Glass farce

Brian Wilson’s interpretation of the Deposit Return Scheme (Perspective, June 10) fails to mention that Labour’s Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford told BBC Scotland on June 1 that “if the Internal Market Act is invoked for the purpose of removing glass from Scotland’s scheme there would be very serious questions”.

He added: “It was part of the consultation we held with the NI executive and the UK government. At the moment, glass is in our scheme and that’s the wayweexpectittostay.wejointlypublishedadocumentinjanuary with the UK government in which they recognised that while they had decided not to include glass, we had and they signed that document with us.” And he said“the english government is the outlier here ”.

If the London government was acting in good faith, they would have allowed the Scottishscheme to proceed as a pilot for the other nations of the UK. DRS would have been compatible with EU internal market rules yet the UK can’t cope with a degree of internal regulatory divergence.

In Belgium, famous for its small craft beers, they manage to cope with three regional parliaments all at different stages of their schemes, and Innis & Gunnh as increased its business in Sweden despite a DRS.

Many of drinks industry figures opposed the introduction of minimum unit pricing in Scotland on similar grounds of cost and UK divergence but we have all benefitted from this legislation.

It is ironic that British Soft Drink Association is reportedly going to claim compensation from the Scottish Government when they among many other organisation surge dtheuk government to include glass in their DRS.

Like most new schemes there were initial teething problems, but it is clear that theuk government is using the Internal Market Act to further eroded evolution. Fraser Grant Edinburgh