Chamber and committees

There was a lot of support for the proxy purchasing offence, because it was considered an obvious gap in the law. To go back to the exchange that I had with Pauline McNeill, the first time that it was raised with me was in Pollokshields. A youth worker there identified it as a gap in the law that he thought should be closed. That was several years ago.

It is already unlawful for category F2 and F3 fireworks and other pyrotechnics to be supplied to children under the age of 18, but that is just on a commercial basis. The introduction of the specific proxy purchasing offence makes it clear to all adults that any giving or supplying of fireworks or pyrotechnics to people under the age of 18 is a criminal offence with appropriate penalties.

I ask Natalie Stewart to pick up the point about other legislative options for that.

A cultural shift is how I described what we are trying to do here when I launched the action plan. We have a long-standing relationship with fireworks in this country. Lots of people are used to using them and going to organised displays, so I do not think that we are going to achieve overnight a change in the culture of how they are sold and used. It is going to take some time.

I set out the action plan—it was published in 2019—with a view to beginning to take steps to change the culture. A range of actions were included in it, such as awareness raising, communication and working with local communities, because we know that some local communities are much more affected than others. I would sum those up as a range of actions that were not just legislative changes but non-legislative actions as well. The bill that is in front of the committee is the final stage, if you like, in that part of the process. It is a package of key actions, and it brings to fruition the final recommendations that the fireworks review group made for how we can go about changing the culture.

The main thing that I am trying to do with the bill is protect public safety—enhancing the wellbeing of us all is a good way to think of it—by ensuring that pyrotechnics or fireworks do not cause harm, serious distress or injury. The legislative part sits alongside the non-legislative actions that we are also taking. The bill’s provisions are designed to support the change in how we use fireworks. I think that the best way to describe that change is that, instead of fireworks being something that you can go into a shop and spontaneously buy and use, we are making them something that you cannot buy spontaneously. Buying them would have to be a planned purchase, with everything thought through and planned in advance. I think that that is the right way for us to go forward, and it should result in a culture change over time.

The starting point for considering what penalties to put in place was looking at the ones that were in place under the existing fireworks legislation. I am sure that the committee will know this, but that legislation sets out

“imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months”

or

“a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale”,

or both. When we looked at the issue in detail, there did not seem to be any suggestion that the levels that the penalties were set at were not appropriate.

On the presumption against short sentences, the committee will be well aware that it is a presumption and not a ban. That means that, in any given case, a court is able to decide what is appropriate, depending on the circumstances and the particulars of the case. There is some interest in the question—I am sure that this has come up in evidence to the committee—whether having stronger or harsher penalties would have more effect or act as more of a deterrent. However, I have not seen any compelling evidence to suggest that that would be the case.

I agree that public messaging and the public awareness campaign are an extremely important part of the whole picture. In advance of bonfire night in 2021 and 2020, we ran three different awareness-raising and public safety campaigns. I will speak about them, because we will repeat them this year.

The first is the nationwide campaign on the impact of fireworks, which aims to improve people’s awareness and understanding of the impacts that fireworks can have on people and animals. It encourages people who will use fireworks to think about the impact on others and to follow the safety instructions and the firework code.

The second campaign is run in partnership with the charity Crimestoppers and it is supported by Police Scotland. It is focused on areas where there are higher levels of misuse. It focuses on improving people’s awareness and understanding of the existing rules and regulations, in particular, and how and when people should report misuse of fireworks, potentially anonymously. That goes back to the points that were made earlier about people seeing illegal fireworks being sold in their areas. It gives them an anonymous way to report that information.

The third campaign provides advice in retail outlets, at the point of sale for consumer fireworks, on the safe and appropriate use of fireworks.

We plan to run those campaigns again this year. If Parliament agrees to the provisions in the bill, we also hope that some of them will be in operation before bonfire night—the proxy purchasing offence and the provisions relating to pyrotechnics.

Absolutely, because it is key. The best way to achieve the culture change on fireworks that we talked about at the beginning is to make sure that the public have that awareness of how to use fireworks safely, and for everyone to respect everyone else. People also need to have a strong knowledge of how to keep themselves safe. We provide that through consistent public messaging, which we repeat year on year. Every time the regulations change, we will update the messaging accordingly.

I envisage that the provision will result in an overall reduction in the number of fireworks going off and in the unpredictable and sporadic nature of that. However, I take your point about the use of private displays. I am open to considering the Parliament’s view on that. I am particularly interested to see what the committee says about that provision in its report.

We considered that. In a moment, I will ask David Bell to explain the process that we went through to get to the point that we are now at.

The misuse of pyrotechnics is a growing problem at certain events and in certain places. That was evidenced to us by Police Scotland, so we were really keen to get a provision in the bill that worked to address that. There are gaps in the existing legislation in relation to the carrying and possession of pyrotechnics, which might inhibit the police from taking proactive and preventative action before a situation becomes dangerous and difficult to control. That is key, and that is what we seek to achieve with the provision.

In 2017, Police Scotland had a working group on the issue, which presented recommendations. In 2021, the Scottish Government hosted stakeholder discussions, which proposed

“an offence of being in possession of a pyrotechnic in a public place without a reasonable excuse or lawful authority”.

That proposal was considered and consulted on as part of the 2021 consultation. However, when we were developing the bill, we felt that there was potential for unintended consequences to arise from the wider provisions in the bill as it was drafted at that time. There was potential that it would deter the legitimate and necessary use of pyrotechnic articles for personal safety, such as visual distress signals. That became a concern, so we thought that a more specific offence should be developed, which resulted in the provision that is now in the bill.

Perhaps David Bell will add some more details.

I feel that we have already answered that question; it is very similar to the question that Russell Findlay asked about enforcement and statistics. In fact, Elinor Findlay has already read out those statistics, and we have said—

The scale of the problem is not limited to enforcement and the number of people who would end up in prison. That is not how people in Scotland would characterise it.

The 2019 evidence review.