Exclusive:SNP accused of 'huge U-turn' over deposit return scheme squabble with Westminster

The troubled deposit return scheme is now not expected to be rolled out until October 2027 after the Scottish Government was forced to shelf its plans after then UK Scottish secretary Alister Jack refused to give an exclusion to the controversial post-Brexit Internal Market Act, partly around the inclusion of glass containers.

But the cabinet secretary responsible for the policy has suggested her government is now ready to get the DRS launched as quickly as possible, without the inclusion of glass.

In June 2023, the Scottish Government said it would have no choice but to agree to a watered down version that didn’t include glass due to the blockage by the UK government.

Earlier this year, net zero secretary, Mairi McAllan, suggested her government had “no choice but to launch a more limited DRS than parliament voted for”.

The Welsh government, which also wanted glass to be included in the DRS has now reportedly agreed to proceed with some glass containers excluded from the policy after fruitful talks with the incoming Labour administration at Westminster.

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Gillian Martin, who is the Scottish Government’s acting net zero and energy secretary, has told The Scotsman that she is comfortable to press ahead without glass being included.

She said: “As far as I’m concerned, I want DRS to happen. 

“If it doesn’t have glass in it, like we wanted it to, at least we’re getting our plastics and our aluminium cans dealt with.”

Pointing to the Welsh government’s plans, Ms Martin said that “including glass is the ramping up, the next step”.

She added: “I’m very supportive of what they are trying to do. They’ve used quite a lot of our work on this that we’ve shared with them. 

“If the Welsh are able to get to an arrangement where it’s not an issue about the interoperability and they prove the concept, and they’ve got the support from the UK government to do that, then I’ll be cheering them all the way.

“We were supposed to have a DRS by March this year. We don’t. 

“Our recycling rates would already be looking an awful lot better if we had. But we can’t look backwards, we’ve just got to look forwards, working with the UK government.”

But the admission puts Ms Martin at odds with Greens co-leader Lorna Slater who was in charge of the DRS when the row over glass with Westminster erupted.

Scottish Conservative MSP Maurice Golden said: “Lorna Slater and other SNP-Green ministers repeatedly refused to heed the concerns of businesses and arrogantly ploughed ahead regardless, leaving taxpayers to pick up the bill for their failures.

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“This is a huge U-turn from the SNP who claimed the scheme couldn’t go ahead without glass.

“If they had listened to businesses and industry experts in the first place then this almighty mess could have been avoided.”

Ms Slater told the Scotsman that “the economic and environmental case for including glass in Scotland’s deposit return scheme is as clear as day”. 

She added: “It was included in the regulations passed by the Scottish Parliament, and it was initially agreed upon by the UK government, their decision to sabotage it was nothing other than political point-scoring.

“The Scottish Greens share the vision of the Welsh Government to see a deposit return scheme which includes glass, and this will always be our preferred outcome. However, we believe any scheme is better than no scheme and would welcome what the minister has proposed.”

Waste disposal company Biffa is suing the Scottish Government for a sum in the region of £160 million, following the decision to scrap the proposed DRS.

Last week the Court of Session in Edinburgh heard ministers “negligently misrepresented” the scheme to the company to persuade it to sign up.

Biffa, which was selected as the “logistics partner” for the scheme, said it invested “significant sums” in preparation for it before it was scrapped.

The DRS, which was intended to come into force on August 16 2023, would have seen shoppers charged a deposit when buying drinks in cans and bottles, which would be repaid to them when empty containers were returned.

However the Scottish Government changed its plans when UK ministers used the Internal Market Act (IMA) to rule glass bottles could not be included.

Roddy Dunlop KC, representing Biffa, told the court on Friday that his client had received “negligently misrepresented” assurances from Government ministers to persuade it to agree to deliver the logistical element of the scheme.

He said ministers were keen to get the firm on board for political as well as practical reasons, telling the court the Government was aware that without a logistics provider the scheme would have been “dead in the water”.

The Scottish Government said it could not comment on ongoing litigation.