1. I refer members to my entry in the register of interests.

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that it meets its new target for banning biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill. (S5T-01792)

There will be a centrally co-ordinated Intervention to help remaining local authorities procure solutions for the remaining tonnage of waste. Scottish landfill tax will be used to provide a further incentive to ensure that transitional work proceeds at the necessary pace.

I will also establish a programme board comprising senior leaders and waste management professionals across public and commercial sectors to oversee and drive forward measures to ensure full compliance with the ban by 2025. The board will report to me at regular intervals.

We will continue to prioritise reducing waste and increasing recycling to reduce reliance on energy from waste.

On 5 September, in response to a written question on the subject, the Scottish National Party gave no indication that the target for the ban would not be met. When did the SNP Government know that it would fail to meet its own target on the issue?

With the greatest of respect to Maurice Golden, I say that he needs to understand that the delivery responsibility lies with local authorities. Over the summer, we tried to establish the actual picture among local authorities, and we now have that information. I can advise that 16 local authorities have fully compliant solutions in place for the period before 2021; three have secured post-ban solutions that will come on stream after 2021 but still lack an interim solution; seven have a secure interim solution but no long-term solution; and six have no policy-compliant solution in place and are not currently procuring a solution. That is the picture that we have had to consider and make a decision about. When we saw that picture, it was clear to us that the landfill ban in 2021 could not hold at the current level.

I find that answer extraordinary. Back in 2015, I knew that the target would not be met, and the industry and local authorities knew. For the SNP Government not to know reeks of incompetence or wilful neglect. How can the Parliament trust the SNP to deliver on tackling climate change when it cannot meet the most basic waste target?

I remind Maurice Golden what I said at the start: the delivery responsibility lies with local authorities. I will not embarrass him by reading out the Conservative local authorities that are on the list of councils that have not put in place solutions. We are where we are. We have looked at options for the future. The proposal that I have come up with looks to me to be the most secure and certain, and it is the one that we will be working with over the next few years.

Earlier this month, Clackmannanshire Council joined Stirling Council and Perth and Kinross Council in signing a three-year waste management contract that will see its waste being shipped to Sweden for incineration. Does the Scottish Government think that that is an acceptable way to deal with the waste? What support can the Government give to councils that have signed such contracts only to find that the goalposts have now been moved?

With the greatest of respect, I repeat what I said at the outset: delivery responsibility for the particular ban that we are talking about lies with local authorities. Local authorities make decisions on the basis of understanding that although, unfortunately, in a number of cases, they have not made decisions on that basis. I am happy to talk to any local authority about particular decisions that it has made. We must be incredibly careful to ensure that the 2025 extension is met. That will not be done by incentivising the approach that has led to a failure to succeed until now, and we will look at that closely.

There was never a coherent Scottish Government policy on the issue, so last week’s decision was always inevitable. Sending waste in lorries to English landfill sites was never a responsible solution to meeting the ban. How will the Government use the delay wisely by encouraging the market to seize the opportunities, given that the record of shipping waste abroad means that our processing capacity is well below where it needs to be?

There are some real issues that have to be thought through. As well as the fact that local authorities have not done the job that we expected them to do, there has been difficulty in encouraging Scotland-based solutions. I agree with Willie Rennie that shipping waste furth of Scotland is not the ideal scenario, and it is what we are trying to prevent with the extension of the ban from 2021 to 2025. That is why we are looking carefully at what might be put in place so that we do not incentivise further shipping abroad. I advise Willie Rennie that we are considering what we might do in respect of the landfill tax to ensure that we do not provide an inadvertent incentive to do so.

What support will the Government provide to local authorities to implement infrastructure that will reduce biodegradable household waste to zero?

Every year, local authorities agree with the Scottish Government the sums of money that will go to them. That agreement takes place in a negotiation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. If this issue is to continue to be a key part of the agreement, I would expect that local authorities would wish to ensure that it is raised in the discussions with COSLA.

As the member knows perfectly well, because I have repeated it endlessly this afternoon, the delivery responsibility lies with local authorities. We do not intend to change that, despite the extension to the deadline on the ban.