Seòmar agus comataidhean

Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, land contamination is the responsibility of local authorities. Any land which is identified as being contaminated, including any downstream of disused lead mines, should be managed in accordance with their routine regime of identifying and securing remediation for contaminated land. The Scottish Government expects that local authorities will prioritise based upon risk to the environment and human health, rather than source of land contamination.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to ask SEPA to review local authority actions in this area.

a) The exact cost of obtaining the information has not been calculated but it is estimated to exceed the cost limit due to the number of cases and other matters that would require to be considered individually by officials.

b) Link to the published SG accounts on the SG website can be found here to show legal costs across multiple financial years. –

– Financial reports and accounts - Government finance - gov.scot

Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, land contamination is the responsibility of local authorities. Any land which is identified as being contaminated, including any contaminated by historic metal mining, should be managed in accordance with their routine regime of identifying and securing remediation for contaminated land.

In accordance with the Public Appointments Team’s data retention policy, the retention period for documents supporting the public appointments process is five years after the appointment tenure in post has ended. Therefore we do not hold any information regarding public appointments which ended prior to December 2019.

We also do not hold any information regarding public appointments made prior to 2011.

To provide data for appointments made between 2011 and 2019 would include data from over 360 appointment rounds, some of which were for several appointees. Information for each appointment round would have to be searched individually for the information requested, which we estimate would take at least seven working days, therefore incurring a disproportionate cost.

We are unable to provide estimated costs of providing the information requested in questions S6W-12529 and S6W-31824 but would like to confirm that these costs would be disproportionate for the reason given above.

The abundance of fish in Scottish waters means that a varied industry has developed over time, with many different types of fishing vessels operating as part of a mixed fishery. There are different target fish species, depending on the type of fishing vessel and where it operates, and different issues around unwanted catch. Discarding in the nephrops trawl fishery does occur as whitefish may be caught alongside nephrops. Since the introduction of the landing obligation, this unwanted catch can amount to a disproportionate cost for fisherman who have to land and then dispose of it. As such, the Scottish Government have utilised lawful exemptions to the landing obligation for these fish, in order to lessen the financial burden on these small nephrops vessels. These exempted fish are fully accounted for in quota calculations and factored into stock assessments.

As part of the policy development of our Future Catching Policy, we have been working with industry to explore pragmatic technical and spatial measures to support fishers to reduce discarding. We also know there are improvements we can make to the implementation of the landing obligation that will make the rules around discarding more effective and will work with industry and others to develop this.

In the 2023-24 financial year, the number of case-accused with at least one charge that resulted in them receiving either a deprivation or disqualification order was eighty-five.

The Scottish Government has not conducted specific analysis on the effectiveness of previous efforts to raise public awareness of proper battery disposal. However, feedback from stakeholders, including local authorities and industry partners, has highlighted several ongoing challenges:

• Public Awareness Gaps: A significant proportion of the public remains unaware of the environmental risks posed by improper battery disposal and the recycling options available to them.
• Accessibility Issues: Recycling points for batteries are not always easily accessible or visible, particularly in rural areas.
• Messaging Limitations: Previous public awareness efforts have lacked the reach and consistency needed to drive long-term behavioural change.

The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) are currently reviewing its operational delivery model for SORT. The findings of the review will be discussed with the Scottish Government to ensure any changes in operational delivery meet with the expectations set out in the service level agreement, and that SAS is able to provide a safe and sustainable response to potentially hazardous and significant incidents.

The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 does not grant Scottish Ministers the power to ban single-use items. Section 10 of that Act does provide Scottish Ministers with the power to make regulations to require suppliers of single-use items to charge for specified single use items.

The Scottish Government engages regularly with the OIM and has discussed measures already taken to restrict supply or manufacture single-use items, and will continue to do so in relation to any future policy. However, the OIM has no formal role in approving legislation and the Scottish Government is under no obligation to seek advice on policy development or draft legislation from the OIM.

The Internal Market Act was imposed on the Scottish Parliament without its consent, and radically undermines its powers. Every party in the chamber, barring the Scottish Conservatives, voted for its repeal in October 2023. The new UK Government must now work with the Scottish Government to undo the damage the Act does, and ensure the full restoration of the Parliament’s powers.

The UK Government’s decision to remove glass from its own scheme and refusal to agree a full Internal Market Act exclusion for Scotland’s own scheme meant we were left with no choice but to delay our scheme last year.

Scotland’s scheme would have been operational in 2024 and would already be improving our recycling rates, however, the Internal Market Act prevented us from moving forward with a deposit return scheme as intended.

Urgent action is needed from the UK Government to repeal the Internal Market Act and restore the full powers of devolved Parliaments.

Until then, the UK scheme remains the only practical option available to Scotland. The Scottish Government is committed to seeing it delivered by October 2027 and will continue to work to that end. We opened applications for a DRS scheme administrator alongside England and Northern Ireland at the start of December.