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As the member will well know, glass is one of the three main materials used to make single-use drinks containers and it accounts for more than a quarter of all containers that were to be included in our deposit return scheme launching in March.

To put that into context, the Scottish deposit return scheme would include up to 600 million glass bottles, which is about the number that reach the Scottish market every year. Our strategic environmental impact assessment addendum, which was published in December 2021, shows that returning glass will account for 1.3 megatonnes of carbon dioxide savings over 25 years, which is almost 32 per cent of the total carbon savings of the scheme. Without glass in the scheme, we would lose one of its substantial benefits, which is the reduction of our carbon emissions. Our route to net zero is, of course, to reduce those emissions to net zero and removing glass from the scheme makes that much more challenging for us to reach. Glass is also one of our most problematic litter materials. Broken glass in our streets and parks and so on causes a health and safety hazard for children, pets and anyone who has to handle it to clean it up.

CSL has been funded and must work with its members and producers to decide on the future of the company.

That is certainly a very good question, and I intend for exactly that to be on the agenda for my discussion with Minister Pow tomorrow. I intend to highlight the level of expertise and the level of industry connection that has been created, as well as all the infrastructure that CSL has created, such as how to write a producer contract, how to calculate fees and how to do business modelling. For example, it has done extensive modelling on its logistics network to figure out how to collect materials and bring them back to sorting centres, including from islands and remote communities.

All that extensive work is baked into CSL and its contract with Biffa. I will absolutely recommend that the UK Government takes on board that expertise in my conversation with Minister Pow tomorrow. That expertise could be supported going forward so that it could be brought into the UK’s DMO and the work would not have to be redone or the investment remade. The investment that CSL and businesses have made here could then be of benefit to the entire UK.

The Welsh Government participates in our weekly intergovernmental meeting of the four nations. From the most recent meeting, I would say that the Welsh Government is incensed at that interference. Because the Welsh Government is at a different stage, it has not passed its regulations yet, but it was fully intending to include glass in its scheme. It had understood, as we had, from the consultation response that the UK Government published in January, which clearly stated that it was a matter for devolved Governments to decide, that it would be able to go ahead with including glass. However, the internal market act applies to Wales, too, so it is likely to see the same level of interference that we have seen. Yes—it is incensed about the matter.

My understanding of the process for becoming scheme administrator—I will ask officials to jump in to add detail—is that the regulations that were passed in 2020 set out the conditions for a scheme administrator, and the process is that when an industry body—

The scheme administrator is a company that has been created by the industry to deliver on the regulations that were passed by this Parliament. The regulations do not contain powers for the Scottish Government to interfere in how that is done. We are absolutely following the regulations. However, we have worked with industry on how the scheme is going to work. CSL is responsible for implementation on behalf of the industry, the industry is responsible for complying with our regulations and SEPA will enforce the regulations. Those are the mechanisms for implementing the deposit return scheme.

In addition—as I outlined earlier—we have added a governance structure to support delivery. That is the system-wide assurance group, which helps all the pieces of the puzzle to fit together smoothly. That governance structure was implemented recently to ensure smooth delivery. However, operational details, such as exactly where sorting centres are located and exactly how goods are transferred, are matters for Circularity Scotland. The regulations do not give the Government powers to interfere in that.

I feel that you have misrepresented the delays to the scheme, but I am happy to explain those delays in detail. Maurice Golden is suggesting that delays have been decided on a whim or have happened because the scheme was not deliverable in some way—

That is a matter for CSL to decide, as a private business.

We have not discussed in detail what their scheme might look like because they have not yet passed their regulations or, indeed, given us an insight into what those regulations might be.

I think that Euan Page had a comment to make, if I can bring him in—

In the past six months, we have seen a substantive shift in the UK Government’s position on the matter. In January, it clearly said in its documentation that it was for devolved nations to take decisions on those matters; in May, it said that it would not grant exclusions for those nations and that it wants interoperability. It looks like the mechanism for that interoperability is potentially one of imposing those things instead of working co-operatively. Of course, I very much hope that we could work co-operatively and genuinely to everybody’s benefit.

Scotland is years ahead of the other UK nations. We have done so much work and gathered so much expertise in the industry and in getting ready—much of which is encapsulated in Circularity Scotland and in our other bodies such as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency—that the other nations of the UK would be able to pick up from where we are and run with it, if you like, which would make the most sense for smooth implementation. However, it is not at all clear to me that that is the UK Government’s intention, although it might be its intention to develop a separate scheme, which it would then impose on us. I will ask Minister Pow those exact questions tomorrow.