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It is not for the UK Government to agree matters that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament—

The question from the member does not make sense. These amendments have been brought as the result of discussions with industry about Scotland’s deposit return scheme, and we are amending Scotland’s deposit return scheme—the regulations that were passed by this Parliament in 2020. We are not required to agree amendments to our legislation with the UK Government.

As we go forward to develop an interoperable scheme with the UK Government, we will of course discuss what is going to be best for the whole of the UK.

I am happy to discuss tomorrow’s meeting and to provide some clarity on that point. The meeting with Minister Pow is to take a baseline of where we are with what the UK Government means to do with the conditions that it has imposed on us. However, the minister will absolutely not be able to answer questions about what the deposit level will be, what the labelling requirements will be or what will happen with miniatures and sizing. She will not be in a position to answer any of our operational or detailed questions that might affect this.

We are therefore going forward with this SSI, partly because it was laid before the interference through the internal market act, but also because it represents our commitments to industry on what the deposit return scheme will look like. As you have said, it is not for the UK Government to veto or agree any particular part of legislation that we pass at the Scottish Parliament.

However, at the meeting with the minister tomorrow, I will be able to present a developed Scottish system, the expertise of CSL and what I hope is a working proposal—that the UK Government can take on board our learning and CSL’s experience as the best and smoothest way of launching its scheme, rather than its duplicating effort, coming up with something entirely different, then imposing it on us.

However, I anticipate that we would have to bring forward yet another set of regulations at some point before 2025—if only to take glass out of the scheme, although other things may also be imposed on us.

I am very happy to do that. The regulations as passed by the Parliament in 2020 were deliberately quite broad, to allow industry to find a route to compliance that would suit it. The amendments cover five areas that have been the result of extensive work between us and industry.

The first is the requirement for online takeback, which is an important part of the scheme when it comes to equalities and people who are housebound or otherwise disabled and not able to get to a return point to return their scheme articles.

Originally, the regulations required anyone who sold any container to implement an online takeback service. That was difficult for small producers such as gin distillers who might sell only 500 bottles per week. They asked how they were to put in place an entire takeback scheme with vehicles to go and collect such items. The obligation has been restricted to the largest grocery retailers who already have the infrastructure, vehicles and IT systems to handle it, which will make the scheme both accessible and not overly burdensome for small businesses.

Another amendment is the provision on low-volume products, which is specifically aimed at supporting small producers but in fact will apply to all producers. It says that runs of products valued at less than £5,000 will not incur a deposit and therefore will not have to meet the system requirements. That will remove 44 per cent of the smallest producers from the scheme altogether, but it will also reduce the materials for the scheme by less than 0.5 per cent. It therefore does not undermine the scheme’s environmental benefits but does provide the crucial support for small producers that we all agree is important.

Another amendment is on the minimum container size, as it will apply to miniatures. There are practical issues around how tiny bottles and barcodes can be made recognisable by RVMs, but that change largely involves a simplification of the scheme that will help producers. We think that it will remove only 0.2 per cent of the total scheme articles. Again, we are providing significant support for business while not undermining the environmental aims of the scheme.

The fourth amendment applies to hospitality retailers. Originally, in the regulations as passed, any retailer who sold any article covered by the scheme would be required to apply to be a return point, unless they were granted an exemption. We have widened that out at the specific request of hospitality retailers, who sell more than 90 per cent of their items in a closed loop. I am sorry to use that technical phrase; it means that they sell things that are to be consumed on their premises. If someone goes to a restaurant and buys a bottle of wine they do not take it off the premises; they consume it there and then they leave. That is an example of a closed loop. However, if they go to premises and buy a can or a bottle of juice and then leave with it, that is an example of an open loop. Hospitality premises, 90 per cent of which represent closed loops—which will include most restaurants and many nightclubs and bars—will not be required automatically to be return points. That will remove a substantial proportion of operators from the scheme. The rough estimate that I had from the industry was 50 per cent or so, but David McPhee might correct me on that.

That substantially removes hospitality venues from the scheme, which was their request. Again, we do not think that that will interfere with accessibility. The model in other countries is that people tend to return their bottles when they buy their groceries, whether that be at a small shop or at a larger one. They do not think so much about taking their bottles back to a nightclub, for example.

The final aspect is about the right to refuse scheme packaging in certain circumstances. That is specifically in relation to businesses who sell only some types of packaging and their having to handle other types that they would not normally do. That is a more technical aspect, but it matters to some businesses.

Those are the substantial amendments to the scheme’s operation that we are considering today.

The amendments were developed over several months of discussion with industry representatives. They were asking for those five changes, so we have done as they asked. The amendments were broadly welcomed by industry as helping to make the scheme workable, which is of course why we want them to be passed and covered by regulations in Scotland, so that we can demonstrate to the other UK nations that we have a workable scheme that has industry support behind it. We had not intended to bring in any more regulations to define the Scottish scheme but, depending on how the politics over the internal market act play out over the next couple of years, we might have to lodge further amendments should the UK Government impose matters upon us. At the moment, the present regulations fully comprise the Scottish scheme.

That is correct.

The parliamentary process is the process, and we need to make sure that it is followed. The number of scrutiny days and so forth is set out, and it is not something that I intend to challenge.

Last week, I told the Parliament that the Scottish Government was left with no other option than to delay the launch of Scotland’s deposit return scheme until October 2025 at the latest. That is a direct result of the United Kingdom Government’s decision of 26 May, which was reaffirmed on 5 June, to refuse Scotland a full exclusion from the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. Instead, the UK Government agreed to a partial and temporary exclusion, which imposed additional, significant conditions on our scheme, including the removal of glass.

The Scottish Parliament legislated in May 2020 for an all-inclusive deposit return scheme. We did so because the economic and environmental evidence is stronger and because there was agreement across the UK nations that all the schemes would include glass.

The IMA was brought in after our DRS regulations. As a result, we sought a broad exclusion from it to cover our single-use plastic ban and the DRS. We have therefore been in discussions for almost two years to agree an exclusion for the DRS in line with the agreed common framework process. The inclusion of glass in our scheme was not questioned during that process. Indeed, as recently as January this year, the UK Government’s consultation response confirmed that it was for each of the devolved nations to decide on the scope of their deposit return schemes.

It is therefore deeply regrettable that the UK Government chose to unilaterally impose a partial and temporary exclusion at the 11th hour by removing glass and imposing conditions with which we would have to align, but giving no detail on what we are expected to align with.

Since then, we have engaged intensively with delivery partners and the industry to understand how the UK Government’s requirements have affected their preparations for the launch of Scotland’s DRS. The overwhelming feedback from industry, publicly and privately, is that they can no longer prepare for a March 2024 launch because of the significant uncertainty that has been caused by the UK Government’s conditions.

I remain wholly committed to introducing the DRS in Scotland and I remain keen to work with the other UK nations in a spirit of collaboration, not imposition, to see how we can maximise interoperability while recognising the decisions that the Scottish Parliament has made.

The regulations that the committee is considering today were laid on 17 May, before the UK Government’s last-minute decision on the internal market act. The changes that are before the committee are sought and welcomed by industry, which is why we are discussing them. The one exception, of course, is the date. Without the changes that are being made to the regulations today, the go-live date would still be 16 August this year. The regulations change that to 1 March next year. As I have explained, the UK Government’s intervention means that that date, in turn, is no longer possible and I am committing to bring before the Parliament further regulations in line with parliamentary procedures and timelines to change the go-live date to October 2025.

I recognise that the process is more convoluted than any of us would wish, but that is where the UK Government’s intervention in wholly devolved matters has left us. I am happy to take questions.

I do not have that figure.