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I do. Thank you very much.

I congratulate Callum Isted on the incredible effort that he has put behind the petition and the campaign, and for raising £1,400 to buy reusable bottles for his school. His work has been an inspiration to us all.

I and this Government are committed to this agenda and are seeking to dramatically reduce the amount of single-use plastic products that we consume and throw away in Scotland. That is why we are working hard right now to implement Scotland’s deposit return scheme, have banned some of the most problematic single-use plastic products and are introducing a minimum charge on single-use beverage cups by 2025.

Scotland’s deposit return scheme, which will cover the kinds of single-use bottles that we are talking about today, will alone reduce littering by a third and cut emissions by the equivalent of 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over 25 years. That is an average of around 160,000 tonnes of CO₂ each year, which is the equivalent of taking 83,000 cars off the road in the United Kingdom. However, I agree that that is only part of what we need to do. Education authorities and schools have a key role in leading the way.

Callum’s petition has requested that the Scottish Government provides local authorities with funding to enable schools to give reusable metal water bottles to schoolchildren when they start in primary 1. Although I welcome the spirit of the request made in the petition and absolutely share the same ultimate goal—to reduce to a minimum the consumption of single-use plastics in schools—it is for local authorities, as autonomous and democratic organisations, to agree their annual budgets, taking into account their statutory duties and national and local priorities.

The law says that all schools must make sure that drinking water is available free of charge for all pupils at all times of the day, including at meal times. It is for each education authority and school to decide how drinking water is provided, and it is important that we respect that, so that they can provide water in the way that works best for their school and their pupils.

The Scottish Government is clear that that decision, like others made by schools, should support our broader environmental goals. I know that those who provide catering in schools actively consider sustainability as part of their thinking about the delivery of their services. Sustainability is also reflected in the learning for sustainability cross-curricular theme, which encourages schools to take a whole-setting approach to it. That means that all school buildings, grounds and policies in the school should support learning for sustainability, including making sure that the school is taking steps to be more sustainable, which includes reducing the use of plastic.

I know that, in practical terms, local authorities use sustainable approaches to reduce the use of single-use plastic in schools. That includes the provision of water fountains, ensuring that water jugs and reusable cups are available in dining halls, and encouraging pupils to bring in and use reusable bottles. Furthermore, in direct response to the petition, my colleague Shirley-Anne Somerville wrote to the directors of education at all local authorities, drawing their attention to the petition and their obligations to provide drinking water to pupils, and further encouraging them to do so in an environmentally friendly way. We will continue to build on that progress.

Thank you for inviting me here today. I look forward to answering your questions.

I do not think that that is an accurate representation of the situation at all. There are other sustainable ways of providing water and it is up to schools to provide it in the way that works best for them. For example, if schools and local authorities have invested in water fountains and their maintenance and upkeep, that is how they have decided to meet the statutory requirement to provide water and that is how they have decided to spend their budgets. It is for them to make that decision. Equally, if schools have invested in jug and cup schemes, it is absolutely within their purview to decide how to spend that money and how to make the provision. It is not for us to impose upon them how to interpret the requirement to provide water.

We know that water is being provided, as my colleague said, because of our on-going conversations with education authorities.

I would just say thank you very much to Callum Isted for bringing the matter to our attention. He is absolutely right: we should all be working towards using fewer single-use plastics and using reusable, long-term containers and packaging. I thank him so much for his work.

I am happy to pass that to my colleague Laura Meikle.

I do not know the answer to that.

The fees structure is intended to cover just the costs, and, where reduced inspections are required, that means a reduced cost. The fees are not a money-making mechanism. If we have to use fewer resources doing fewer checks, we do not need to charge as much.

I will hand over to the officials on that one.

It is my understanding that that is the case.

I will you give my layperson’s interpretation, and officials can come in with technical details if I miss anything. Due to Brexit, it is now necessary to do these checks on all high-risk products coming from the EU in addition to those coming from the rest of the world. Therefore, these checks aim to bring how we treat products from the EU into alignment with how we treat products from the rest of the world. Obviously, the Scottish Government did not wish for Brexit to happen or for these checks to be necessary, but it is important that we have alignment between how we handle products from the EU and how we handle products from the rest of the world. England and Wales have already put in place such a risk-based scheme.

The EU scheme, which, of course, is what would have been used to check these products as they came into the EU is also a risk-based scheme. Therefore, it is the same principle and the same structure of scheme, but we must now bring that into Scottish legislation.

Again, I will give you the layperson’s view, and officials can come in with the details. The new regime involves the same kind of risk profiling as the existing scheme. As plants come in, we have to check that they are the correct plants, as identified, that they are healthy and that they are not bringing in pathogens. Risk assessments will be based on what we grow here, what pathogens might spread in the UK and what might create risks for our crops and commercial interests. My officials might like to add some detail.