 Gw uncom ere Welcome to the 13th meeting of the criminal justice committee".attoffiques on paper in Europe". Our final evidence session is on the fireworks and pyrotechnic articles, Scotland Bill. I refer members to papers 1 and 2. I'm pleased to welcome our meeting here at Shrogan. Minister for community safety, Ellen Arfyndle, bill team leader, Dave Bell, pyrotechnics policy lead, and Natalie Stewart, solicitor with the legal directorate of the Scottish Government, and Ms Stewart will be joining us remotely. We very much appreciate the time that you are taking to join us this morning, and I now invite the minister to make some brief opening remarks. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the committee. In 2019, I launched a public consultation following incidents over the bonfire season in previous years. There was no overwhelming response to that, so we had over 16,000 responses. Analytical work was also undertaken, and that was including an opinion poll to provide views that were representative of adults in Scotland. And a strong message emerged from this, that the status quo is not an option. People clearly wanted change, and they wanted to see tighter controls on the sale and on the use of fireworks in Scotland. The representative opinion poll, for example, shows that the majority of adults in Scotland felt that there should be more controls over the sale of fireworks at 71 per cent, and over their use at 68 per cent. Contributing factors included the misuse of fireworks, but also the wider harm, noise and disturbance that fireworks can cause. People do see a place, however, for well-organised fireworks displays, but the unpredictable use of fireworks by members of the public was identified as a problem. I established the independent firework review group to consider all the evidence available and the legislative options for change. The group reached a majority consensus that a fundamental change is required in how fireworks are accessed and used by the public. The misuse of pyrotechnics is a growing problem too, which can cause injury, distress and alarm, and damage to property. While we are not aware of any fatalities due to pyrotechnic misuse in Scotland, we have seen some severe injuries. There have been fatalities in other countries, and I want to do all that I can to prevent fatalities or further injuries from happening in Scotland. In response to the significant concerns raised, the Scottish Government hosted a series of discussions with stakeholders to look at what more could be done. As a result, I made the decision to consult more widely on the misuse of pyrotechnics as part of the broader 2021 consultation. Results of that consultation showed that a majority of those who responded to it agreed with each of the provisions included in the bill. For example, 84% agreed that a fireworks licensing system should be introduced, and 83% agreed with the introduction of the no-firework areas. The bill has five key policies. First, a firework licensing system, which requires the public to apply for a licence to purchase, acquire, possess and use F2 and F3 fireworks. Secondly, restrictions on the days that fireworks can be supplied to and used by the public align broadly with existing traditional firework periods. Thirdly, firework control zones, which provide local authorities with the power to designate areas where it is not permitted for the public to use fireworks to enable communities to have a much greater say in how fireworks are used in their local area. Fourthly, proxy purchase and supply offence to ensure that adults who supply fireworks or pyrotechnic articles to children under any circumstances can be held accountable. Also, an offence of being in possession of a pyrotechnic without reasonable excuse while travelling to an immediate vicinity of or attending either a designated sporting or music venue, event or public procession or public assembly. I am aware that certain legislation was introduced in the UK to ban certain types of fireworks, such as bangers, and that has been successful. That was highlighted by the fireworks industry. It is clear that legislation can have a positive and direct impact on reducing harm. To conclude, convener, I think that these issues are complex, but I think that the bill strikes a proportionate balance between introducing the necessary restrictions, ensuring that robust checks and balances are in place to mitigate against unintended consequences, while fully utilising the powers of this Parliament to reduce harms and help us to protect our communities. We will now move directly on to questions. As ever, I can ask members to make their questions as succinct as possible. If I may, I will open up with a general question for the minister. As you outlined, one of the policy objectives of the bill is to support almost a cultural shift in how fireworks and pyrotechnics are used, almost changing our relationship with them. Can you explain in broad terms how you envisage that cultural change being brought about through the provisions of the bill that we are discussing today? I think that cultural shift is how I have described what we are trying to do here when I launched the action plan. Obviously, we have a really long-standing relationship with fireworks in this country and lots of people are used to using them and going to organise displays. I think that changing the culture around how they are sold, how they are used, I do not think that we are going to achieve that sort of change overnight. I think that this is something that is going to take some time. I set out the action plan. That was published in 2019 and that was with a view to begin to take the steps to change the culture. There was a range of actions that were included in that. It was things like awareness-raising, communication, working with local communities, because we know that some local communities are much more affected than others. I would sum that up. There was a range of actions that were not just legislative change, but non-legislative actions. The bill that is in front of the committee now is the final stage in that part of the process. It is this key package of actions. The bill brings into fruition the final recommendations that the fireworks review group had for how we go about changing the culture. The main thing that I am trying to do with this is to protect public safety and enhance all of our wellbeing. It is a good way to think of it by ensuring that pirate techniques and fireworks do not cause harm, serious distress and injury. The legislative part sits alongside the non-legislative actions that we are taking. The provisions in the bill are designed to support that change in how we use fireworks. The best way to describe it is that, instead of fireworks being something that you could go into a shop and spontaneously buy and use, it is moving that forward into something that is not spontaneous. It would have to be a planned purchase that had been thought through and planned and thought about in advance. That is the right way that we go forward. That should result in a culture change over time. We note that the bill establishes penalties of up to six months imprisonment for some of the offences, yet the Scottish Government has extended the presumption against short sentences up to 12 months. I am just wondering whether there is a possible inconsistency in that respect and just trying to understand how that particular proposed sentence was arrived at. I think that the starting point for how we considered the penalties that were in place is that we looked at the ones that were in place under the existing fireworks legislation. That sets out imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months and a fine not exceeding level five on the standard scale. When we were looking at that in detail, there did not seem to be any suggestion that the current level that the penalties were set at were not set at an appropriate level. In terms of the presumption against short sentences, the committee will be well aware of that. It is a presumption and it is not a ban. That means that, in any given case, the court is able to decide on what is appropriate, depending on the circumstances and the particulars of the case. I think that there is some interest in—I am sure that that has come up in front of the committee already—whether having stronger or more harsh penalties would have more of an effect, act as more of a deterrent. I do not think that I have seen any compelling evidence to suggest that that would be the case. We have also heard evidence or rather a lack of evidence about the numbers of cases that are prosecuted currently. I think that we have struggled to get that information. Indeed, the fireworks industry association witness expressed similar frustrations about trying to ascertain how much law-breaking and prosecution around that already is. The question is, how can we establish that? If, indeed, the suspicion might be that the law is not being used to its fullest extent just now, why add to that if there is a risk that that will not then be enforced fully also? We did do a review of the evidence and we published a lot of the information that Russell Finlay is talking about. I will ask Eleanor to come in and give a little bit more detail on that. There is a lot of enforcement activity that goes on, specifically in the run-up to Bond Fire Night, which we know is the busiest time of the year for emergency services. There is an immense amount of work that goes on from the emergency services and preventative work and our partners. We all recognise that, once the fireworks have got into the wrong hands, that is something that we need to look at. I am quite clear that there is a lot of enforcement activity that is already undertaken. I will ask Eleanor, who has not had time to find that information now to give us a bit more detail on that. Data covering the last 10 years—that would be from 2010, 2011 through to 2019, 2020—shows that nearly 300 people, 297, were either preceded against in court or given a non-court disposal for a firework-related offence. Data from the Crown Office was published in a wider evidence review alongside the consultation analysis from the first consultation in 2019. That was published as a package of reports in October 2019, and I can certainly share that with the committee if that would be helpful. It will be quite useful to know what the geographical breakdown, the date of those offences—presumably they are—centred around fireworks night, but it would be good to see that. I do not know if the data includes the age of the offenders and the outcomes. I do not have all that data in front of me at the moment. I can tell you that the average age of conviction would be 22 years, and it tends to be men, so 22-year-old males, but I do not have the geographical data in front of me at the moment. I am going to bring in Katie Clark now. I think that Katie's got some questions still on the issue of prosecution, and then we will move on to some questions around licensing. I suppose that the first thing that I was going to say is that there is not so much about prosecution because, if you could explain why you think that this is emergency legislation, apart from the proxy purchase, most provisions will not be in place from November, and it is a very complicated system that is being proposed. Some witnesses have questioned whether the bill is necessary, given that there is already UK legislation that makes it illegal to supply fireworks to those under 18, as well as prohibiting the use of fireworks in a public place. Given what you have said to Russell in relation to prosecutions, we would like more information on that, because we have not had that evidence about how the current legislation is being used. Could you maybe explain why existing legislation does not be used or amended or more action is taken under existing legislation? Outline what consideration was given to those approaches other than the introduction of this primary or emergency legislation? There are well-established processes that are in place to enforce the existing regulations, but I will come back to my previous point that this legislation is an attempt to change the way that we primarily, I suppose, buy fireworks, but to a lesser extent also use them. Once, as I have said, an immense amount of work goes into preparing for the run-up to bonfire night, which you may have already heard. It is not just a night anymore, but it is turned into a season, so it is spreading out over a longer period. Once the fireworks have got into the hands of people who are intent on misusing them, we have now got a much bigger challenge in terms of how we deal with that. The legislation that is in front of you is an attempt to go some way to address that. Once we see a change in the way that we use fireworks and the culture of use of fireworks, I think that, over time, that would have an impact on enforcement as well. There were quite a few questions in Katie Clark's question to me, so I will try to cover it. If I do not get it, you can come back to me, Ms Clark, if I do not cover it all. You were asking about existing legislation, and particularly about the under-18s. Yes, there is UK legislation on that already, so at the moment it is illegal to supply fireworks under-18 on a commercial basis. I do not know whether the committee has heard this, but we have heard significant anecdotal evidence that parents, but certainly adults, are purchasing fireworks and they are then giving them to children. That is where the proxy purchasing offence was developed in order to close that loophole. Children will not be criminalised at all at that, but this is an attempt to hold those adults to account on that. That ensures that we are limiting where fireworks potentially are ending up, because these are explosive devices and we want to be careful about who is being able to use them. The measures in the bill also give us the opportunity, if you like, to intervene at that earlier stage. We can intervene at an earlier stage and prevent some of the issues that many of us will see in our constituencies from going on to happen. Eleanor, have you got any more that you would like to add on that point? No, I do not think so. Other than to say that alternative legislative solutions were obviously considered as the policy was being developed, and those are outlined in the policy memorandum. In particular, the fireworks review group considered alternative legislative solutions as part of their options appraisal approach. As I say, that is outlined in the policy memorandum, so there is some further detail in there. I think that the minister has been very clear on the issue of proxy purchase. I think that I personally can quite see the case that she is making there. Did she personally or ministers look at the way that current legislation was being used? There are concerns being raised that the resources are not being put in by police and by prosecutors to pursue cases that are illegal at the moment. What we have been asked to look at is quite a complicated system that we are looking at on a truncated basis given that it is emergency legislation. It is not clear that the current legislation is being properly enforced. It is really a question for the politicians and for the minister on whether they really looked at this and got reports of the levels of offence and took a view as to whether the amount of effort that is being put in that should be at the moment to prosecute under existing legislation. Is that something perhaps the minister could give a view on? Yes, it is not emergency legislation. I do not think that that is right for the member to characterise in that way. It is a slightly speeded up timetable. I will admit that, but it certainly would not come under the category of emergency legislation. I think that we have already covered some of the information in regard to the prosecution data in my answer and Eleanor Finlay's answer to Russell Finlay. If the committee has not seen the data that was part of the evidence review in 2019, we can certainly, and I think that we have already committed to sending that over. That shows that enforcement is already taking place. I reiterate my previous answer, that Scotland spends an immense amount of resources—I am sure that if you have spoken to the police or the fire service, they will tell you this themselves—an immense amount of resources and local government in preparing for a bonfire night and to get people to adhere to the current regulations. My view is that that is why we need to go further with the stricter controls that we have now, because at the moment that is disproportionate, the amount of effort that we are expending on that for what is a few days of the year and the impact that it is having on the people of Scotland and the fact that the people of Scotland have told us that they want to see change in that area. I would accept that some of that is a little bit more complicated than perhaps we might have wanted it to be. If Scotland was an independent country, we would be able to do things probably in a slightly different way, but we have had various complicating factors in the way that we have had to produce the legislation for reasons that we may touch upon those later. Certainly, when we were looking at developing the legislation, of course, we looked at the existing legislation that was around in that area and evaluated how it was being used. The review group that had all the stakeholders on it, including the fireworks industry, was tasked specifically with looking at the current regime and looking to see if there were gaps in the law and looking to see internationally other regimes to see if there was something that they could come up with that would help us to change the culture around how we use fireworks in Scotland. Obviously, they put them into recommendations to myself, which, in this legislation, is part of my work in taking forward those recommendations. Thank you very much. If that is all from Katie, then I am just going to bring in Jamie Greene for a follow-up question, and then we will move on to licensing. Thank you and good morning to our guests today. I would like to dig a little bit deeper into the statistics and the numbers. I guess what we are trying to grapple with as a committee is what is the scale of the problem and whether or not the legislation as proposed is both fit for purpose but is filling the gaps that meets the policy intention of the premise of the legislation. Some of the data that I have heard today is news to some of us, but it is also three years out of date. You said that it was from the 2019—what was the description of it? Evidence review. Evidence review. This is 2022 and we are creating new legislation. What I would really like to know in terms of relativity is how many offences occur each year. That can be an average or a total over 10 years or whatever you have available to you. How that converts into prosecutions and what is the outcome of those prosecutions? What I mean specifically is that how many of those are non-court outcomes and how many of them proceed to court and are prosecuted. Of those that do proceed to prosecution, what sort of penalties are given because we know that existing legislation, the 1875 explosives act, fireworks, regulations 2004 and so on, we know what existing legislation is and does and we know what the maximum penalties are and I am keen to understand whether those maximum penalties are actually being utilised as it is under existing legislation before we start introducing new legislation. I do feel that we have already answered that question. I think that that is very similar to the question that Russell Findlay just asked about enforcement and about the statistics. In fact, Eleanor has already read out those statistics and we have said it. I am sorry that I did not cut them down but I specifically asked them in that order because it does give you an idea of the scale of the problem properly. The other thing that I would say is that the scale of the problem is not just limited to enforcement and the number of people that would end up in prison. That is for people in Scotland and that is not how they would characterise the scale of the problem. So what is the scale of the problem? Sorry, this is what I am trying to get to. How many offenses are reported to the police or local authorities per year? How many of them convert into some form of judicial action where that is a prosecution settled out of court or taken to court and what is the outcome of those prosecutions in terms of using the existing maximum penalties that are available to you? Are they being used to their full extent? That is the scale that I am trying to get to. I will let Eleanor come in in a moment and give that information again. We have already given that information. That information has been freely available and was published by the Government two years ago and we said that we will share it with the committee. This is our last evidence session, that is why I am pushing you, sorry. So I will just read out some of the bullets here. What I have mentioned before was between 2010 and 2011 and 2019-20, which represent the last available data that we have. There were just under 300 people, so 297, either preceded against in court or given a non-court disposal for a firework-related offence. Over the last six years, so 2016-17 through to 2020-21, the most common firework-related charges relate to throwing, casting or firing a firework in a public place, so basically letting off a firework in the street. Under 18 possession of an adult firework and use of an adult firework at night, so that would be outside of the permitted days. In terms of convictions, the average age of those who are convicted is 22 years or they tend to be male. So of the 297, what percentage of those were given a non-court disposal versus those that were prosecuted more harshly or numbers? And of those that were prosecuted in courts, what sort of penalties were given to them? Because we know what's available to the court, so I'm trying to get a feel for whether we're using the powers that we have to their full extent. So the two routes would be people preceded against in court or people being given a non-court disposal. So a non-court disposal would be the majority of cases that are there and that would include issues such as a fiscal fine, a fiscal warning, a police restorative justice warning, a police recorded warning or a police formal adult warning. Okay, thank you. So the question minister relates that over the last 10 years you're looking at on average, and it's just an average, I'm sure there are peaks and troughs on this, around 30 people are prosecuted of which the majority are non-court disposals. Knowing against the backdrop that quarter of a million people buy fireworks each year, that's a relatively low number. I'm still don't understand the correlation between how many incidents are reported to authorities versus how many actually proceed to prosecution. Do you understand why some people fail that this is absolute overkill in terms of what you're trying to achieve? That we're simply not using the existing powers that the judiciary has to prosecute those who are breaking law, quite robust laws, some of the most robust laws in Europe in terms of fireworks, that they're simply not seeing that convert into the sort of prosecutions that may act as the sort of deterrent that you want, therefore why the need for new powers? Well, I think I've already answered this question and I think I've been quite clear about it as well. In terms of proceedings, obviously that's up to our independent court service about how they choose to take things forward and you know, we can obviously give that information to the committee. But I think if we come back to the point that I was trying to make earlier, is that when we talk about the scale of the problem, I'm not sure that that is, it's reflected in the way that Jamie Greene is trying to characterise it there. And so some of the evidence that the review group and the government also looked at is things like emergency services, incident data, so that's the volume of fireworks-related incidents that are reported to the police, a tax on emergency service workers, which tells us there's a spike on a tax on fire crews over the bonfire period. And I know this is something that Jamie Greene has personal interest in and I'm sure we'd be very keen to see an improvement on those figures. And 40 per cent of those acts of violence happen around the bonfire night period. So that's obviously a piece of evidence that we should be sure of, Jamie Greene would say we'd be taking that very seriously. Another one is NHS injury data. That has increased and that's, you know, firework-related diagnosis. I will say, because if I don't, my officials will get very cross with me, we do have to be a bit cautious about that data, but broadly it is telling us that this has increased fairly consistently over the last 10 years. And the final one is obviously the one about lived experience. And we know that that was reflected very strongly in the consultations and, well, I think all the consultations that the government's done and I'm sure that will have been reflected back to the committee. You know, people's powerful testimonies about the significant impact that misuse, but also legitimate use as well, can have on them, can have on animals and et cetera. So the bill has been carefully constructed in order to reflect the evidence that I've just gone through here to also be proportionate as well because, you know, there's a lot of people, I think, that have said to me over the last few years, we should just ban them, you know, we should just ban fireworks. Now, in Scotland, under the devolution set, we don't have the power to ban them, first of all. So that's the legal reason why we wouldn't have gone down that route. But also there's a policy reason here and I think there's a kernel of what Jamie Greene was asking there about proportionality, you know, is it proportionate? And I would say that it is proportionate because there's still an obvious route for people to go through, albeit we're putting slightly more restrictions on it by, you know, suggesting that we set out the licensing scheme, but people are still able to, if they want to, they can still go and buy fireworks and, you know, they can still use them. So I think people have made it very clear that they want to see tighter controls on fireworks in order that people can continue to use them safely. So I hope that answers Jamie Greene's question. Thank you. Thanks very much. I'm going to bring in Katie Clark, who I think had not, apologies Katie, I don't think you'd quite finished your line of questioning and then I'll come across to you Pauline. Katie. I can't hear you Katie. You might be on mute. It was more that there were issues that the minister had raised in her answers that I wanted to ask about. I think she's partly answered it in that she said there was a constitutional problem in bringing in the legislation that perhaps she would want to bring in. I think she said that she thinks there's problems in relation to banning fireworks, so it would be good to get more information on that. The complicated part of the legislation, as I see it, is the licensing scheme. My main question is whether she thinks that there's any constitutional problems in relation to the powers of the Parliament that affect that aspect of the bill, because that's the part of the bill that we see or I see anyway as complicated. I think that I've touched on that in my answer to Jamie Greene, that a lot of people would just like to see a ban and I think people want that for a couple of reasons. I think they think it's quite simple, it'd be easy for everybody to understand. In looking at the powers that are available to the Scottish Parliament, we don't have the ability to do a ban in Scotland. That is not available to us under the constitutional settlement. We've looked at what was available to us and we have used the maximum amount of powers of the Scottish Parliament in order to put their system into place, because I wanted to reflect the Scottish public's desire to see those tighter controls on fireworks. As I was saying earlier, there is a legal reason not to do the ban, but I think that there is also a strong policy reason not to do the ban. I personally really enjoy going to organise fireworks displays, as I'm sure many people do. I know that lots of people use fireworks responsibly and I'm sure want to be able to continue to do so. I thought that was important. I also thought that that reflects the debate that we're having about proportionality. We're not being seen to punish people who are using fireworks in a responsible way. We want people to be able to continue to do that if that's what they want to do. I think that what we've come up with here is an attempt to change the way that we're using fireworks to respond to what the public has asked us to do, look at the evidence and use as much of the powers that we have available to us as the Scottish Parliament in order to make that happen. Could perhaps you share something in writing with the committee or bring in officials in relation to why you think that a ban would be illegal at the moment or wouldn't be within the powers of the Parliament? Maybe that's something you could share with the committee. Also, on the issue of the truncated basis of the bill, definitely the committee's been asked to look at the bill in a way that would mean that we wouldn't have as much time to look at the legislation. I anyway believe that the licensing part of the legislation is quite complicated. Perhaps if you could explain why it is that we're at this stage, given that the committee is already looking at it and it has that view, you feel that legislation has to be on the statute book by November given that it's not going to be put in force this year? Some parts of it will be in force this year, we're hoping. Again, this is my attempt to reflect what I saw as the will of the Parliament in the last session, where I gave an update to Parliament on the action plan. I think that it was two consecutive years that I gave a statement to Parliament on what we were planning to do and the legislation we were bringing in. Of course, the committee will be aware that we realised that we were able to do some of it by secondary legislation, so we did that last year. It's an attempt to keep up the pace of change and to keep moving forward and to keep working towards creating this new regime. I felt that it came across quite strongly that the will of the Parliament was that we wanted to work on this as quickly as possible, so I'm very grateful that the committee has seen that it also thinks that that's important to do. The sooner that this can go through Parliament, if Parliament agrees to it, that will obviously give us as much time as possible to start working on the implementation and enforcement of the parts of the bill. I'll ask Natalie, if she's appearing remotely, if she wants to speak to Ms Clark, the earlier part of her question, about the constitutional angle. Yes, thank you. Without going into too much detail, a ban would appear to have an inevitable link to product safety, and product safety is a reserved matter in terms of the Scotland Act 1998. Having a link to product safety could be a problem, and there could also be a disproportionate effect on individual rights, if there was a ban. I'm quite keen to move questions on, because I've got a few other themes to cover. I'm going to bring in Pauline McNeill, and then I'd like to move on to questions around licensing. I wanted a quick supplement on the date, if that's okay. Good morning. I think that what you've heard is that the committee is quite keen to pursue the issue of the data, and the reason for this is that I presume that you would agree that the culture change that you talk about is for the general public, but we've got people who are committed in antisocial behaviour using fireworks as weapons, and there needs to be some scrutiny that we are using the existing powers to act against those who clearly will not be applying for licenses. I hope that we would agree on that point, because you wouldn't be committing antisocial behaviour. I used the example of Pollock Shields, which is what I want to ask Eleanor about, if it's okay. I have been involved with the Pollock Shields community because I'm a Glasgow regional MSP. There's no action was taken in Pollock Shields, and that's the evidence that we've also had from the industry as well. I have tried to get to the bottom of this from the Crown Office. I have failed to do so. So what I would ask Eleanor, are you aware that Pollock Shields is one of the communities all over this? Fireworks being thrown at emergency services, dangerously used? It's a serious question, I think, for the Crown. Why are we not getting prosecutions? If we can't see this information and if it doesn't exist or if this is not happening, then there's a real danger that we might miss the target. My first question is, are you aware that there are no prosecutions in Pollock Shields? Could you pursue the Crown? Well, I certainly will, further to this, but I might be able, if you could also ask, if you're taking this, if your evidence that you've gave to Jamie Greene is correct that it's being taken seriously, then you need to answer that question, would you agree? Yes, I do agree with that, but I think, you know, a poll in me and Neil's question about, you know, people that are using them anti-socialy, you know, they're not going to apply for licence before they probably would just go into shop and buy the fireworks, or we have anecdotal evidence to say that perhaps adults were buying them for them and giving them to them if they were under the age of 18. And certainly I was in Pollock Shields myself with a group of boys who I think were around, I think they were between the age of sort of 15 and 17, who had been involved in anti-social behaviour involving fireworks. And I kind of sat with them while they were going through, I can't remember, but it was a programme that has been run specifically in the area with people that had been involved anti-socialy with fireworks about, you know, safety and how to use them properly and what the law was and all that sort of thing. But, you know, what we're hoping is that when we change the legislation that those, you know, if they're 18 they won't be able to go just go into their shops and buy fireworks. So that, and they're, hopefully their parents will understand that they're not allowed to buy them and give them to them if they're under the age of 18. So I think that that sort of spontaneous kind of purchasing of fireworks and just going off and using them anti-socialy, I'm hoping with this legislation that will bring those numbers right down. So I know there has been a lot of work done in Pollock Shields, because I've, you know, I've personally seen some of them myself. I can't remember when it was that I went there. It was definitely, it was probably more than two years ago I think because it was before the pandemic. But I can try and find out a little bit more information about that programme. And I think that, you know, that's obviously on the non-court disposal side of things and we'll see if we can get some more information from you, from the Crown Office that would hopefully go some way to ask me a question. Thank you. And I do accept that, but you will be aware that there are white vans turning up in these communities selling illegal fireworks. Yeah. Which is what I want to come on to, which is the licensing scheme itself. So my line of questioning is to really scrutinise the licensing scheme. I do support what the Government is trying to achieve. I do have concerns, other members have raised about whether it might actually miss the target. So we were given an example from the industry representatives last week of Northern Ireland, a population of 1.85 million. So there's a total of 1,500 licenses issued, sorry, 515 licenses issued. The suggestion being that people who should be applying for licences were not. And if those figures were extrapolated to Scotland, then that would be something that 1,500 licences with 250,000 fireworks being bought in Scotland, you can see the issue here. I confess that trying to get my head round the legislation, I think I do now understand it. So the culture change that you're talking about would be, you know, ordinary families and individuals who do memes use fireworks but they're not illegal and that's where the concern comes from, noise disturbance, animals and children with autism and so on. You need to realise so through a licensing scheme. But how confident are you that all these families and all these people who want to set a fireworks off will sit down and apply for this license and pee the 20, 30 or 50 pounds? I am quite confident because we see it with other controlled goods that people do apply for the licences. I'll ask Eleanor to come in in a minute and she can give us a bit of more data around Northern Ireland and so on about that. And I think the key with this is to make it as simple as possible, you know, not to make it too expensive so that people can apply for it and get the license quite quickly and easily and to make sure that the awareness level is there so that people know that they have to have one. So we have to do some really good work on our public campaigns so that we get that message out when the law changes that people know that they have to do it. I think that, you know, there's often quite a lot of, I guess, this idea of will we change our behaviour when we change the law? And I think, you know, it does feel strange. I mean, I'm young enough to remember when, you know, kids just sat in the back of cars and there wasn't any car seats, nobody wore seatbelt. It wouldn't have occurred to you, you know, when I was small to get into a car and necessarily put a seatbelt on. No one would have asked you to do it. It wasn't normal. You know, obviously the law changed. And now, you know, there's obviously means really good public awareness raising campaigns with that. I can think of some of the lines in the adverts now. And now you don't think twice mostly. You get in the car, you just put your seatbelt on because, you know, people just get used to it. So I am confident. I think we all accept that, you know, legislation in itself isn't going to fix all the problems. I think we all know that. We all know that it isn't. What we've done is, you know, through the work of the review group and the work that the government's done as well, we've tried to find something that will go some way to addressing all of the concerns. So that's the concerns about misuse. You know, that's a lot of the concerns that people will no doubt have spoken to the committee about, you know, about the distress that's caused to animals and the distress that's felt by neurodivergent people. You know, and that's with legitimate fireworks use, but a lot of it and sporadically around them in their neighbourhoods and the safety concerns about people being injured. And we've tried to do that in a balanced and proportionate way. And I've explained a little bit that, you know, it is slightly more complicated perhaps in some areas than it might have been able to do if we had a different setup. But I think I'm quite confident that we can make it as simple as possible for people to apply for it and hopefully they will do that. And I don't want it to be a barrier to people who legitimately and safely are using fireworks. I want them to still be able to buy fireworks, you know, from their local shop or whatever, and be able to enjoy them with their families. Can I just come in on the Northern Ireland point? So we have obviously looked at the system that exists in Northern Ireland in terms of the licensing system and have been in fairly regular contact with our counterparts there. The system that has been developed and is outlined in the bill is different from the system in Northern Ireland and is obviously unique to Scotland. So just to give you an example, the system in Northern Ireland requires people to have a licence to purchase, possess and use fireworks. But it's aligned to every single display that they hold, whereas the system in Scotland is intended that that will be for a longer period of time and will not align to every single time that they want to go out and purchase and use fireworks on that one occasion. So it will be something that people will be able to have in Scotland for, kind of, multiple uses of fireworks in over a longer period of time. Thank you. Just finally, I mean, we had, I have to say, quite powerful evidence from the industry about the concerns of people don't. And I take the point that's been made that the system is different. Is it people will turn to the black market? I have a serious concern about we won't have any control over that. And then that obviously sparks safety concerns. You've probably heard the same evidence as we did. What do you think of this evidence that we've heard? And do you have any concerns that people will turn to more white vans turning up in streets because then you don't have to get your licence? You probably just think you're setting off a few fireworks because then the safety checks are not there. Do you have concerns about that? Yeah, I do. I think that that's part of what I was talking about earlier about, you know, making sure that the awareness raising is there, that people are very clear that what they'll be doing, you know, is an offence and also that, you know, black market, illegal fireworks, however you want to describe them, you know, clearly are potentially not going to have the same kind of safety checks and so that it's going to potentially be dangerous and they could be injuring themselves basically by doing that. So, you know, I think there is a potential risk of displacement of sales and, you know, we've tried to sort of carefully consider that as the bill has been developed. And I'll ask, we did consider sort of three different, you know, we sort of considered that on a, in the sort of three different areas. And I'll ask Eleanor to speak about that in a second about those areas that we looked at. But, you know, I'm back to the thing again where, you know, we want to see tighter controls because that's what the public want because of, you know, some of the evidence that we've talked about already. And we are trying to strike the right balance between, you know, introducing restrictions to ensure public safety, but not introducing things that are too much of a barrier to people to go and to buy them. So, you know, I do take the member's point about, you know, that black market. But there is, you know, I'm sure you've spoken to Police Scotland about this, but, you know, there is a lot of work. It's sort of national multi-agency work that's gone on by the enforcement agencies. You know, that doesn't include, you know, the fire and rescue service, trading standards and so on. And they tackle, you know, illegal sellers of the type that we've been talking about, illegal products that, I'm no doubt, we'll talk about as well. And various actions, you know, like removing websites, you know, that sort of thing, referring cases on and reporting breaches to health and safety executive. So, there are routes in place that are already being taken. And, you know, if people see white vans selling fireworks to kids in the street, I'll be very confident that they're going to ring the police and the police will go around and deal with that. So, Eleanor, could you add a little bit more detail? Certainly. I'll just talk through the kind of considerations that was given to displacement through a number of different routes, one of which is obviously the black market. So, the first kind of, when we were thinking about the licensing system, the first kind of option, if you like, for displacement is across the border. So, will people cross over the border to purchase fireworks and bring them back into Scotland? So, the licensing system itself that's set out in the bill does include the requirement for people to have a licence to possess as well as to use and purchase fireworks in Scotland. So, while the bill can obviously not regulate for activity outside of Scotland, once someone crosses back into Scotland across the border, then they would have to have a licence in order to possess those fireworks. So, that was the first sort of displacement, if you like. The second is around the kind of online legitimate sale of legal firework products, if you like. So, again, someone could go online and order the products from a country outside of Scotland and have that delivered. In terms of what is outlined in the bill, where any part of that supply takes place in Scotland, so that would include, for example, the delivery of firework products, there will be a requirement of suppliers to check the licence status of that individual who is receiving the firework products, and it's anticipated that that would work in a similar way to, for example, other age-restricted products. It's probably helpful for me just to say at this point that it is illegal to send firework products through the kind of normal postal system, and all fireworks that are delivered do need to be done through a special courier system and need to be clearly marked as explosives. Then, obviously, the point that you were talking about specifically, the third area of displacement that we considered was the online kind of illegal sales of illegal firework products. I think that, as the minister has set out, the purchase of fireworks will continue to be subject to existing legislation and enforcement routes through trading standards at the police and the courts. The last point that I want to make is around the importation of dangerous goods, which obviously includes fireworks, and that's obviously a matter for UK Government in the case of firework imports and the health and safety executive, and in relation to people who make self-import fireworks into the country, that would be, substantively, the remit of border force. I hope that that's given you an idea of the kind of areas of displacement that we considered as the licensing system was being developed. Thank you very much. I'll bring in Russell Finlay now, and then I'll bring in Rona Mackay. I do have a licensing question, but just a couple of observations in terms of the data. We've learned today what the Crown Office has done in the numbers around the past 10 years or so, but what we still don't know, I don't think, is how many actual incidents have been reported to the police or recorded by the police, and perhaps that's something that we could get. Secondly, your observation about if only Scotland was independent, we might be able to ban fireworks. I don't know if that's what you're seriously proposing, but going back to the licensing question, we heard evidence from a responsible firework shop owner, Norman Donald. He said that licensing in this bill would put him out of business most likely and put others out of business. We've also heard evidence of the fabled white van man of Blackburn, who roams around selling fireworks to children. The unintended consequence of this bill, the suggestion is that, while it puts legitimate operators out of business, it's an absolute gift to the white van men. Is that really something that you want to see happen? There's about five questions there, convener. Well, ignore the first part if you want. It's about the unintended consequence of putting out of business legitimate responsible traders and fueling a black market in fireworks. We don't have the evidence that suggests that it will fuel a black market. We've looked carefully at the evidence from countries where they've tightened the restrictions, and we can't find the evidence to say that that has fuelled the black market. We've looked at Scotland at the moment. There doesn't seem to be much evidence of a black market in Scotland at the moment, and clearly the agencies at work in that area will continue to review that, and hopefully we'll be able to come back to the committee with some evidence on that in a few years' time and be able to talk about what impact it's had. The reason I talked about the ban is because that is something that, when you talk about fireworks and you talk about restricting them, people will often say that. They'll often talk about the merits of a ban or not a ban. I did set out that we considered it. I think that the member will accept that, for constitutional reasons, Scotland is not able to do everything exactly the way it would want to. We have to work within the constitutional arrangements, and I explained how that impacted on what we were doing here. We also decided not to pursue a ban for policy reasons anyway, because we didn't think that it was proportionate. I've set that out in detail already. If we're talking about businesses, yes, I think that there are about 650 retailers that supply fireworks to the public, and most of them do so on a seasonal, temporary basis, so they're particularly supplying them at the typical times of year that you might expect around the bonfire season, around new year. The provisions in this bill broadly align with that. There are a small number, so I think that it's nine, and then there's another business that I think, Eleanor, correct me if I'm getting this wrong, that I think sell and also import, so that takes us up to 10. There are 10 businesses that sell fireworks, and they are different than the other 650, because they sell fireworks on an all-year round basis, so they have a different licence to sell. Clearly, the provisions on supply that are in this piece of legislation will potentially have an impact on those businesses. What we've said is that when we can receive evidence on the type of effect that it's had on those businesses, we will develop a compensation scheme for those businesses to make sure that they are not going to suffer in that way. I want to stick with the licensing theme at the moment. We know that there's widespread support for licensing, and it was 84 per cent that you said, minister. I know that the detail of that probably hasn't been fixed yet, because this part is not happening until next year, but is it possible for you to give us a timeline for when the licensing scheme will be set up and running? With the licensing scheme, we want to get this right. In the exchange of the hydrogen pooling, we want to make sure that it's working really well and that we get it right. We've got quite a bit of implementation work that we need to do on that. We think that that should all be set up and working around that by the end of 2023, but I'm afraid that we're not able to be any more specific than that, because we have got to do some consultations. We've got a lot of work to do with the stakeholders, as you would imagine, on this to get that right. We'll also have to do secondary legislation on that as well. Eleanor, do you want to add anything to that? No. I suppose that the only thing to add is that one of the main tasks will be bringing in a new IT system that is robust and fit for purpose, and developing a specification for that in partnership, particularly with Police Scotland, as well as our other stakeholders, and commissioning that to the relevant provider. To add to what the minister said, that will be one of the key tasks for the licensing system. I think that it's five years that the licence would be valid for. Has it been given to the possibility that, during that five years, someone might commit an offence? What would the process be there? If somebody is convicted of a fireworks-related offence and they have a valid fireworks licence, a court will have the power to revoke that person's fireworks licence, and if they do, that then they have a duty to inform Scottish ministers that they have done so. If a court convicts someone of a fireworks-related offence but does not revoke their licence for whatever reason, the court would still have a duty to inform Scottish ministers that that person has been convicted of a fireworks-related offence. Individuals themselves, licence holders, are also mandated to provide updates on any material change in circumstance to Scottish ministers if they are a licence holder, and we would expect that to cover a fireworks-related offence. It would only apply to fireworks-related offences, not if the individual had been convicted of assault or antisocial behaviour or anything like that. It covers offences under existing fireworks legislation, as well as offences under this bill. It also covers any other offence where the misuse of fireworks or pyrotechnic articles has been a factor. For example, if somebody is charged with an antisocial behaviour offence or an offence of attack on emergency service worker, if fireworks has been an element of that offence, then it is possible for it to be considered. However, in terms of wider offences, they know that that is not set out in the bill. Again, this is a detail that you probably do not have yet, but it is just about cost. We know that, in Northern Ireland, a licence costs anywhere between £100 and £160. You said that you were conscious that you did not want to make it prohibitive for families to purchase them. Do you have any idea of the scale of what it might cost, any ballpark figure? The financial memorandum that I think will have been provided to the committee, so we did a financial modelling exercise on that. We modelled licence fees of either £20, £30 or £50 for the five-year licence. We looked at those amounts in particular because, when we took into account other similar licensing schemes that were already operating in Scotland, particularly the air weapons licensing one, we will do a further consultation on that if Parliament agrees to the legislation. We will then go on to seek views on what the appropriate level of fee would be. If we are talking about Northern Ireland, I think that their fees are significantly higher for those. I think that that is an important point. I think that it has to not act as a barrier to people. If you think that you are a community group and you want to put on a fireworks display, I would imagine that the costs involved in that are fairly significant, and so potentially paying £30 for a five-year licence may not seem disproportionate in that context. Finally, on licensing, I am just thinking that it could be a pretty big workload and have an impact on local authorities having to issue these licenses. Has any kind of impact assessment on local authorities being done in terms of resources or staff that they need to do it? Eleanor, you mentioned the new IT system. Would that be provided to every local authority? Just to clarify that the bill sets out that the licensing system will be managed by Scottish ministers, so Scottish Government on behalf of Scottish ministers, so it would not be something that would be devolved to individual local authorities. The consultation in 2021 over the summer that we ran asked people's opinions on who should run and administer the licensing system, and that included national government, another national organisation or local authorities. The feedback that we had from that is that it would be most appropriately done by Scottish Government to ensure that we had a national system and that there weren't barriers with people purchasing in one local authority and then using it in another, so the licensing system would be administered and run by Scottish Government. People apply to the Scottish Government for a licence? I do not appreciate that. Can I just pick up on that point around licences? Obviously, you have helped us to explain that it would be a Scottish Government role to administer the licensing scheme. I think earlier on, in some of your responses to the licensing questions, you mentioned Police Scotland potentially having a role, or did I pick that up incorrectly? No, you did not. The IT system that is developed for the licensing system will need to be aligned with Police Scotland because it will have to have real-time information and data on licence holders in order to enforce the relevant offences. It would be Scottish Government, but we would do that very much in partnership with Police Scotland to make sure that it worked for all the stakeholders. That is helpful. Thank you very much. I do not know Pauline McNeill. Do you have a follow-up that you would like to ask around licensing, or are you happy for us to move on? Just a quick supplementary question about the Macaes line of questioning, and you have said clearly that you would not want the cost to be prohibitive. I think that there would be a big difference between £20 and £50, given the cost of living crisis. I think that it would be useful to know when that information is available, because I might not be so concerned about £20, but £50 would concern me, and I would think that that would definitely be prohibitive in these times for a lot of families. Thank you very much. Collette Stevenson, you have a follow-up question that you would like to ask. I will move on to restrictions on use and supply and bring in Fulton. Good morning to the panel. One of the recurring areas of questioning that I have had from the panel members that have come before us is to do with siling or low-noise fireworks. I was just wondering if the minister and her team had explored that area, particularly from a nuisance aspect. We touched on the impact that it has had on animals and people with neurodiversity issues. That, in some way, would go to mitigating it. Is it possible for that to be implemented? How does that work? In the other thing, I would like to know more about that. If you reduce the cost of that, is that not more of an incentive for people to purchase low-noise fireworks, rather than the categories that are listed in our papers? Collette Stevenson makes a really good point there. I was certainly really interested in that, because we can all see that silent fireworks or reduced-noise fireworks would go a long way to addressing not all, because it would not necessarily address misuse, but it would certainly address a lot of the concerns that people have, particularly those that are more disturbed by the noise that fireworks make over a long period and that they are quite sporadic. That can be very disturbing, obviously, from people who have animals, etc. We did look into that. We were advised by experts in the industry that at present there is not a recognised standard or specification to identify or distinguish. That is just at the moment fireworks that could be classed as lower-noise fireworks. I think that that is something that, potentially, the industry might be working on at the moment. I do not know if I can add any more to that at the moment. What we have done in an attempt to future-proof the bill, and accepting that this is an interesting development that could be beneficial, is that we have put an ability in the bill to be able to update the bill. Should that become something that we can identify and use, we are able to update the bill accordingly. Is there anything further to add on that, Eleanor? It is welcome that that has been part, so it will be good news for my dog anyway. I will be sure to let her know, on that happy note. I will bring in Fulton MacGregor. If you are all right, I have a couple of questions on the restrictions. I did want to pick up a couple of other questions from last week's evidence, because I think it is both Jamie Greene and Pauline McNeill have indicated. You have probably seen it, minister. It was quite powerful evidence last week that the industry gave. I think that what was most striking about it in the context of this bill is that it was really the only evidence that we have heard that is countered to the bill. If you like, all the other evidence that we have heard from stakeholders has been very supportive and I know that we are very pleased about that. One of the things that you mentioned last week was the Republic Island in other countries, so I was just wondering what evidence that you had taken from those countries bringing the bill forward now. I know that the Republic Island has more or less a full ban, but the evidence that was given to us last week and challenged us as MSPs in this committee that is scrutinising this legislation is that a black markets forum there. I know that you have talked a bit about that now. The clerks did ask for information from Ireland, which we got back. I have only been scanning it right enough, but it does seem to be a mixed picture in terms of a firework instance with seizures, value of items seized. Although there is a general downward decline with both of those, it goes up and down over the years. Certainly an overall decline in prosecutions, which is good from 11 in 2015 to 2, the latest, which was 2020. That does seem to be a general trend as well, but probably most importantly, the fire arms and explosive justice service delivery department have said in all quote, quite instances of illegal firework use to still occur in Ireland, in particular in the run-up to Halloween. The department believes that restrictions in place considerably mitigate against their widespread misuse and the associated distress and risk that they can cause to public safety and property. That seems to be a positive thing that we got back, given the evidence that we heard last week. I did wonder what evidence and information you got from other countries in the Republic of Ireland. I think that Hawaii was mentioned last week as well. I think that it is really important to have a look at what other countries are doing, because there is no point in reinventing the wheel with some of this policy. If we can find things that have been working really well elsewhere, then it is obviously a good idea to look at that. Equally, the converse is true that you want to look at where things have not worked very well elsewhere, if you can find the data. The problem often with it is that it can be very difficult to find the right real data that you can use that can illustrate the policy. Obviously, it is a different setting. That means that taking what was working well somewhere and then just trying to drop it into Scotland is not always advisable, because there is obviously a difference in the context. We took all that into account. The review group specifically did spend some of their time looking at other jurisdictions to see what was working elsewhere and how it was going, particularly Northern Ireland and Ireland. Those two are not the same. Obviously, Northern Ireland has the licensing system, and Ireland has a complete ban. Again, the context there are quite different, but what we have seen from both of those looks as if from the data that we can see that there has been a reduction in harms in both of those settings. However, I will let Eleanor, who has probably found the right page of everything, to come in and give us a little bit more detail on that point. To add to what the minister has said, international case study research was commissioned by the fireworks review group when it was taking forward its work. That was really to try and consider the approaches that were in place internationally that aligned with the options that they were looking at to where it was possible to actually look at the data around the actual benefits and the actual drawbacks of similar measures in place. That report was published alongside the review group report. That included case studies of, as the minister said, both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The drivers for introducing restrictions in various different countries will vary. One of the broad conclusions from all that work is that there tends to be a lack of metrics and a lack of data in place for anybody to see definitively what impact that has had. Broadly speaking, from those specific examples of Ireland and Northern Ireland, there are positive changes in terms of some of the data that is available. In Northern Ireland, for example, we see quite a marked reduction in injury levels, firework-related injuries, coinciding with the introduction of the licensing scheme. However, we need to be cautious about any claims that there is definitive evidence around the impact that either of those have had. I think that that is a fair enough caution, but it was evidence that we heard last week, so I think that it is worth well to ask. On the evidence last week as well, the industry has also got a ten-point plan that I know that the minister will be aware of, so I wanted to know how much that had maybe been taken into account in informing the legislation. Also, if I can join the questions up together in the interests of time, one of the things that was mentioned last week was quite striking to myself. I might not have a pet currently, but I've got three young kids and it's probably of interest to me. When I heard it, it was that a lot of the injuries associated with firework are actually associated according to evidence that we heard last week. Actually, it's sparklerious, and I wondered if that is something that the minister, the Government and the group took into account in informing the legislation as well. Yes, we have seen the industries of their ten-point plan. I think that some of it doesn't relate specifically to the Scottish Government. I think that some of them are action points for the UK Government. I think that there are some interesting things in there. I met with the industry about two weeks ago to listen to everything that they had to say, take on board all their views that they raised. Of course, the industry was a part of their review group, so it has been involved in the process right from the very start of this piece of work. As members of the review group, although I accept that they didn't support the final recommendations from their point of view, they have some concerns over the bill. Sorry, I can't remember. What was the second part of your question? It was about sparklerious. It was evidence that it was given to us last week. Obviously, we don't have complete data around injuries, firework-related injuries. Obviously, if someone is injured by a sparkler or a firework, they may choose to go to their pharmacist or their doctor and we don't have that data. What we do have is data from attendance at minor injury unit, accident and emergency departments. The minister has already gone through that. We cannot disaggregate that specific data by type of firework, but our colleagues in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde did a fairly detailed survey in 2019 of all A&E and minor injury departments. That was a much more detailed survey. Again, that has been published and I can certainly share it with the committee if that would be helpful. What that shows is that the majority of injuries are caused by other fireworks, so 68 per cent were caused by fireworks. I don't have the percentage, but 13 were due to sparklers, so the majority are due to F2 and FD fireworks. I would say that that is to be expected because if somebody is injured by a sparkler, they may not be severe enough for them to attend hospital. Similarly, we have more detailed data from Greater Glasgow and Clyde for last year 2021. Again, that shows that most of the injuries are from fireworks as compared to sparklers. Excellent. I think that that is good to clarify. Anything that the Government can do, I haven't watched evidence last week about promoting organised events in such like promoting the use of gloves for young children using fireworks. I think that that was a sensible suggestion by the industry. I will move on to the questions that you thought I was asking. Apologies, which is around the restrictions of the use and supply of fireworks. This is a line of questions that I have been asking to various panellists. Obviously, the bills that are introduced in certain days and times when fireworks can be sold and used are able to speak a bit about the rationale of that, because it has had quite widespread support, as I say, from the majority of stakeholders, which has been reassuring to hear. Obviously, we have had some concerns about almost by picking days. We are going into a sort of territory that we are not picking other days, if that makes sense. I wonder if that is something that has been given any consideration to. To join my questions together, I think that it would be worthwhile given local authorities some flexibility so that they could look at certain occasions—it might be sporting occasions or other cultural occasions—that people might have applied to their local authority. During the 2019-21 consultation, I am sure that the committee will have heard that coming out strongly in the evidence that it has taken. We did here repeated evidence about disturbance caused to people by this more, I suppose, what we would characterise as unpredictable use of fireworks, leading to the perception that fireworks use had become a lot more prolonged than it used to be. I visited the SSPCA a couple of weeks ago now, and they were suggesting to me that, particularly for pet owners, that this would apply to anybody who has issues in this area. That would include the neurodivergent people, too. Knowing when the fireworks are going to be used allows people to undertake whatever mitigation that that might be. Those who have neurodivergent conditions could be somewhere else. People who have pets who are seriously disturbed by fireworks could seek veterinary advice ahead of their use. I feel that that more predictable use is going to be of benefit to everybody. The review group looked at a lot of analytical work—it looked at the international evidence that we have spoken about in one of the other ones. I will ask Eleanor to speak a bit about a couple of parts of Australia and New Zealand where they brought in something similar and what effects that had had there. Yes. As part of the international case study research commissioned by the review group, there were a number of areas that were included that had a shorter sales window. I do not have the name of the Australian state in front of me, but it was in one of the Australian states and New Zealand. The caveat that I will give is that it is not possible for us to draw direct comparisons for a number of reasons, but we certainly see some positive consequences of that in both of those areas. I understand that I am probably convinced in terms of the A that having set days, but I would simply comment that it still does seem a wee bit unfair for people with autism or pet owners or whatever the coming new year. It is them that have the mitigation including leaving their own home. Of course, the last two new years, that would not have been an option open to them in stillfireworks where we are used. Just one further question on this subject. That is about whether the Government has carried out any impact assessments with regard to those specific dates on the impact for retailers and organisers such as the independent retailer from Aberdeen that we heard last week. If we go back to your previous point about reducing the terms that they can be used, having fireworks used during those periods is still going to have an effect on people, but the idea is, in order to be proportionate, that they seem like a good approach to take. Reducing that time of use allows people to be more prepared for it, so it is not catching people by surprise. They are able to prepare for it a bit more, which means that perhaps it becomes a bit more tolerable, I suppose, is probably the way to describe it. I also want to pick up—I forgot to answer your point about flexibility. We consulted with various faith groups and we wanted to be sure that the dates that we picked would align carefully with that and make sure that, where there were dates, particularly for other faiths, traditionally there are celebrations and bold fireworks that we would be able to capture that in the dates that we were proposing as well to make sure that we had done that. Having done that, I think that we need to be careful that we do not introduce any more confusion, so I think that allowing further flexibility for local authorities to change those dates, I am not sure that that might be a good idea. I think that that could introduce an element of confusion. With that, we have a lot of work to do to communicate to the public about exactly what those changes are, and once we have done that, hopefully people will have a good level of knowledge about what they are allowed to do when and where, so I think that that is quite an important part of it. In terms of impact assessments, I think that Eleanor will be able to give us more information on that. On that specific point, a full range of impact assessments have been undertaken and published in relation to the bill. I think that the specific impact assessment that relates to your question is the business and regulatory impact assessment, and that certainly recognises the potential impact of the restricted days of supply on those retailers who are selling fireworks, particularly the small number of retailers that are permitted to supply fireworks throughout the year. I have to say that limited economic data is available from those retailers. We did hold a specific consultation event back in 2021, while the consultation was live specifically with specialist firework retailers, but we have reflected the economic data that we have, but that is limited. I think that it is important to say that retailers will be able to continue to supply fireworks to those who are in the exempt groups outwith those permitted periods, so that will include community groups and professional firework operators. We do not have firm data on that, but we know that some of those specialist firework retailers are also professional display operators, so it may be that that element of the business is enhanced by the measures that are included in the bill. I will bring in Jamie Greene in a moment for a follow-up. Can I quickly jump back to a quick question on licensing? One of the things that has come up repeatedly is that the member is looking for a little bit more detail on the proposals around licensing. Perhaps in that regard, there might be an opportunity for us to ask a wee bit about the practicalities of the licensing scheme, as you see it being put in place. For example, would there be an online option? Would there be ID documents required to be produced? What sort of timescales might be required from the point that somebody applies to the point that an application is completed and endorsed? A little bit of more practical detail around the process for people applying for licences would be really helpful. I think that that is a good line of questioning. Obviously, we would anticipate that the majority of it will be done online. I think that most people are able to use that now, and it is obviously highly efficient for many people. We will have an alternative for people who are not able to access that or use that, so we will have a paper-based alternative for people that that might work better for. I can certainly talk you through the process, if that would be helpful. Forgive me if it is a slightly long answer. The basic principle is that all members of the public, including community groups, will be required to apply for a fireworks licence if they are not in one of the exempt groups that is set out. They will be required to have that licence before they can purchase, possess or use fireworks. First of all, it would involve them completing a training course on the safe, appropriate and responsible use of fireworks in the three months preceding that application, and that is set out in the bill. Future regulations, as the minister has said, will set out the operational detail of that. We envisage at this stage that that will include it primarily being an online course, although the bill does not set out that it has to be an online course. We imagine that it will be an online course, but consideration has been given to those who might not have internet access. The regulations will also cover information on what content is in the course, but that will include things such as how to use fireworks safely, information on how to store and dispose of fireworks safely, rules and regulations on where and when they can be used and consideration on the appropriate use of fireworks. The second thing that the person would then be required to do would be to apply to the Scottish Government for a licence. That will involve filling out an application form and providing proof of successful completion of the training course, as well as disclosing any previous convictions related to the misuse of fireworks or pyrotechnics, as well as disclosing any previous licences that have been revoked or cancelled. Again, it would be future regulations that set out the detail operation of that system, so that would include the content of the application form and the information that is required from applicants, the fee that needs to be paid, the time in which the application must be made in order to manage those spikes in demand to coincide with traditional firework periods, as I have said, the content of the training course and the length of time that the licence is valid for. Thanks very much. That's helpful. I've got some more questions around that, but I won't ask them just now. I'll just bring them back to Jamie Greene. Minister, you've talked quite a lot about the working group and the various members of it. I raised this with the industry representatives last week. In their written evidence, they said that they believed that too much weight had been given to the voices in the group who, I quote, wanted to see more restrictions and woefully insufficient weight has been given to the industry who have been warning about the serious unintended consequences of the bill. Now, to be fair, I did challenge him on that and said, well, you would say that, wouldn't you? Your interests is in the commercial success of your members. But, interestingly, the British Pyrotechnics Association said that the majority of their members actually put on professional displays and have no vested interest in the retail market at all, either in the restriction of sale purchase or use of over-the-counter fireworks, and that their views on this, around the unintended consequences, around the black market and what they think will be the outcomes of the legislation, are purely based on their professional judgment and their decades of experience in the fireworks industry. That was their response. How would you respond to that? You're right to say that, and I think that we've covered this already, that the industry were members of the review group. There were full members, like all the other members of the group. The group decided on what their remit was, what evidence they were going to look at, and then, obviously, came up with the action plan at the end of that, of which this legislation in front of you forms part of, but not all of, the recommendations that were put forward. As a Government, we are working through all of those recommendations. The industry was certainly fully involved in that process. They gave some very helpful information that has been worked into the legislation that we've got now. As I said, I met the industry a couple of weeks ago. We had a long, full and frank discussion. Obviously, their views are different about the conclusions that they would draw from that. They would like things to have gone in a different way, but they were fully involved from the start of that. Some of their views have been taken on board and others haven't. It's like you get in a lot of situations. We probably had members of the review group who would like to have seen the regulations go even further in the direction of public safety, animal welfare, et cetera. The industry were probably somewhere more on this side, perhaps wanting more of a mention of the status quo. I would suggest to the committee that we've probably ended up somewhere in the middle with a view to create something that responded to what the public wanted to do. I've set out fairly clearly at the start in the beginning that there is a very strong desire from the public to change the way that we sell and use fireworks. There's a lot of support for the measures in the bill that I read out at the start. We need to be cognisant of that. We did look carefully at the unintended consequences. I think that we have spoken about that. We looked at that through the three different lenses. Again, there isn't a lot of data that we could use, but the data that we could find, we used to inform that. Again, that comes back to some of the exchanges that we've had with other members of the committee about making sure that the licence system is easy to use, making sure that it's not too expensive to use, so that we don't create barriers to people buying fireworks. We've accepted that there may be a very small number of fireworks suppliers that may be adversely impacted by the provisions in the legislation. If that's the case, we have said that we will set up a compensation scheme for them. I'm sure that that would be very welcome. I guess what struck me really was just how adamant they were that their opposition to the Government's plans were not based on the commercial interests of the members, but on their direct experience of the fireworks industries, not just in this country but overseas as well. That was very pronounced, and that came through in their evidence, which is why I wanted to ask you that. Obviously, the sale, use and purchase are the three prongs that the Government is using to introduce restrictions. Can I ask specifically two things? One is, are you cognisant of concerns that people will stockpile in terms of purchasing and possessing and storing fireworks in their homes or in other locations, outwith the prescribed periods, which will be legal to purchase them on? Secondly, are you confident that there will be no legal challenges to the rather arbitrary dates that have been set around the sale and use of fireworks, as prescribed in the bill? How about so many pieces of paper in this packet? It's really difficult to find a piece of paper that you need at the right time. Stockpiling was something that we looked into. Obviously, it's not something that we want to see, because I think that we can all understand the inherent dangers in stockpiling large amounts of explosives if that's not done in the right way. We did look at that. The permitted days of use are extending slightly beyond when fireworks can be supplied. That has been done specifically, because we want to avoid a situation in which someone goes to buy fireworks at the very end of the supply period. Let's say that they plan to have a fireworks event in their garden or whatever, and then they can't use them, because the weather is absolutely appalling or something happens that they can't use them. We didn't want them to have to store them until the next period when they could use them, so we've added that little bit in there to give that period of grace so that that doesn't happen. That doesn't seem to be an awful lot of evidence that this might be a problem. Again, this is something that we would want to keep an eye on. At the moment, there's obviously a fairly short period of time when people can use fireworks around about the new year's time, so we already have some experience of looking at a fairly short time period when people can use them. We're not seeing a lot of stockpiling around as a result of that being the case, but it is certainly something that we would be intending on keeping an eye on. Eleanor, have you anything to add on the stockpiling issue? No. You've picked five periods of the year, one's a Chinese festival, the other one is a Diwali Sikh festival and two secularly celebrated festivals of the new year and a Halloween stroke guy fox period. If I had other religious or secular events, celebrations, etc, and I wanted to celebrate those as a family or in my own backyard or in another space, as prescribed, the fact that the Government has chosen these very specific dates, do you think that would leave you open to any form of legal challenge by other religious organisations or other groups or communities who feel like by default you've created an exclusive zone of dates rather than an inclusive one? I think that I did say this earlier that we did consult with all the faith groups. We feel that we've captured all the dates that we feel that there might be particular religious significance where fireworks are traditionally used as part of the celebrations and we've captured that. They broadly align with the existing dates, so I think that we are quite confident that that doesn't fall foul of the legislation, yes. I don't know if Natalie wants to say anything further on that. There's also a power within the legislation to add to or amend the dates if required. If further information came to light that we had missed a particular date that we would want to include in the future. Thank you. I was going to say that that sounds like a marvellous amendment that someone would have introduced anyway. The final point is that under the proposals you could be in a scenario where outside of the defined periods of using fireworks, if you want to use fireworks to celebrate an event or an occasion, the only way you can do it will be through an organised display company or someone who is exempt from the regulations. Do we not end up in a really bizarre scenario where if you can afford to do that you can, but if you want to do it yourself, you can. Are we not just creating a fireworks class division of those who can afford to will anyway in those who can't are being restricted? Is that seem fair and proportionate? On balance, taking all the provisions across the bill, I think it is designed and I think it does achieve the aim of being fair and proportionate. Obviously, the example that you use there, if people have, I would say, there is quite adequate provision across the year in order to use fireworks, but I do completely accept the member's point that that may not align with an individual's desire to use fireworks on a day on which you are not now, if the Parliament agrees to this legislation, you wouldn't be able to use fireworks. However, I think that there is enough sort of flexibility within this to still allow fireworks use. Obviously, public displays are mentioned by the member. For community groups, I suppose this comes back to Fulton's point about local authorities. I know that some areas have specific days that are of interest to them. If that falls within the agreed period, a community group could hire a professional display. If that was across a number of people, I guess that would mitigate the cost there to an extent. However, I think that we have to look at the bill as a whole in what we are trying to do here. All the provisions have been specifically designed in order to look at the evidence, make sure that we are not getting into the territory of creating too many unintended consequences, and reflect the desire that the public had in order to reduce the misuse of fireworks. On balance, the bill does do what it was intended to do. We are just coming into the last 20-25 minutes of the session. Members have still got a few areas that they would like to ask questions around, so I can ask, as usual, for succinct questions and responses that would be helpful. I will now bring in Russell Finlay to pick up on some proxy purchase questions. Last week, Fraser Stevenson of the BFA told us that he or his organisation had produced a 10-point plan and sent that to the minister in 2020, point 4 of which is to raise the age in which anyone can buy fireworks from 18 to 21. Given that we have heard today that the average age of those who are prosecuted is 22, that seems to be quite a sensible proposal from the industry, and perhaps a more sensible and effective starting point than the legislation, which seems to be quite convoluted and confusing. Why was the age limit not taken on? Yes, we did look at that. It was in my response and it was built in. Yes, we did receive the 10-point plan from the industry. As I said before, there were some things in there that were not for the Scottish Government and the UK Government. There were a number of suggestions in there, and there were some good suggestions in there. This is something that we did consider. We do not have current plans to raise the minimum age for buying fireworks at the moment, because if we were to do a blanket ban on the sale and use of fireworks for adults that are between the age of, let us say, 18 and 21 or 25, we think that that could be disproportionate and potentially discriminatory, particularly when that is compared to other relevant age limits on comparable goods and services. If it is that age group that is causing most of the criminality, is it not quite a simple fix? There are no other age-restricted products that require you to be over 18 to purchase them, including air weapons, for example. Before we move on, I will bring in Rona Mackay just in a moment to pick up on some of the proxy purchase questioning. I might go back to a point around proxy purchase that we again members have been looking at when we have been taking evidence from previous witnesses. It was looking at alternative options around the proposal in the bill on proxy for under-18s. We know that that is one of the key things that the Government is keen to bring forward earlier than the other provisions. In the section on alternative legislative solutions, that does not seem to mention how the proxy purchase scheme could have been achieved through a different route other than the bill. I am just really wanting to go back to that and ask again if there might be a different legislative route that could be explored for that particular provision. I think that there was a lot of support for the proxy purchasing offence as being a very obvious kind of gap in the law, if you like. To go back to the exchange that I had with Pauline McNeill earlier, the first time that this was raised with me was in Pollock Shields. That was raised with me by a youth worker in Pollock Shields that he had identified as being a gap in the law that he thought should be closed, and that was several years ago. At the moment, it is already unlawful for a category F2 and F3 fireworks and other pyrotechnics to be supplied to children under 18, but that is just on a commercial basis. The introduction of that specific offence makes it clear to all adults that any giving, supplying of fireworks or pyrotechnics to those under the age of 18 is a criminal offence with appropriate penalties. Natalie, would you be able to pick up the part about other legislative options with regard to that point? Yes. Just to confirm what you have said, that at the moment it is illegal to supply fireworks on a commercial basis, but to apply it to all adults it would be necessary to do that through primary legislation. The secondary legislation that is available under the fireworks act is in relation to commercial supply and it would be a provision in which the UK Government would have to bring regulations, not the Scottish Government. That is helpful, because it is something that we have been looking at in relation to the option to perhaps pull off that part of the bill if you like and deal with it separately in order that the other provisions did not have to be... We were not restricted to the timescales around those other provisions, but that is helpful clarification. Thank you for that. I will now bring in Rona Mackay. Thank you, convener. Just a couple of brief questions from me, one that I meant to ask earlier when we were discussing the licensing. Apologies if I have missed this and a previous answer, by the way. The registered training course, do we have any detail on that who will be providing that? Has someone been chosen to do that? Is it likely to be a commercial body or the fire service? That would be considered as part of the consultation that will take place once the bill is passed in regulation. We would obviously look at options, including commercial suppliers, as well as third sector organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents who have the fireworks code, for example, as well as other organisations. I just wondered if there was a firm view on it. The other thing really is, and the minister alluded to this earlier, about public awareness. If this bill passes this year, the public may expect big changes around November, which, with the best of all the world, will not be happening in terms of purchasing and setting off fireworks. Is there really any detail on the comms in the public awareness campaign that will come out so that people can manage people's expectations? I agree with that. Public messaging and public campaigns are an extremely important part of this whole picture. In advance of bonfire night 2020-21, 2020, we had a number of awareness raising and public safety campaigns. In fact, there were three different ones that ran. I will just speak about those because we will be repeating them again this year. The first is the nationwide one, which is called impact of fireworks. That is to improve people's awareness and understanding of the impacts that fireworks can have on people, on animals and encourage people using fireworks to think about the impact on others and also for them to follow the safety instructions and the fireworks code. The second one that has been running over the past few years and will run again this year is one that is in partnership with the charity Crime Stoppers. It is supported by Police Scotland as well. It focuses on areas where there are higher levels of misuse and it focuses on improving awareness and understanding, particularly of the existing rules and regulations. How and when to report misuse of fireworks and potentially anonymously as well. Again, that might come back to earlier points if people are seeing perhaps illegal fireworks being sold in their area. That gives people an anonymous way to obviously report that information. The third one is provided advice in retail outlets. That is at the point of sale for consumer fireworks and that is on safe and appropriate use. We will be planning on rerunning them again this year. If the Parliament agrees to the provisions in the bill, some of the bill will be, we hope, in operation before born fire night this year. That will be the proxy purchasing offence and also the provisions relating to pyrotechnics as well. That message about what is in the bill for this year will be part of the as well as the stuff that you have done before. Absolutely. It is key. The best way that we are going to get the culture change on fireworks that we started talking about at the beginning is to make sure that the public has the level of awareness about how to use fireworks safely and for everyone to respect everyone else, if you like, so that we get to that culture change and also how to keep themselves safe. We need to make sure that level of knowledge is strong and we do that by consistent public messaging that we are repeating year on year. Every time the regulations change, we will update the messaging accordingly. We will move swiftly on to some questions around control zones. I will bring in Russell Finlay again. Yes, indeed. I was going to ask about the no firework zone as they were initially called at some stage in the consultation process. No firework area, right? And it's now become a firework control zone. And not only is there perhaps risk, people might not understand what that all means. Would it not have been perhaps easier just to have no firework zones, given there appear to be two broad problems? One is the misuse of fireworks in a violent or antisocial way and the other is just their legitimate use but the noise and the distress that causes to pets and certain people. So why not, if you want to go down this route, create no firework zones so that people can have peace and quiet? Yes, it was called firework control areas. I think that that was in Eleanor, correct me if I'm getting this wrong. Was that in the first consultation? Yes, just in the first consultation. We then changed it to firework control zones because we thought that when we put it into the legislation that this more accurately reflected what the provision would be designed to do. I think that that provision will have an impact both on the misuse, as the member suggested, and also on the legitimate use, which also can be problematic for a number of people. The idea of this is to reduce the use of fireworks in particular areas where they're currently impacting on people because of their prolonged and unpredictable nature. I think that it gives local authorities that ability to look at what's happening in their area and then take action in order to try to address this. This was a theme that came through very strongly to me when we were developing the provisions of the bills. Local authorities were very interested in having this particular provision because they felt it would help them to address the issues that they're seeing. It would give them control over setting the areas, etc. We might also see areas being designated like this. There are near care homes, older people's homes, shelters for animals, and such things. That just gives that degree of flexibility. Public displays can still take place during them. Community groups, etc. would still be able to put on displays as well. I can see how there is an argument for saying that that maybe hasn't quite struck the right balance. I would be interested to hear what the committee's view is on that. I'm going back to that. It's not just those two criteria that can be within control zones. It can also be private homeowners bringing in company. I suppose people living in those areas think that they may have some peace and quiet, but in fact it changes nothing because fireworks will still be going off in those areas. I think that that's what might confuse people. I would envisage this. It will result in a reduction overall of the amount of fireworks and the unpredictable and sporadic nature of them. However, I take the member's point about the use of private displays. That is something that I am open to considering the Parliament's view on that. I would be interested to hear what the committee has come back to me in their report particularly about that provision. I don't know if you want to pick up the next questions around pyrotechnic articles. Yes. The Scottish Police Federation has given evidence to the effect that the good intent behind the legislation might be undermined by what they call bad legislation as drafted. One of their specific concerns was pyrotechnics and their increased use of football matches and other large-scale events. The Federation said that the bill should be amended for that to become a simple possession being an offence with the obvious clause to protect a reasonable use or a reasonable possession for legitimate users. Police Scotland has since written to us and said much the same thing. It believes that the law should have a simple possession written into it. Is that something that you are going to take on? We did consider that. I will last stage come in in a minute and explain the process that we went through to get to the point that we are at. Misuse of pyrotechnics is a growing problem and that has been evidenced to us by Police Scotland, obviously at certain events, and we were keen to get a provision into place that worked for that. I think that there are gaps in the legislation at the moment relating to carrying and possession of pyrotechnics that might inhibit the police from taking proactive and preventive action. The key part of that is that before a situation becomes dangerous, it gets really difficult to control. That is what we are seeking to achieve with that. Police Scotland had a working group on that in 2017, and it presented recommendations from that. We also had a Scottish Government-hosted stakeholder discussions in 2021. That proposed an offence of being in possession of a pyrotechnic in a public place without reasonable excuse or lawful authority. That was the proposal that was initially considered and consulted on as part of the 2021 consultation. However, when we were developing the legislation, the potential for the wider provision as it was drafted at that point, we felt that there was potential for that to have unintended consequences. That was the potential for it to deter, if you like, legitimate and necessary use of pyrotechnic articles for personal safety. That would be things like visual distress signals, etc. That became a concern. We thought that a more specific offence needed to be developed and that results in the provision that we can see in the bill now. I think that it is important to add that we had discussions with Police Scotland throughout that. In terms of the narrower offence, they were aware of what was being proposed. They told us that they were satisfied that, relating to the evidence that we were able to gather in relation to that, it was a proportionate way forward. Certainly, the point that they are making is that a narrower offence is more difficult for them than a broader offence. We absolutely accept that it is more difficult to do. However, the key things round about here were, in terms of our considerations, that we had to consider our obligation to take the least obtrusive method to fulfil the policy objective. We obviously had to demonstrate that anything that we were doing was proportionate and necessary. It had to be evidence-based, and the evidence in this case was the document provided by Police Scotland, which I understand they have also provided to the committee. That is the best evidence that we have about pyrotechnics misuse, and it suggests that it is in particular areas. Although, as with other evidence, we accept that it is not perfect evidence, it is the best that is available to us. Additionally, things have to be compatible with human rights, and, as the minister mentioned, it is very important for us, particularly in relation to the pyrotechnics, that we do not inhibit the legitimate use of pyrotechnics for safety purposes. We are very conscious of that in terms of what we were doing and trying to make sure that it was very clear that we would not be inhibiting people from taking safety players when they are going out to sea, when they are going out into the hills, so those were the kinds of things that we were taking into account. On that basis, we felt that what is being proposed in the bill is a proportionate response to the evidence that we have. We accept that it is more difficult than a broader offence, but we do not feel that we have the evidence to go for a broader offence, and so that is how we have ended up where we are at the moment. Just quickly coming back on that, the federation said that their officers have the common sense to not go arresting people from mountaintops or in marinas who have got flares for legitimate reasons, and that would be the purpose of keeping this very simple. Is it now the case that that is completely off the table? The way that I am looking at this is that we need to create—we are responding to a public health or public safety issue that we see. We have worked on this with the stakeholders over the past few years in order to develop the right provision. We need a provision that is obviously workable. We think that this provision is workable. It is my job as a minister to use the least intrusive legislation in order to get to the objective, the public safety objective, as possible. The fact that we have said that Police Scotland knew that this was the provision that was going in the bill and that they are aware of that, I think that it is workable. Having raised concerns with this, it allows us—we have time now, we can go back and continue to work with them to make sure that we get this right. My view is that this is the proportionate response. I hope that Parliament will agree with that. It is over to the committee now to decide whether the Government's view is that this treads the line of being responding to the issue to meet the objective in the least intrusive way possible. I cannot resist the temptation to come in on this point. Obviously, Police Scotland has provisions in legislation around the likes of the carrying of offensive weapons, where, if you have a lawful reason, that is fine. In the cartilage of a premises, if you are there for a lawful reason, then that is fine. If there is scope for the provision bearing in mind, I would agree with Russell Finlay's comments that probably police officers err on the side of caution if they are aware that there is a provision within a piece of legislation that the courage of a pyrotechnic can be done lawfully, then I would anticipate that they would use that or invoke that legislation proportionately. I would certainly be keen to perhaps see that provision maybe reconsidered again and explored a bit further. I was just going to say that we take on board the points. We are certainly not trying to apply that police cannot use their common sense. They do it every day in making judgment calls and so forth. I think that the key thing for us is the issue of proportionality to the evidence that we have. We did previously say that, if there is more evidence available, we would consider additional evidence. Obviously, you have the evidence that is available to us, so if you feel that our response is not the proportionate one, then obviously it is up to you to be able to say that. That has really been the key thing for us in terms of having a response that is proportionate to the evidence that we have available to us. Jamie Greeney, you want to come in just at 11 o'clock now. You said that the Government is trying to introduce legislation that responds to a public health situation, but ultimately it is the police who will enforce the legislation that the Parliament passes and the police in their subsequent supplementary follow-up to this have been very clear that they would like to see the bill amended to include a simple position of fence. Given that it is they, not us or the Government who will have to enforce the law, can you see why we would be minded to support them on that? Yes, we greatly value the input from Police Scotland, from the Police Federation on these matters. They have played an important role in developing this legislation. The evidence that we have received from Police Scotland is that the provision that we have, as it is drafted, is workable. However, as we have said, we are happy to listen to the views of the committee on whether they think that it strikes the appropriate balance in this case. I have one final question that I will bring in Pauline McNeill and then I will bring the session to a close. Thank you very much. I just wanted to be clear in my own mind about how the scheme and how the legislation works. There are 37 days in which you will be able to set off fireworks. Does that mean that the other days, then, is that an offence if you set fireworks off in your backyard and you are saying yes to that? We did have evidence last week where, at someone representing the retail trade, I think that Jamie Greene referred to earlier, talking about the growing desire to set off fireworks for gender reveals, for big birthdays or whatever. Personally, it fills me with dread, to be honest, because I support the Government's viewpoint that we need a culture change that setting off fireworks every day of the year does cause a nuisance. You are clear that there would be a police reporting matter if your neighbour set off fireworks outwith the 37 days. That is a reportable offence. Does that just want to be clear about that? It would be, yes. You would expect the police to act against an individual if they did so? Obviously, enforcement is a matter for our operational partners. The key with this is to make sure that the public is aware of what they are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do, with a view to, as you say, create the culture change so that people are quite clear that they are not allowed to set them off at those times. I am going to bring the session to a close. We did have some more questions around the impact of the UK internal market act and some of the financial issues and delegated powers. We will write to the minister and ask for a written response to those questions. I thank the minister and her team for joining us this morning. We will take a short break before we move into private session to allow the witnesses to leave.