Seòmar agus comataidhean

I was just checking with my officials that the previous applicants will be transferred to the new system by SEPA in-house. The information that I have about the build-out of the digital system is that the digital service will be in place to manage the volume of applications expected by the start date of 1 November. The new website pages will be published by 1 August. A number of registration-level authorisations are expected. The existing end-to-end digital services for those regimes will be updated between 1 November 2025 and 1 April 2026. The digital system is on track to be ready for new applications by 1 November, and the oversight group will monitor progress on that.

You have picked on quite a niche aspect by mentioning hot-tub owners. I do not know whether such owners could be in the list of stakeholder groups, but it is possible that, if SEPA has not already done so, it will have to communicate that. We would hope that hot-tub owners would dispose of their waste water responsibly, as they would with any waste water, and not put in it anything that should not be there that would cause harm to the environment. I imagine that if something in there were to cause such harm it would also cause harm to anyone sitting in the hot tub. Anyway, I digress.

The new website pages will be published on 1 August, and they will include all the guidance that is associated with the issue. The fact that there have been quite a few consultations means that stakeholders—I am not sure whether hot-tub owners are in that group—who will generally be using SEPA for the existing regulations and the new regulations have already fed into those consultations, so there is widespread knowledge that the changes will happen.

You make a good point: it is important that whenever SEPA changes anything operationally, or when new sectors come into regulation, it communicates the changes with stakeholders.

There have been stakeholder engagement sessions on the draft regulations with SEPA and some of my officials in the Scottish Government. It was made clear to those stakeholders that the existing GBRs under the water environment regulations were going to be brought into the regulations, and that some new GBRs were going to be added.

SEPA will be able to give more detail on its plan to communicate the new regulations to businesses to make sure that they are aware of them and to provide any kind of advice, as it does.

At Government level, we support Farming and Water Scotland, which has been very helpful in developing a range of fact sheets and collating frequently asked questions on changes to the binding rules that are being disseminated to stakeholders.

I hope that, in the round, that acknowledges that there has to be a communications strategy around this, which SEPA and others are undertaking.

It has been recognised that cadmium can occur naturally in certain areas, so there have to be exemptions in place because of the geology of a particular area.

You mentioned islands. Many islands will have naturally occurring cadmium in their soil as a result of their geology. Exemptions could be put in place for that. The draft regulations will reduce the maximum concentration of cadmium that is allowable in soils for spreading sewage on land. The reason for that is that there is evidence of cadmium uptake in wheat, for example. Where cadmium levels are above the maximum concentrations, it is taken into growing wheat.

Scottish Water and SEPA identified that reducing the maximum permissible concentration of cadmium in soils could lead to unintended consequences in areas where there are naturally occurring levels of cadmium; in island situations, there can be limited options for the disposal of sewage sludge, and we do not want a situation where an island community cannot dispose of their sewage sludge within their geographical area. That would be an unintended consequence of reducing the maximum permissible level, given their geology. So, we have drafted the regulations to allow SEPA to provide an exemption for those reasons.

You mentioned grassland and the fact that it is not used for growing crops for human consumption. There could be another exemption there. SEPA has determined that there may be exemptions for grassland, if that is the only thing that the land is used for.

My understanding is that exemptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

It is for SEPA to decide what is waste and what is non-waste. However, I might have to bring in my officials, because I am not an expert on feedstocks and what is categorised as waste and non-waste. If Phil Leeks wants to jump in and say anything, he will be most welcome.

There is a more general point here. We want to see innovation in energy generation and a reduction in the emissions associated with hydrocarbons. Anaerobic digestion is a way in which we can decarbonise a lot of our processes—the whisky industry has been mentioned. We should be as supportive as possible on that.

I would say no. Heaven forbid that existing plants are polluting, as I am hopeful that they are not in any way. I come back to my earlier point that any plant that is polluting is probably leeching money as a result.

The regulations will be put in place over a two-year period to allow businesses the flexibility to get ready for them. Providing such wholesale dispensation would not be a level playing field at all; you would not expect to see that in the regulation of any other type of energy production. I am not sure that it would be the right way to go.

I come back to Mr Matheson’s point. Where a healthy business is generating a profit and is one of the businesses that is helping the industry to decarbonise, we want to do everything to support it. We would not want any such business to go out of business. If there are issues with any particular plant coming up to the standard, we have to look at that on a case-by-case basis and allow some flexibility. That is obviously an operational matter for SEPA, but it will be listening to what has been said today.

We do not want a burgeoning sector—and an important sector for our net zero goals and for the decarbonisation of industry—to be put out of business as a result of any regulation.

Yes, I will.

The non-waste AD regulations will come into place on 1 April 2028. That means that, in effect, there will be just under two years of working with the sector to get operators content with what is required.

Well, I did.