Scottish ministers poised to back down in recycling row with Westminster

Scottish ministers are poised to accept a UK government ultimatum over a controversial can and bottle recycling scheme after ministers in London said it had to be watered down significantly.

Lorna Slater, the minister overseeing a Scottish scheme to charge a 20p deposit for bottles and cans, accused her UK counterparts of “deliberate sabotage” after they demanded that Scotland drop plans to include glass bottles.

The UK government said it would allow the Scottish scheme to go ahead under the UK’s post-Brexit internal trade rules if it aligned with plans for a similar scheme in England that would only cover plastic bottles and cans.

Slater told MSPs on Tuesday that the UK ultimatum meant tens of millions of glass bottles in Scotland would now not be recycled and would instead be littered or thrown into general waste at significant environmental cost.

It would also add to the scheme’s costs and breach the Conservatives’ manifesto promise in 2019 to include glass in pan-UK deposit schemes. She said it was more evidence of the Conservatives’ “scorched earth” attacks on Holyrood’s right to independently set policies for Scotland.

Slater did not, however, repeat her warnings from earlier in May that the Scottish scheme was on the brink of collapse because of the UK government’s hostility.

After challenging ministers in London to prove they could meet their own deadline to set up an English scheme in 2025, she confirmed her officials were working on how best to adapt to the UK government’s demand to drop glass.

“We are now being forced to examine whether the deliberate sabotage by the UK government leaves us something we can make work,” Slater told MSPs. “We will need some time to go through the detail of the UK government decision and conditions and I will update parliament on next steps.”

The UK government ultimatum was issued last Friday night in the latest twist in a long-running controversy over the scheme’s viability. Its costs became one of the biggest areas of dispute during the contest to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as Scottish National party leader and first minister earlier this year.

Under the deposit return scheme (DRS), Scottish consumers will be asked to pay a returnable 20p deposit on hundreds of millions of drinks bottles and cans, which would be collected and refunded by shops and drinks producers.

Ministers in Edinburgh had hoped to lead the UK in being the first to adopt a wide-ranging DRS. Despite several years of delay, the bill setting it up won all-party support in 2020 but it has since been dogged by repeated additional delays and fierce rows over the impact it will have on smaller shops and businesses.

Anger among smaller drinks makers, particularly craft brewers and soft drinks makers, has escalated with surging inflation.

Despite Slater’s frustration over the UK government’s stance, which has been seconded by the first minister, Humza Yousaf, well-informed supporters of the scheme say that on balance it represents a small victory for the policy.

Sources said supporting Scotland’s hopes of introducing deposit return before the rest of the UK was also a victory for Thérèse Coffey, the UK environment secretary, who supports the policy.

She fought off demands from Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, for the Scottish scheme to be delayed until the English and Welsh schemes are ready. It is believed the decision to exclude glass was a compromise to win Jack’s support.

Maurice Golden, a Scottish Tory MSP who has championed deposit return, accused Slater of using the UK government intervention as an excuse for a constitutional battle instead of accepting that the Scottish scheme had been badly executed.

“Lorna Slater has come to parliament today not to update us on DRS but to indulge in an anti-UK rant,” he said. “She would rather pick a fight with the UK government than support a scheme that works for everyone. She has traded her environmentalism for nationalism.”