Chamber and committees

I thought that you would say that. Surely the Government cannot seriously be saying that it would put up with an unsatisfactory situation that the Law Society of Scotland has highlighted until 2025. It is not right that an accused person cannot consult their solicitor, never mind the second issue.

There has been a commitment to improve the technology but will it improve before 2025? Are there more immediate plans than that?

The member is correct that I am referring to people who are being detained in a police station. We have heard evidence on that, but it just seems that the system is not really set up for it, and there is an issue with the quality. The Law Society of Scotland has said that the use of virtual custodies raises significant operational and human rights concerns. The evaluation of the Falkirk pilot in May 2022 was critical of the virtual custody process in the absence of significant additional investment, and stated that the issue of fairness to the accused is fundamental.

There is an important point about physical separation. Many lawyers have complained about the physical separation of the accused in speaking to solicitors. That was accepted as necessary during the pandemic, but why is it necessary now? Do we not want to reinstate the fundamental principle that an accused person should be able to see their lawyer before appearing in the court? That is simply not possible if the accused appears directly from custody in a police station. The situation is far from satisfactory.

Jamie Greene referred to the police. Police Scotland has concluded that it cannot fully support the virtual model without a complete overhaul of the custody process and significant investment in resource. That is telling. For those reasons, I am inclined to push amendment 1036.

I point out to the Government that it strikes me as a costly exercise to have a sheriff, and all the clerks, sit until 9.30 at night. It is a very poor experience for staff—if anyone is interested, and if that matters—to sit all day in a court when proceedings started 45 minutes late because the Crown did not prepare its cases on time.

A lot of issues are slowing down the process, and they need to be looked at. Nonetheless, in my view, virtual hearings are totally unsatisfactory and do not meet the interests of justice. They will not even solve the problem of separation between solicitors and the accused—a solicitor is unable to confer with the accused when one of them is in the police station and the other is not—at least until such time as we can provide a certain level of quality of electronic means to enable that to happen.

For the record, I accept that there are aspects of court proceedings in which, many people say, the use of virtual hearings is perfectly acceptable, where the balance of justice is not interrupted and it makes sense. However, with regard to this particular aspect, I am not convinced that it makes sense.

I move amendment 1035.

Cabinet secretary, thank you for outlining the rationale behind the amendment. Initially, on reading it, you might think that you would not want to depart from the general need to get a balanced panel. I am reasonably familiar with the difficulties in getting people to sign up. Will you say more about what the Government will do to correct that, so that we can have mixed panels in the future? How long will the measure be in place before you review it?

I will move this and amendment 1048, convener. I hope that I did not mishear members saying that they would support them.

Amendments 1047 and 1048 moved—[Pauline McNeill]—and agreed to.

I strongly support Katy Clark and Jamie Greene in trying to get a commitment from the Government. There needs to be an evidence base not just on the experience of witnesses, victims and the accused, but on the outcome of cases. It is important to have that debate.

I am keen to move amendment 1036, and I will say a few things about why. I would be happy to take an intervention from the cabinet secretary. I want to be clear in my own mind because some of the timescales are confusing.

The Law Society of Scotland is clear. It has been said that

“The physical separation of the accused, their solicitors and the courtroom has had a deleterious impact on the overall process. The separation has made it harder for the solicitors to communicate effectively before and during hearings with the Crown”.

I have not heard anything to indicate that the Government is concerned about that. It is surely not satisfactory in anyone’s book.

If the timescale was shorter, I might say that we should put up with the situation for a bit longer. I need to clarify the timescale. I thought that it was 2023 or, potentially, up to 2025. It would help me a lot to know the answer.

That would be helpful. I am going to take it in good faith that the cabinet secretary knows where I am coming from, just as I know where he is coming from. For Jamie Greene’s benefit, my understanding was that the amendment that I asked to be drafted sought to remove virtual appearances as the default. As it was not my intention not to allow flexibility, I want to be sure about what such an amendment does.

If the Government is willing to open channels and have further discussions—I would, for example, even accept a shorter time period or the Government having much more responsibility to review the provision before 2025—I am, on that basis—

Amendment 2 is a consequence of what I am seeking to do in the next group of amendments, which relates to the days on which fireworks can be used. This amendment, which is about the days of supply of fireworks, is consequential to the amendments that relate to the days of use, so I will leave the substantive debate for the next group of amendments.

I have some sympathy with Jamie Greene’s argument about the arbitrary nature of the days on which fireworks can be sold. That needs to be clear as we approach stage 3. On the connection between the supply and the use of fireworks, my concern is that, given that part of the concept of the bill is to deal with the stress that communities feel around the times when fireworks are used, there is quite a wide range of days on which they can be used. As a consequence, amendment 2 is designed to reduce the number of days on which fireworks are supplied. I will leave my other arguments until the debate on the next group of amendments.

We received good evidence from a retailer, but it was slightly concerning when he said that he was selling fireworks for birthdays and big anniversary events. Are you concerned that there might be a growing culture of people using fireworks for big events that we have not factored into the legislation?

I guess that it would. Again, that would be for the local authority to deal with. You are saying that it would not happen that a council would not act. Why would Glasgow City Council not do that? I do not know the answer to that, but I know that, with previous legislation, councils did not act on pressured areas, whereby the right to buy could be ring fenced. We would have thought that that power would have been used in some areas of Glasgow, but it was not.

Relevant departments that are engaging with ministers may say that they are going to use the provision, but I would have thought that the decisions would be made higher up, by the full council. I do not know where the decision will be taken, but if we do not know the answer to that, we should make it clear that someone can formally ask their local authority to consider—I am not saying that it should be applied—whether a firework control zone is necessary.

I press amendment 9.

I thank Jamie Greene and Collette Stevenson for their amendments, which are critical. They all align with the committee’s stage 1 report, in which we all expressed a lot of concerns about the bill.

On Jamie Greene’s amendments 129 and 90, the biggest weakness in the bill for me is the licensing scheme and the lack of detail on it, given that a lot will be done through statutory instruments. That seems to warrant a review of the scheme.

I was concerned about the letter from the British Firework Association that Jamie Greene referred to and which we got only a couple of days ago. I presume that the minister has had the opportunity to read it, but it says:

“In respect of the licensing requirements, the Minister stated that a delivery driver would have a legal obligation to check for a licence, as they do with other age restricted products. Delivery drivers have a duty to check for age verification on age restricted products, not a licence. Notwithstanding this, the way to circumvent this (and we see already) is to send the product in plain packaging.”

It also says:

“for the record, the Minister states that Fireworks can only be delivered by specialist couriers. This is incorrect, fireworks (under ADR regulations) can be delivered in limited quantities (up to 500kg ... )”.

That alludes to the knock-on effect of people not using the licensing scheme. We do not know yet whether people will see the scheme as onerous or not, and that is where the whole debate about the black market comes in. It all ties together.

Whether the issue can be tied up at stage 3 with amendments on a review of the legislation, I do not know. For me, a specific review of the licensing scheme is important, given my concerns about whether such a scheme is the best way of controlling fireworks. I would like to hear from the minister, but I welcome and intend to vote for both pairs of amendments.