Seòmar agus comataidhean

Let us move on to fly-tipping then. Is it too easy for white van man to get a licence to carry waste? Does that all need tightening up?

I want to go back to your point about somebody who has paid 50 quid and says, “Oh, it’s not my responsibility any more; it is someone else’s.” That still needs to go back to that person. If someone has not given waste to a proper person to be disposed of properly, it is still their responsibility.

Thank you. I do not know whether anybody else wants to come in.

What are the key environmental opportunities of the proposed powers for charges on single-use items?

You mentioned revenue. Where would you like the proceeds from charges to go? Would you like the money to be ring fenced and used for specific things?

My next question is on the UK Internal Market Act 2020, which was mentioned earlier. I do not see that single-use coffee cups would be an issue under the 2020 act, but when we start talking about things like nappies, that could potentially—I think—be an issue.

Let us say that we banned some single-use products such as nappies or disposable barbecues in Scotland. I guess people could still order online, and that could be a potential issue. Would you agree, or do you think that that is something that we could overcome if we had to? I know that James Mackenzie mentioned the 2020 act earlier.

Making legislation that would not be allowed to go through would be quite wasteful, would it not?

I come back, then, to the convener’s original question: have you seen them?

I remind the committee of my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I was a councillor at the start of the current session.

As far as inconsiderate parking is concerned, minister, I think that we are all behind you with regard to the situation that you have described of buggies and wheelchairs trying to get down the pavement. Indeed, I would say that other areas, such as hedges overgrowing pavements, need to be tackled, too.

Sticking with pavement parking, though, I can think of streets in some of our bigger cities that have tenement buildings on either side of quite narrow roads. As a result, people park on the pavement to ensure that there is still space down the middle. I guess that, come 11 December, people who live in one of those areas could get a ticket every day. Is there anywhere that residents can go to see whether the council considers their street to be an exemption zone? Is there some process by which residents can lobby the council to make their street an exemption zone—as long, of course, as the pavement is wide enough to cope with wheelchairs, buggies et cetera?

Minister, you said that there is still quite a lot of work to be done in the background—I think that you said that it is some admin. Will that all be done before 11 December?