Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 14 December 2021
I thank the minister for advance sight of her statement. Like the last update on the deposit return scheme, the statement raises more questions than it answers. We now have yet another launch date, but how can we take it seriously? Only a month ago, the minister was refusing to give a launch date after delaying the scheme for a second time—that was despite Circularity Scotland issuing a tender last month that mentioned a launch date of summer 2023. The minister has either lost control of the process or deliberately misled the Parliament about the launch date in a previous statement.
This comes as recycling is getting worse. Remember, deposit return is supposed to improve recycling. The figures out last week showed that the recycling rate has dropped for the second year running and is now at its lowest point since 2013. If the minister is serious about launching the deposit return scheme, we need straight answers. Unfortunately, today’s statement is the same shambolic process, full of excuses. There is no word on the start-up costs or how they will be funded, no word on the secretive tender process, no word on whether return vending machines will even be built in Scotland and, as in the previous statement, there is little today to reassure businesses that will be affected. There is no word on preventing fraud and bottle bank raids, no word on potential restrictions on products and no word on whether, since the last statement, the minister has even met businesses that will be affected.
Businesses and the public have been marched up the hill and back down again too many times. I ask the minister straight: is she prepared to stake her professional reputation as a Government minister on the new launch date?