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I will move on to charges for single-use items. What are the key environmental opportunities of the proposed powers for charges on single-use items? How should charges be incorporated strategically in Scotland? Who would like to respond?

I was going to ask about that, Phoebe, because your submission mentions a national reusables scheme such as has been used in other areas. Would such a scheme mean that a plastic cup from, say, Starbucks, could be returned to Costa when you get your next cup?

I come to Michael Cook on the same topic. In your submission, rather than talking about reusable cups, you talk about trying to ban all single-use items where available alternatives exist.

To provide a bit of balance, I note that, in its submission, the Scottish Environment Services Association says that, although single-use disposable cups are

“visible”,

they amount to only

“0.036% of Scotland’s total waste. We would therefore suggest that there are other, more pressing parts of the waste management system in greater need of the Scottish Government’s resources ... with greater potential for carbon impact savings.”

Would you expect local authorities to have a bit of leeway to start with—maybe to issue tickets that will not be enforced, just to make people aware that they cannot carry on with their behaviours until an exemption order is in place or they can ask for an exemption order?

It seems that we are almost in a situation where we can ban the use of something but perhaps not ban the sale of something, which would, for nappies, be a crazy situation to be in.

Have we run out of time, convener? I am happy to leave it there.

I am concerned about the issue, as we are not that far away from 11 December. Given that we do not know how many applications there have been for exemptions, how will residents know whether they will still be able to park outside their house in a month’s time?

I am actually more concerned now that I have heard the figure of £6.2 billion. Mark Ruskell said that a lot of the groundwork has been done, but I do not think that it has been done. I have not seen anything that shows that we have any idea how we would reach that target. As much as I would like to reach that target, I have no idea how we would get there.

I know where only £300 million of the £6.2 billion is going to come from. I do not know where the other £5.9 billion is going to come from, so I am concerned that we are setting a target without knowing how on earth we are going to get there.

Do you think that we could slice the overall pot in a different way? Should the charge go back up to the consumer prices index plus 2 per cent? As you suggested earlier, if we do not go back to that, we are just going to store up problems for future generations.

Do you think that it is right to pay those bonuses when efficiencies are not being met?