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When does retail registration close?

They are not obliged to, but a cafe or a small bakery where customers might get a sandwich and a drink and leave the venue with them is obliged to. However, as I say, those venues are likely to have grounds for an exemption.

We have yet to see consumer patterns. Will people do as they do with bags since the 5p charge was brought in and just keep them in the back of the car and take them back with them when they do their shopping at the weekend? One concern that has been raised with me by small retailers is that people will take all their bottles back to the big shop so, as a result, small shops will get less footfall. We have yet to see exactly how that will work out and thereby to understand the volumes that businesses will get. Consumer behaviour is something that we will need to observe and adapt the system for.

However, I point out that the regulations contain a proportionality provision under which small and especially manual return points can refuse to take containers. If someone rocks up with a van full of cans to a small shop that does not have the space to take them, the shop can turn the person away; it is not obliged to take the cans.

We have had several gateway reviews of the project. One is under way this week, and we will receive the results from it imminently.

The gateway review teams usually speak with 12 to 15 interviewees, including relevant commercial and external stakeholders such as prime contractors and consultants—the people who are actually doing the work. They will give their assessment and then we will find out exactly how they think we are getting on.

That is right. It is obliged under statute to return that level of recycling. As far as the black spots for collections and such are concerned, CSL needs to put in place a comprehensive network of return points to allow it to hit the target, because, as an organisation, it can be penalised if it does not meet its statutory obligations.

I will clarify that point. The recommendation for the exclusion would have been made on the basis of evidence, and rejecting that evidence would be outwith the way in which the frameworks process is intended to work. As Euan suggests, if that were to happen, it would represent a very significant breakdown in the collaborative working between the two Governments—in fact, between all the devolved Governments. If that were that to happen, given what a big deal that would be, the Scottish ministers would set out next steps at that point.

That is correct.

We will do what we can on that.

That is premature. The Scottish Government has been following, and continues to follow, the agreed process for excluding the DRS regulations from the internal market act.

Euan Page is the expert on that issue, so I will give you what I know on it and then he can add some detail.

Whether there is an exclusion is not at the whim of the UK Government. The exclusions from the internal market act are agreed under common frameworks. The frameworks are an agreed process by which the devolved Administrations in the UK protect their powers in respect of devolved matters. The resources and waste framework is there to protect the Scottish Government’s ability to legislate in devolved areas. Under that framework, we have put together the evidence and the case that the matter that we are considering—our deposit return scheme—is fully a devolved matter, which it is. It clearly is a fully devolved matter, and we have presented that evidence through the agreed process to the UK Government. Those are the stages that we have gone through to get an exclusion.

Euan Page will be able to add much more detail.

The two things—the climate and nature emergencies—have now been incorporated and are being considered together, and there is a variety of forums in which that work is happening. There is, for example, the sub-committee on the climate emergency, which is meeting this morning, unfortunately—obviously, I am here and not there—and there is also the First Minister’s environmental council, which is another good forum that is attended not only by ministers but by experts from the field.