Environmental Protection (Single-Use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 - fixed penalty notice amendment: consultation

Overview

On the 18 September 2024, the Scottish Parliament approved The Environmental Protection (Single-Use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 to prohibit the sale and supply of single-use vapes in Scotland.

We held three consultations on these Regulations during 2023 and 2024, which informed agreement to align definitions and timelines, and the need for need for effective enforcement. You can read the government response to these consultations at the links below:

• Creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping consultation: government response
• Draft Environmental Protection (Single-Use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 Consultation: SG Response
• Government response to consultation on ‘Implementing the prohibition of the sale and supply of single-use vapes in Scotland: your views’

Following enactment of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 which provides for the use of fixed penalty notices, in respect of offences in regulations made under section 140 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and in line with previous consultation responses we propose to amend the Single-use Vapes Regulations to enable enforcement officers to issue fixed penalty notices. We propose to also take the opportunity to amend three other sets of regulations made using the powers in section 140 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the Single-use Plastic Products Regulations, the Cotton Buds Regulations and the Microbeads Regulations so as to provide for a fixed penalty notice procedure in relation to offences under those Regulations.

In line with our commitments made during the development of the Single-use Vapes Regulations, we will also amend the coming into force date from 01 April 2025 to 01 June 2025 in order to maintain alignment across the UK and to provide certainty for businesses and consumers.

The proposed amendments also clarify that an enforcement officer may take samples of, test and take into their possession any vape or component of a vape which appears to that enforcement officer to be a single-use vape or component of a single-use vape.

This consultation invites feedback on the provisions set out in the draft Environmental Protection (Injurious Articles) (Fixed Penalty Notices and Miscellaneous Amendments) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 in general, and also poses specific questions in relation to the fixed penalty notices provisions.