The Scottish Wholesale Association (SWA) has welcomed the news that the UK Government has agreed to a conditional IMA exemption for DRS, calling it a positive move for a successful delivery of the scheme.
“Our members trade in a UK-wide drinks industry and supply chain. As members of Circularity Scotland (CSL), we’ve been proactively working to ensure Scotland’s scheme is effective and goes live as designed by the Scottish Government,” explained chief executive Colin Smith. “However, we have argued for several years that a UK-wide approach made more sense and that including glass increased costs and complexity.”
He added that glass inclusion is currently the main difference between the Scottish and English schemes so it represents a major change. “This move will be particularly welcomed by licensed wholesalers who are wine and spirits importers and treated as producers under DRS regulations. This will also massively reduce the numbers of SKUs affected for all wholesalers.”
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“While the UK Government’s late timing of this announcement is disrespectful to all the businesses which have been waiting for this confirmation, it’s now critical that the Scottish and UK governments work together, and with those affected businesses, at pace to ensure that the Scottish scheme can go live smoothly next spring and the UK-wide schemes can work as seamlessly as possible in future.
