Seòmar agus comataidhean

Yes, certainly. I will not get involved in the wider commissioner debate, because that is a whole different conundrum. Therefore, yes, I accept that that is the case, but you can look only at what you have before you. If the committee believes that public bodies should take reasonable steps to prevent human rights harm, they will vote accordingly and support the amendment. If they do not believe that taking reasonable steps to prevent human rights harm is something that they associate with, they will vote against it.

With regard to sharing best practice, it would be really helpful if, in advance of the debate around reusable nappies, in particular, the Scottish Government would publish its findings on communications in relation to real nappies; the lifecycle analysis and what individuals are required to do, and all the analysis around the absorbent hygiene product trials that Mark Ruskell referred to—there are two different ways of doing that—so that the committee has all the evidence with which to fully consider Monica Lennon’s amendment. That information will be very easy for the Scottish Government to find; indeed, I might have some of it, if I have backups of some emails. The Scottish Government will have the information on how much things cost, behaviour change and all those aspects.

On targets in the bill, I think that in previous sessions we have put targets in bills and have found that that allows us to hold the Scottish Government to account. If we put everything in a strategy, given the debate from last week and given that commencement will be two years after royal assent, a cynic might suggest that the targets in that strategy would be up for further debate post 2026.

I find it bizarre that the Scottish Government does not want circular economy targets in a circular economy bill and, indeed, that waste materials are not to be managed as locally as possible. Clearly, if it is not possible to include such targets, waste cannot be managed in such locations.

I think, conversely, that what you are talking about is changing consumer behaviour. I would suggest that, when a consumer changes their behaviour to more green-friendly practices such as reuse and repair, they are more fastidious on their recycling as well. Therefore, even though I appreciate the argument, they are actually likely to recycle more. However, in terms of behaviour change, it is worthwhile analysis.

There is a big, Scotland-wide push around food waste because if we get our participation rates up that would certainly help. I think those aspects work in tandem. For example, the Scottish Government rolled out food waste collections at the same time as rolling out a campaign called “love food, hate waste” to get people to reduce the same food waste that it was beginning to trial collecting. Fife, and Perth and Kinross, did that back in 2005. I appreciate that the two aspects might appear to compete, but I think that they are complementary in boosting recycling rates. Also, in the context of my amendment 15, we are talking about a target of only 50 per cent. To give some idea of where we are, the national household recycling average is 43.4 per cent, so we are talking about a relatively small increase, compared with where we have come from.

I move amendment 15.

Will the minister take an intervention?

Incineration capacity is going up and will continue to go up. Rather than being less reliant on burning waste, we are going to become more reliant on it. Although I welcome the ban on new incinerators entering the planning system, the reality is—it seems that Governments like to do this these days—that it was a ban on something that the market was never likely to deliver. We banned something that was unlikely to exist, because there are so many incinerators in the planning system already and there is overcapacity. I am not convinced that that will help the situation.

I go back to my earlier point. If local authorities have contracted incinerators—quite rightly, because they are entitled to do so—they could be hooked into those contracts for as long as 25 years in some cases. Therefore, it is really only the Government that could advise the committee on which local authority has signed which contract and what that means in terms of its recycling rates. I would support the Government doing that.

I am concerned about the likely increase in incineration and the effect that that could have on recycling rates. That said, it does not stop us meeting the 50 per cent target. We should not be concerned about the target in that context. It is a very easy target to meet, as the Scottish Government recognised when it said that it could meet it by 2013.

I think that that is enough from me, convener.

The amendments in this group are progressive and positive, and I hope that the committee will look kindly on them.

Amendment 4 seeks to ensure that targets are set for 2030, and amendment 142 would ensure that waste is

“managed in line with the waste hierarchy”.

Amendment 143 would ensure that

“waste materials are managed as locally as possible, preferably in Scotland”.

Obviously, if the committee supports that amendment, that will signal that it wants waste to be managed as locally as possible rather than exported to other nations, so it is another example of a progressive policy.

Amendments 9 and 10 are on circular economy targets. Convener, you might agree that we might want to have circular economy targets in a circular economy bill. I will put the issue in context. The first target is that the Scottish economy will be 5 per cent circular by 2027. The Scottish economy is currently 1.3 per cent circular, which is below the United Kingdom level of 7.5 per cent and the global average of 7.2 per cent, so reaching 5 per cent would still mean that Scotland was below the global average on circularity.

The Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government are determined to be ambitious with such targets, which is why amendment 10 would set the 2030 target at 10 per cent. That might or might not be above the global average by the time we get to 2030, but it would at least take Scotland above the current global average. Those are relatively easy targets to meet, but I am happy to listen to any comments.

I move amendment 4.

In essence, the amendments in this group, including my own, aim to push on with the commencement of the regulation-making powers under the bill. The Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill was announced in the 2016-17 programme for government. Even if it were a truly transformational circular economy bill—which it is not—it has taken eight years and dozens of civil servants and agency staff to pore over details around the circular economy in order to push on with it. It is, indeed, an onerous task, but it has taken place over a gigantic period.

What is so far on offer in the bill, however, is an update of the 2010 “Scotland’s zero waste plan” and the “Making Things Last: a circular economy strategy for Scotland” document. It took eight years—we are talking about perhaps a decade’s worth of work to date—to produce an update to a plan. You can tell my exasperation about how it could possibly take so long. I appreciate that the committee voted against co-design last week, which could add time once the initial thoughts of the Government are published. Nonetheless, my five amendments in this group—amendments 175 to 179—offer a suite of options with regard to the issue.

I do not intend to move all or perhaps any of them, but I intend to discuss what is possible and to see whether the Government and the committee want to promote and get moving on circular economy policies of sorts, because we have had a long time.

I am struggling to understand the minister’s position because, if we park amendment 17, my amendments represent the minister’s own targets. The Scottish Government has set those targets and done due diligence on them. All that my amendments would do is give the Government 12 years extra to meet its own targets. It would help if the committee could hear whether the Scottish Government did not know what it was doing when it set the targets or whether it has no confidence in meeting targets a decade or more after they were set.

I think that it would be. Actually, the predecessor committee to this one, the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, spoke to Glasgow City Council back in 2016 about it underperforming with regard to household waste recycling. That was eight years ago and it is still languishing at the bottom of the table. To put it in context, there are issues in other councils. I do not want to focus only on Glasgow, but it is a good example because it is a large authority that is underperforming, which affects the household recycling rate for the whole of Scotland.

I struggle to call these targets because, with where we are now, they are just a very low bar—a bar so low that it could be a rope on the floor in terms of achieving the targets that I have set out. They are not my targets. They are the Scottish Government’s targets.

Amendment 15 is the Scottish Government’s target to reach 50 per cent of household waste being recycled. That was to be achieved by 2013, according to the Scottish Government. I am suggesting that it might be able to make it by 2025, which is actually 12 years after the Government said that it would meet the target. I think that that will probably happen anyway. That target is very easy to meet.

Similarly, amendment 16 is on a 60 per cent household recycling rate, which is not my target. It is the Scottish Government’s target from 2020, so that would be seven years late. Again, unless you are actively trying to push recycling rates down or are completely incompetent, you will meet that, so these are very easy amendments for anyone to make.