Chamber and committees

The cost of the licence was the subject of considerable questioning and debate at stage 1. A number of members were concerned about what the licence fee would be, and I acknowledge that the Government is alive to the issue.

Some people cannot afford to pay even £20 for a licence, but there is agreement that there is a big difference between £20 and £50. I want to probe that issue, as I think that there should be an upper limit in the bill. I have suggested that it should be £25. I admit that the amount is arbitrary, but I thought that going above £25 would make the licence unaffordable for a lot of people.

It concerns me that the scheme is designed to pay for itself yet the committee has no indication of what that looks like, as we do not know how onerous the scheme is. Will it be a tick-box or a video training exercise? That means we cannot imagine what the cost to the Government of running the scheme will be, and we cannot see how it will pay for itself.

For many families who can just about afford to buy fireworks, the additional cost of a licence could be prohibitive. It gives me serious cause for concern that there is nothing in the bill about that. If the principle is to make people think and plan, why should there be a fee at all?

The whole idea is going to fail if we do not get this right, so I want to probe the issue. I will not vote to pass the bill at stage 3 without some serious commitment from the Government to addressing that question.

Amendment 69 seems to be worded better than my amendment in referring to the rate of inflation, so I will be happy to support it if it is moved.

I move amendment 1.

I saw amendment 1 as a probing amendment, and I imagined all the arguments against it. I acknowledge that we would not necessarily want to put it in the bill, and I can see the problems with doing that.

However, I have to confess that the term “running costs” alarms me. The minister is still asking the committee and the Parliament to vote for a bill when we do not know what those running costs will be. The minister does not know what the consultation will bring up. I wonder what ministers would do if the running costs turned out to mean that the fee would be set at £30 or £35, which would be between £20 and the upper limit of £50. Have you thought about that, minister? Where would that leave us?

I would not want to stand in the way of the Government running a consultation, but it concerns me that I would have to act in good faith, because we will not know the result until after we have passed the bill and the Government has run the consultation. What if the running costs of the scheme meant that the fee would be higher than £25? I cannot imagine that ministers would be happy with that. Would you then take the view that you might have to run the scheme at a loss? I would be grateful if you would answer that question, minister.

Thank you.

Section 2 agreed to.

After section 2

I am sympathetic to what Jamie Greene has outlined with regard to the need to understand the existing legislation and how it operates. I note the figures that he provided. However, I do not think that the amendment addresses an issue that concerns me—perhaps Jamie Greene could answer this point—namely that there seems to be a lack of confidence in the criminal justice system about using the existing legislation. To me, the lack of convictions indicates that either the police or the Crown are not using the legislation. I am drawing a distinction between the question whether the legislation is comprehensive enough and the question whether our criminal justice authorities are using the legislation.

I am sympathetic to the arguments for the amendment, but I would like Jamie Greene to address how it would deal with an issue that the committee considered in its report, which is what seems to be a lack of data on whether the Crown is actually using the legislation to prosecute people. My biggest concern about the bill is whether, even if we pass it, we will see the Crown Office and the police service using the legislation to prosecute people who are breaking the law. Comments on that would be helpful.

The phrase “community wealth building” risks being meaningless if the policies that are linked to it do nothing to alleviate the suffering that is being caused by the cost of living crisis. Currently, the economy simply is not working for a significant number of people and, as members have said, that has to change. What happened to the rhetoric at the beginning of the pandemic about building back better? We do not hear much about that now, and we have not even started down the path of changing the things that need to change. Although I see the potential of Ted Howard’s Cleveland model, in all honesty, I fail to see how Scotland is leading on that—I genuinely do not see it.

One sharp reminder that we need to radically alter the way in which the economy is structured is that, in the UK, inflation is at 9 per cent, with soaring energy bills, and there does not seem to be an end in sight. Escalating energy prices disproportionately impact on people with lower incomes, as Maggie Chapman and Richard Leonard said. The UK has the highest levels of inflation and the highest energy prices in Europe, and other G7 countries are doing a lot more to protect people from price increases. It is right to point out that context to the debate.

I acknowledge that there are pockets of success around the country but, generally, I just see a lot of failures. The fact that the Scottish Government so easily abandoned its plans for a publicly owned energy company tells me that the community wealth building strategy completely lacks ambition. We have not heard a good enough rationale for why the alternative plans have not been discussed or well developed.

The Scottish Government has to step up to the plate if it wants to match a wealth building strategy with the actual problems that people face today. We are heading for another staggering rise in the so-called energy price cap in October to £2,800, and a further 12 million households across the UK going into fuel poverty—members will be familiar with those figures. The big energy companies, which made profits of £1 billion in 2020, all deny that they can make those profits available, even in the short term, to help people who need it.

The regulator needs to toughen up and force energy companies to spend some of their profits on directly cutting bills. However, I also believe that we in Scotland could do a lot more. There is not enough time to talk about that today, but giving Energy Action Scotland a bigger role suggests to me that there are devolved aspects that we could bring into play.

The Scottish Government must give urgent support to community-owned renewable co-operatives. There is theoretical support for that—I do not think that there is an ideological divide on that point—but that must be at the heart of community wealth building. Co-operative models of ownership are vital. At this point, I declare an interest as a member of the Co-operative Party.

Communities that host renewable energy projects must benefit from those schemes. I support the Scottish Co-operative Party’s calls on the Scottish Government to give preferential treatment to genuinely community-owned renewables, by giving planning exemptions or tax breaks for example. That seems to me to fit in with a community wealth building strategy.

We have heard from other members that Preston adopted a community wealth building approach in 2011. That appears to have been highly successful because, between 2012-13 and 2016-17, the amount that was spent locally in Preston almost tripled from £38 million to £112 million. Therefore, we know that such policies can be successful. I also note that Preston has managed to halve its unemployment rate.

That success is of interest to me and to the minister. I thank the minister in advance for agreeing to meet me to discuss the issue. However, prior to that meeting, I want to use this opportunity to talk about Glasgow.

Glasgow needs a similar level of renewal to Preston. As the motion says, city regions are critical for economic development and building back, if we believe that that is what we are doing. I have been calling for an economic development agency for Glasgow for some time. I do not think that Scotland’s biggest city will recover from the many problems that it has had without something overarching being in place.

I am sure that I do not need to spell out Glasgow’s problems. However, at the moment, there are simply no answers to those problems. An announcement was made about the Clyde metro. That is a non-existent transport project currently—we are not likely to see that for 25 years. Huge damage has been done to the taxi trade, which I believe is an integral part of public transport. No one is listening to taxi drivers. We have lost huge numbers of jobs in hospitality. Ministers in other Government departments do not even seem to be interested in engaging with Glasgow airport. I note that, without an airport that has connectivity, a city region cannot be economically viable. I do not understand why the Scottish Government is not joining the dots.

I go back to the question of young people, who have been at the sharp end of the pandemic in Glasgow and across the country. Research shows that there have been lasting consequences for young adults—that is, those from the age of 19 to 34. I have a request for the minister: if the community wealth building strategy is central to the Government’s overarching aim, it must link that closely to what needs to be done to get young people back on track so that they have careers and protected quality jobs.

I endorse what you have said. The visit was fascinating, and I learned a great deal from it. I wrote to the convener, Audrey Nicoll, with three points that came out of the group discussion, which I think the committee should consider further. I can remember two of them. One was about prescriptions not being available on a prisoner’s release. For people who need drugs immediately, that almost puts them back in jail, because they cannot get the drugs on time.

The second point related to Friday release, which has always been an issue. Why can we not do something to ensure that people have the services that they need? We could explore whether there is another way round that issue.

I might need someone to remind me what the third issue was. Oh, I remember what it was. It related to eligibility for work.

It seems that there are commonsense things that we could do to address those issues. We should write to the minister about them to see whether there is a way forward.

Are there any gaps that need to be plugged that will not be addressed by the Online Safety Bill? Some social media companies such as TikTok, which is a big one for younger kids, are meant to have age restrictions, but I am fully aware that it is much harder to catch that when there is live streaming and ways that people can be ingenious around that. As a layperson, it strikes me that those companies are not doing enough, so do we need more laws? I appreciate that TikTok is not a UK-based company, so there would need to be international collaboration.

I have two questions. I want to explore what I have just heard about police officers being the first responders and, in effect, the last resort. What is the answer to that? I also want to ask about the resource impact.

The testimony that the federation has submitted to the committee is very useful but very difficult to read. It amplifies what we have perhaps always known, which is that the police service is the only service that cannot walk away. As a politician, I do not think that that is recognised enough and, however we have arrived at holding this round-table session, it is a crucial issue.

On the part of Professor Heyman’s submission about section 297 of the 2003 act, I do not understand why the police would even be involved when there has been no self-harm and no offence has been committed. Of course, I understand that police officers need to step in if there is harm involved. We have heard from David Hamilton about the long wait times for people to be seen by healthcare staff. It seems as though every other service can say, “We can’t take you,” but the police cannot. It is fundamental that we resolve that.

ACC Hawkins has suggested that multi-agency discussion seems likely, but we have heard that 101 services are now almost exclusively operated by the police. Is such discussion going to lead anywhere? From what I have heard, we need to make specific provision for the police not to always be the service of last resort. I do not know enough about mental health services to know what duties need to be imposed on them. Why should mental health services be able to walk away from a person who is at risk, yet the police cannot?

My question is for ACC Hawkins in the first instance. Do you not feel that, even if there is multi-agency discussion, the police will still be left as the last resort and we will get no further forward?

Would it not make sense for another service to pick that up?

I do not know whether this is for you to answer, Professor Heyman, but you say in your submission:

“If no offence has been committed and there is not at immediate risk of life, police may not legally remove them from their home for assessment or safeguarding—from a Place of Safety”.

Can you tell me why the police are involved in cases like that?