Chamber and committees

I welcome amendments 8, 9 and 48 from Mr Findlay, which have been developed following our very constructive discussions since the stage 2 proceedings. I was not minded to include a requirement to disclose a broad range of offences during a licence application, but I recognise that there is value in considering offences where the misuse of fire has been a factor during a licence application.

I understand that members have previously indicated a preference for the disclosure requirement to be much broader and to include all serious offences. However, I believe that there is a fine balance to be achieved. I do not want to dissuade people from applying for a licence by requiring them to disclose a broad range of irrelevant offences. I want people to apply for a licence, undertake the necessary training course, and then be able to use fireworks safely and lawfully.

The bill currently requires offences involving the misuse of fireworks and pyrotechnics to be disclosed. Should members vote in favour of Mr Findlay’s amendments 8 and 9 today, that requirement will be extended to cover offences involving the misuse of fire. I believe that that is proportionate, and I will ensure that all relevant offences can be taken into consideration when a decision is taken on whether to grant or refuse a licence application.

To pick up on Mr Greene’s points, the Scottish Government will be administering the scheme, and an enhanced verification process will be developed.

When the bill was introduced, the Scottish Government set out our intention that a full review of the measures introduced would be undertaken once they took effect. Following scrutiny by the Criminal Justice Committee at stage 1, I recognised that having that enshrined in the legislation strengthens the commitment and provides reassurance regarding the content of any review and the timeframe for it to take place. I was, therefore, pleased to support amendments that were lodged at stage 2.

Those measures are now included in section 44A of the bill, which requires Scottish ministers to report on the operation of the act within five years of it receiving royal assent and requires the report to include information on “proceedings and convictions”, data for “relevant offences”, incident data and the “views and experiences” of people and their communities.

The five-year timeframe provides enough time for meaningful data to be recorded and reported, provides for people’s lived experience to be reflected as part of the review and ensures that the Scottish Government will be held to account. It will ensure that there is a comprehensive and constructive review of the operation of the act encompassing all relevant parts.

Mr Greene’s amendment 78 requires an additional review, solely of the licensing scheme, including, in particular, evidence of the scheme’s impact on improving firework safety. Amendment 87 would require that the report to Parliament on the operation of the act must also set out what changes, if any, will be made to it following a review.

I understand that the amendments were lodged to ensure that the licensing scheme meets its objectives and that it works in practice and as intended, and to add to the review requirements for the act as a whole, building on section 44A. However, for the reasons that I have outlined, I believe that the review requirements that are already in the bill are robust and appropriate, so I do not consider Mr Greene’s amendments necessary. A review of the licensing scheme—which is, of course, a core provision in the bill—will be required to take place as part of the review of the act as a whole, so I do not believe that it is necessary to be included as a separate component in the bill.

Any learning or areas of improvement that the review of the act identifies will be fully considered and will form part of the report to Parliament as standard. Where appropriate, adjustments and amendments will be made to how the provisions operate in practice and, if required, to relevant regulations that are made under the act, to which the affirmative procedure will apply, which will enable further parliamentary scrutiny before any changes are made.

In addition, focusing specifically on legislative, as opposed to operational, changes to the act, I do not believe that amendment 87 would achieve the intended outcome. For the reasons that I have outlined, I cannot support that amendment.

Amendments 88 and 89 seek to change the timescale for the review of the operation of the act, requiring it to be carried out within three years of the act receiving royal assent, as opposed to the five years that are currently provided for. It is expected that, if the bill is passed, the licensing provisions will come into force over the first two years following royal assent; therefore, the five-year reporting period following royal assent provides three years in which to gather the required information and monitor, and report on, any change. Reducing that reporting period to three years would provide only one year of the operation of the system in which to gather the required information. That would not be enough time to gather, record and report meaningful data. Therefore, for a comprehensive and constructive review of the act to take place, encompassing all parts—

Sufficient custodial sentences are already available in common law for the more serious incidents, as was discussed at length at stage 2. Offences that are likely to attract a sentence of imprisonment such as culpable and reckless conduct, breach of the peace or common law assault carry custodial sentences of up to and more than 12 months’ imprisonment.

I do not believe that the current penalties in the 1875 act should be changed only for Scotland. Therefore, I cannot support amendment 86.

As I stated during the stage 2 proceedings when the member lodged a very similar amendment, my ministerial colleagues and I are always prepared to keep the law under review. Indeed, it is that willingness to review the law that has led us to introduce the bill. The bill already reflects a period of significant consultation and engagement with the public and stakeholders, alongside careful consideration of all available evidence, of which a key component was examining the existing legislation.

I point the member to the publicly available report from the fireworks review group, which includes a detailed section on existing legislation, regulation and enforcement, alongside a comprehensive annex, which sets out each piece of legislation, what it does, and practical considerations. The conclusion of that independent review group, as well as that of the misuse of pyrotechnics stakeholder discussions, is that there are clear gaps and therefore a need for further legislation. The measures in the bill will give effect to that work.

As I have said, we are always prepared to keep the law under review, but it is unnecessary and inappropriate to place a statutory duty on ministers to conduct a further review and to lay it before the Parliament within 12 months, when the previous work is the reason why we introduced the bill that is before the Parliament.

I ask Mr Greene not to press his amendment. If he does, I hope that members will not support it.

I have to disagree in the strongest possible terms with what the member said. I do not support amendment 85 because it would mean repeating work that I have already done. I published the fireworks action plan in 2019, and it details all the non-legislative actions that the Government and all our partners are taking forward year after year after year. I encourage the member to read that document.

I will return to a comment that Mr Greene made earlier regarding terrorism. Causing an explosion that is “likely to endanger life”, which is an offence under the Explosive Substances Act 1883, can be aggravated as having a terrorist-related connection by the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021. I reassure the member that section 7 of the bill requires such offences to be disclosed.

I do not share the member’s very pessimistic attitude towards how the scheme will be rolled out. I reiterate that we need the appropriate time to gather the data in order to make the review meaningful. The five-year period strikes the right balance.

I sympathise with the intention behind amendment 88 and I can understand the desire for a rolling review period every five years, but I cannot support the proposal to reduce the reporting period. I assure the member that the on-going effectiveness of all policies will be continually monitored.

I ask Mr Greene not to press his amendments. If he does, I ask members not to support them.

I begin by emphasising that the permitted periods in the bill are broadly in line with existing traditional fireworks periods, which is when most retailers in Scotland are permitted to sell fireworks, and when use of fireworks by the general public is most prevalent.

I do not accept that point. I know that Pauline McNeill represents an area where there is a lot of misuse of fireworks. A few decades ago, we would all have understood bonfire night to be a night, but it has turned into an extended bonfire season.

Ms McNeill’s amendments would amount to a 16 per cent decrease in the period in which fireworks can be supplied and a 25 per cent reduction in the number of days on which they can be used. Work was done with key stakeholders in order to strike a balance. I feel that reducing the time periods by so much at this point would render meaningless all the work that has been done to get us to this point. This is the starting point in a journey of cultural change.

I recognise the strength of feeling that the firework control zone provisions have raised. I welcome the constructive discussions that have taken place on the subject, and I realise that, for some members, the provision for such zones does not go far enough. However, I have considered the options in great detail—at great length prior to the introduction of the bill, and again when I reflected on the recommendations in the Criminal Justice Committee’s stage 1 report—and, as with many aspects of the bill, there is a delicate balance to be achieved.

On the one hand, there is a need to further reduce unpredictable, but possibly legitimate, firework use; on the other hand, there is a need to ensure that there are limited, but necessary, exemptions when those are appropriate. As a result of those considerations, I lodged an amendment at stage 2 to remove the exemption for professional operators to deliver private displays in designated control zones, which would mean that fireworks could be used by a professional operator in a designated control zone only when that was for the purpose of a public fireworks display. That amendment was unanimously agreed to by the Criminal Justice Committee, which recognises the value of local organised public displays—as, I think, we all do—and what those can bring to communities.

Together, amendments 35, 36 and 82 seek to remove the exemptions for firework control zones that would apply consistently across Scotland. Amendment 35, if agreed to, would mean that there could be no use of fireworks at all in any designated control zones.

The current exemptions ensure that enforcement bodies would be able to continue to carry out their necessary duties in a designated zone, and they allow for businesses that are engaged in the manufacture or supply of fireworks to continue to carry out vital safety checks as part of due diligence. It is vital that those exemptions be retained.

The intention of amendments 36 and 82, although they approach the issue in slightly different ways, is that each local authority, on a case-by-case basis, could determine different exemptions for different control zones. Amendment 36 would allow local authorities to designate areas where no exemptions would apply, meaning that fireworks could not be set off at all, or that only certain groups of individuals would be permitted to set off fireworks. It would be a criminal offence to use fireworks in a control zone unless the individual or organisation involved were exempt. Given that, it is vital that the exemptions are applied consistently in all areas, so that people and organisations who are involved in fireworks displays, and others, can understand the law—we have been talking a little about those points in the debate—and how it applies to their activities.

Enabling those small variations, as well as very large differences, between the positions in different areas would, I think, add unnecessary complexity to those zones, which is something that I am really keen to avoid.