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Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-07110

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 22 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the comment by the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity at the meeting of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on 25 January 2022 that the annual cost of operating Circularity Scotland “in a steady state” is estimated in the full business case to be £92.9 million, whether it will publish full details of that total; what its position is on whether this is an accurate estimate, and, if it does not consider it to be accurate, what its estimate is, and how many employees it anticipates will be employed through these annual costs.

Question reference: S6W-07124

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 22 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the estimated cost of fraud of the Deposit Return Scheme reduced from £108 million in the business and regulatory impact assessment (BRIA) of 2019 to £74.3 million in the Final BRIA of 2021.

Question reference: S6W-07123

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 22 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the business and regulatory impact assessment (BRIA) of 2019 and the Final BRIA of 2021 of the Deposit Return Scheme and section 4.1 on calculating the costs and benefits of recycling, whether it will provide the detailed calculations for the “associated costs and benefits”, setting out (a) the individual figures and computations of the costs per tonne calculated for “collecting, sorting and disposing of the recycled materials” and (b) the benefits per tonne of “material revenue, carbon savings, residual collection, landfill savings and litter reduction benefits”, and for what reason the loss of landfill tax resulting from less material going to landfill has been excluded from the calculation.

The model used to inform that BRIA deals with local authorities as a collective group and it is therefore not possible to provide detailed calculations for individual local authority costs and benefits in relation to recycling. You can view the full report here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/deposit-return-scheme-scotland-final-business-regulatory-impact-assessment/ .

Landfill tax is considered a ‘transfer payment’ under HM Treasury guidance and is therefore not included in BRIA calculations.

Question reference: S6W-07121

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 22 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the Deposit Return Scheme and the estimates it made of the costs of loss of revenue to retailers caused by the loss of space necessary to accommodate a reverse vending machine (RVM), whether it will state (a) what specific evidence it obtained from Envipco whom it cites as the basis for the figure used of around 0.5 square metres, (b) what discussions it had with representatives of small retailers in connection with the business and regulatory impact assessment (BRIA) of 2019 (paragraph 174) and the Final BRIA of 2021 (paragraph 209), (c) what its response is to reports that many small retailers believe that the space required for the smallest RVM that would permit its location in a shop and its use for its intended purpose, including extraction of recyclate, is 3 square metres of floor space, which is around six times more than what was estimated and (d) what it estimates will be the total annual cost of loss of revenue for retailers that is attributable to the loss of floor space required for RVMs based on the area of (i) 0.5 and (ii) 3 square metres.

The most up to date information available regarding the impact of Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme on retailers, including information about the use of Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs) can be found in the amended Final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA), which was published on 22 December 2021 and can be downloaded from the Scottish Government’s website here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/deposit-return-scheme-scotland-final-business-regulatory-impact-assessment/ .

Question reference: S6W-07111

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 22 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the comment by the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity at the meeting of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on 25 January 2022 that it will "begin to build counting and sorting centres in August 2022", how many of each of these two types of centres will be built; where each will be built; at what costs, and how many employees will be employed at each of them.

Question reference: S6W-07114

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 22 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to the Valpak report, Deposit Return Schemes for Drinks Containers, and its findings that a majority of people prefer a kerbside collection scheme to be used for recycling.

Public support for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) is high.

Zero Waste Scotland’s consumer research indicates that 71% of the public support the introduction of DRS.

Kerbside collection remains important since it enables people to recycle non-scheme items. Additionally, DRS will help local authority waste management services to free up capacity to support wider collection services and improve recycling rates on other materials.

Furthermore, DRS will significantly increase the quantity and quality of glass recyclate, creating an aggregated and high-quality feedstock for reprocessing.

We do not believe an enhanced kerbside scheme could deliver the level or rate of improvement that we will see through DRS. Packaging recycling rates have stalled, including for glass, and the current producer responsibility system is not driving improvement.

DRS should deliver an 85% collection rate for glass by the second full year of operation at the latest.

Question reference: S6W-07106

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 21 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the proposals for its Deposit Return Scheme and recyclate collected from retailers that do not use reverse vending machines but instead collect items manually, how retailers will be protected against underpayment; how the system will operate to prevent fraud; whether there will be a further manual check or audit of such items collected, and, if so, by whom, and at what total annual expense.

Retailers are entitled to claim a reasonable handling fee and be reimbursed for the deposit for each processed in-scope container. The Scheme Administrator, Circularity Scotland Ltd (CSL), will provide retailers with appropriate guidance which will aid retailers in identifying such containers and therefore limit the chances of ineligible containers being returned.

As Scheme Administrator, CSL will verify collected containers prior to payment to ensure no ineligible containers have a deposit or handling fee paid.

Under the producer responsibility principle, these costs will be borne by industry.

Question reference: S6W-07102

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 18 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that re-processing of recycled material captured in Scotland may not occur in Scotland due to a lack of facilities, what its position is on the likely impact of the Deposit Return Scheme on the quality and quantity of recycled glass that is available to manufacturers in Scotland.

I am not aware of any reports that glass captured through our Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) could be processed outside Scotland.

As set out in the answer to question S6W-07104 on 18 March 2022, DRS will significantly increase the quantity and quality of glass recyclate. Local authorities will continue to collect glass not captured by DRS in line with the duty in the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012.

I am therefore confident that DRS will have a significant positive impact on the quality and quantity of recycled glass that is available to manufacturers in Scotland.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

Question reference: S6W-07095

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 18 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its estimate is of the expected impact in terms of costs to the wholesale sector of the Deposit Return Scheme, and how any such estimates were included in the Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland Final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA), published in December 2021.

Question reference: S6W-07105

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 18 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity's comment to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, on 25 January 2022, that glass is not to be mechanically crushed as part of its Deposit Return Scheme, whether this replaces any previous plans for such glass to be crushed in reverse vending machines (RVMs); whether this will require different and more expensive RVMs to be used; what inquiries the minister or her officials have made on the cost implications of requiring that glass not be crushed; whether this will necessitate more frequent collections of glass recyclate, and, if so, what consideration has been given to that and any consequential costs and additional carbon emissions, and what its position is on whether it or Circularity Scotland have obtained sufficient information in order to be certain that this will not require additional costs to be incurred in operating the scheme.