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Minister, do you take no responsibility at all for the £9 million of taxpayers’ money that is now being lost?

You take no responsibility and it is all to do with the UK Government.

I thank the witnesses for their submissions, which I found interesting and helpful. We touched earlier on reporting on waste and surpluses. You take different approaches to that in your submissions.

Ewan MacDonald-Russell mentioned that quite a lot of reporting

“is done at a UK level”.

Cat Hay mentioned the difficulties with ingredients and how they change so rapidly. Colin Smith stated that

“The calculation of food surplus and waste can prove difficult”,

and that we need to take into account other demands being placed on businesses just now.

Are you worried about the cost and the burden of reporting? Is there a balance to be struck?

In your written submission, you suggest that going away from a four-nations approach might be difficult for some of your members. Is that correct?

Minister, Circularity Scotland is now in administration. It believed that Scotland’s DRS scheme could still have went ahead without glass. Was that wrong?

Circularity Scotland, which is now in administration, believed that the scheme could go ahead without glass. Was that wrong?

But you would not expect that £9 million to come back.

Okay.

You are the minister.

There was a Scottish Government commitment back in 2011 that the A96 would be fully dualled between Aberdeen and Inverness by 2030. Is that still on the table?