Lorna Slater hints that DRS could be phased out due to UK government “sabotage”.

The Green Party’s Circular Economy Minister has warned MSPs that the Scottish Government is examining whether the DRS is a policy “we can implement” after UK ministers refused to grant an exemption under the Internal Market Act required for policy implementation.

Scottish Minister Alister Jack wrote to the Scottish Government on Friday evening partially approving an exemption from the Internal Market Act but excluding glass containers from the scheme – a key tenet of the recycling policy agreed by the Scottish Parliament.

Ms Slater said in Holyrood: “If the UK Government had granted us the full lockdown that we were looking for, I would be here today and I would set out all the detailed steps we are taking ahead of the go-live date next March.”

She added: “Instead, we are now being forced to assess whether the UK Government’s willful sabotage leaves us with something to make work.”

Read more: Slater slams UK government for making DRS conditional

“We will need some time to go through the details of the UK Government’s decision and terms and I will update Parliament on the next steps.”

“There is still a win-win opportunity for the UK Government if they immediately reverse their last-second decision and allow Scotland to pave the way for the comprehensive DRS system, including Glas, that of its own analysis was the best option.” That’s what it should do.”

Ms Slater said the move “makes no economic sense”.

The minister said: “This is just the latest example of how decentralization is now, quite frankly, under sustained attack.

“If we pass legislation to make life a little easier for trans people, the Scottish Minister steps in and blocks the legislation.”

She added: “When Scottish ministers work with other nations to exchange ideas and promote Scotland as a place to travel, study and invest, the UK Foreign Secretary dictates to foreign embassies to silence and sideline them. ”

“And now it is clear that we cannot even introduce a recycling scheme without it being sabotaged by malicious actors in the UK government, which has not supported decentralization at all.

Read more: SNP Net Zero Secretary claims UK wants Scotland to test water for DRS

“The Scottish Minister, whose job it is supposed to be to ensure that decentralization runs smoothly, seems more interested in torpedoing the Scottish Parliament than in protecting Scotland’s environment.”

The Green Party stressed that the UK Government’s approach “has nothing to do with cooperation or partnership,” adding: “It’s ‘our way or the highway’.”

She added: “So in Scotland we can have a DRS that will be ready to launch next March.”

“Yet the British government wants to sabotage the one plan in the UK that is willing to implement a British plan that is nothing more than a plan on one side.”

Ms Slater also asked the UK Government to detail what the English DRS system would look like.

Read more: DRS: Businesses spend £300m dealing with glass that may be scrapped

She said: “My challenge to the UK Government today is to show how and when they will introduce a UK program for Scotland to take inspiration from.”

“Show us a credible path, the regulations, systems administration, secure funding, staff recruitment, systems development, procurement of supply contracts, partnership work with producers and retailers.”

“In other words, show us all the things that we’ve worked hard to deliver in Scotland, all the things that give businesses, producers, retailers and stakeholders the reassurance they need.”

Scottish Conservative MP Maurice Golden claimed that Ms Slater’s Holyrood statement was about “starting a dispute with the UK Government”, adding that the attack was “intended to distract from the mess she is in with the UK”. made return of deposits”.

He added: “Lorna Slater’s plan is in its third delay, retailers have taken legal action and manufacturer registration has been so messed up that the Secretary could not bring herself to admit how many had failed to register.”

“I want this scheme to work. That’s why I voted in favour, that’s why I called a debate on it, even though the minister didn’t want it, and that’s why I offered the minister solutions both publicly and privately.

“Lorna Slater has come into Parliament today – not to update us on DRS, but to indulge in an anti-Britain tirade. She would rather start a row with the UK government than support a scheme that works for everyone. She has traded her environmentalism for nationalism.

“The minister said in her statement that the program can start next March, but when I asked her to finally be honest with the companies – and to confirm that that would definitely be the case – she was not in the mood able or not ready.

“As in this mess, Lorna Slater keeps the Scottish business in the dark.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has criticized the Scottish and UK governments for leaving companies “caught in the middle” in the DRS dispute.

He said: “Both the Scottish and UK governments are in on it. Businesses get caught in the middle and messed up.

“The fact is that the Scottish Government turned a pig’s ear on a good idea long before it attempted to use a constitutional dispute to cloud clarity about its own inadequacy.

“Retailers and manufacturers could work with a system that is competent and poses no barriers, but that’s not what they were looking at.

“Isn’t part of the problem that we have two governments here that are unable to admit their mistakes, for which cooperation is a dirty word, even though that’s what the struggling companies are clamoring for?”