Seòmar agus comataidhean

Yes—sorry. There will be some consequential date changes around registration, but it will be to do with that date. There will be no more definition of the scheme in terms of the materials included in it and so on. It is specifically in order to get that date right.

As I have said, there are some consequential date changes in terms of the registration date. The registration date for 16 August, for example, required a March date, so if we were to move to October 2025, there would be other consequential dates associated with that. However, that would be the full matter.

I am happy for you to move to the decision, convener.

Motion agreed to,

That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2023 [draft] be approved.

In planning the process and looking at our options after last week’s disruption, I considered the option of working within the given parliamentary days. It is the smoothest process for ensuring that scrutiny happens and that things do not hit the cut-off within the given parliamentary days.

I ask Ailsa Heine to review the process again.

Yes. I hope to be able to do that before recess—that is my intention. There is a requirement for the statutory instrument that the committee is considering to pass through Parliament before I can lay that one. I am not the Minister for Parliamentary Business and I am not in charge of the timetable, but that is the intention.

That is an excellent question, convener, and I am happy to go into it in detail.

As you all know, the urgent matter that we have before us is that the regulations that have been passed by Parliament say that our scheme will go live on 16 August, which is during the parliamentary recess. The urgent matter is that we deal with that so that businesses do not have to launch a scheme this summer after we have committed to delaying it.

The other part of the SSI is practical amendment to the regulations with regard to the size of miniatures and online takeback. We worked with industry for months to establish all those things, including the changes to online takeback, that we know are part of a working scheme. We owe it to the industry to follow through on our promise to deliver on what it worked on, which is why we are bringing those two matters forward. With regard to fitting in an expedited process before recess because of the 16 August cut-off, it would have been very risky to try to get that through Parliament. To make sure that we do not put businesses in the position of having to launch the DRS on 16 August, that was the smoothest process through that time, but I realise that it is not ideal.

Ailsa Heine may want to comment on that.

Although that mechanism for passing regulations that we know will need to be amended is, as the convener has said, a bit clumsy, it is the smoothest in terms of not having to recall Parliament while still allowing for the full scrutiny process instead of an expedited one. Once this SSI passes, I will immediately bring another one before Parliament, which will set the October 2025 date. That will allow for a normal amount of scrutiny, not some accelerated process, as we will have passed that 16 August cliff edge by passing the SSI that you are considering today.

I am aware of the written question that you have lodged on that and that Zero Waste Scotland does some work on the deposit return scheme through part of its budget. I do not have the breakdown of its budget; that might be information that we can get for the member.

The UK Government is, of course, aware of the changes but, because it has not put its regulations or its scheme in place, there has not been any co-development on these matters. The amendments have been developed with industry. We have been working with industry for months—for example, with the hospitality industry and small producers—to bring these changes to define Scotland’s deposit return scheme, which I remind the member is a fully devolved matter. The amendments, together, fully define Scotland’s deposit return scheme.

I will be discussing with Minister Pow how the UK Government wants to develop its scheme. I very much hope that it will look at our complete set of regulations and the work with industry that went into them, and take the learning from that forward into its scheme.