Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thanks, convener, and thanks to the witnesses for coming along this morning. It is good to hear about your high standards of kennelling, your love for the sport and your love for the dogs. I do not deny that, but do you accept that there are still inherent risks to greyhound racing that you put the dogs through? Perhaps I could use an example. Daniel Alcorn, one of the dogs that you owned and trained, Bluesy Watermill, which you passed on to another owner, has in recent years developed quite a chronic heart and lung condition.

The dog has been taken to a number of vets, including cardiovascular specialists, who believe that the reason why the dog is suffering from that condition is because of the racing. It was raced 67 times under your care, which is, I think, seen to be quite excessive.

I do not deny that your kennelling, which you have described this morning, appears to be exemplary, but do you acknowledge that racing the dogs causes an inherent risk and that dogs such as Bluesy can, in some cases, go on to develop quite debilitating conditions as a result of that?

Absolutely. I turn to that key concern now. Even if we had perfectly formed schemes that could be put into legislation at this point, there would still be the matter of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. That act allowed Scotland’s deposit return scheme to become a plaything of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Permission was withheld until the last minute, only to be granted with a set of conditions that were impossible to meet. The central condition that the UK Government set was a requirement that our DRS must align with an English scheme that did not exist. That was a wrecking ball, because the UK Government recently announced that it had scrapped plans to have such a scheme in England.

There is a better and more sensible way forward on schemes and regulations that need to mesh across the UK: negotiation and agreement between Governments under common frameworks. There are examples where that has worked well, particularly with the agreements to ban single-use plastic and, most recently, to ban disposable vapes. That shows that Green and Tory ministers working together can deliver progress—I am sure that that is Graham Simpson’s dream—but it would be premature to put new schemes in primary legislation.

It is important that, where framework legislation is being used, Parliament can properly scrutinise the secondary legislation that will be introduced on the back of that. With the original DRS, the super-affirmative procedure allowed Parliament more time to discuss the early regulations with stakeholders and it also gave the Government an opportunity to amend the legislation prior to laying it before Parliament. I therefore think that there is a case for more detailed scrutiny of some of the powers in the bill. I agree with the NZET Committee that the minister should probably re-examine where it might be appropriate to use a form of super-affirmative procedure in some cases.

It is also important to recognise that the bill does not sit in isolation. Extended producer responsibility—EPR—across the UK will also be driving progress, and new Scottish legislation is not required in every area to bring in new schemes and approaches. There should be cross-UK collaboration on EPR schemes for items such as vapes and other products that have been designed with little thought for their environmental impact or life cycle. The circular economy strategy will set out the actions that will be taken in the coming years with the flexibility that is needed for our understanding of Scotland’s use and disposal of goods and materials to be informed by emerging data and developments.

I welcome the bill’s provisions to place restrictions on the disposal of unsold consumer goods. Keeping goods in use for as long as possible before they are passed on and reused is fundamental to a circular economy. Scrapping items before they have even been used is in no one’s interests, except perhaps those of the shareholders of Amazon. The provisions on unsold goods mean that businesses must start taking different approaches to managing their stock and start prioritising good product design at the outset.

I am also pleased that the bill will introduce powers to set new mandatory reporting requirements on businesses’ waste surplus. That will lead to improved data that can be used to inform future strategies.

A number of members have mentioned reducing food waste. That not only reduces our environmental impact but can, with creative redistribution, address food poverty and inequality.

One improvement that could be made to the bill is to make reporting on circularity a part of the process of applying for public sector grants and loans.

I welcome the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill coming to the chamber for the stage 1 debate. Clearly, the bill is not the final destination, but it is a critical step in the journey towards a truly circular economy in Scotland in which Mr Macpherson can easily get his iron repaired anywhere, in any community. The Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee has unanimously backed the general principles of the bill, so there is little division between us on what it seeks to achieve. It will drive improvements in household recycling, which has, sadly, been plateauing for years; tackle littering and fly-tipping; and deliver greater producer responsibility and reuse further up the waste hierarchy.

I want to address a number of members’ concerns about the nature of this framework bill. I acknowledge that we are seeing a trend across the Governments in the UK of relying more heavily on secondary legislation that grants ministers new powers. However, the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill recognises that, first and foremost, new schemes that could be introduced on, for example, food packaging will have to be developed in collaboration with businesses, councils and other stakeholders. That means that it will take time to develop regulations that will work in the real world. Putting all those details up front now, in primary legislation, would not be in the spirit of the co-production that the Government is seeking to develop through the bill.

I think that I am out of time, unfortunately.

Around £420 million in the Scottish budget is currently allocated to supporting businesses in relation to enterprise and trade. Bringing reporting requirements into the application process for that would provide a flexible tool for embedding circularity more widely without additional costs to the public purse. It is not about setting targets for companies to receive public money; it is about asking them to account for their circularity practices and to outline where they intend to improve. We have heard a number of examples of where that could be brought in.

I look forward to discussions with the minister, as I am sure many other members do, on that and other matters ahead of stage 2. Today, however, I am very pleased, as a Green MSP, to support the principles of the bill at stage 1.

Does the member acknowledge the views of the Welsh Labour First Minister, who recognised that the UK Government stepped in to block Scotland’s deposit return scheme? The Welsh Government now has exactly the same problems as we had in Scotland: it is trying to align its deposit return scheme with an English scheme that simply does not exist, because the UK Government scrapped it.

I am just wondering whether there is any more detail or any more examples that you can give. Is there a potential for divergence in the way that that liability is treated across the UK? There is a point of principle here, which is that the Scottish Parliament needs to be able to decide on this, but I am just wondering whether there are any practical issues that may arise in relation to that liability regime.

I think that clarity is what is needed right now rather than a confusing introduction of a technology that apparently has a different set of rules from everything else.

Okay. Thanks.

Are those freight opportunities regional in nature or are they more about UK freight operations?