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I will hand over to John Speirs for a bit more detail on that.

The border target operating model and the Windsor framework are two different things, but I will hand over to John Speirs to get into the weeds of it.

Thank you, convener, for making time today to consider the draft Plant Health (Import Inspection Fees) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024. The regulations are being made to amend Scottish legislation on plant health to legislate for fees for new checks on medium-risk plants and plant products that are imported to Scotland, as set out in “The Border Target Operating Model”, which was published by the United Kingdom Government in August 2023. Of course, the model is required only as a result of Brexit. The Scottish Government continues to believe that the best trading relationships for Scotland will be found as a European Union member state.

The Scottish Government has been frustrated by how the UK Government is developing the border target operating model in relation to devolved issues. I appreciate that last-minute decisions by the UK Government have meant that the committee has not had the agreed notice period in which to consider some UK statutory instruments, including the one related to the Scottish statutory instrument that is before you today. When it is within our control, we will always endeavour to ensure that the committee has sufficient consideration time, as we have done with the Scottish statutory instrument.

The draft SSI is linked to a UK statutory instrument: the Plant Health (Fees) (England) and Official Controls (Frequency of Checks) (Amendment) Regulations 2024, which the committee considered at its meeting on 28 February. The committee agreed with the Scottish Government’s decision to consent to the provisions being included in UK subordinate legislation, which was welcome. The UK SI makes changes to the official controls regulations to reflect the introduction of plant health checks on certain medium-risk goods, along with similar amendments to the Official Controls (Plant Health) (Frequency of Checks) Regulations 2022, which introduced the current risk-targeted inspection regime.

The 2024 regulations now introduce the Scottish import inspection fees that correspond to the fees for England that are set out in the UK SI. They provide that for a period—currently up to 30 October 2024—no fees are payable for checks relating to medium-risk fruit and vegetables from EU member states and Switzerland and, similarly, for any goods from those countries and Liechtenstein that enter via a west-coast port. That is in line with the UK SI and the border target operating model. The fees in the 2024 regulations are in line with the Scottish Government’s approach to achieving full-cost recovery of service delivery from businesses that use relevant services.

The regulations are, therefore, necessary and appropriate. My officials and I are happy to take any questions from the committee.

I will give a summary and then hand over to John Speirs. Putting the border controls in place is all part of the progress of Brexit. There have been controls for high-risk goods, and now the controls for medium-risk goods are being put in place at the borders.

I ask John to give us some detail about how the businesses find out.

I absolutely share that concern. That is exactly the transition that the border target operating model represents. When we were a full member of the EU, we were able to trade goods without border checks. Trading with the EU has been relatively low risk in the interim period since Brexit because our regulations and requirements were in line. We will inevitably diverge over time, however much we would like to stay in alignment, so we must have border controls now that we are outside the EU. That is why the border controls are being brought in. Trade has been relatively low risk, but the risk could increase over time.

We are taking a risk-based approach. High-risk goods are already being checked, by both documentary means and physical inspections. That is being done at the place of destination, not at the border. Those high-risk goods are already being tracked and managed, and we are now bringing medium-risk goods into the regime, albeit with various exemptions that I would be happy to go into. Essentially, there is a phased roll-out of border controls.

John Speirs may wish to add more detail.

The deposit return scheme also covered importing goods, so the legislation had to have provisions on that. That scheme is a good example because the regulations for it stipulated the size of businesses that would be affected and gave a variety of exemptions for smaller businesses at the retail end and the producer end.

The regulations to address disposal of unsold goods are intended to deal with businesses that have the most significant environmental impact. That can be informed by consultation of the businesses that would be affected. The intention is absolutely not to impact small and medium-sized businesses, whose carbon footprint and footprint of goods are necessarily small, so including them would not be proportionate.

That is an interesting question. I would need to look at international examples to know what we are looking for there.

As I highlighted, the circular economy strategy, as set out in the bill, talks about reduction in consumption of materials. The most effective reduction in consumption is to move materials up the waste hierarchy towards minimising their use in the first place, and towards reuse over discarding and recycling. That is built right into the strategy.

We have had a bit of discussion about what details might be included in the bill, but strategies would be produced every five years. As Gareth Heavisides has highlighted, they relate to particular sectors and systems—for example, putting in place repair cafes and the systems that we would need in order to implement that approach. The strategy sets out space for those to be created.

I have not had any conversations with it. I do not know whether officials have had any.

We will look at that in consultation. It is necessary to ensure that goods are not being produced and then sent straight to incineration or landfill. I am sure that the member can appreciate that, during a cost of living crisis, it is absolutely in our interest to ensure that perfectly usable goods—