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UK ministers have made the exclusion of glass a condition of their support.

First Minister Humza Yousaf has said the scheme is in jeopardy if the UK government does not make the necessary concessions.

Mr Yousaf has written to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, asking him to include glass, and wants a response by Monday.

He told BBC Scotland this deadline was “effectively” an ultimatum.

The UK government wrote to the Scottish government last week granting a partial exemption to the Internal Market Act which would exclude glass containers from the DRS – which is due to go live in Scotland in March next year.

Glass has been excluded mainly because the UK government said deposit return schemes should be consistent across the UK.

Mr Yousaf has urged a rethink from the UK government, citing concerns from businesses.

In his letter to Mr Sunak, the first minister said: “The removal of glass fundamentally threatens the viability of Scotland’s DRS with reduced revenue for the scheme administrator.

“Removing glass will also have a significant impact on business.”

He also said that, apart from threatening jobs and investment, excluding glass would also put companies at a competitive disadvantage.

In an interview on the BBC’s The Sunday Show, Mr Jack strongly defended the UK government’s position.

“We’ve given the exclusion and there are four conditions in that exclusion which allow the schemes to work across the United Kingdom,”

He said there would be a single bar code system and membership of just one scheme would be needed instead of multiple schemes so there would be no extra costs.

He added that having no glass in the scheme “makes sense” as “that’s what industry have asked us to do”.

“I haven’t had a single letter from a business supporting the proposed scheme that Lorna Slater brought forward whereas I have had over 1,000 letters of concern,” he said. “And it’s those concerns that we’ve taken into account when we’ve come to our conclusion because we believe the deposit charge should be the same and reciprocated across the UK.

“If I get off the train in Carlisle and buy some recyclable material and it’s 10p in Carlisle and 20p in Dumfries I double my money. That makes no sense.”

Mr Jack added: “You have to protect internal markets and not have disruption to the drinks industry. French wine producers have told us they wouldn’t be relabelling just for Scotland for glass. It was too small a market so they would sell their wine elsewhere.”

He added that the British Glass Industry had written to the UK government saying the glass was not recycling glass and that Circularity Scotland [the administrator of the scheme] was going to crush it and put it into roads, adding that it should instead be melted and recycled into bottles.

However, this was later disputed by Circularity Scotland which said the aggregate claims were “totally inaccurate”.

The organisation, which represents drinks producers, retailers and trade bodies who are backing the DRS scheme, said it had set a high target for remelting glass so it could be reused to make new drinks containers.

A spokesman said: “Circularity Scotland has consistently stated that the Scottish Deposit Return Scheme has set a target of 90% for the remelting and reuse of glass from the scheme’s launch, rising to 95% post-launch. Any claims to the contrary are totally inaccurate.

“These claims have seriously jeopardised a £10m investment in glass recycling planned for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme

Scottish government wants to include glass bottles in its plans

The Scottish secretary also said there were issues with contamination because if a bottle was broken and had a shard of less than 10mm, it would contaminate all the recyclable material in the bin and it would have to go to landfill.

Mr Jack said the UK government had listened to the drinks industry, including the Scotch Whisky Association which said having glass in the scheme would cost it jobs.

In his letter to the prime minister, Mr Yousaf had cited concerns raised by C&C Group – one of the country’s biggest brewers and the company behind Tennent’s Lager – but, in correspondence Mr Jack received from the firm, seen by the BBC, the company said it had been “misrepresented”.

Reading a section of the letter, Mr Jack said: “Please find enclosed the letter we sent to Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, setting out our position following last weekend’s UK Internal Market announcement.

“Regrettably, specific passages of this letter were leaked to the media misrepresenting C&C’s position on DRS.

“C&C Group/Tennent’s is actively seeking and supports a UK-wide scheme introduced at the same time across the four UK nations.”

The letter went on to say that the removal of glass would leave the company at a “competitive disadvantage with the rest of the UK” and the firm “cannot therefore support a stand-alone Scottish DRS that excludes glass”.

Circularity Scotland previously urged the UK and Scottish governments to “get round the table” to deliver the programme.

It said it had invested about £300m to develop the deposit return scheme.

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack’s comments can be taken to mean the UK government will not agree to what Humza Yousaf described to the BBC as an “effective” ultimatum.

Mr Yousaf wants the UK government to allow glass bottles to be part of the Deposit Return Scheme and wants them to agree to this by Monday. He says he struggles to see how it can go ahead otherwise.

The Scottish government is expected to decide on the future of the scheme this week.

But as things now stand, it would seem there is very little prospect of it going ahead next March as planned.

Supporters of the Scottish government will present the UK government’s position as an attack on devolution and the powers of Holyrood.

The issue will be less the rights and wrongs of the scheme itself – and more the principle that a scheme backed by a majority of MSPs cannot go ahead.

The UK government, on the other hand, would also mount a strong argument.

It would argue it is listening to the concerns of businesses about the scheme and ensuring there are no barriers to trade within Britain.

This increasingly feels like a story about constitutional politics rather than the rights and wrongs of the Deposit Return Scheme itself.

More than 200 ambulances were sent to the scene in Balasore district, says Odisha’s chief secretary Pradeep Jena.

One passenger train is thought to have derailed before being struck by another on the adjacent track late on Friday.

It is India’s worst train crash this century. Officials say the death toll is expected to rise further.

Indian Railways said the two services involved were the Coromandel Express and the Howrah Superfast Express.

Sudhanshu Sarangi, director general of Odisha Fire Services, said that the death toll stood at 288.

Mr Jena said earlier that more than 100 additional doctors had been mobilised.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was distressed by the incident and his thoughts were with the bereaved families.

“Rescue ops are under way at the site of the mishap and all possible assistance is being given to those affected,” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Amit Shah labelled the incident “deeply agonising”.

One male survivor said that “10 to 15 people fell on me when the accident happened and everything went haywire. I was at the bottom of the pile.

“I got hurt in my hand and also the back of my neck. When I came out of the train bogie, I saw someone had lost their hand, someone had lost their leg, while someone’s face was distorted,” the survivor told India’s ANI news agency.

A day of mourning has been announced in the state.

It is believed that several carriages from the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express derailed at about 19:00 local time (13:30 GMT), with some of them ending up on the opposite track.

Another train – the Howrah Superfast Express travelling from Yesvantpur to Howrah – is then thought to have hit the overturned carriages.

Indian officials said that a goods train – which was stationary at the site – was also involved in the incident. They provided no further details.

Some surviving passengers were seen rushing in to help rescue those trapped in the wreckage.

Local bus companies were also helping to transport wounded passengers.

India has one of the largest train networks in the world and accidents are common, despite successive governments investing hundreds of millions of dollars to improve the infrastructure, says BBC South Asia regional editor Anbarasan Ethirajan.

India’s worst train disaster was in 1981, when an overcrowded passenger train was blown off the tracks and into a river during a cyclone in Bihar state, killing at least 800 people.

Asbestos is a material which if inhaled can cause cancer and is the biggest cause of work-related deaths in the UK.

Mrs Mahon, who died last year of malignant mesothelioma at the age of 85, was best known as a fiery Labour left-winger and a close ally of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

But the former Halifax MP also campaigned tirelessly for asbestos victims, backing calls for a public inquiry into the high incidence of asbestos-related disease amongst former power industry workers.

She said she had been exposed to asbestos when she worked as an auxiliary nurse at a West Yorkshire hospital in the 1960s and 1970s, an inquest was told in January.

She also believed she could have been exposed during the 17 years she spent in Parliament, the inquest heard.

Mrs Mahon’s son, Kris, tells the BBC: “Alice was very keenly aware of what was going to happen to her once she had her diagnosis.

“Her plans had to be replaced with a calm acceptance that death was coming.”

His mother lived next door to a plumber who also died from mesothelioma at the age of about 60. Additionally a young man who was a carpenter and builder and well known to the family died from mesothelioma.

“So we saw two hard-working men reduced to ghosts before their early deaths,” says Kris.

Asbestos is classified as being carcinogenic, which means it can cause cancer such as mesothelioma and other dangerous lung conditions when the fibres are inhaled.

Until it was banned in 1999, it was widely used as a building material for roofing, insulation, walls and flooring.

It remains present in buildings across the UK.

As long as the asbestos is in good condition and is not disturbed there is negligible risk, according to the Health and Safety Executive.

But if it is disturbed it can become a danger to health because asbestos fibres are released into the air and people may breathe them in.

Companies have a duty to prevent employees being exposed to the substance at work, under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012.

However, the regulations state that asbestos-containing materials that are in good condition and unlikely to be disturbed can be left in place.

MPs from all parties have campaigned for more action to get rid of asbestos, which can be a complex and costly process.

Last year, the Commons Work and Pensions Committee called for a strategy with a 40-year deadline to remove all asbestos from public and commercial buildings.

The government’s position was set out in April by Rishi Sunak, in answer to a question from Conservative MP Jane Hunt.

The prime minister said: “The law does require duty holders to assess whether asbestos is present, what condition it is in and whether it gives rise to a risk of exposure, and they must draw up a plan to manage that risk, which must include removal if it cannot be safely managed where it is located.”

Ms Hunt backs the charity Mesothelioma UK’s campaign for a register of all workplaces in the country that contain asbestos and a timetable for eradicating it.

The charity says the situation is a “ticking time bomb” and is asking the government to prioritise high-risk settings such as schools and hospitals.

Kris, who works as a professor of law in New Zealand, is also calling for more action from the government, arguing that asbestos should not be left in place.

“The government has a duty to protect lives from a known, indiscriminate killer such as asbestos: that requires proactive action to locate and remove asbestos,” he says.

“Asbestos is in many settings, often mingled with other products, and the argument is often put forward that it is best left in place because it is only a risk if it is disturbed.

“But the problem is that buildings deteriorate and need refurbishment, or are knocked down and replaced, and this will lead to asbestos being released in uncontrolled circumstances. The safest thing to do is remove the risk.”

In 2019 there were more than 5,000 asbestos-related deaths, including from cancers such as mesothelioma.

In January, an inquest ruled that Mrs Mahon “came by her death as a result of an industrial disease”.

Mrs Mahon had blamed the disease on her exposure to asbestos during time as a nurse at Northowram Hospital, in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, the inquest was told.

She had described in a compensation claim how the temporary huts she worked were made of corrugated asbestos sheets, that had been disturbed by maintenance work.

But she also believed she may have been exposed to the substance during her time as an MP, after being told after her retirement in 2005 that Parliament was “riddled with asbestos”.

Asbestos was identified in 680 rooms across the parliamentary estate in surveys carried out between 2019 to 2022 by the parliamentary maintenance services team.

A UK Parliament spokesperson says: “As with many historical buildings, asbestos is present – and appropriately managed. The risk to anyone on the estate is very low.”

The spokesperson added that any work posing an asbestos risk is “properly planned” in compliance with regulations.

However, the Public Accounts Committee recently released a report that found a growing list of health and safety incidents within Parliament, including some involving asbestos.

“There are already people on decades-long risk watchlists after being exposed to asbestos in the building,” warned the committee’s Labour chairwoman Dame Meg Hillier.

Regarding asbestos in Parliament, Kris says: “Every workplace, including such grand places as the Palace of Westminster, should be a safe place.

“The risks of asbestos are so well known now, and have been for decades, that steps to identify and remove asbestos from all workplaces should have been completed by now.

“At the very least, there should be detailed audit to determine the risks, which can no doubt be done alongside other refurbishment.”

The UK Health Security Agency says asbestos should not be removed without expert advice. People are advised to contact their local council for more information about its removal and disposal.