Deposit return scheme 'needs to be paused and sense-checked' says SNP leadership hopeful Kate Forbes
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SNP leadership candidate Kate Forbes today promised to reset relationships with business and sort out the deposit return scheme if she is elected party leader.
Though a supporter of the scheme in principle, the 32-year-old said that genuine and well-evidenced concerns from hundreds of businesses had to be addressed if it were to be successfully implemented.
The intervention comes ahead of tomorrow’s deadline for firms to complete the registration process with Circularity Scotland or be excluded from the scheme.
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Speaking at the Cairngorm Brewery in Aviemore, Kate Forbes said: “The Deposit Return Scheme is an example of a good idea badly executed. If we want a stronger economy, we need to get better at delivering good ideas well.
“In this contest, businesses want to see competent leadership. They want a leader who will listen, and actually deliver change.
“Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and I know that thousands of firms are still struggling to recover from Covid, Brexit and Tory-inflicted inflation.
“Small businesses want to do the right thing, but we only make it harder by introducing overly complex schemes and proposing to ban advertising for key Scottish industries.
“Cairngorm Brewery is a fabulous local business in the national park that takes its responsibilities to the environment seriously. But its director is telling me that costs are really tight, and the DRS is likely to put jobs at risk.
“If that kind of situation is being replicated across other parts of Scotland, and it almost certainly is, that is a huge warning light that parts of the scheme need to be reworked.
“Or to use a different example from my constituency, there’s the fantastic Knoydart Brewery – who are on a remote peninsula near Mallaig.
“You can only get there by ferry, and there is no reverse vending machine at all. To expect people to travel over half an hour by boat to recycle is clearly not workable.
“So what I’m saying is that the implementation of DRS needs to be paused and sense-checked, and that’s what I’ll do if I’m elected as leader.
“I believe in the principle, but the execution has to work too.”
