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That is a good point, and it is something that the scheme administrator will take into account. You have rightly pointed to rural areas, where there might be no larger supermarkets and the small convenience stores might be the only vendor in the area.

The scheme administrator will look at the spread of return points. Supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores and newsagents will be required to host return points unless their premises are less than 100m² and in an urban area. In a rural area, there will be an expectation that a convenience store—which might be the only such store on, say, an island—will have a return point. After all, we do not want to disenfranchise people living in island communities; they will be paying the deposit on their drinks containers, so they will want to get that back. The scheme administrator will be working with small vendors to ensure they have that capacity.

The administrator will also have a map of all the return points. It will be voluntary in urban environments, but we should bear in mind the business case for having a return point when it comes to competition. It will be far better for you if your grocery store or supermarket has a return point in your grocery store or supermarket, because of the associated footfall; if people are returning their cans and bottles, they are more likely to spend money on their way out of your shop or to redeem their vouchers there.

At the moment, then, this is voluntary in urban areas, while in rural areas, there is an expectation that there will be an acceptable spread of return points to ensure that people in those areas are not disenfranchised.

No, it will be for the scheme administrator to decide.

I have no idea; the scheme administrator will decide that. You can take the can back—I do not think that anyone will stop you walking out with it.

Thank you, deputy convener. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the invitation to provide evidence on the LCM on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Before I answer the committee’s questions, I would like to speak for a few minutes to explain the purpose behind the bill, how we have got to this point and why an LCM is required in this instance.

By way of background, I note that, although land use and planning in Scotland is devolved, the powers to legislate for generation, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity are reserved to the UK Government. However, Scottish ministers determine applications to construct or install electricity infrastructure under the Electricity Act 1989. In England and Wales, the relevant legislation was updated in 2008 to make the consenting process more efficient. However, the process in Scotland has remained unchanged as we do not have the power to amend the legislation. The situation has resulted in it taking up to four years to process an application determination. The Scottish Government has long called for the process to be reformed, for the relevant powers to be given to Scottish ministers and for the system to be modernised, as it has been across the rest of the UK.

Having finally recognised that Scottish consenting needed reform, the previous UK Government, under the Conservatives, committed to reviewing it in November 2023. Thankfully, the new Labour Government continued those plans, and UK and Scottish Government officials worked together on the proposed reforms that the UK Government published in October 2024, alongside a consultation. In March this year, the UK Government published its response to the consultation, which showed broad support for the reforms from consultees, and the measures were included in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which was introduced to the House of Commons on 11 March.

The bill cuts across a number of different subjects including planning; nationally significant infrastructure projects; the transmission, distribution and supply of electricity; transport, roads and the operation of harbours; and the environment. Many of the bill’s clauses apply only to England and Wales or have no practical application in Scotland. However, clauses 14 to 20, which relate to electricity infrastructure consenting in Scotland, and clause 42, which refers to harbour processing fees, alter the competence of Scottish ministers, so the UK Government is seeking legislative consent.

As I set out earlier, the changes that are proposed in clauses 14 to 20 are intended to reform outdated and inefficient elements of the consenting process for electricity infrastructure. The changes include, but are by no means limited to, strengthening pre-application requirements and procedures, making them statutory for the first time and allowing communities to share their views earlier in the process; creating a new reporter-led procedure in response to an objection from a local planning authority, reducing the administrative burden of an automatic public inquiry while always retaining a public inquiry as an option; and moving from a lengthy judicial review process to one of statutory appeals, aligning with existing processes under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997.

The bill will provide Scottish ministers with regulation-making powers to implement more technical statutory elements of reform. Those will be concurrent powers that are exercisable by either Scottish ministers or the secretary of state. The bill does not specify which authority will exercise which powers and how, but the general expectation, which is shared by both Governments, is that the Scottish Government will introduce the regulations and they will be laid in the Scottish Parliament. That reflects the position that planning is a devolved matter and it recognises the executively devolved role of Scottish ministers in administering applications for consent under the Electricity Act 1998. With regard to clauses 14 to 20, we therefore recommend that consent is granted. The Scottish Government intends to consult on proposals for secondary legislation as soon as possible after the bill is passed.

I am not the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and I am not best placed to speak on clause 42, so I welcome the presence of officials from Transport Scotland who will be able to reply if you require further information on that front. I also note that Ms Hyslop provided an update on clause 42 in her letter this morning.

I am happy to answer any questions, convener.

The adjustment in clause 20 is about restoring that limited ability that we had under the European Communities Act 1972 to make procedural changes to the EIA process to mean that it is aligned with reformed electricity consenting, but there will not be any gap in the process—there will not be any point at which there will be a dilution of the requirement to follow an EIA. I hope that that gives you clarity.

EIAs will always be in place. We want to be agile in making sure that there is no misalignment between the two processes—the EIA process and the EOR process—but EIAs will still apply. There will be no point at which they are diluted or do not apply. They apply in all cases.

The six-week timeframe has been effective in practice for offshore generating station decisions for more than 10 years—since 2013—and for planning decisions more broadly. We think that it provides sufficient time for potential challengers to assess decisions and prepare cases, but it reduces the extended period of uncertainty for them in getting a resolution. The clause complies with the Aarhus convention’s requirements for access to environmental justice, and the six-week challenge period has been accepted by the Aarhus compliance committee.

Crucially, the rights and regulations that will now be devolved to Scottish ministers to mandate community engagement ahead of a planning application going in will mean that, by law, there is much earlier engagement by developers with communities. I think that it is important to look at what is being proposed in the round. It is no longer going to be voluntary to engage with communities ahead of putting in an application; it is going to be mandatory. However, at the other end of it, once an application is in, there will be the ability, within a six-week period, to challenge that determination. Then it will be referred to a reporter, who will undertake all the evidence gathering around it. People will not be left in limbo for two years, wondering what the result will be.

Yes, I do. It is in line with other planning regulations. I would expect that, when you have mandated community engagement, which is what we have been calling for for many years, there will be early community engagement, which, it is my hope, would prevent objections.

The clause complies with the Aarhus convention requirement for environmental justice. The Aarhus compliance committee has said that it provides sufficient time for preparing cases, provided that the decisions are properly publicised. The regulations that will be in place will mean that there is a legal requirement on applicants to properly publicise proposals and to engage with communities. That is in line with the Aarhus compliance committee’s view. That is why we are taking it forward in the way that we have. Obviously, the proposal has been negotiated not just with the current UK Government but with the previous UK Government.

My understanding of EPR is that, in general, the funds that will go to local authorities will allow them to expand their recycling capabilities into a lot of the areas that we discussed when we created the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024. Of course, the funding is not ring fenced and it is up to councils to decide how to do that. The polluter-pays principle means that we are putting funds into local authorities, but the main point of EPR is to incentivise producers to reduce the amount of packaging. I think we will see massive innovations in packaging because of EPR.

It is for individual councils to decide how to respond to the twin opportunities of the DRS and the fact that they will no longer be dealing with the same volumes of plastics and cans, but also what to do about glass versus—or in addition to—the other things that they want to do to expand their waste recovery, reuse and remake, and circular economy objectives more widely.