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Absolutely. Mark Ruskell is absolutely right that the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill establishes a legislative framework to support the transition. Each provision of the bill has an associated parliamentary procedure under which secondary legislation could be brought.

Mark Ruskell specifically mentioned charging for single-use items. There is intended to be a super-affirmative procedure attached to that when it is a new charge. For example, the introduction of a charge for single-use coffee cups would be done under the super-affirmative procedure. However, if we were to subsequently modify that charge, how it worked or any aspect of those regulations, that would be done under the affirmative procedure.

Ailsa Heine might be able to provide some more detail on the super-affirmative procedure.

As far as I understand it—I will get Ailsa Heine to clarify this, if I do not have all the detail—under the super-affirmative procedure, it is not set in stone exactly what must be undertaken. We can use our judgment as to what would be appropriate for different provisions, if there is a concern, for example, about speed.

As I highlighted, the circular economy strategy, as set out in the bill, talks about reduction in consumption of materials. The most effective reduction in consumption is to move materials up the waste hierarchy towards minimising their use in the first place, and towards reuse over discarding and recycling. That is built right into the strategy.

We have had a bit of discussion about what details might be included in the bill, but strategies would be produced every five years. As Gareth Heavisides has highlighted, they relate to particular sectors and systems—for example, putting in place repair cafes and the systems that we would need in order to implement that approach. The strategy sets out space for those to be created.

No amendments have been proposed to me, but I am all ears if there are specific ones that the member or others have in mind. I have certainly had many discussions with environmental non-governmental organisations on the matter of targets, but they have not presented me with what they think the targets should be; they have simply said that they think that we should have some, and we agree. That is why the provision to create targets is in the bill.

That is something that I have been thinking about a lot. There are three basic approaches to problematic items, particularly single-use items. One approach is to ban them. That is the approach that we have taken to certain single-use plastic items, such as styrofoam cups. We are looking at that approach to single-use vapes at the UK level. Another approach is to introduce charges, which is what we did for single-use plastic bags and are thinking about doing for cups. Another approach is to use producer responsibility schemes, such as the deposit return scheme and the packaging scheme. Europe is considering such a scheme for textiles.

We have those three broad tools that we can use for particular items. It is a question of ensuring that we are using the right tool for the right job. I think that banning is the right tool for the job in certain cases. That is why we are considering that approach at the four-nations level for single-use vapes. However, we do not require any provisions in the bill for that because we already have the powers that we need.

As we have already discussed, the intention is to use the provision on reporting of waste and surpluses in the first instance for food waste in particular, targeting those waste streams that have the biggest environmental impact. We are considering larger businesses—I have given the examples of businesses such as Tesco, Unilever and Hovis, which already carry out such public reporting. It should be really clear what kind of businesses and sectors we are looking at. We might look at the construction sector as a follow-on.

I recently met Ewan MacDonald-Russell of the Scottish Retail Consortium, who had some of the concerns that you mention. I have agreed to meet him early in the new year and to meet some of his members who already do such reporting. The concern that he raised with me—perhaps he brought it to your evidence session as well—was exactly how onerous the reporting will be and what it will look like. However, given that some of his members already report such data voluntarily, I considered it a good opportunity to meet them to understand what they do and whether it would meet our requirements so that we have a working model to go from.

Ewan MacDonald-Russell said that his members would find it comforting to know what those reporting requirements would be. I have endeavoured, as we have with the single-use cup charges and with COSLA, to start working on that even before the bill is passed, so that businesses can have some comfort as to what they will be looking at.

We already have extensive powers to require businesses to report. I will hand over to Ailsa Heine for more details on that.

Thank you. I can share the more frustrating examples.

I am very happy to write to the committee with the breakdown of the funding and where the earlier funding went.

In terms of replacing the recycling improvement fund, I spoke with my officials about that this week, to understand what investment will be required. There are lots of moving parts in this space with the extended producer responsibility for packaging, which will provide funding to operate an efficient and effective recycling scheme for those materials. However, there will not necessarily be upfront capital, so money would need to be found for that. I am undertaking the work to set that out so that we can have clarity on that as we develop things.

I will go through all those matters in turn. First, I make it very clear that fixed-penalty notices are only part of the enforcement regime. As I have said, SEPA has a range of civil penalties available to it, including variable monetary penalties of up to £40,000. A fixed-penalty notice is just that—a fixed-penalty notice—and increasing the fine above £500 is getting into territory where it becomes disproportionate. As Ben Macpherson has highlighted, we sometimes get a little bit of fly-tipping next to the bins in Leith, and slapping someone with a £1,000 fine for that would be disproportionate. A fixed-penalty notice does not allow for variability—its intention is to deal with low-level offences.

You are absolutely right that organised waste crime is a serious concern, but that is why the higher penalties and offences exist. Ailsa Heine has more detail on that, so I will hand over to her in a moment to tell you how the hierarchy of enforcement works.

I am not supportive of ring fencing, because that would not be in line with the Verity house agreement. However, as discussed in the context of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill, councils can make decisions on their enforcement choices based on what revenue they might get or what cost savings they might make through enforcement that could, for example, prevent them from having to take on clean-up costs.

I am aware that access to recycling centres has been restricted, partly due to Covid and other concerns. We are concerned about that and will be looking at it.