going to get when you're going to get it collected for nothing by the producer you know it's going to be handled properly so i feel like there's a room for enforcement once all those things have been done to kind of catch what remains people who are particularly lazy irresponsible but i think that's quite a minority i think for most people they just find themselves in a quandary and i'm stuck in a system that's not designed to help help them get their stuff back i mean just on your point about you know people struggling to pay the fines and one of the things we did find when we did some research was that increasingly organised crime is available in collecting particularly industrial waste and dumping it because as you fairly said earlier it's a crime that is very hard to detect therefore the chances of being caught are very low and if you are caught the penalties are so low that it's not a risk and therefore you know the the issue around increasing the fines i think is more to catch those people rather than just the house owner who gets rid of a mattress in the wrong place no i think that's right and that i mean in a way that's absolutely consistent with my argument about internalising their costs right that's just a business where you should decide that it can make some more money by just chucking it in the tape which is getting someone else to do it and at that level then finds a really the only way to internalise those costs onto them and then really you're going to have to spend a lot of time effort on on enforcement and and pursuing that but no that i would fully agree with you there oh yeah well just quickly on the data side um sorry i'm not very familiar with your consultation so i'm not sure exactly what type of data it was regarding but the provision in the bill for reporting on waste and surplus could that be somehow expanded or would that indeed cover what you're thinking of as it is or could it be modified to do that yes i'm sure it could so what one of the confusions is at the moment there aren't too many different bodies involved in collecting data we have a role for local authorities we have a role for sepa we have a role for zero waste scotland and my intention was to look at how we might create a duty on Scottish ministers to properly collect and publish and report on data so that there'd be a single collection point it is something that's covered on page eight of the fly tipping strategy but it doesn't appear in the bill which is why i thought it might be something that could usefully be put in the bill and i'm very you know interested in looking at amendments to the bill that would bring that in so well you're sat there we there's again we have people nodding their heads do you do you think it would be useful just for the official record for the government to collate data on on waste tipping is that is you know fly tipping um do you think that would be useful or do you think it's happy with all the other organisations at the moment i was nodding understanding more than okay not disagreement i mean it's just not my area of expertise i think you would get some good answers from like keep Scotland beautiful as an organisation or actually maybe the local authority so i believe you're seeing next week okay my day one further one and then i'm going to no no i think to be honest i think i'm done unless any of the panel will be anything they want to come back on okay okay thank you very much my day monica you wanted to come in i think yeah thank you and clearly there's an opportunity for members bills to complement circular economy so good luck to muddle phraser and i think colleagues are aware of my interest in ecocide prevention but we've talked about small scale fly tipping we all as MSPs know the impact in our own communities but as muddle phraser was saying you know the major challenge is those organised crime gangs i've referred back to the disclosure programme on the baby sea which i think we mentioned over a year ago to the previous cabinet secretary michael matysyn where thousands of tonnes of waste is being illegally buried across scotland right now and even just i think a few weeks ago cpip put out a press release about the scourge of illegal end-of-life vehicle sites and they believe there's over 100 unauthorised ELV sites across scotland you know hidden in plain site so we all know the impact but from looking back at the disclosure programme where one insider to a criminal network told the programme that waste was the new drugs and these waste gangs are also involved in moving around drugs and weapons other illegal items and see if i know about this made it a priority along with these ELV but don't seem to have the resource to really do anything meaningful about it so going back to circular economy bill you know are you concerned that cpiput and other regulators will have the resource and capacity to actually do anything because the scale of what we're hearing is an emergency you know where does he have a litter and fly tipping emergency declared cpiput clearly very concerned but don't seem able to really do anything about it so is that a concern that you shared and maybe start with kim so this is not my area of expertise but on a very high level my understanding is the same as yours in that cpiput do not have the resources it needs to carry out its duties thank you anyone else sorry to jump in it relates to a point that Mr Fraser made that there are so many different bodies that might be responsible for it and so and it's a subject where gathering data is very difficult where enforcement is tricky you haven't talked about a police role and so yeah i mean it's it's like it's like so many things that if you are going to have effective regulations then you need to have ability to keep track of when they're being broken you know i often think that's that's forgotten about in a number of environmental policy areas you kind of legislate some good intentions and then the implementation gets lost in a kind of gull between various levels of government and ndpbs and all the rest of it so um i suppose my kind of optimistic hope is that is that some of that might get addressed through the through the vision document that i mentioned earlier that that will come out once this i believe it'll come out while this bill is still under consideration so that that might be a good source for some questions i should say looking at cpips recent release they talk about the role for scotland series organised crime task force the joint unit for waste crime the latter i don't really know that much about but i think it's interesting for the public because there's been a lot of discussion about the individual behaviour changes and possible sanctions and sticks against individuals but at the same time on a national level an international level we've got these you know gangs that are operating in causing havoc and all our communities destroying the environment and no one's really going after them in a way that we need but that's where we sometimes get pushed back from the public if they feel that we're going after the individuals rather than the bigger i think it's something that committee can reflect on in our stage one report and whether there's too many organisations and whether it ought to be streamlined and the collection of data i think that's all valuable points of view bob very briefly and then i'm going to go to the deputy convener because we i am now up against the clock and the clock always wins i can't stop it i'll be very briefly witnesses may not need to respond but i think i should go on the record in relation to a hugely serious fire my constituency at the former pro-map factory which was industrial commercial illegal fly tipping on on a site over a prolonged period of time i can't see too much more about it but see power clearly need additional enforcement powers and this is my first day on this committee i should see to witness he's in the convener but this is maybe something i would want to look at as this bill progresses as well but given my constituency's interest on that i just want to put that on the record convener thank you bob and deputy convener i think you've got a question thank you convener yes um just to try and as we move towards conclusion i just wondered if you could comment on what are the most problematic waste streams in your view that should be subject to waste or surplus reporting and what criteria should Scottish ministers apply when deciding what waste streams to prioritise for such reporting there's different forms of problematic but i would i would highlight carbon impact as in a ton of waste is not equal to another ton of waste and for that i would say textiles clothes is quite high up on the list in terms of its its material its tonnage may not be that high but the carbon impact is is is much higher and i can't remember the stats but i could email them into the committee afterwards and i think the other form of problematic is doing the right thing is difficult disproportionately difficult and we have a system that more biases to doing the wrong thing behaviorally speaking so i mean i think single use vapes are getting a lot of publicity at the moment i think there's another committee looking at that even today but you know it's estimated in britain alone that single use vapes and that this isn't including the non-single use vapes that might maybe treated a single use vapes but in the batteries alone the lithium in a year that's thrown away is enough to to create 5000 electric car batteries so that's a circular that's a loop i'd like to close because you know take that lithium and and use it because we need we meet you know lithium is a is a really rare resource so i think the the two criteria i would set you a carbon impact co2 impact emissions and secondly rare materials that we really you know there's conflict abroad on our behalf to get those materials you know they should be top of the shopping list to close the loops there thank you that was very helpful any other yes just very quickly i wouldn't disagree with what michael has said i mean if you look at the lifecycle analysis impact of of a product group or something that should tell you you know the the environmental impact that that product manufacturer and disposable of it has had on will have on the environment so i mean we've already we've mentioned food and the carbon associated with that and textiles electronics come out quite highly because of the because of the processes involved in manufacturing them and acquiring the minerals and metals in them and then plastic obviously is a is a stream that we need to focus on because it's harmful in the environment it doesn't break down and it's obviously a fossil material yeah thanks for that also i'll go to kim pratt and then james wkinsi just add to that list obviously textiles plastic from a carbon point of view are very important also chemicals as well we have a big chemical industry in scotland and there's a high carbon impact associated with their production in terms of the what are sometimes called critical minerals or transition minerals that we'll need in scotland in order to move away from fossil fuels the uk have a list of i think it's about 18 minerals that will be needed to create a sustainable future um so that that is something that i would recommend that the committee consider thank you and mr mackenzie thank you in terms of the priority i think from our perspective i agree with all of that you'll be um unsurprised to hear but i'll be looking for a kind of triple alignment here i would like to see those those priority items that my colleagues have talked about being the ones that are reported on and also those being the ones where action is either being taken or being considered so there's a bit of a perception that the environmental movement just wants to put endless costs onto business just for fun and i can assure you that's not the case if there's an if there's an area of if there's a sector or product category that ministers have definitively ruled out acting on then there's no point gathering the data on it it's only worth gathering the data if you're either building the case for what will be an effective intervention that would help build circular economy practices bring those economic opportunities bring those environmental benefits or where you've already done one and you want to know if it's working or whether people are complying with it so i think there's a bit of a risk here that scotland will end up recommending reporting across a variety of sectors where they don't intend to act and that i'm afraid to say is just a business cost for no purpose thanks for all the contributions could i just ask one question because a single east plastic that's not come up today on or in our deliberations thus far on this bill is that of nerddles and certainly in coastal communities particularly where there's extensive shipping activity and industry including my own the plastic pollution from nerddles on our beaches is quite significant and if there's anything you wanted to feed in about that matter either now quickly or in writing thereafter i'd certainly be interested to see it i'm going to jump in there because i'm sure you all want to contribute something to to that comment and we are just up against it on the clock i really apologise and i had a further question which i'm sure i would encourage you to respond in to in writing to the class is that we've had a lot of very useful discussions today we've covered a huge area of subjects but there may be something that we've missed that you want to see in the bill if you haven't put it in in your evidence could i could i urge you just to write to the clerks when you're writing about the question the deputy convener raised about waste at sea and and put that in so we can consider it i personally would like to thank you all for being very fleet of foot around the subject you've answered lots of different questions very persuasively in some cases and i would normally have suspended the meeting to allow you to depart but because we are so up against it i would ask if you could accept our thanks and quietly leave the room while we continue in in public session with the the issue that we've got to deal with next so thank you very much the next item is consideration of a type one consent notification for the heavy goods vehicles charging for the use of certain infrastructure on transit european road revocation and consequential amendments regulations 2023 that's a snappy title this is a proposed uk statutory instrument where the uk government is seeking the scottish government's consent to legislate in an area of devolved confidence on the 18th of october the minister of transport notified the committee of the uk si the committee's role is to decide whether it agrees with the scottish government's proposal to consent to the uk government making these regulations within devolved competence and in the manner that the uk government has indicated it wishes to to the scottish government if members are consent for consent to be given the committee will write to the scottish government accordingly in writing to the scottish government we have the option to pose questions or to ask to be kept up to date if the committee is not content with the proposals however we can make a series of recommendations i mean before i say what those recommendations are i would ask if any member of the committee has any views on this which they'd like to express i'm not seeing any views so my question is are you content sorry the substantive question is is the committee content that the provision set out in the notification should be made in proportion to the uk statutory instrument we we are agreed thank you we will write to the scottish government to that effect that concludes our public meeting and we will now go into private session