The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-13757, in the name of Gillian Martin, on the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill at stage 3.
As members will be aware, I am required, under standing orders, to decide whether, in my view, any provision of the bill relates to a protected subject matter—that is, whether it modifies the electoral system and franchise for Scottish parliamentary elections. It is my view that no provision of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill relates to a protected subject matter. Therefore, the bill does not require a supermajority to be passed at stage 3.
Before we move to the debate, I call the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy to signify Crown consent to the bill.
For the purposes of rule 9.11 of standing orders, I advise the Parliament that His Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill, has consented to place his prerogative and interests, in so far as they are affected by the bill, at the disposal of the Parliament for the purposes of the bill.
We will move on to the debate. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons.
17:16
I am delighted to open the stage 3 debate on the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill.
I will begin by thanking the many people who have helped us to get to this point. I thank the convener, the clerks and all the members of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee for their stage 1 report, their extensive—four-week-long—scrutiny at stage 2, and the positive debate. I also thank all the other members and stakeholders who have engaged so constructively with me, and the Finance and Public Administration Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee for their thorough considerations.
In particular, I give my thanks and gratitude to my predecessor. I hope that Lorna Slater is in the chamber to hear this, because I really want to thank her. Lorna Slater’s dedication and hard work in developing the bill throughout the lead-up to stage 1 and through stage 1, and her immense contribution cannot be overstated. I thank her for her personal support to me as I took the reins at stage 2.
I also extend my heartfelt thanks to the members of the bill team for their hard work, support, expertise and tireless efforts throughout the bill process. It cannot have been easy changing ministers halfway through. That was daunting, but because of Ms Slater’s thorough engagement, the cross-party working that she did and my bill team’s support, I have been able to get us to this point, at which we all have the opportunity to pass a bill that we can very much be proud of.
There is real passion and enthusiasm for a circular economy. I have heard that in members’ contributions and from the stakeholders whom I have met. I have also been struck by the spirit of cross-party working. We might not agree on all the methods and on what we have managed to get into the bill, but I think that we all agree that there is a real need to accelerate our efforts on the circular economy. I think that a lot of our constituents would like to see more of that type of working across the chamber and more of the consensus politics that the deliberations on the bill have exemplified.
At every stage, members have championed repair, recycle and reuse initiatives that are leading the way in their constituencies and regions and in others that they have visited. The third sector and local councils are being innovative, and there are innovative businesses. Reference to those initiatives has really helped to oil the wheels of the bill. I think that this crucial piece of legislation will be a springboard for waste managers throughout Scotland, of whatever status, to ramp up action.
Making more sustainable use of our resources in Scotland is fundamental to tackling the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. During the passage of the bill, we have listened to feedback and, because of that, the bill is stronger in promoting action further up the waste hierarchy. I thank my colleagues for pushing the Government to put more in the bill, and particularly to refer more to reuse in the waste hierarchy and to be cognisant of the role that reuse, refill and take-back have in the whole-life carbon emissions of goods, products and materials.
In two or three years’ time, if we were to look at what difference the bill has made to anything, what would we notice?
It is my fervent hope that the bill will be a springboard for all the local waste collectors and managers throughout Scotland to come together to share best practice and to put to us increased targets that they want to achieve, particularly on household recycling. We will then know that councils in particular have their shoulders to the wheel because they have made the decisions and we have given them the power to do so.
Will the minister give way?
I want to continue. I might be able to take an intervention later.
For the first time, there will be a statutory duty to prepare a circular economy strategy and associated targets for Scotland that will embed circular thinking within Government and across future Administrations. We are all consumers, and we must play our part in reducing waste. That is why the bill is so far reaching—it impacts all of us, from the goods that we buy to what we put in our recycling bins.
Everyone in the country should experience a modern and easy-to-use recycling and waste service that helps them to do the right thing for the planet. The new powers in the bill will give ministers and local authorities the tools that they need to deliver that. That speaks to Mr Simpson’s point.
I will take Ms Boyack’s intervention now.
One thing that we debated at stage 2 was the impact of fines on householders, particularly those in tenements or shared properties. I notice that that issue has come up in the press again. It would be helpful if the minister would repeat the key principles of the bill and point out that individual householders should not automatically be worried, as it is about persistent offenders and cases where local authorities can identify evidence.
Very helpfully, Ms Boyack has set out what I probably would have said in response to her question. The measure is about repeat, persistent offenders—the types of people who are a problem in many of our communities. It is not about the people who want to do the right thing but who have made a mistake; it is about people who have egregiously or deliberately contaminated recycling waste. I give my assurance on that, as I hope that I did at stage 2.
I want to talk about the voluntary code of practice that will be developed through co-design to explore opportunities to enhance activities to promote reuse and repair on a voluntary and recommended basis. The improvement programme, which is under development as an alternative to financial penalties relating to local authority recycling targets, will offer a more practical route to share best practice. We heard from members and stakeholders about so much best practice that is happening in councils in certain parts of Scotland and from which other parts of Scotland can benefit.
I believe that the co-design process is based on the principles of the Verity house agreement and the new deal for business, which is central to delivering the transformation that we need. I particularly thank Councillor Macgregor at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities for the positive and constructive discussions that she had with me and Ms Slater on the bill. I am delighted that she has cited that engagement as a fine example of working in the spirit of the Verity house agreement.
Of course, I recognise that there are concerns about the framework nature of the bill, although I hope that most of them have been addressed during the passage of the bill. However, it is important that we make enabling legislation so that action can happen at the local level involving the people who know their services best.
I will not say much more—
I must ask you to conclude, minister.
I am being asked to conclude, but I might be able to pick up some of the points that I have missed in my opening speech when I finish the debate.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill be passed.
17:23
In the previous debate, the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy, Màiri McAllan, referenced climate activists in Malawi and appeared to suggest that Scottish Conservatives had criticised them in some way. I have spoken to my colleagues, and we can find no basis for that. Based on what the cabinet secretary has said, we are very supportive of those climate activists. I wanted to ensure that that is on the record.
Moving to this debate, I thank the clerks and all those who provided support for the bill. As I have made clear previously, the Scottish Conservatives support the general principles of the bill. A circular economy is a simple concept: keep materials in use for as long as possible to extract the maximum value from them. In fact, it is so simple that people could be forgiven for thinking that we surely must be doing that anyway. However, Scotland’s economy is just 1.3 per cent circular, according to “Circularity Gap Report Scotland”. The hope was that the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill could shift the needle, so that we would catch up with the rest of the United Kingdom, which is 7.5 per cent circular. As I have pointed out before, the bill as introduced was little more than a glorified waste and litter bill. Those are important issues, of course, but that version of the bill hardly represented the ambition that we need to build a sustainable economy and for it to thrive.
Members will remember my promise at stage 1 to work constructively to strengthen the bill. I kept my end of the bargain, as did Scottish Conservative colleagues, in lodging dozens of amendments at stage 2 on everything from reuse to procurement to human rights. However, the sincere efforts from Opposition parties were met with a wall of opposition from the Scottish National Party at both stage 2 and stage 3.
For example, yesterday the SNP opposed ensuring that a code of practice for local authority waste collection would be produced by March 2026, even though that is the date by which the SNP claims that it will be ready. On top of that, the SNP opposes providing local authorities with sufficient resources to carry out the actions required of them—and, for good measure, the SNP also voted against its own recycling targets, which is confusing, given that it claims that it still intends to meet them.
Such opposition is especially disappointing, given how bad recycling has become under the SNP. Even after over a decade of trying, it has still not managed to deliver its 2013 household recycling target, so new thinking is clearly needed. However, the new approach of the Scottish Government is exactly the same as the strategy that has been deployed for the past 20 years. At least that is circular.
As I explained in my opening comments, recycling is not the primary goal of waste management—hence the Scottish Conservative amendments to ensure that support to prepare for reuse is included, and even prioritised, when it comes to household waste, unsold goods and local authority reuse schemes. Again, the SNP acted to block progress, this time opposing the vital inclusion of reuse and repair in the bill.
On a more positive note, the bill will, for the first time, require the production of a circular economy strategy that is regularly reviewed. Alongside the strategy, we of course need tangible goals to reach for and to measure progress against, but the SNP’s original plan was for targets to be optional. That is just not good enough, and it creates a terrible market signal for businesses and investors that the Scottish Government is not serious about building a circular economy. That is why the Scottish Conservatives lodged amendments to ensure that circular economy targets were included. If we expect the private sector to get involved at all, the public sector should also be contributing. However, yet again, the SNP opposed that, and voted against a requirement for public bodies to produce circular economy plans.
I am keen to have a tone of debate this afternoon that reflects my experience of working on the bill. I genuinely thought that I worked very constructively and collaboratively with every single party in the Parliament. That does not seem to have been Mr Golden’s experience, yet that is my experience of working with him.
We are perhaps talking about two separate aspects. My feeling is one of frustration and deflation regarding the bill, but I would certainly regard myself and the soon-to-be cabinet secretary as having a very constructive relationship, with constructive discussions. Ultimately, the proof of the pudding is in the eating—and that is one that leaves a very sour taste in the mouth. At one point, the process became outright farce, with the SNP even opposing the bill including a definition of what the circular economy is.
That all adds up to an impression that the SNP does not really care about creating a circular economy. We can just look at the foot dragging even to get the bill introduced—that is no comment on the current minister. I even had to threaten to introduce my own bill to embarrass the SNP into doing it.
Even if the SNP is not interested, it has been encouraging to see many across Parliament who are. The Scottish Conservatives lodged dozens of amendments. I also give credit to Sarah Boyack, Monica Lennon and, indeed, the SNP MSP Ben Macpherson for their constructive suggestions.
Despite missed opportunities in the bill, it can still make a difference to waste management and littering if ministers can at least commit to properly implementing the measures that it contains. The task ahead is to ensure that they do not shirk that responsibility.
17:30
I, too, start by thanking the committee, the clerks and all the organisations that worked tirelessly to get the legislation that we urgently need and the proper debate that we need. I particularly agree with the minister on the cross-party work, especially on amendments at stages 2 and 3. I was glad that I was able to secure support for my amendment last night with support from the minister’s team to provide for vital guidance to be published on the restrictions on the disposal of consumer goods to ensure that damaged or contaminated goods are not reused where it would not be safe. I very much welcome that.
The bill is not as good as it could have been but, because of the constructive work that was done at stages 2 and 3, it is better than the draft. My personal view is that the bill is still a missed opportunity, because it is more about recycling and waste management than it is about seizing the opportunity to deliver the circular economy that is highlighted in the bill’s name that our constituents, businesses, planet and environment need.
We do not have the clear purpose that Maurice Golden proposed at stage 3 and I proposed at stage 2 that would have added strength to the bill. We will still have to wait to see the heavy lifting that is required to maximise the benefits of a circular economy, because implementation will be crucial.
One key issue that is important to highlight is funding. For local authorities, that will be key to whether the ambitions in the framework legislation are delivered. Our Labour colleagues in Wales understood that, which is why the Labour Government worked hard in negotiating with local government colleagues to deliver one of the highest recycling rates in the world. It took a decade of investment and £1 billion to make sure that they had the infrastructure and capacity to deliver on pragmatic and ambitious targets.
Will the member take an intervention?
If it is brief, yes.
I recognise what the Welsh Government has achieved, but it is also important that the deliverers on the ground come back to us and say what they want to achieve, so that we can look at the funding for what they want to do.
As I understand it, it was a negotiation in Wales.
In its analysis of the bill, the Finance and Public Administration Committee raised concerns about the pressures on local authorities and said that more work will need to be done to address cost savings and changes to revenues that the bill would lead to. The code of practice is a key issue and it is key that partnership work and funding take place.
The waste hierarchy is important, because we tend to focus on how we deal with waste instead of supporting our communities and businesses to repurpose, reuse, repair and recycle goods and products and materials, rather than seeing them going to waste and damaging our environment and communities. Where the circular economy is critical is in how we design products in the first place, so that they do not become obsolete, with valuable materials that could be reused being dumped.
One of the missed opportunities that I hope the minister will come back to was in Maurice Golden’s stage 3 amendment to require public bodies to prepare a circular economy plan. That is critical, because public procurement is key. It would incentivise investment in circular economy products, practices and supply chains, raise awareness among public bodies and make a real difference. I hope that the minister will come back to that.
We need stronger action on how we deal with plastics that damage our environment, whether on land or sea, and it is about coming together to think about what more can be done there. Recently, I was contacted by a constituent who, as a schoolteacher, was taking school students to take part in a beach clean, and they were shocked to see the levels of pollution there, and a lot of it was plastic. One of the things that will be key to the implementation of the bill will be investing in schools and involving them in the discussion, so that we educate young people about the damage that is caused by waste and what they can do to stop it. From talking to parents, I know that kids sometimes feed back information from schools.
We need to make everybody aware of the impact of avoiding the generation of waste and dealing with the waste that we produce much more responsibly, we need to make demands on companies and local authorities in that regard, and we need support to be provided for the fantastic community projects that enable our constituents to reuse and repair products. There is a lot more that we could do in that area.
I have mentioned missed opportunities, and I want to finish by giving a couple of examples. One of those involved my global responsibility ambition in relation to not offshoring our waste and leaving other countries to deal with it. Between 2004 and 2022, Scottish waste exports rose from 0.4 megatonnes to 1.5 megatonnes, which is a massive increase.
Whether on our climate ambitions or our efforts to be a global leader, we need to do more. We need to take more seriously the issue of where our materials come from and the human rights and environmental impacts of that, and we need to make sure that work to address that is built into our everyday work and that the public sector leads on that. We will have to come back to the bill, because the job is not finished.
17:35
The Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill is an important one for the Scottish Greens, because of its significance in changing the shape of the economy in Scotland from a linear economy to a circular one. It is no longer acceptable to casually extract materials to make items that will be used only once or just a few times and then throw them away. The burden of minimising waste, and handling it when it is unavoidable, needs to be firmly placed on the businesses that create it and profit from it.
The Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill is a significant step forward on that journey. I am grateful to the minister for picking up the bill at very short notice at stage 2 and successfully bringing it to stage 3 today. I also thank all the officials who have worked on the bill with me, with the minister and with members across the chamber. A better team of officials you will not find. Working with them was a privilege and a joy. I thank members of this Parliament, including everyone who sat up late last night and those members who took the care and time to suggest amendments to the bill and to collaborate to make it the best circular economy bill that it could be.
The powers that are conveyed by the bill sit in the gap between the powers that Scotland already has but is not necessarily using and the powers that Scotland does not and cannot have because they are reserved to Westminster. Many matters that are critical for creating a circular economy are not devolved to the Scottish Parliament, including matters around consumer goods, labelling, international trade and the design of products. Extraction of oil and gas from the North Sea is a significant contributor to Scotland’s material consumption, but that is not a matter that the Scottish Parliament has power over, so we are dependent on Westminster Governments following our lead and matching the level of ambition that Scotland has shown this week. I challenge the incoming Westminster Government to do that.
The Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill is a framework bill. It empowers the Scottish Government to bring forward measures such as charges on single-use items. It builds on powers that Scotland already has, such as the power to require businesses to take back products that they sell or produce.
The measure of the bill’s success will lie not simply in our passing it but in our taking up the powers that it conveys and putting in place practical actions, such as a charge on single-use cups to motivate consumers to carry their own reusable cup, which is modelled on the successful charge on plastic bags that has led all of us to get used to carrying our own bags to the shop.
The Scottish Government needs to move forward with requiring particularly large businesses to report on food waste and surplus, and to get on with delivering a ban on the landfilling and incineration of unsold durable goods. It is urgent that we move directly to the delivery of those measures and the other measures that are proposed in the waste route map.
When people ask, “What can we do to protect the environment?”, the answer lies here. The answers when it comes to getting plastic out of our oceans, reducing emissions and preventing pollution are here. We need to prevent the waste from being created in the first place, to reduce the use of unnecessary plastics and to design products and businesses for zero waste. I challenge the Scottish Government and members across the chamber not only to pass the bill today but to work together to urgently deliver on the promise that is being made by it.
17:39
As others have done, I thank the organisations and individuals who provided evidence and informed the scrutiny of the bill, and I acknowledge the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee’s work in undertaking that scrutiny pretty forensically.
This area of policy has always benefited from good cross-party collaboration, which has been in evidence throughout the bill process. As a result, as Sarah Boyack said, the bill is now much improved compared with what was introduced.
In particular, I commend the MSPs who led the consideration of the 100-and-whatever amendments yesterday evening. That allowed for constructive changes to be made, and some amendments were useful challenges that prompted commitments from the minister.
I make a special mention of Graham Simpson, who demonstrated that members do not have to press every amendment to a vote in order to make their point. I hope that others have learned that lesson.
I also thank the minister, who, as others have said, had the bill added to her portfolio at late notice, midway through the process. I am very grateful to her for the collaborative approach that she took in her engagement with me, and I detect that she took the same approach with members across the chamber. It would be fair to say that that approach was adopted by her predecessor, Lorna Slater, too.
At stage 1, I echoed concerns that were expressed by other members that the bill was light on detail, lacked clarity and did not measure up to its lofty ambitions and the needs of the moment. The final bill is certainly not perfect, and it leaves much of the heavy lifting to a future circular economy strategy and future targets, which are to be developed by ministers and others in due course. Nonetheless, there have been welcome changes that have added much-needed detail, and there are now provisions that embed just transition principles and strengthen the recognition that, in a circular economy, reducing consumption is just as important as reducing waste.
I very much welcome the commitments that the minister made yesterday on issues that did not make it into the final text, including, as Sarah Boyack indicated, on the joint working with the UK Government that will be necessary to reduce waste exports, which mask our own waste and emissions while causing untold damage to the environment overseas.
As I said in the stage 1 debate, the bill is timely, because it is more urgent than ever that we reduce our consumption-based emissions in order to combat climate change. In that context, and given the commitment to the necessary follow-through in the circular economy strategy and the other undertakings that were made by the minister, I confirm that Scottish Liberal Democrats will vote for the bill at decision time.
We move to winding-up speeches.
17:42
I am very proud that the bill will be passed today. It has been a long time in the making. Covid delayed the introduction of a bill on the circular economy in the previous session of Parliament, so it is welcome to see the bill before us today. The bill is a product of positive cross-party work across the chamber. In many ways, it has shown Holyrood working at its best.
I join other members in paying tribute to my Green colleague Lorna Slater. I am pleased that she took the opportunity to speak in the debate. She successfully led the bill’s development through all the stakeholder negotiation and drafting, and she secured a positive recommendation from the committee at stage 1. I thank her and the bill team for their work.
I also thank the new minister, Gillian Martin, who picked up the bill at incredibly short notice in somewhat bizarre circumstances. She kept the spirit of co-operative working very much alive throughout stages 2 and 3.
Last night, amendments from every party in the chamber were agreed to and included in the bill. I thank the environmental non-governmental organisations for inspiring many of the amendments and for their positive discussions with MSP colleagues. Who knows? Perhaps if everyone who supported the amendments had actually voted last night, more might have been agreed to in the bill.
Throughout the bill’s passage, the Government has made it clear that the bill will set a framework for action on the circular economy. It is a framework bill, and there was an on-going debate in the committee about what would appropriately be put in the bill and what would appropriately come afterwards. The key element—co-design—is really important.
The elephant in the room is, of course, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. We will see how the incoming Westminster Government will treat that act in relation to Scotland’s ability to take action and develop statutory instruments on the back of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill.
Some members have said that the bill is primarily focused on household recycling—Sarah Boyack mentioned that there is, perhaps, a sense of disappointment about that—but I do not think that it is, although household recycling is an important element of it. We have to recognise that levels of household recycling have plateaued in Scotland in recent years, so it is important that the bill equips councils to take the next big step in investing in recycling.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am a little short of time, so I will not, unless there is time in hand.
I turn to the Green amendments. I am pleased that we made progress on ensuring that ministers will consider reuse, refill and take-back schemes. The critical thing is to ensure that ministers do not just consider those things, but that they act on those powers.
I regret that we could not make more headway with amendments on public funding. I am also a bit disappointed that Maurice Golden’s amendment to strengthen the reporting requirement on public bodies was not agreed to. I hope that that discussion can continue, and I thank Action to Protect Rural Scotland for its support on those cross-party discussions.
I welcome the minister’s offer to look at how the issue of critical minerals recycling can be addressed in other parts of the Government’s energy policy. The case that was set out by Friends of the Earth Scotland on why Scotland needs to plan for how we prolong use of key minerals such as copper and lithium, particularly in the renewables sector, is strong, and I hope to see mention of critical minerals recycling and reuse in the upcoming energy strategy.
I am also pleased that Green amendments strengthened the bill’s focus on education and skills needs for the transition to a more circular economy. Finally, I am pleased that our amendments to require ministers to consider carbon emissions across a product’s entire life cycle when preparing circular economy strategies were agreed to. That will be critical to addressing the climate crisis.
In closing, I say that the bill is excellent, but it is only the first step towards delivering a circular economy. Lorna Slater’s point is critical; it is about how the powers are now used, so the Scottish Greens will continue to push for action and push the Government to use the powers that the bill will give it to deliver that circular economy.
17:47
As other members have, I record my thanks to Scottish Parliament staff, particularly in the Scottish Parliament information centre, for supporting the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. I also thank all the members of the committee and Scottish Government officials for their support.
I was pleased to hear Lorna Slater making a contribution. I also thank Gillian Martin for being generous with her time at short notice to work not just with me but with many colleagues around the chamber.
Scottish Labour believes that the bill as amended is stronger and better than it was when it was introduced, which is testament to cross-party working by members. That is why I am a little surprised that Maurice Golden does not seem to be his usual enthusiastic self today. Perhaps a bit of tiredness has set in. Every party in the chamber has added to the bill, which is a good thing.
At every stage of the bill, Scottish Labour has made sure that innocent householders will not be criminalised for the actions of others or for making the simple mistake of putting the wrong thing in the wrong bin, which is important. We have also tried to embed incentivising good behaviour and creating opportunities.
In closing the debate for Scottish Labour, I want to reflect on what my amendments and my colleague Sarah Boyack’s amendments contribute. I think that they strengthen the bill, particularly in relation to provisions on due diligence, human rights, environmental impact and global supply chains. All that is important. Our approach will also ensure that the secondary legislation to come will be strengthened in relation to reducing carbon emissions and on exempting food from the provisions relating to unsold consumer goods.
I thank the Government for working constructively with us, but we are disappointed, in the sense that we would have liked the Scottish Government to strengthen the bill further around reuse and the just transition, because some stakeholders wanted closer alignment with the just transition principles in the Climate Change Act 2008. Our amendments would have helped with that, but we will continue to work with the Scottish Government to do more.
I am pleased that the Scottish Government has committed to work on improving access to reusable nappies. We will see that in the route map and, I hope, in the co-design process with local authorities. I hope that the minister will establish a short-life working group to work with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and other partners to build on the findings of the James Hutton Institute’s report and the work that has been done by North Ayrshire Council.
We are very short of time, even though we did a lot of work on the bill. It is fair to say that some stakeholders have been concerned that the Government was not being ambitious enough; we have just had a debate on the climate emergency. We are putting faith in the Government on the circular economy, but we hope and expect to see action through the strategy and the route map.
It is important to say that we welcome the clarity around funding, but the matter requires the right framework and a fair approach as well as the right funding, because local authorities in particular need to be empowered to take the work forward.
I will end with the words not of circular economy guru Maurice Golden—he is a bit tired today—but of Ellen MacArthur, who said:
“If we could build an economy that would use things rather than use them up, we could build a future.”
I hope that those words will resonate. There is an opportunity before us to create a new economy in which we use rather than use up.
I thank the Presiding Officer for her generosity, and I look forward to working with the minister.
17:51
When considering a bill, it is always useful to have a look at what it is meant to achieve. To do so, we need look no further than the general principles, which we all agreed to. They are:
“to prepare and publish a circular economy strategy; to make provision about circular economy targets; to make provision about the reduction, recycling and management of waste; and for connected purposes.”
I said during the stage 1 debate that we do not need a bill to have a strategy—incidentally, I agree with the First Minister that we have too many of those—or to set targets. I also said that I had concerns about the framework nature of the bill, and that I would not support it if it was not improved.
When the marathon stage 2 ended, I was definitely of a mind to oppose the bill, because the minister dug in and opposed a series of sensible amendments that would have led to greater reuse and greater recycling, along with deadlines. She got her way to block those green measures with the support of the committee’s Green member—it was all very bizarre. I had to hold out hope that things would change at stage 3. To be fair, there were some very friendly and cordial discussions with the minister, but I have to say that she gave the impression that she was trying to find reasons to oppose useful amendments rather than trying to find ways of making them work.
Yesterday, there were a number of examples in which she questioned, quite rightly, the wording of amendments. However, the wording could have been fixed had we known about the issues with it. So much for the new politics that was promised by the First Minister. The valiant efforts on this side of the chamber to improve the bill largely failed. The one crumb that I had from Gillian Martin’s table was an amendment that would see us prioritise the reuse over the recycling of unsold goods in the waste hierarchy.
During the course of four days at stage 2 and a lengthy stage 3, that was it for me. There were no targets, no holding the Government’s feet to the fire and no ambition. Maurice Golden, who has been this Parliament’s greatest cheerleader for the circular economy, suffered a similar fate, and he must be feeling very deflated—he is deflated. He spoke earlier about the lack of market signals, and he spoke of his frustration. I do not blame him. The only thing that we can say was getting recycled yesterday was the Bute house agreement, as Mark Ruskell did the Government’s bidding for it.
The bill will not change much, but there are still potential traps for the unwary, such as a fish-and-chip tax—your suppers could become more expensive.
My test for the bill is whether it will lead to change. I have to say that I do not think that it will see us reusing or recycling more, as my failed attempt to push the recycling industry into dealing with items such as drink cartons showed.
Will the member take an intervention?
No—I have no time, I am afraid. The minister said that she thinks the one thing that the bill will lead to will be waste managers sharing best practice. Lorna Slater said that it could lead to us all carrying our own coffee cups about. Well, if that is it, it is not a very exciting bill.
Having said all that, though, I am prepared to give the bill a chance—not least because it now contains measures to tackle fly-tipping, which will please Murdo Fraser, and a few other crumbs from the minister’s table.
I call Gillian Martin to close the debate. You have up to five minutes, minister.
17:55
I may have been in my current role for only a short time, but in my opening remarks I was able to refer to the constructive nature of the engagement that I have had with members and stakeholders in developing and improving the bill.
I want to point to some aspects that members raised at stage 2, which I went away and thought about. I considered how we could achieve the bill’s intentions. The wording might not always have made it on to the face of the bill, but I will take many points away from my experience of taking the bill forward.
Maurice Golden is tired and probably a bit grumpy, but I want to highlight that he, quite rightly, challenged the Government to undertake an analysis of the current waste infrastructure in Scotland, to see where the gaps were. Such work should not necessarily form part of a piece of legislation, but I have said that the Government would undertake it because he is absolutely right. We need to know what we have and how it is being used, and we need to know where the gaps are. Are there certain materials that Scotland cannot recycle, and are there certain areas that we are missing? I thank Mr Golden for coming up with that constructive idea.
It is right that that suggestion was progressed, but it would surely have been a lot better had it not been hollowed out by another amendment that scooped half of that plan out.
Douglas Lumsden is perhaps a little bit confused. I will just say that the infrastructure analysis that will be conducted will be thorough. I do not believe that the plan has been hollowed out in any way; rather, that analysis will provide more flexibility for what we seek to achieve. I do not want to spend my entire speech talking about one improvement to the bill, though.
At stage 2, Sarah Boyack brought up many issues on the disposal of contaminated goods, as did many other members. I was pleased to work with Ms Boyack on those. She has long experience of working in the area and wanted to see the bill deal with those specific issues.
I also want to address those members who mentioned Scotland’s responsibility not to offshore our waste. We are in a situation where what happens at UK level is a reserved matter. However, we have put measures in the bill that show that we want to ensure that waste is dealt with as locally as possible. Maurice Golden brought up that issue at stage 2. Other members, such as Monica Lennon and Mark Ruskell, also mentioned offshore waste. In fact, many members mentioned it, so we have put in the bill provisions to recognise that we must do what we can to deal with our own waste as domestically as possible.
I was happy to hear Sarah Boyack referencing her Welsh colleagues. I have had good early engagement with Huw Irranca-Davies of the Welsh Government on the issue. The strategic waste fund in Scotland has given £1 billion to local authorities to take similar action, but the Welsh Government has got it right in this area. I am working with Mr Irranca-Davies on arrangements for a deposit return scheme. I hope to take up his offer for me to go down to Wales and talk to him about the measures that are being taken there.
I was astonished that Monica Lennon did not mention nappies in her closing speech, so I feel that I have to. [Laughter.] We had a great discussion about how that is one of the areas in which we can have a circular economy and consider matters through a gendered lens. I was pleased to work with Ms Lennon on some of her amendments.
Lorna Slater recognised the power of cross-party working when she was taking the bill forward and seeing it develop. I have taken my lead from her on that. She recognises the measures that the Parliament supported. People will lodge amendments that will not be voted for—the Parliament decides on them. We can move on and accept the fact that an awful lot of amendments that were put forward had cross-party agreement, which strengthened the bill. I think that Lorna Slater mentioned that.
I thank Liam McArthur for the constructive conversations that we have had about some of the unintended consequences that there might have been for the third sector if certain amendments had been agreed to.
The bill is a significant milestone, but it does not stand on its own. Alongside the bill, we published our draft circular economy and waste route map, which will provide strategic direction to deliver a system-wide vision for Scotland’s circular economy for 2030. The final route map will be published later this year. We are also introducing the extended producer responsibility for packaging, alongside other United Kingdom Governments, which will require producers to pay local authorities the full net cost of operating an efficient and effective household packaging waste collection and disposal service.
I must ask you to conclude, minister.
I will leave it there. There is so much more that I could say.
That concludes the debate on the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill at stage 3.
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