Glasgow shop owner speaks on legal victory over Scottish Government

In an exclusive interview with the Glasgow Times, Abdul Majid told how he felt he had no option but to take ministers to the Court of Session amid fears the controversial initiative would cause him to go bust.

Mr Majid, who runs a convenience store and takeaway in Bellshill in North Lanarkshire, says that the way the scheme was to be implemented would have cost small business owners like him up to £1,000 a week - a burden that would have forced many to go under.

The proposal wanted to introduce a 20p charge on drinks containers, which would then be refunded to consumers when they returned bottles and cans in a bid to boost recycling.

Larger stores, shopping centres and community hubs would operate reverse vending machines for people to return their containers, but Mr Majid believed the cost burden on smaller firms of buying, installing and running these would have been unsustainable.

Mr Majid outside his store (Image: Colin Mearns)

He added: “It’s a huge relief that the court agreed with me – I now feel truly vindicated by my decision to launch this legal challenge.

“While I agree with the initiative in principle, it also must be fair and balanced and not weighted in favour of big businesses, which this clearly was. It was poorly implemented, and I felt like I had to take a stand before it was forced upon us.

"This would have cost people like me our livelihoods.”

The shopkeeper also blasted the Scottish Government for failing to listen to his concerns about the scheme prior to it going to court.

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Mr Majid added: “We tried to speak to them and explain the issues, but our words fell on deaf ears. The people who were responsible for handling it just couldn’t see the damage it would do, so it left me with no option but to get lawyers involved.

“We all want to save the planet, but not at the cost of putting people out of business. I believe in the ethos of the scheme, but it has to be done properly.

“As it stands because of the court's decision, the Scottish Bottle Deposit Return Scheme is dead in the water. I now want the UK Government to look at this judgement and find a more balanced and fair way to roll it out down south.”

The businessman says he is proud to have led the fight to protect others shopkeepers trying to make ends meet.

Mr Majid in his store. (Image: Colin Mearns)

He explained: “It was a stand for all small business that would have been left with the burden of hiring the machine and operating it at a loss. In principle the scheme is right, but it needs to be reviewed and reimagined. I hope this is a lesson learned - and the judge clearly agreed with me."

The initiative – which the Scottish Government have delayed until 2025 – has split opinion since its inception and has now been left hanging in the balance.

It was originally supposed to launch in August before two delays which led to the collapse of Circularity Scotland, the private company responsible for operating the DRS.

Judge Lord Young heard Mr Majid’s case in Edinburgh last week, and told the court that Circularity Scotland had acted unlawfully in respect of an aspect of the scheme.

Lawyers argued that a 2020 law, which was set up to oversee its introduction, did not give Circularity Scotland the power to determine a reasonable handling fee for the business dealing with the return of items.

They said Circularity Scotland’s plan for it to be determined by the costs incurred by every outlet dealing with returned items was wrong.

Mr Majid’s lawyers argued that this view breached European laws on competitiveness, and that it was unfair on small businesses. His legal team said he would lose £1,000 a week if the scheme went ahead in its planned form.

Lawyers for Circularity Scotland agreed during an earlier hearing that it didn’t have the statutory power to set the fee. 

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The organisation also accepted that the law for the scheme meant that businesses like Mr Majid’s didn’t have to accept the figure determined for handling the returned item.

Mr Majid took the Scottish Government to court. (Image: Colin Mearns)

This prompted Lord Young to rule in favour of the businessman.

In his written decision, he said: “It is accepted by the respondent that it has no statutory power to set the return handling fee for any return of point operator.

“It is also accepted that the petitioner is not contractually bound to accept the fee announced by the respondent.

“The first issue for decision, namely whether the 2020 Regulations permit the respondent to impose the fee upon the petitioner, falls to be determined in favour of the petitioner.”

Mr Majid is a former president of trade body the Scottish Grocers’ Federation and was given an MBE in 2019 for his charitable and community work. 

He added: “I based the £1,000-a-week figure on the outlay of buying, installing and running a reverse vending machine which would store the containers and provide the money back. This equipment costs somewhere between £8,000 and £15,000 and we would never see a return on that. It would have put some people out of business right from the very outset.”

In the judgement, Lord Young said that he believed Mr Majid’s legal team’s view of the 2020 law was correct. 

He wrote: “The structure of the 2020 regulations is more consistent with the petitioner’s construction than the respondent’s.

“The 2020 regulations envisage a scheme administrator being appointed to fulfil the obligations of producers, but it is common ground that the scheme administrator has no statutory power in relation to the determination of the return fee. 

“If the regulations had conferred such a power on the scheme administrator, then it might have been easier to envisage that an industry-wide analysis of costs was required since a scheme administrator would have an incentive as well as the resources to approach costs on that basis.

“By not conferring such a power, the clear inference is that individual outlets should look to their own costs to determine the fee which they should charge.”

Lord Young also said a future hearing will have to be held to describe how the case would be disposed of, as well as the matter of who is liable for court costs and expenses incurred.