Scottish Government ‘utterly irresponsible’ over deposit scheme – Alister Jack

The Scottish Government was “utterly irresponsible” in the way it tried to implement its deposit return scheme (DRS), a former UK government minister has said.

Giving evidence at the Court of Session in Edinburgh on Friday, former Scottish secretary Lord Alister Jack said the Scottish Government had withheld “commercial information” from businesses about a risk that the scheme would be blocked.

Lord Jack was Scottish secretary when the UK government refused to grant the Scottish DRS an exemption for glass bottles under the Internal Market Act (IMA).

This decision led to the Scottish Government changing its plans for the scheme in 2023.

A UK-wide DRS is planned, but it is not expected to begin before 2027.

Biffa Waste Services is suing the Scottish Government at the Court of Session, seeking £166 million of reparations over the decision to delay the DRS.

Lord Jack said he was “appalled” by a letter sent to businesses about the scheme by circular economy minister Lorna Slater in May 2022, which he said “misled” businesses about the true commercial picture.

“I am staggered that a letter was produced by officials and signed by a minister and sent out to companies that were investing their shareholders’ money or their own money – and lots of it – and not knowing the inherent risks of the whole picture,” he said.

He added: “It was, for me, irresponsible not to tell companies that are spending money what the whole story is, and explain to them the risks.

“There was a high level of risk, and it was utterly irresponsible to send this letter, and that’s my opinion.”

He pointed out that the letters were sent after the government had been made aware it would need to apply for an exclusion from the IMA, which he said had been made clear by the UK Government in March 2022.

He explained that an exclusion from the IMA had a “high bar” and required impact assessments to be carried out.

However, he said the government had done “nothing” to advance this work or to warn businesses of the risks before it formally applied for an exclusion in March 2023.

As soon as they knew this was required, he said “they should have sharpened up, got their exclusion request in, told their partners it was what they were doing, told their partner companies there was massive commercial risk for them”.

He said that as Scottish secretary, he had a number of “concerns” about the scheme, including the impact it would have on businesses and consumers, and its impact on inflation at a time of the cost-of-living crisis.

Lord Jack said more than 1,000 businesses and stakeholders had written to him “saying it was going to seriously impact and damage their business, supermarkets telling me it was going to damage their business, consumers and so on”.

He dismissed the suggestion that his concerns were politically motivated, insisting it was “beholden” to him as Scottish secretary to “ensure our businesses and our consumers were protected”.

The Conservative peer said the fact that the Scottish Government was still working out how the scheme would work when it applied for an IMA exclusion in 2023 was “farcical”.

He said: “It was a comedy of errors. Farcical. The whole thing was farcical.”