PENNY Mordaunt has claimed businesses had the “rug pulled out from under their feet” by the Scottish Government after the UK Government refused to grant the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) an exemption for glass.
We previously told how Circularity Minister Lorna Slater said that the DRS will now be postponed until October 2025 at the earliest, following Westminster’s move to refuse to give the Scottish scheme an exemption to the Internal Market Act (IMA) to include glass in the scheme.
The UK scheme was originally intended to have glass, but the Government changed its position in 2022, following a consultation.
We exclusively told how the Tories accepted a £20,000 donation just six weeks later, and there have been calls for more transparency on how the UK Government made its decision, and the extent to which industry lobbying had an impact on their position.
And now, Leader of the House of Commons Mordaunt claimed that the delay is the fault of the Scottish Government for “not engaging” on a UK-wide scheme.
Scotland’s DRS has been repeatedly delayed, and was first due to come into force in 2021, but was paused due to the pandemic. Holyrood voted to introduce the scheme in 2020, and it had cross party support, including from the Scottish Tories who called for glass to be included.
SNP Commons leader Deidre Brock criticised the UK Government during a session of questions about House business in the Commons.
Brock said that Scottish Secretary Alister Jack had “swooped in like some sort of toff Tarzan” at the last minute to squash the scheme and deny the exemption.
She said: “If the UK Government is prepared to intervene on a packaging recycling scheme, what confidence can we have that any of our Parliament’s policies won’t be struck down in a similar way?”
She added: “Why were so many MSPs and MPs from her party very enthusiastic about glass being included in (deposit return) schemes previously? Commitments to it even being included in the manifesto she stood on?”
Mordaunt responded: “The reason why the Secretary of State for Scotland is having these discussions with the Scottish Government is that we are standing up for, firstly, the interests of Scottish business, which the SNP are not, and secondly because the scheme devised in Scotland is actually going to reduce recycling rates.”
“The delay to this scheme has been caused by the Scottish Government not engaging on a UK-wide scheme that would need to be devised because of the UK internal market,” she added.
“She only has to go and listen to businesses in her constituency to understand their concerns around this scheme, also their calls for compensation from the Scottish Government because of how poorly this has been done, the investments they have had to make, only to have the rug pulled out under their feet.”
We told how businesses and retailers have threatened the Scottish Government with legal action after being “left out of pocket” by the latest DRS delay.
