You could almost hear the collective thud of chins hitting the floor today when the politician in charge of the UK’s first deposit return scheme admitted her government may have to pull the plug on the entire exercise by the time the month is out.

Having been delayed for a third time, until next April, the DRS could bite the dust within 13 days, admitted Lorna Slater. That’s unless the Westminster government drops its opposition to changes under the internal market.

Her bombshell announcement, made at a summit held by the Scottish Grocers’ Federation, left representatives from the companies installing the multi-billion pound network of reverse vending machines visibly shaken.

Mark Brill, VP of sales and marketing at Tomra – one of the world’s biggest suppliers of RVMs – said he felt like “chewing his arm off” in frustration.

If this latest twist in the rollercoaster tale of DRS isn’t shocking enough, the Scottish government only days ago launched a new group involving business, politicians, civil servants and scheme administrator CSL to ensure a more co-ordinated approach to tackling the barriers.

This was the set-up for today’s bombshell. CSL had claimed the group would “cease to exist” by the end of May. When asked about the claims by SGF CEO Pete Cheema – who questioned what would happen if a breakthrough in talks with Westminster was not forthcoming – Slater was unable to calm industry nerves. Far from it – she confirmed her government was almost as much in the dark as the rest.

It would decide in the days ahead if DRS was “viable”. By the end of the May, to quote Debbie Harry, we will know “one way or another”.

So that’s OK, then. Forget that the government has been urging retailers to spend thousands installing RVMs, and persuading producers to sign up to the scheme despite fears the deposit would cause “carnage” to their businesses (to quote another prominent former government minister).

No, all will be revealed in the fullness of time. Or 10 days.

Until this afternoon’s development, the biggest threat to DRS appeared to be when supermarkets astonishingly declared plans to stop selling drinks online in Scotland, if the government went ahead with plans to make them responsible for takeback.

Leaving aside what could happen if Scots are told they can no longer buy Tennent’s or Irn-Bru in their online shop – it could make the scenes from Braveheart look like Disney – it shows just how disconnected the government is from industry. That’s despite its attempts to “reset” relations, announced by new first minister Humza Yousaf last week.

Asked about the threat by The Grocer, Slater said she was confident supermarkets would get round the barrier of having to buy entire new fleets of vans, or rip up food safety rules, because they had shown “good form” in responding to people in need during the pandemic.

The Scottish government is not, of course, the only one trying to reset that relationship with industry. Prime minister Rishi Sunak attempted a similar feat with his summit this week. While it was not one of the measures announced on Tuesday, a delay to DRS was one of the key demands from those in the industry.

It’s always difficult to call what will happen given the relationship between Westminster and Holyrood, but it would take a braveheart indeed to bet on the rollout going ahead now.

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