SCOTTISH Secretary Alister Jack has been accused of making “simply and categorically untrue” statements to the House of Commons in a row over the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS).
Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer has written to both the Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle as well as Cabinet Secretary Simon Case accusing Jack of lying to Parliament about the scheme and calling for an investigation into his comments.
It comes just days after Humza Yousaf announced the DRS will go live next March rather than this August as was originally planned.
According to a report in The Scotsman, the dispute centres on whether the Scottish Government had to make a “formal request” to the UK Government for an exemption to the Internal Market Act (IMA) as part of the process for progressing the DRS.
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The Scottish Government says the process started in 2021 when a “broad” request for an exemption covering both the ban on single use plastics and DRS was made.
However, the UK Government has said a “formal” request was only made on March 6 this year.
The newspaper reports that sources within Holyrood are adamant there is no such thing as a “formal “ request within the process outlined for an exemption.
Greer has now suggested that Jack’s claim there was no request for an IMA exemption was “simply and categorically untrue”.
In his letter to Hoyle, the Green MSP said: “I would like to raise my concern that not only has Jack falsely accused me of misleading the Parliament in which I sit, but has himself evidently misled the House of Commons.
“It is abundantly clear that Jack’s attempts to convince the House of Commons that the Scottish Government had not sought an IMA exemption until March of this year is simply and categorically untrue.
“It is my firm belief that Mr Jack and his Government have used the Brexit process to give themselves a new power of veto over the decisions of Scotland’s elected Parliament via the Internal Market Act. This is a direct attack on Scotland’s democracy.”
He also accused the Scottish Secretary of being “clearly and demonstrably misleading” in his statements to Parliament.
Greer continued: “It is extremely alarming that the Secretary of State for Scotland is not only misleading Parliament consistently, but he has invented a new form of request which sits outside of agreed processes.”
The letter concludes: “Whilst the wider political points are, of course, not a matter for the Speaker, I would urge you to urgently investigate the situation I have described and outline and ask what action you will take in response to Mr Jack misleading the House of Commons.”
In a second letter sent to Case, the most senior civil servant in Westminster, the MSP accuses Jack of having potentially “unilaterally altered the common frameworks agreed with the Scottish Government”.
Requesting “factual clarity” from Case, Greer has asked for confirmation that “neither a formal nor an official request for an exclusion from the IMA” is required.
In response, the UK Government told The Scotsman that the formal request for an exemption had only been received in March and stressed that since the Scottish Government had been “reviewing” the scheme, before deciding to delay it, it had “not been possible” for it to fully assess the impacts of the exclusion request on cross-UK trade.
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Asked to comment on the letters, a UK Government spokesman said: “UK Government ministers received a formal request for an IMA exclusion for the Scottish Government’s Deposit Return Scheme on March 6. There had been no formal request prior to this.
“We will continue to engage with the Scottish Government to realise our shared ambition to improve the environment while meeting the needs of consumers and businesses across the UK.”
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