Seòmar agus comataidhean

That is correct.

The parliamentary process is the process, and we need to make sure that it is followed. The number of scrutiny days and so forth is set out, and it is not something that I intend to challenge.

Last week, I told the Parliament that the Scottish Government was left with no other option than to delay the launch of Scotland’s deposit return scheme until October 2025 at the latest. That is a direct result of the United Kingdom Government’s decision of 26 May, which was reaffirmed on 5 June, to refuse Scotland a full exclusion from the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. Instead, the UK Government agreed to a partial and temporary exclusion, which imposed additional, significant conditions on our scheme, including the removal of glass.

The Scottish Parliament legislated in May 2020 for an all-inclusive deposit return scheme. We did so because the economic and environmental evidence is stronger and because there was agreement across the UK nations that all the schemes would include glass.

The IMA was brought in after our DRS regulations. As a result, we sought a broad exclusion from it to cover our single-use plastic ban and the DRS. We have therefore been in discussions for almost two years to agree an exclusion for the DRS in line with the agreed common framework process. The inclusion of glass in our scheme was not questioned during that process. Indeed, as recently as January this year, the UK Government’s consultation response confirmed that it was for each of the devolved nations to decide on the scope of their deposit return schemes.

It is therefore deeply regrettable that the UK Government chose to unilaterally impose a partial and temporary exclusion at the 11th hour by removing glass and imposing conditions with which we would have to align, but giving no detail on what we are expected to align with.

Since then, we have engaged intensively with delivery partners and the industry to understand how the UK Government’s requirements have affected their preparations for the launch of Scotland’s DRS. The overwhelming feedback from industry, publicly and privately, is that they can no longer prepare for a March 2024 launch because of the significant uncertainty that has been caused by the UK Government’s conditions.

I remain wholly committed to introducing the DRS in Scotland and I remain keen to work with the other UK nations in a spirit of collaboration, not imposition, to see how we can maximise interoperability while recognising the decisions that the Scottish Parliament has made.

The regulations that the committee is considering today were laid on 17 May, before the UK Government’s last-minute decision on the internal market act. The changes that are before the committee are sought and welcomed by industry, which is why we are discussing them. The one exception, of course, is the date. Without the changes that are being made to the regulations today, the go-live date would still be 16 August this year. The regulations change that to 1 March next year. As I have explained, the UK Government’s intervention means that that date, in turn, is no longer possible and I am committing to bring before the Parliament further regulations in line with parliamentary procedures and timelines to change the go-live date to October 2025.

I recognise that the process is more convoluted than any of us would wish, but that is where the UK Government’s intervention in wholly devolved matters has left us. I am happy to take questions.

I do not have that figure.

That depends on the structure of CSL, going forward. It depends on whether, for example, it tries to apply to be the DMO for the UK or waits for a Scottish scheme. Producers might like to continue to develop IT systems. There are many pathways forward for CSL; it is working that out right now with its members.

That matter is between CSL and its producers.

It is not a figure that I have. It is an internal figure for CSL and it is working with its members.

The matter of recovering and protecting vulnerable and important species is one of the five themes that the biodiversity strategy covers. The strategy has 26 actions that we are taking for nature, grouped into those five themes. Theme 4 is to recover and protect vulnerable species, and one of the actions there is to

“Revise the Scottish Biodiversity List of species and habitats that Scottish Ministers consider to be of principal importance for biodiversity conservation in Scotland”.

Perhaps Matthew Bird or Lisa McCann can add some detail on that process.

Thank you, convener, and thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the outcomes from COP15 and how we are integrating them into our biodiversity strategy. I know that you have already heard overwhelming evidence about the extent of the biodiversity crisis that we are facing here in Scotland and across the world, and about the importance of taking action now to tackle the decline in nature.

You have also heard about the historic Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework, which was agreed at the end of last year. That framework builds on a vision, which I hope you share, of a world that is living in harmony with nature and where, by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, through maintaining ecosystem services.

As you are aware, I was honoured to attend COP15 with a small Scottish delegation, which culminated in our presenting the Edinburgh declaration to that conference’s high-level segment, on behalf of subnational bodies. As well as calling for a high-ambition outcome from the meeting in Montreal, the Edinburgh declaration also called for the critical role that subnational bodies play in addressing the biodiversity crisis to be recognised and allocated the necessary resources and powers to help to tackle it. I am delighted that the declaration was adopted at the conference and now forms part of the new global biodiversity framework.

The Scottish Government led the Edinburgh process at the request of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s secretariat, and I am very proud of the work that was done to promote it and to garner support for it. That work is demonstrated by the fact that, at the final count, the declaration had been signed by more than 300 subnational bodies from around the world.

Our draft biodiversity strategy was published to coincide with COP15, but it remained in draft form to allow us to take into account the new global biodiversity framework, thereby ensuring that we are meeting the global ambition. The strategy is where we set out our high-level vision for a nature-positive Scotland and our ambition to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 and reverse declines by 2045. I have often wondered whether that is ambitious enough; although there has been a huge amount of really positive activity across Scotland in recent years—for example our scaling up of peatland restoration and our groundbreaking nature restoration fund—it is clear that there is still a huge amount of work to do. The type of change that we need takes time, which is why it is even more important that we start taking action now.

We are currently refining the strategy and are now very much focused on developing the delivery plans that will sit underneath it. Those plans will be where we will set out how we are going to achieve our high-level vision and outcomes.

I was very grateful to the committee for the careful and detailed consideration that it gave to the draft biodiversity strategy last year. Your comments formed an important part of our consideration in developing the strategy and, as I set out when I wrote to the committee in December 2022, many of those points were incorporated in the final draft.

We are also starting to explore with our subnational partners the next steps on implementing the Edinburgh declaration and how best we can work together to really deliver on the new global framework. I welcome this discussion today and I appreciate the attention that the committee is giving to this important matter.

I would always say that they need more. Of course I would say that, because I am the minister for biodiversity. However, I can certainly outline some of our vision in this area.

The biodiversity strategy is a starting point. It sets out clearly what we need to achieve to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. It also provides us with the evidence that human activity has accelerated biodiversity decline. The member is therefore quite right: biodiversity needs to be mainstreamed across all our policy developments, our business practice and wider society. The Government cannot do this on its own. Nature does not belong to us, it belongs to everybody, every business and every person.

I am therefore working closely with other ministers to make sure that our collective policies will deliver the positive outcomes that we need. Some good examples of that are our national strategy for economic transformation, which, for the first time, recognises the importance of our natural capital as an asset to the country that we need to maintain.

Our vision for agriculture puts nature restoration at its heart, alongside climate mitigation and food security. It also recognises the importance of that sector in delivering for biodiversity, and that farmers and land managers are stewards of our land.

Interestingly, our national planning framework 4 and its supporting guidance have significantly greater emphasis on the importance of conserving our natural environment. I actually have an excerpt here, entitled “Developing with Nature guidance”. This is for anyone who is making a planning application, and it sets out very clear and quite practical steps by which people can take account of nature in a planning application. They can, for example,

“Apply the mitigation hierarchy ... Consider biodiversity from the outset”

and

“Take a place-based and inclusive approach.”

The guidance covers other practical things such as what plants are suitable as pollinators, how to plant a wildflower meadow and how to incorporate trees, scrub and woodland into developments. It is a really good example of mainstreaming, and anyone applying for planning permission for a development in Scotland has access to all that information. It even sets out how to incorporate homes for bees and bugs into development planning, how to manage water with nature and so on. It is an excellent example of mainstreaming that will make a difference as we go forward.