 Good morning and welcome to the 29th meeting of the committee in 2014. Everyone present is asked to switch off mobile phones and other electronic equipment as they affect the broadcast system. Some committee members will use tablets during the course of this meeting. That's because we provide the meeting papers in digital format. Our first item of business is our first oral evidence as part of our stage 1 scrutiny the Community Empowerment Scotland Bill. We are starting this process by holding a round table session with key stakeholders to set the scene for this work. We appreciate that some of the groups here today may only have an interest in certain aspects of the bill, but please feel free to talk about the other parts of the bill as they come up during this morning's discussion, as this is intended to look at the way licensing impacts and communities in general. I would like to start by inviting those witnesses and members that we have around the table today to introduce themselves, and we will then move on to discussion of the bill. I'm Kevin Stewart, convener of the committee. John Wilson, deputy convener of the committee. Cameron Buchanan, member for Lothian. Graham Whiteman, University of Aberty, here as a witness. Alec Rowley, MSP for the Cove and Beath constituency. Jack Cullen is representing the Law Society of Scotland's licensing law committee. Anne McTaggart, MSP for Glasgow. Fiona Stewart, representing the Solar Licensing Working Group. Stuart McMill, MSP, SNP, MSP for the West of Scotland. I'm Calum Steele, I'm the General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation. Mark McDonald, MSP for Aberdeen Donside constituency. Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Kelvin. Dr Dave Short, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography University of Edinburgh. Thank you all very much. If I could maybe start with Dr Whiteman. I understand that your main interest is in air weapons. I wonder if you could give us an overview of how you think the bill is, as is. Right, as to the actual legal aspects of the bill probably can't make much of a contribution, although I did make a comment about whether the bill ought to actually state the current limits for air weapons because the 12 foot pounds, six foot pounds in the bill to make it clear, which would be covered by the certificate and which would still need licensing. My interest comes from some work we've done with honour students looking at the damage that can be caused by air weapons. We've looked at firing air weapon pellets into ballistic gel, which is used as a simulant for flesh. Seeing how far the pellets penetrate, we've also looked at embedding organs from animals from an abattoir into ballistic gel and seeing that the pellets would actually penetrate into them. Obviously it's much more complicated in real life. There's clothing, skin and bone. We've had a look at the effect of clothing on the impact of pellets into ballistic gel. We've had a look at the impact of rifle pellets onto bone as well and how the pellets can fragment. So my interest is from that aspect of the damage that can actually be caused as a consequence taking an interest in the statistics of injuries from air weapons in the UK and other countries. Although the numbers are falling, there is still a significant number of injuries. There was one reported in the news yesterday of an 11-year-old in County Durham, where he'd been at a football match and an air rifle pellet was actually embedded in his temple. So he's quite interested in the consequence that air weapons can have. Okay, thank you. Cameron, yes, of course. What is his jewels? I didn't quite understand, what is that? Could you explain that to me please? Jewels is the metric equivalent of foot pounds, like metres for feet and inches. Thanks, convener, and good morning panel. Although it's no panel, it's around the table, sorry. Could I start off by asking the people around the table their expertise and what's missing from the bill itself, the proposed bill? I could probably ask Jack first. Okay, Mr Cillans. Yes, thank you very much for that opportunity and for the ability to be here today and to discuss with you this important bill. I think that the lost side is concerned is that there are a number of non-policy related matters which are right for change in licensing law that have been, that have not been addressed by the bill, matters that affect the workability of the act that allow businesses to operate efficiently. The key areas are transfers, transfers of licences. Ever since the 2005 act came into force, the Licensing of Scotland Act, obviously, there have been lots of practical problems with the transfer of licences, which needn't be the case. There was a much simpler system under the previous legislation there. The raw detail was set out in the society's full written submission and I wouldn't trouble you with that at the moment, but it's spicy to say it does make the transfer of licences businesses much more complicated than it need be, and it is purely a technical matter which in society's opinion could be addressed, as I say, with very policy implications. There is also a problem. Again, it sounds like a very dry and dusty technical problem, but it is a serious problem with a lack of clarity in the act about licences ceasing to have effect in certain circumstances. Neither private practitioners nor clerks know exactly what the act means in that situation. There are problems with the surrender of licences by spiteful tenants who hold licences, and there is an on-going problem with an inability to make what we would call a site only application for a licence, as was possible under the 1976 act. All of that is in the society's written submission. It does sound very arid and not terribly interesting, but nevertheless, the matter in which the Scottish Government has long been aware of knows that the fix is pretty simple and it would certainly help lawyers, those whom they advise, and those who advise licensing boards if those matters could be addressed. The committee will have noted that the angustura bitters are no longer going to be treated as alcohol, and the Scottish Government has taken the trouble to make a sleep slay for it at night, knowing that the angustura bitters are no longer going to be treated as alcohol. It strikes me if we can get down to that kind of technical level, but we can get down to the technical level that the lost society would like to see. Dr Short, your expertise is in alcohol licensing as well, I believe. Do you have any comments about the bill? My interest in the bill is in the area of over-provision. In particular, my interest is in objective 4 of the Licensing Objectives of the 2005 act, which dates to the protection and improvement of public health as a licensing objective. Within the documentation that was sent through, one of the things that was stated is the concept of over-provision and how it is difficult for licensing boards to use their powers in any meaningful way. I am not sure that the bill helps that in going forward. Just to put this into perspective, I am interested in over-provision because Scotland has one of the highest alcohol-related harm rates in Western Europe, the highest alcohol-related death rates in the UK, and recent research that we have carried out has shown that alcohol-related death rates are more than double those in areas that have the most outlets compared to areas that have the fewest outlets. I want more on over-provision and on the types of premises and the capacity within the premises as well. Have you done any research in looking at whether provision is greater in areas of deprivation than in other areas? Yes, I have. I have a paper currently under review that is looking at density by deprivation, but the study that we did controlled for deprivation. For those of you who are aware of statistical models, we hold deprivation constant. The research that we have done has found this result in all areas, not just in the most deprived areas. We find that death rates are higher in areas with the highest number of outlets, regardless of the level of poverty in the area. Ms Stewart, from the solar perspective, we would share a lot of the law society's concerns in respect of transfers, variations, the lack of clarity in the act, the fact that the Government guidance that goes alongside with the act is well out of date. We have had two further acts since that guidance was written. We have had the alcohol act and the criminal justice Scotland act, so the guidance does need to be brought up to date with the act, but we would definitely share the law society's concerns about transfers, although we may differ slightly in some of our views on the solutions. We also welcome the bringing up-to-date electronically of the Civic Government Scotland act, but we would perhaps suggest that it is time to overhaul that act completely as well. It consolidated several codexes, but it was written in 1982 and life has moved on considerably since then, and the provisions of the act may no longer meet the requirement of today's society. Can I turn to Sandra White? Sandra, your real interest here is in sexual entertainment licenses. It is, convener, and before I put my submission or perhaps touch on some of the questions that have been raised, I thank the committee for allowing me to be here today. I must admit that it is much more daunting being on this side of the table, being a witness, and it is asking with its greatest respect for all the witnesses that turn up at committee. I agree about the Civic Government Scotland act. It is long overdue to be looked at. That is one of the reasons why I started on the sexual entertainment act. Councils would refuse an application and, invariably, they would be appealed. They would have to go to the court of session here in Edinburgh and, invariably, it would be lost, the appeal resulting in the councils having to spend a lot of money, and the taxpayers' money is also and then having a number of constituents in their area who were very unhappy about not just the sexual entertainment licenses but also over provision as well. If I could just touch on one of the areas in which I think you will probably refer to Mr Cummings and perhaps Mr Stewart as the grandfather rights in that respect, I would call them grandfather rights transfer of premises if they have already had a premise and, basically, they refuse the licence, I think in the bill, page 43 of the bill, and it is section 6A when it mentions local authority may refuse an application for the grant or renewal of a licence, despite the fact that a premises licence under part 3 of the Licensing Scotland Act 2005 is in effect in relation to the premises vehicle, vessel or stall to which the application relates. I think that covers that particular part of the grandfather rights and the transfer as well. It was also raised not by yourselves but others in regard to EU legislation. I think that the EU legislation has been satisfied also, and another issue is that a precedent has been set in England and Wales where they have this licence, where it is a licence of choice for local authorities, where they wish to have a zero tolerance aspect to looking at licensing of sexual entertainment licenses. I am happy to take any questions on that particular subject of the sexual entertainment licenses. I am sure that we will get a number of those. If we can maybe take Mr Steele, though, to give us the police federation's view on the draft bill. Thank you, convener. The police federation has concentrated our comments largely on the firearms, sorry, the weapons licensing element of it, and I think that it is way right and proper that I advise the committee that I have been an active participant in field sports for over 25 years, and I hold shooting insurance with the British Association of Shooting and Conservation. Our comments on the bill are obviously clearly heavily informed by the experience of our members and also from any personal experience any of us may be able to bring to the table also. Where the Scottish Police Federation has some concerns, they are not really principally about the provisions of the bill but more about the capacity of the service to deliver the expectations placed upon us. That being said, there are some apparent inconsistencies between the current licensing regime, particularly for firearms and shotguns, and the conditions that may be applied to particularly firearms certificates, not shotgun certificates, and the potential for the question of applying specific conditions to an air weapons certificate. I think that it is probably more likely than not that there will be a significant number of licensing offences created as a consequence of the legislation. It is unclear whether there is any evidence to support the fact that the legislation in its own right will reduce the criminal use of air weapons, which of course everybody recognises is a particular issue. I suppose that that is probably the middle on both ends of it. Thank you very much. I should probably declare that many moons ago I managed to achieve various marchmen's badges in the air training corps, but that was very much in yesterday's year. Anne, do you want to come back in? If anybody wants to come in, just indicate at any point, and this is an informal session, so just indicate when you want to come in. Sandra? Thank you very much, chair. I am glad that you have allowed me to come back in. I have to say that, basically, when I started looking at this sexual entertainment licence, I was really overwhelmed with the contacts from not just organisations but individuals also, not just in Scotland but from London as well and in other areas of Britain. One of the areas that really concerned me was that women who had been coming home from work were being accosted by men who were frequenting these clubs. There is proof of that. Also, what was really surprised about it was a professional body of women who were saying that they were unable to get promotion because part of their job was to entertain clients, and, in that respect, they were to be taking them out to certain clubs such as lap dancing clubs, and I will not give the name of the particular one that is in London. I am sure that you can think what it was. They refused to do that, and they felt that they were not being given promotion in that respect. It is not just the aspect of women being accosted. It was also the aspect of promotion being denied if they did not follow through in this particular aspect. What do you think about the word appropriate number of section of entertainment clubs? They are obviously going to happen, but how do you define appropriate in areas or in number? The reason that we went for a zero tolerance number is that we do not want any whatsoever. It is the fact that we were given the choice to the local authorities. The bill does not make legislation mandatory. It is up to each local authority to fit into the legislation, so when it comes to appropriate clubs, if a local authority such as Glasgow, for instance, thinks that no clubs are appropriate, it would be allowed to go forward in this particular piece of legislation. For myself personally, I would like to see none of these clubs exist. I think that they are demeaning to women and, as I have said before, women have contacted me, have been accosted, coming home from their work, going up the stairs to their close, which is next door to these particular clubs. In my personal opinion, I would see a zero as being appropriate. I do not disagree with that, but I think that it is unrealistic because it is going to be zero. It has to be restricted to local authorities, does it not, realistic? That is why I decided at the end not to make it mandatory. It means that a local authority could say two clubs, if they wished, in the legislation, and it would be up to that local authority to explain to their electorate why they chose this particular number. You could, of course, play devil's advocate here and say that if there was a complete ban, all of this would be driven underground and unlicensed. I wonder if Mr Stewart has a view from Solar on that particular point? It is quite difficult for Solar in this regard because we are the officers in local authorities, so we do not have the political clout. Obviously, our councillors would ultimately be deciding. We would regulate, as officers, any licensing scheme that came to us. The difficulty that we see in regulation is that the provisions that you are proposing for the Civic Government Act have differing definitions to the adult entertainment that is covered under the Licensing Scotland Act. As officers, we have to regulate both and administer both systems. Who is going to be the regulator? Is it going to be the licensing board? Is it going to be the local authority? The differing definitions would make it difficult for officers. The Licensing Scotland Act talks about adult entertainment, which is defined in the act. I cannot put my finger on the exact section at the moment. The sexual entertainment is much more strictly defined and more widely defined, but there was the recent case of Bright Crew against the City of Glasgow licensing board, which stipulated that, if it does not relate to the sale of alcohol, a licensing board cannot regulate that and enforce that. Perhaps it might be better to remove the adult entertainment from the Licensing Scotland Act and leave it with the Civic Government Scotland Act or vice versa, but something would have to be done about the enforcement from an officer's perspective. Thank you, John Wilson. Thank you, convener. Good morning. To stay asked, Mr Stewart and maybe Sandra White would want to comment on this. Sandra White has just put forward the proposition that we should ban that type of entertainment altogether in local government or we should give local authorities the power local authority by local authority to take decisions to ban that type of entertainment taking place within the local authority. Could you perceive that being a problem if, saying that Glasgow took a decision of a blanket ban, Edinburgh and Aberdeen decided to allow these types of clubs to exist? Would it not then need to legal action being taken against Glasgow for interpreting legislation differently from other authorities in Scotland? I am not sure. I know the answer to that question, I am afraid. Sandra White. Thank you, John. You raised an interesting point. Having looked through all the submissions in regard to this particular part of the legislation, I know that all the local authorities are very keen to have this type of legislation, Edinburgh, as well as Glasgow. I do not think that there would be anything raised against the law of the legislation but, if I can just touch on what Ms Stewart said in regard to officers, I am noted of COSLA submission, which welcomes the creation of a separate licensing regime for sexual entertainment venues. It says that the legislation gives them proper powers. COSLA has been the umbrella body of all local authorities. It is very welcoming of this particular part of the legislation. It sees it as a way forward in something that would make it easier for them for the differentiation of sexual entertainment, adult entertainment and alcohol licensing. I do not think that there would be a problem looking at COSLA's submission. Obviously, I am not an officer, so I would be good. I am sorry, convener. I was just trying to get clarification on the situation, whether or not the Scottish Government should be leaving it to local authorities to licence sexual entertainment, or it should be the local authorities, because my fear would be that it could end up with the same companies operating in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, then challenging that local authority to take it to court and say that, if it is permissible in Aberdeen or Edinburgh, why is it not permissible in Glasgow? It is just to try to avoid lengthy legal wrangles taking place in the courts, and then the courts deciding what the appropriate use of the legislation would be rather than this Parliament. The legislation that stands at the moment is proposed. It goes down as far as zero, so I would assume that if you have legislation that is law, then that is the letter of the law. I cannot see myself, but this is just a submission from me. All those entertainment venues are moving to one particular place. As I have said, I have read the submission from the local authorities. They want some form of tightening up, and as COSLA has said, they look forward to this legislation. They think that it is a way forward. I think that if the legislation is there, it goes as far as zero. It is the choice of the local authority. Whether they implement it or not, I do not think that it would be challenging on court, as it is in the legislation. What about the underage girls? Is there any way that we can legislate for under 18? Surely that is part of the problem, too, that the underage boys are what it is? Obviously, I do not know if Callum wants to come in this particular one, but the police do regular visits to these types of clubs. Most clubs have the proof of age, that type of thing. I am only talking about this entertainment licence. You have the same problems in any pub or club, and they usually have the 25 tall in this age group. Having visited a number of these clubs in purely professional aspects before I started looking at this bill to see the concerns that were raised with me if that was the case, I certainly did not see any underage girls in there, or boys, or either customers or otherwise. I think that the police and the licensing regulations would certainly look at underage, and we would expect them to check anything in regard to that. It is against a lot again to licence premises, consumer drink anyway, so the law already stands in that respect. In Austria, for example, there are certain areas in Austria where it is licensed and other areas not, and people then go to those areas and not. It could happen in Scotland that if Glasgow did not want to do what Eastrend did or something, people would just go there, I suppose. What do you think of that? I personally do not think that that has been happening, and we look at the situation in Amsterdam of the Red Light District where people talk about that, but that is closing down now. It is not being part of the economy. It is not looked upon as a good thing for Amsterdam anymore, so that has fallen apart. We do not have the same Red Light Districts there either. I certainly do not think that it would happen. Calum, I wonder if you could give us a perspective from your members on this one, in terms of the sexual entertainment licenses and the policing of them. Does that cause a huge difficulty? I am glad that you phrased the question the way you did, because I cannot speak for Police Scotland and I would not presume to do so, but the description that Sandra gave about the activities or certainly the age of those that frequent those kind of premises is certainly would be keeping with the experience of our members or certainly those that have raised any comment on it. It is probably largely significant that this is not something that is regularly featuring in discussions of the Scottish Police Federation, which suggests in its own right that the question of age is not a problem for us. In terms of if there was a complete ban, do you think that that would cause difficulty for your members in trying to deal with an industry that may be going underground? Well, there are many things that are illegal. Prostitution is illegal. We deal with it day and daily. The question is whether it is the right thing to do and ultimately the legislators will take that particular view. One thing that police officers are very adept at is finding out where legal activity takes place. That does not necessarily mean that enforcing the law surrounding that is equally easy. It would almost be unusual for local police officers not to know where, for example, prostitution was taking place in domestic dwellings or underground to use the terminology that would apply. Similarly, I think that the same exposure to knowledge to identify premises where a legal adult entertainment would be taking place would not take long to come to our attention either. Of course, having the knowledge and the intelligence does not necessarily translate into having the information to bring matters before the courts, but the intelligence systems that are available to the police service mean that if it was to prevail in an illegal manner, we would almost certainly have the capability to identify and ultimately work on developing the resource to enforce. Mr Cummins, you want to come in. Yes, just in relation to what Ms White was saying in relation to sexual entertainment venues, and to advert to the grandfather rights society notes that there's a paradox here. We will have premises that are licensed to sell alcohol under the Licensing Scotland Act 2005. They will be authorised in terms of their operating plan to provide adult entertainment, and as Ms Stewart mentioned, that's rather different from sexual entertainment, but there will be a situation. What's the definition difference there? There is no definition of, strangely enough, of adult entertainment in the 2005 act. There is a definition in the late night regulations, but the definition proposed in this bill is very detailed, and I don't think there's any room for doubt about what sexual entertainment would be. Adult entertainment is at, shall we say, a lesser level, if I can put it just as generally on that than sexual entertainment. I'm sorry, but maybe I'm being a little naive here, because I mean a lesser level, I don't know what that means. Well, I think that if you looked at the definition of sexual entertainment in this, it's just a slightly frustrating that we can't lay our hands on one of the 30 sets of regulations that were published under the 2005 act in relation to the definition of adult entertainment. There is more sexuality, if you like, involved in sexual entertainment than adult entertainment, which might be, I'm just trying to think, what adult entertainment might amount to, from a licensing board perspective. Ms Stewart. Could you cover things like and summer parties or a stag night or a hen night that perhaps has a stripper invited along, which could take place in any pub or hotel, rather than the types of establishment that you would see in Glasgow, Edinburgh or Aberdeen? Yes. So it would be that sort of level. I think that that's right, maybe a sort of full monty type of a thing. But I think society's concern is that you could end up with premises having a licence granted by the licensing board to sell alcohol permitted to provide adult entertainment but refused a licence for a sexual entertainment venue by the licensing authority sitting separately. The licensing board rather than law society said in its submission that it thinks it would be better if the licensing of sexual entertainment venues was to be placed with the licensing board. So the sale of alcohol and the regulation of sexual entertainment was with the one body. Bear in mind that the licensing board will have experience of the premises in question, will have a knowledge of their history, will know whether they have been in fact problems with them, whether they've been well conducted. Well, you hope the licensing board will have all of these things. Big burn. You hope that the licensing board will have all of its knowledge. I've always advocated the licensing board, of course. And of course there is a possibility that premises that have not given any cause for concern to the police or the licensing board will inevitably, in some occasions, find themselves out of business, or possibly have to reinvent themselves with some other form of entertainment that is not sexual entertainment. Mark, I hear what Mr Cummings is saying and he says that this sets up a potential paradox. I'm not entirely sure I follow why it's a problem if we accept that a sexual entertainment licence is at a level beyond that of adult entertainment. It surely follows that if a local authority takes a view that it is comfortable with the provision of adult entertainment as defined in the regulations, but less comfortable with sexual entertainment as defined in the regulations, then surely it's perfectly acceptable for that local authority to take the step of refusing that licence irrespective of whether the venue in question has alcohol, licence, has the ability to provide adult entertainment if that's what the local authority determines. I'm not sure I would accept that that is either a paradox or essentially a bad thing for that could happen. Mr Cummings? Yes, of course. This is just a simplistic answer, but of course at the moment, licensing boards are licensing premises that provide adult entertainment and sexual entertainment because the greater includes the lesser. The point I was trying to make earlier is that we know about them and the experience have come before them. They've been before the licensing board on no doubt various occasions and they will have a track record that the licensing board will have that the licensing authority will not. So it's putting it crudly. It's resulting possibly in people who have not been a grief to the authorities going out of business as a result of this. That's a policy matter that's not for the law society, but it's certainly the paradox that I'm referring to. True, but then by the same token as Sandra White has identified, a number of venues have essentially exploited an unintended loophole within the 2005 act, whereby the type of entertainment that is being offered may be the type that the local authority does not wish to see being provided, but because there was not the stipulations that are now being introduced, essentially through legal challenge they were able to circumvent that. So some of those premises may have been operating for some time, but they're operating as a consequence of a loophole rather than a consequence of policy intention. Mr Stewart wants to come in and I'll take you back in, Mr Cummings. I have been handed a definition of adult entertainment. It means any form of entertainment which, A, involves a person performing an act of an erotic or sexually explicit nature, and B, is provided wholly or mainly for the sexual gratification or titillation of the audience. There is an important point here about a so-called regulatory gap that means that licensing boards supposedly don't have power to regulate sexual entertainment. It's a case called bright crew. I think that Mr Stewart adverted to that earlier. On one view, may I say that the Law Society's committee has not got a unanimous view on the import of bright crew, but on one view, the view that the Scottish ministers have obviously taken in the Scottish Government is that licensing boards can only regulate the sale of alcohol and that they can't regulate other matters. Now that's one interpretation of bright crew from a personal point of view. I think that that's a reading of bright crew, but I perfectly understand the point that you're making because that's the point upon which this part of the bill is proceeding and that it is giving. In some parts of Scotland, from my experience, there has been licensing board dealing with alcohol provision and licensing committees dealing with the aspects of the various civic acts. Are you saying basically that the licensing board would deal with alcohol, would the licensing committee therefore deal with the sexual entertainment aspects of all of this? That is the way in which the matters are going to be structured. I'm talking about currently as well. I'm watching Mr Stewart shake her head. At the moment, unless a licensing authority has resolved that there is a public entertainment licence requirement for such venues, there would be no civic government licensing of sexual entertainment premises at the moment. They would only have a liquor licence in many parts of the country. That's a bit clearer there. Sandra, did you want to come in there? I'm going to try to move on to other things as well and not just stick to this. Thank you, convener, for that. Absolutely, what Mr Stewart said is right, and I think that's where the problem lies. Mark McDonald explained it very well. The complaints that I have and the concerns that I get from local authorities and the submissions is that they are powerless in regard to sexual entertainment licences. That part of the bill, the submission, would give them those powers, sexual entertainment. They could look at that not necessarily in conjunction just with the alcohol licence. I do take a bit of issue when you mentioned summer parties. It's not as if people would apply to the local authority for a licence for a summer party. I take that out of the equation in that type of entertainment. I thank you all for the comments and certainly have a look at them. When we get down to the nitty gritty of some of those things, while you're having something in your own home, which most of those things take place in, in terms of anti-summer parties—not that I've ever had one, I have to say—there are also those quite big corporate ones, are there not, which would have to be covered, I would imagine. Mr Stewart? I think that it depends on what part of the country you come from. I come from a rural authority and quite often the licence premises are community venues and there are some charity groups that would hold such functions in licence premises rather than in their own home. So it was purely an example to highlight the difference between what could be class as adult entertainment as opposed to sexual entertainment proposed in the new bill. So what we have is a lack of consistency across the country, which hopefully the draft bill will deal with that lack of consistency. Would that be right? I would agree, but I think that the solar would still have concerns about yes, regulation is welcome because you can regulate those premises, but who's regulating what? We've got adult entertainment regulated by the licensing boards, sexual entertainment regulated by the local authority. Where do you draw the line because we would have enforcement officers under both regimes going into those premises? What are they looking for? Are they going to be caught out under the liquor legislation or are they going to be caught out under the civic government legislation? I think that that's where the different definitions give officers problems. So are you saying that there needs to be further clarity on that? I would say that there needs to be further clarity on that. Where does the role of the licensing board stop and the role of the local authority begin? Okay, I think that that's very useful. Thank you. I want to move on. A lot of research has highlighted that boards find the concepts of over-provision and capacity difficult to define and measure. Having come from a local authority background myself, like many others around the table, there were often cases where licensing boards made decisions not to grant a licence for reasons of over-provision, which were almost immediately overturned by courts. Dr Short, do you think that the draft bill itself and the provisions within the bill will help in that regard and give local authorities a little bit more power in that regard and hopefully not see the courts move in and overturn decisions that are made locally? In the documentation that you sent out, one of the most striking things was the very, very small numbers of applications that were refused. During 2011-12, only 21 licences were refused compared to 347 granted, and in 2012-13, 12 refused compared to 332 granted. That shows the difficulties for local authorities in looking at the licensing objectives. The idea of over-provision is that nobody has defined what over-provision means, and that is problematic for licensing boards and local people. One of the other problems in assessing over-provision is that local communities do not have the evidence available to them. When I talked about the study that we have just completed, it took us nine months to gather the data on the locations of alcohol outlets throughout Scotland. That is not available in a central repository. If we look at the tobacco retailers register, we can easily get that data and look at the idea of tobacco. For alcohol, we do not have such a data set, so we had to contact each of the individual licensing boards to gather that data, and it took nine months of data gathering and data cleaning. It is not made easy for local communities to then go on to licensing boards and put across their side in terms of over-provision, because they simply do not have the data available. If anything could be done to make that more readily available, I think that it would also help the licensing boards in answering the subjective. What I would welcome within the bill is the idea of being able to define an entire area as an area of over-provision, an entire board area. The reason for that is because the health statistics that we work with to look at objective 4 of protecting and improving public health, the data is not available at a very small local area level. Often we are asked, well, if this pub opens in this area, what will happen? That data is not released because it is confidential data. There is also a statistical error if we work with very small numbers. If we are able to look at a whole board level, then maybe we are able to break it down a little bit, but I am very happy to see that within the bill that we can look at whole area levels in terms of over-provision. Your suggestion previously, local authorities, if there were difficulties in terms of numbers of social housing, could put in pressured area status and stop sales of social housing in that patch? Your suggestion that within patches or within the entire local authorities there could be this blanket ban on any new licences or a provision to do that in the bill? I am not sure what you meant by when you referenced social housing within that. I was just an example of where authorities in another way have managed to control policy issues by having blanket bans on something in particular places. Do you think that there could be an argument for an over-provision blanket ban in communities or in entire local authority areas? Yes, because I think that the idea of over-provision is not used at the moment. The licencing boards refuse licences based on over-provision, and, as you have said, if they are, they are being overturned. I am very passionate about the idea that, as residents in areas, we should be able to easily access data on the numbers of licences premises within our local areas, and residents can use that to go along to licencing boards. I would be interested to know when that research is likely to become available. Within the research, there is an aggregation around licences premises, off-licences, pubs, nightclubs and hotels. Is that disaggregation covered? I can think of a community in my constituency where there are a number of hotels and a couple of community pubs. To all intents and purposes, if you were to look at that and, obviously, some off-licences as well, if you were to look at that simply on the number of licenced premises, without looking at what those licenced premises are, it might give a misleading impression of over-provision, necessarily, within specific communities, although there are undoubtedly areas where—I am sure that the convener is somebody who represents a city centre area—we will understand that there are some communities where there is a significant amount of licenced premises in concentrated areas. I am going to try not to start in my own constituency. Dr Short. The report is available now. I can send that to you after today. We were able to disaggregate the data by on-sales and off-sales premises and we find the greatest effect with off-sales premises. We think that that is because of the cheaper products available, that it could be accessible to underage and that there is no control over who the final recipient of the off-sales product is. We did see the strongest effect with off-sales, and this is not just unique within Scotland. This is the first time that this has been done in Scotland, but there is evidence elsewhere, particularly from North America and Australia, which has also found this. What we weren't able to do was to look at the idea of capacity, so the size, as you kind of alluded to, whether it is a small village pub or a large multi-floored premise in the grass market, for example. That data is simply not available, which is why I would really like to see something that will make a retailer's register much like the tobacco retailer's register. If Scotland is to move forward in thinking about over-provision, we need the data and the information to assess what over-provision is, and I think that that has been the problem for the licensing boards. Often, the information is not available. Mark, do you want to come back? No, I think that it would be very useful, convener, to see the data that is being collected and to have a look at the report. Dr Short makes a very interesting point, which I am sure we can pick up at later stages of the evidence. In terms of your comments, Dr Short, on the off trade, do you have any further information regarding the types of facility that are selling alcohol? Is there a higher propensity for alcohol to be sold from supermarkets as compared to traditional off-sales premises? No, that is where we need the data again. We need to be able to find out whether or not it is large-scale supermarkets or whether it is small corner shops. We need to know the capacity of the off-sales retail units, as well as the capacity for the on-sales retail units, the size of the floor space that is given to alcoholic products. All of that is information that we will be building and working on in further work. However, for now, we have looked at on-sales and off-sales. Mr Cummins wants to come in there. I will take you back. I think that the research that you are referring to is the research that was presented to the Alcohol Focus conference on 7 October. That post dates to society submissions, so I am flying to the scene of my pants. You may be expressing a personal view. As I understand it, the study was cross-sectional, and further analysis required to be made. You say on page 10 of the report—I am not taking anything away from the report itself—it is very interesting, and I like some statistical anomalies, but you do say on page 10 that you positively say that there is a correlation, a causal link, if you like, between the density of licensed premises and alcohol harm. You are no doubt aware that the University of Cardiff is involved in research at the moment, which is £416,000 worth of funding from the National Institute for Health Research, to look at, I think, over a three-year period, the impact of changing alcohol outlet density and health-related harm. Obviously, if I may say so with respect, a very important piece of work, but there are a lot of things happening in academia to get the solution and get the answer to the actual link between the health harms and the outlet density. It would be important, if I may say so, if the research is being looked at, that a broad spectrum of academic research should be examined. Oh, we will be looking at a lot of things, Mr Cummings. I can assure you of that. Thank you. We do say that, like any good academic research, we will note our limitations at the end. We did note that this was correlation, not causation, because we need to look at it through time in order to indicate causation. I think that looking at the statistics in the documentation that we were given, we can see that there is very little change in some of the licences that are granted or not granted within Scotland, and we do need to look at this over a long time period. The data register would help us to do that. I will point you to an article published by Campbell in 2009 in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine that looked at a systematic review of studies through time that have looked at alcohol licensing. It found nine time series studies, seven of which found that increases in alcohol outlet density were linked causally through time with increases in alcohol consumption and rated harms, particularly interpersonal violence. It also noted that our study was cross-sectional, but of the 47 outcomes that were looked at by cross-sectional studies, 41 found positive associations. It is important to say that, yes, we may find causation through time, but in order to find causation, we first need to find correlation, and that wherever there will be correlation, we may find causation. As a consequence of the 2005 act, different regulations came in, except from 2007 onwards, regarding the floor space that is available within facilities to sell alcohol. In terms of the research that you have undertaken and the information that you have up to now, has there been any change in terms of the number or the total level of alcohol that has been sold? From pre-2005 act to its comparison tonight. Dr Short. We don't have sales data. Mr Steele, do your members have a view on overprovision of licences? I think that your members in my particular patch have a view on overprovision, but is there a general view from the Federation on overprovision of alcohol licences? It's not something that we've considered in any great detail, convener. However, the issue of overprovision is one, which clearly the discussion just now was exposing as one that's difficult to nail down. If you look at the capacity in many of the licencing venues that exist in the times between 10 o'clock at night and 3 o'clock in the morning, they're all full to the gunnots, and I dare say many would argue that if there were more, there could be more space contained within them, so it would be difficult to say that in that particular example there is overprovision. Yet the self-same venues from probably from 11 o'clock in the morning to 3 o'clock in the afternoon would be largely empty. Measuring provision and capacity for provision is something that's not easily done. I think that it's universally accepted, however, that where there are generally lots of particularly licenced premises that have on-sales capacity, that does result in a considerable additional demand on police time and resource act with the premises when they eventually spill out. Thank you. John Wilson, please. Thank you, convener. It's just to ask Dr Short. I know that the study has been limited that you've carried out so far, but one of the big problems that exists in many communities is not, as Mark McDonald indicated, the hotel trade or the bar trade. It's the off-license trade, the small corner shop that is selling the well-known tonic wine, particularly in the areas that I live in, like Lanarkshire, which are the real problems in terms of communities. How would you propose to measure that type of sale? Floor space doesn't come into the equation when I can take you to a small off-license that will sell anything in excess of maybe 200 bottles of that well-known tonic wine on a Friday night. How do we get to the situation where we make an assessment based on a supermarket having the off-license and the proliferation of small corner shops that insist that they have to have an off-license to trade, but what they're trading in is the type of alcohol beverage or whatever you want to call it that is actually causing more problems and is more problematic in relation to communities throughout Lanarkshire and Central Scotland. Dr Short. It is important that, in research going forward, we need to look at types of outlets and products sold within different types of outlets. It's important to recognise that there are different pathways through which overprovision or a high density of outlets in an area affect health and wellbeing. Quite often, we only think about the availability or the ease of access to those products because there are more of them sold in our neighbourhoods. It's easier to get them. There's also the idea that, if they're in close proximity to each other, there will be a reduction in prices and some price competition. Just that they reinforce and shape our social norms and our attitudes towards alcohol, within Scotland, it's also incredibly important that just teenagers, for example, their ideas and attitudes towards alcohol will be shaped if we're living in a society that is swimming with alcohol. A vexed issue not just for health and the trade but also for licensing boards. On sale premises, the numbers that are given, the total capacity, is virtually meaningless because it changes from hour to hour. It changes depending on the layout of a function room, how many tables and chairs are in it, how big the dance floor is, but even in relation to off-sales capacity is not straightforward. Sometimes it's measured in cubic metres, sometimes it's measured in metres square, sometimes it's the floor space with the shelves on it, sometimes it's just the shelves. There's been no clear steer for licensing boards from the beginning on what capacity means, both in terms of on sales and off sales. Officers in Solar would be concerned about the proposals in the bill to bring licensed hours into the equation, because not every premises trades the full hours that they have on their licences, sometimes they're open for shorter hours, they're closed during quiet times, so what meaningful information does that bring to the table? We're as vexed as licensing board clerks and licensing boards as everybody else is as to how to make over-provision work, but certainly capacity needs some clarification about how that's to be taken into account in determining whether there's over-provision, and it's not as straightforward as you think because of all the technical issues that we have to deal with. Mr Stewart, you've made reference to cubic metres, cubic square feet, the rest of it in terms of the situation in the floor space and off sales. Does any account taken of the amount of storage space that that premises may have? Because while you're saying that the restriction is in terms of what's in front of the customer when they walk in, then the storage, as the example I gave of the tonic wine being sold, there might only be one shelf full of tonic wine being sold or in display, but there may be 20 cases sitting in a storeroom that basically gets replenished every time somebody buys two bottles of tonic wine. Storage is not, generally speaking, taken into account at the current time. It's purely the alcohol displays within the store. Mr Cymyn, do you want to come in there? For me to say so, I think that's the point that's open to overlook. The real capacity is not what's in the shelf. In fact, it's not even the capacity because capacity is the amount of space given over in terms of the act for the display of alcohol for selling the premises. The length and height isn't a capacity. It's a two-dimensional measurement, but again, this isn't a society's position, but my personal view has always been that the real capacity is what you've got in the back shop that you can use to refill the shelves whenever that authorized space starts to run down. I think that that is often overlooked. I entirely agree, if I may say so, with Mr Stewart in relation to licencers being part of the over-provision assessment, because they may or may not be used. I don't think that they contribute anything at all, not as a society, to a better understanding of what would constitute over-provision, so we're agreed on that. Two points, convener. Firstly, on the issue of storage space, I'm quite interested by that. When I used to work in the dim and distant past for a major supermarket chain who shall go unnamed, all of the alcohol had to be stored in a locked cage at the back of the warehouse. I don't know if that was as a result of regulation or if that was just a choice that was made. Warehouses were normally open in these circumstances for my experience and the same kind of stores. The second point, and it follows on from an interesting point that Mr Stewart made around the pressures that are caused by large numbers of venues in a concentrated area, spilling out at the same time. When I was a local authority councillor, I floated a suggestion that local authority licensing boards should look at implementing what I would call cooldown periods, where there was a differentiation between the sale of alcohol and the closing time of the premises, or a differentiation around the closing time of premises across a certain area. Now, neither of those are necessarily perfect solutions, but are those provisions that are available to licensing boards already? Would there be legal implications for them if they were to implement such proposals? Those kinds of things are things that I would be interested in learning a bit more about because I am by no means an expert. Licensing boards implement policies that we usually provide for different terminal hours, depending on the type of premises. In Glasgow, for example, the terminal hour in the city centre for pubs, if you like, is 12 o'clock. For restaurants, meeting certain criteria, it is 1 o'clock. For night clubs, it is 3 o'clock, so it is different throughout the country. Yes, the point about a large bust of people on to the street at the one time and the stress it causes was one of the reasons why capacity became for the first time a feature of licensing legislation in 2005. The Nicholson committee whom you probably know reviewed licensing law in the run-up to that act noted that a licence was a licence, but a superpub, if you like, could have much more trading space than a small traditional pub, but it was still counted as one licence. From the Nicholson point of view, over provision was very much linked to stress levels caused by a large number of people coming on to the street in a concentrated area late at night. Of course, that is police resource implications, but certainly differentiating between different types of premises, there is a staggered closing time probably throughout all of Scotland. It goes slightly further than that. For example, if you have a street, let's take Justice Mill Lane in Aberdeen, where there are a large number of premises which all empty at 3 o'clock in the morning in a concentrated area. The suggestion that I had floated was that you could differentiate licences across those venues, either at the closing time of the premise or the time at which alcohol ceases to be sold versus the closing time of the premise. I'm asking whether those kind of variations locally can be made by licensing boards at present or whether you see legal difficulty for them in taking that step. Before I take back Mr Cummins, could you maybe add to that? My understanding of when that has happened in certain places is that there have been challenges in the courts between rival premises owners about who should close earlier and who should be allowed to open later. I mean just to take the point of differentiation. Let's look at Western Bartonshire licensing board as a model. It was the first licensing board to declare almost all of its area over provided, split into data zones. I think I'm right in saying that 17 data zones were provided, but over provision only exists in relation to what might be called vertical drinking establishments and off sales, so that not caught by the over provision policy and looked at in the normal way would be hotels and restaurants. Importantly, I think that policy as revised a couple of years ago now allows the licensing board to look at the benefits from inward investment for the economy and the health improvements that might be related by people putting into work. But I think the short answer is there can be a differentiation. You could say for example that we are not having any more off sales. Highland licensing board recently has said that we are not having any more off sales with a display capacity in excess of 40 square metres, which is quite an innovative step. So there are all sorts of refinements that are possible if that helps. I think that the difficulty that boards often face is when owners challenge the decisions in court, saying that the boy up the road is allowed to open until one o'clock in the morning. Why am I not allowed to do so too? I think that that's where the difficulties have arisen certainly in my patch in the past. Does the bill help in that regard, or are we still going to have sheriffs who are going to overrule licensing boards on a day and daily basis? I think that the situation is that if a licensing board has got a policy that a certain type of premises will be able to open to a certain time and somebody tries to bring themselves within that policy, the disgruntled license holder that you've described, and they want to challenge it. They would have to have a very large checkbook and lots of money because litigating and licensing is a phenomenally expensive business. I happen to know without putting in the spot, that Ms Stewart is an experience of litigation from nightclubs, so I don't know whether she's able to assist us. Perhaps I'm a misrememberer, but... I think that you're misremembering. I think that what licensing boards are faced with is that the trade wants a level playing field, so the pubs want to operate the same hours across the board, the nightclubs across the board, whatever those hours may be that the licensing boards put into place. I think that for differentiation it would be very difficult to pick which ones are going to lose their hours. You would have to look at new premises coming in and then you're going to get the argument, while we tick all the boxes, why aren't we getting the same hours as the pub next door? So unless there's a specific problem relating to individual premises upon which the board can review, and if hours are found to be causing a problem or capacity, you can take action in relation to the specific premises. I think that it would put boards into a very difficult position when the evidence that boards are getting is that we want to be treated the same, we want a fair shot at the market, and that's overwhelmingly the evidence that's been coming before the boards for a long time. That's why you'll see policies that say pubs will open until one, nightclubs open until three. I know that some boards previously had curfus in place to try and control disorder, but I think that Highland is the latest board to lift their curfew, because the reasons for implementation are simply no longer there. It would be useful to get the research that Dr Short talked about and useful to see that, but also perhaps any other links that are there to other research, and also any other experiences on some European countries, for example, you just can't go to the corner shop and buy alcohol. I wonder if I can switch my questions about parts of their weapons, and if I can specifically pick up with Callum Steele. In the financial memorandum that goes with the bill, the Scottish Government stated that the main costs fall onto Police Scotland will arise from the initial certification of the earwet and holders and on-going checks and renewals of certificates once the main regime is in place. It then goes on to say to a great extent that all of the main elements of the regime are already in place. The financial memorandum does not consider that there will be major costs involved. You seem to be saying something different from that. Callum Steele, can you answer that from a federation perspective? I can give my view from a federation perspective, certainly. I think that I will start by saying that we find that it is not uncommon that the Government, so whatever he traditionally underestimates the cost of anything that they are introducing, and that the costs end up being borne largely by the service that has got responsibility for it to be at licensing services for alcohol licensing or police service for firearms licensing. The difficulty that the Scottish Police Federation has with the financial memorandum, and I need the comments from where they are, is that there are a lot of comments and a lot of suggestions, but no evidence as to why those comments have been made or how the conclusions have been reached. For example, the suggestion that there are maybe 40,000 air weapons currently held by Firearm and Shortgun Certificate holders, many of whom will hold more than one. There is no indication as to why that statement is made or what evidence supports that kind of approach. Also, the real difficulty in trying to quantify what our experience is in the number of staff that undertake these activities on a day-to-day basis. How that translates into a limited amount of inquiry based on a small number of individuals when there has been no guidance prepared as to what is going to be required by way of background checks supporting evidence before an air weapons certificate is granted. I suspect that others will express a similar view, but just because statements are made does not mean that they are through. There should be some kind of evidence to support the basis for the statement in the first place. At a time when everyone in the public sector is under considerable pressure and whether people admit it or not, there is undoubtedly a conversation taking place about whether there should be fewer police officers in Scotland. It seems to me that this is not something that should be taken. This is not something that can be globally dismissed as having little impact on the police service. You speak to any police officer that is involved in day-to-day response policing, effectively those who answer the call and attend the door. They will tell you that they are stretched and adding the burden of potentially having to deal with up to half a million air weapons, although it is questionable whether that number would ever fall into the licensing regime is something that needs to be properly understood. My organisation's views is that that has not been done other than just by the making of blunt statements. Dr Whiteman, do you want to come in on that point? I do not think that I can add much about the licensing, but, as you have said, I will be interested where the figures of half a million air weapons come from. Okay, Alex. Do you want to come back just now? So, do we have any idea at all on how much air weapons are actually out there? Is there a best guess on that? I do not know on that, I am afraid. I see that it is also picked up. There is an assumption that the licensing were to come in for these weapons then that people would surrender them and put them back. Is there a view that many people have air weapons that are just lying about that actually if they were to get them licensed, they would just hand them back? Every time there is an amnesty, there are a whole number of different weapons that are surrendered. Even now, if there was to be an amnesty tomorrow, there would be unlicensed shotguns handed in, there would be unlicensed firearms handed in. It happens time and again, the same thing, of course, standard across most of the police services in the United Kingdom. So, undactorily, that would be the case. But whether people have them just lying around in the manner that possibly sitting in a dusty garage somewhere, my experiences and the stress that it is on my own experience is that, yes, that probably is the case. I suspect that there are as many people who hold and use air weapons properly and competently as there are those who have bought them once upon a time and forgotten that they continue to have them. I have got three members on my list now. We know that people who hold licences or apply for licences for shotguns, for example. There is a stringent process that goes in place, background checks and all the rest yet. That financial memorandum seems to suggest that that kind of extensive detailed background checks won't be necessary in terms of air licensing. Is that your take on that? My take on this is that is what the memorandum suggests. There is indeed a question whether there needs to be the additional consideration for licencing for those who currently hold firearm or shotgun certificates. It seems to the Scottish Police Foundation that it seems to me personally that that would be unusual given that levels of danger are difficult to quantify. If something is lethal, it is lethal regardless. It doesn't matter if you are bludgeoned to death or whether you are bludgeoned out of the air with a rocket propeller grenade, you are still dead. I suppose that the issue of how lethal or otherwise any of these particular weapons would be something that needs to be properly understood. Given that there is a very detailed approach taken to the licensing system, particularly for shotguns and firearms, it seems that there is, if indeed the legislation is to proceed on this particular element, that there is a real easy win in providing the capacity on an existing firearm or shotgun certificate to simply hold an air weapon or air weapons. Where, of course, your question particularly focuses on those who would not fall into that kind of category and how much examination would be required on it. If it was to be something akin to the old-fashioned game licence that you went to the post office and just paid for and picked up and walked out the door, then that would be effectively as meaningless as the game licence itself was. It is not clear, other than an assessment on the individual's application and its own right, what would be subject or who would be subject to detail application and consideration and those that would not. Mark, then John and then Mark first. It was just obviously the motivation behind licensing in this area is obviously related to both actual and perceived harm. I am interested in the study that Dr Wightman has done and what he has concluded from that around the harm that can be caused by air weapon pellets. I wonder if he might give us a little bit more detail on that. Are you asking about the actual damage that air weapons can do or the statistics both if you want to offer them? As I say, we have been initially firing into ballistic gel to simulate the fleshy organs and then we have looked at embedding animal organs from an abattoir into the gel and comparing that with the gel on its own. The ballistic gel is a reasonable model for the various soft tissues within the body. There is obviously a bit of variation between them. Lungas will penetrate more readily than heart material but it is a reasonable approximation. The fact that the pellet will go 10, 15 centimetres in if there is nothing to do, no bone or anything to prevent that, does mean there is the potential for serious injury within the body. We have looked at the effect of clothing that can reduce the amount of penetration. Sometimes it will reduce it significantly, other times it does not seem to have so much effect and we have got a project running this year looking more into why that occurs. We have tried simulating skin but we have had difficulty getting reproducible results on that. As I said in my introduction, you have got a complex system, you have got clothing or potentially you have got clothing, you have got the skin, you have got the fleshy organs, you may have bone behind it so what we have been trying to do is simplify the model but from the work that we have done pellets can penetrate quite a distance into the body. Looking at the literature from medical journals, most of the work on the effect of air weapons has come from medical doctors looking at the injuries that have been caused and the fatalities that have been caused by air weapons and that complements what we have been doing and there are cases of quite serious injuries and fatalities from air weapons. The numbers have been declining within the UK and have with other firearms as well but it is still a significant number. John Swinney Thank you, convener. Just to start off with Mr Stale, the indicated in your submission the costs may be underestimated in terms of implementing the licensing regime for air weapons. Could you comment on what you think may be the costs to enforce the legislation because I am talking about those individuals who do not decide to become licensed to hold air weapons. Would you say that the police are then being involved in a major exercise to try to get as many unlicensed weapons off the streets as possible and whether or not, at the present time, the only real time that the police come in to interact with the illegal use of air weapons is when there is an illegal activity taking place or a perceived illegal activity taking place. John Swinney Thank you, convener. The issue of compliance costs is detailed in paragraph 76, and there is a suggestion in that paragraph that the police hours of Scotland should not pursue air weapons as a significant priority, but rather deal with the issues as and when they occur. I suppose that the question of costs has probably got to be broken down into three areas. The financial costs are the human cost in terms of the impact on communities and the individuals, and of course there is the time spent by police officers in engaging and dealing with it. I think that it would be helpful to try and spend some time on each of those things. The financial costs will ultimately only be identified once the process has worked through to the end, and I think that it is going to be really difficult to lay an answer on that. However, I do believe that some of the things that contribute to the financial costs will be an inevitable increase in licensing offences being identified and will undoubtedly end up being reported to the Procurator Fiscal Service, will undoubtedly impact on the time that the Procurator Fiscal Service has to dedicate to dealing with those things, and will ultimately translate into court time as well. All of those things in terms of court Procurator Fiscal reporting time all have a considerable drain on police time to service them. I cannot think that it would be acceptable to the legislator or to our communities that if those offences existed that the police were to take a view that Joe Soap maybe was just forgetful, but someone else who did not like the look of their job was going to get reported for it and take an inconsistent view, so I think that that is problematic. There is the human cost in terms of how it impacts on individuals. I suspect that there are many tens of hundreds of thousands possibly, which is the same thing, possibly tens of thousands of individuals out there who may well find themselves falling foul off the criminal justice system because of licensing offences, something that has never been featured before. That is just not for individuals that are domiciled in Scotland, but it could also apply to individuals that come from anywhere else in the United Kingdom to Scotland where there are no current considerations for moving air weapons across the borders. I consider that in the early days the potential of a recorded prosecution or a fixed penalty disposal being brought against someone will be regarded as relatively minor. It is the potential or impact on those individuals later in their lives. If we find a young person, an 18, 19-year-old who falls foul or later in their lives going for employment or trying to get jobs overseas when the global marketplace changes for quickly and competition for jobs is so vehement, could have quite a devastating impact on their future life chances. I think that that needs to be properly understood as well. In the intervening period where there is going to be this large, suggested period of non-active pursuance, if you like, and indeed whether there are going to be enormous quantities of air weapons handed in for surrender, the transportation and the physical seizure recording and holding of these weapons until such time as they are taken away—if indeed they are to be taken away—by a scrap metal dealer are really difficult to estimate. However, I do think that, as I have said before, the statements that have been made seem to be based on no evidence other than just possibly a finger in the air that this seems about right. First of all, until such time as we have a reasonable grasp of what is out there, a reasonable gauge of how many current certificate holders would fall within the ambit of being considered and how long it is going to take, I think that it is going to be really difficult to accurately predict that the cost to the service is going to be negligible. In time alone, particularly in the more rural areas of the Highlands, there is a reference in our submission. That has to be a very brief answer. In terms of an earlier answer that Mr Steele gave, he said that when there is a weapons amnesty, there are a number of unregistered shotguns and firearms that are submitted. Could you give—maybe not today—an indication of how many unregistered shotguns and firearms have been submitted in weapons amnestys in the past? I think that that would be difficult for Mr Steele, but we will get that information from Police Scotland, I think. Indeed, convener. I am still on that same note. Mr Steele, you also mentioned in your submission about the ICT systems about trying to absorb the additional data that may be created by the introduction of the licensing system for air weapons. Can you explain what you were meaning by that? Mr Steele, can you be quite brief, please? I will try to be brief. I am not running for it, but I will give it a go. Our ICT systems are, as everybody knows, not the best. They have not been tested to deal with the potential increase in entries that will be required by data-based entries. As a consequence, it would be difficult to accurately predict how much an IT provider, which would recognise that the service is something of a hostage to fortune, would be wanting to charge a service to make sure that it has the capacity to deal with the additional data that it would require to hold. Okay. Stuart, please. Thank you very much, convener. I have heard what has been said up to now, and, going back to some of the evidence that we received, we received evidence from Michael Flynn of the SSPCA, where he stated that, certainly within the UK, the many activities that require to be licensed such as driving a car or watching television and that UK citizens do not have the right to bear arms. Certainly also within the UK at the moment, in terms of a TV licence, it is a criminal offence, and it could lead to a court appearance and a fine of up to £1,000. This is day one of this bill being looked at. Many people outside of here might consider the fact that they could be charged for not having a TV licence, but if there was no similar scheming operation for air weapons, they might find that quite strange. I suppose that comes back to the very essence of what it is that this particular element of the bill is trying to deal with. Is it trying to create a licensing regime for air weapons, or is it trying to deal with the criminal use of air weapons? If it is the former, then by all means introduce the legislation and create offences that bring those that breach the licensing provisions before the court on a regular basis, because I suspect it will be a regular basis, but if it is to deal with the latter, the criminal use of air weapons, I rather fear that those that are criminally inclined to use air weapons, in much the same ways as those that are criminally inclined to use fire arms and shotguns, will continue to be criminally inclined to use them, regardless of the licensing regime. If the intention is to licence and have the availability of air weapons manage to a licensing system, then by all means, absolutely in the same way as you have to drive a car with a licence or watch television with a licence, then introduce the licensing system, but if it is to deal with the criminality, then that is a different thing altogether, because let's not forget that whilst there may well be a licensing requirement to watch television or a licence requirement to drive a car, there are many people that do not have licences because they are criminally inclined not to do that. Okay, can I move on to taxes? Ms Stewart, for many of us, we get quite a lot of complaints about the taxi licensing regime. The bill itself proposes tightening regulations so that opportunities for circumventing the licensing regime are reduced is one of the statements that is there. We see the rise of companies such as Uber, which will come and pick full up in all of the rest. How does the bill tackle those kind of situations? Are we going to have to rethink this even more in the future? Having recently been in a meeting with some Scottish Government representatives to discuss the issue of Uber and applications like that, I think that we may have to rethink to a certain regard unlicensed operators in some parts of the country are not that prevalent. There is the on-going tension between the taxi trade and the private hire trade that has always been there, but any provision of law would make it a criminal offence not to have a licence. The majority of taxi firms that operate are licensed. Uber is opening us to a whole different world, but it does not take away from the legislation that we currently have that if you operate a taxi or a private hire car, you need a licence to do it. I am not sure what we have reached a stage in which we can resolve or solve the problem that Uber and similar applications are going to represent. In this part of the bill, covering taxis and private hire cars, are solars licensing working group satisfied or anything else? We are concerned about the proposed limits on private hire cars and the differences in restricting numbers, where taxis are currently unmet demand and are proposing to introduce over-provision for private hire cars. We would be concerned that it may lead to value of plates in the similar way that some taxi plates have a value and it may not achieve the desired result in the end. Do you think that Uber has been banned in other countries because the taxi drivers are afraid of the competition? Why has it been banned in Germany, for example? Is there a temporary ban on it? I am not aware of the reasons why Germany banned it. I am only aware of the concerns of the London taxi cabs. I do not think that the meeting that we had went into that level of detail. It is how do we deal with the operators that are going to quote prices online? You will have a car that will come and pick you up. They are self-employed, apparently. They are not employed by Uber. Therefore, the person booking that car does not know if that is a licensed vehicle or a non-licensed vehicle and nobody is taking responsibility for those who do not have licenses. There is a problem with third-party insurance, presumably. Obviously, the implications of that, if there is an incident. I am told that the ban was in Berlin only in the courts of overturn that ban. I think that the difficulty that you have just identified is that many folks who are using these kinds of services do not realise that they are unlicensed. I think that that is the difficulty for us, because we have had incidents before in Scotland where folk have gone into cars, thinking that they were taxis or private hire cars, only to find their knot and then serious incidents have taken place. We have got to get that absolutely right. I thank you all very much for your evidence today. I realise that that is a fairly lengthy session. Your input is very much appreciated. It may well be that the clerks will get back to you to clarify various points and to seek further information. I suspect now for a change of witnesses. Thank you very much. I would now like to welcome our second panel this morning, Dr Colin Sheddon, chair, British Association for Shooting and Conservation, John Batley, director of the Gun Trade Association, David John Penn, British Shooting Sports Council and Graham Ellis, chair of the Scottish Air Rifle and Pistol Association. Welcome gentlemen, good morning to you. Would you like to make any brief opening statements at all? We were all together on the finance consultative panel and the minutes of all those deliberations are on record. We have worked consistently with the Scottish Government over the past three years looking at the aspects of the bill. We have put in submissions on the provisions of the bill. Anyone else wants to make any brief statement? If I could start the questioning then. Obviously, we already have a licensing regime for shotguns and other firearms. Why should air weapons be treated any differently? Dr Sheddon, would you like to start off? We have over a considerable number of decades built up a system whereby licensing has been introduced for firearms and shotguns. As you rightly identify, we have not had licensing for air guns at all. The problem that I think we are faced with is the fact that there are an estimated minimum of 500,000 air guns in Scotland. The vast majority of them do not have a serial number, unlike the vast majority of shotguns and other firearms. Consequently, to introduce a licensing regime from a fresh is unlikely to be successful, I would argue, because the only people who would submit themselves to a regime like that would be law abiding. People who wish to remain law abiding have been identified in the previous session that there is a criminal element that may not actually put themselves forward. The question has to be, will a licensing system address criminal misuse of air guns or will a licensing system basically introduce a licensing system for its own sake? One has to remember that there is widespread continuing use of air weapons in pony clubs, Boy Scouts, cadet units and so on, as well as the individual use of them. We never hear about this. Why? Because nothing is going wrong. There is a huge amount of use of air weapons and very, very little misuse in comparison. Most other countries do not see the need to license air weapons. For instance, the European Directive on Weapons Control excludes air weapons from its remit, so you have to remember that the air weapon of the sort we are talking about, under 12 foot pounds over one joule, is really designed for urban use. It is designed for use in the garden, in the home, because it is not very powerful. Just to reiterate what Collin said, that of our membership and of the people who actively shoot air guns, there is little or no criminal element. The introduction of a licensing system will force people to go down that route and probably migrate on to other sports. We are concerned that it does little or nothing to address the criminal element that would misuse air guns. The only thing that I would add is that, since 1969, when the rules were introduced for setting the power of air weapons, the whole of England and Wales, leaving aside Northern Ireland and up to this point Scotland, have had no licensing system in place whatsoever. For the presumed reason, and I believe the correct reason, there was no need for licensing of low-barred air weapons. I am going to make a small admission here that there was no criminality involved, I should say. When I was a young boy, as I said earlier, I was in the air cadets and enjoyed shooting a fair bit, it has to be said. A friend of mine's father, who also was a shooter, had a variety of firearms. None of which we could ever have gained access to because he was always very careful about all of that. However, I was also in the air rifle in that house, which we managed to get a hold of quite easily and go out and shoot about a little bit, as I say, no criminality. However, there seems to be a difference in terms of that level of responsibility where a man held a firearms licence and was very, very careful in terms of that weaponry that he had, but was less bothered about the air rifle itself. Do you think that a licensing regime would ensure that there was more responsibility in that regard of safeguarding those weapons? I should say that we were 13 and 14 at the time. Probably more responsible than many that were about then. Yes, indeed. Licensing is unnecessary in the context that you have just described, because current legislation now states that it would be an offence to allow anyone under the age of 18 unauthorised access to an air weapon. Those who have air weapons in the house now have an obligation to either secure it under lock and key or certainly out of the reach of young people. That inevitably has had a significant impact on the number of offences committed by young people because they now technically should not be able to access air weapons in that situation. Does anybody else want to come in on that? No. I just want to pick up on the point that has been made a couple of times now about that there will always be this element that will circumvent legislation that is put in place. Surely the point of putting legislation in place is that it allows you to differentiate easily between the law abiding and the law breaking. Otherwise, there would be no point in legislating on anything because the argument would always be put well if you legislate on this, there will always be a tiny minority who are going to circumvent that legislation. Surely the point is that we allow ourselves to differentiate between those who are law abiding and law breaking by introducing legislation. Mr Batleyd, do you want to go first in that? I think the point about this is that this is an entirely new departure. This has never ever been done before. This is the first time anywhere in the UK that a bill has been introduced to licence air weapons. In looking at it, overall, we have something like seven million air weapons between four million owners within the UK. This is a completely new departure. We are in uncharted waters and the bill that you have prepared sets out to deal with that. I do not think that I need to go any further than that, in actual fact. It is not the bill that we have prepared, it is a tough bill from the Government. As far as the criminality goes, there is a raft of legislation that we see actively used day in, day out to prosecute those who would use air weapons criminally. Those who currently use it as a sport or as a pastime or as vermin control would fundamentally not have a major issue with this, but what they would have an issue with is the proportionality of it and the potential criminalisation of what was formerly a perfectly legitimate pastime. I think that one has to remember the point that was made by the Scottish Police Federation that a licencing system per se will not be very likely immediately to flush out those who are criminally inclined. They will just stay quiet, not be licenced. They will be come across because they have committed some act and then they will be prosecuted, but there is plenty of law existing now to effectively prosecute people who misuse air weapons. The licencing of them would not help very much, it would add another stick to beat them with, but there is a whole raft of sticks already available. In an ideal world, what you suggested, it would be very sensible, but the proposal that we have in front of us is that Police Scotland will put the resource into administering a licencing scheme and they will not put any priority resource into identifying those who may be in a legal possession of such air guns. As I say, if resources were not an issue and if police numbers were not an issue, it would be ideal if we could have licencing and the police investigation into those who may be committing offences by being in a legal possession, but we are not in that position. The other point that I have made is that the number of offences involving air weapons has declined considerably over the past six years. The strategy that has been in place, which is a joint strategy between the Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the shooting organisations, is one of education and enforcement of existing legislation. I did note that the Justice Cabinet Secretary used those very words when he supported a new strategy for knife crime in the west of Scotland, which was education and enforcement of existing legislation. Mark McDonald, do you want to come back? I have looked through the submissions and they range from the range of uses that are out there that air weapons are utilised for, be it from past times to pest control. Where do you perceive that the issues are going to arise in terms of people being prevented from using air weapons as a relative of this scheme? Or is that the concern that you have that people are going to be prevented from using air weapons for past times as a result of a licensing regime, because it is not my interpretation of what is intended? Dr Sheddon, first of all— Yes. There are a number of good reasons given for the granting of an air weapons certificate and seem quite comprehensive, but I think that we have to recognise that what the British Sports Council has done has identified that the vast majority of people using air weapons in Scotland and in the rest of the UK will use them for informal target shooting in gardens, otherwise known as plinking. Although the bill itself does not prohibit plinking, the policy memorandum states that ministers would not normally accept shooting in domestic gardens, for instance, as being good reason. It concerns us enormously that a significant number of the owners of air weapons just now could be prohibited from getting a licence because they cannot provide good reason. They do not have access to a large area of ground, or they are not members of clubs. Does anyone else want to come in on that one? No? Mark? Just checking that I have picked up the Gun Trade Association's submission correctly that it appeared to be suggesting that if somebody comes to Scotland from a place where they are below the age of the licence, there should be an exemption made for them because they can have an air weapon in their country at that age, but they cannot have an air weapon under the licensing regime as applied. Have I picked that up correctly? Yes, absolutely. It is just because it strikes me that there is a range of areas where age differentiation occurs. One of the most obvious ones is around purchase of alcohol. The logical extension of that argument would be that if somebody comes to Scotland from a country where the age to purchase alcohol is lower than it is in Scotland, we should allow them to be served in pubs because they can do that at home. That strikes me. I believe that there is a scientific difference here. The young person who is coming to Scotland, shall we say below the age of 18, who wishes to purchase an air weapon, and let's assume that he can purchase one at 16 in his own country, what the Bill says is that he cannot receive that air weapon whilst he's in Scotland, it has to be sent to him. In other words, he can't take possession of that air weapon while he's in Scotland. If I contest that, if he was allowed to buy it in his own country and he's in Scotland, he just happens to be in Scotland, but he's not going to take possession of it. Therefore, if he's allowed to buy it in his own country at 16, and it's going to be sent to his own country, which it will be, according to the Bill, I see no reason why he shouldn't be allowed to purchase it. If he was allowed to take it away and take possession of it, I agree with what the Bill says, but I do believe that he should be allowed to purchase it. Cameron Buchanan, please. We've heard an interesting submission from the Scottish Tetratalan Society saying that the majority of our members are under 17, and as such, their weapons would have licencing and would have a huge effect on them. If, however, we were allowed to become an approved air weapons club, therefore, could we be exempt from the individual licences? Could we have an individual licence for an air weapons club? Also, it affects sporting activities, doesn't it, if we have shootings? Are you in favour of putting in an individual? Most of them are under between 14 and 17, I think, they said. Would you put in a special clause on that? There are a number of issues around youth shooting, because, like you had correctly identified, you've got triathlon, you've got pony club, you've got air training course, scouts, there's a whole plethora of youth organisations which use shooting as a pastime or a sport. The regulation of the facilities is fine where you use a dedicated facility, but a lot of our events, for example triathlon, take over various things, and the licensing of a club brings in certain concerns. Does it apply to private clubs, where you have got a closed membership to licensed individuals? Are you trying to cater for the general public, or are you trying to cater for specific groups? Licensing of a club, whilst probably it may be beneficial, has got a bunch of pitfalls around them. Was it not, let's not be a compromise point, that officially clubs could be licensed if it was an air weapons club for either sporting activities or pony club or whatever it is, and that would be the compromise for age. The licence would be held by the club, and the actual weapons would be held by the club rather than the individual. I think the concern was that the licence as stated in the bill was from the facility as opposed to the club. Licensing of a club in itself is not a major problem. It may impact those who do not belong to a club who compete, like triathlon, pony club, who may hold air weapons and will still require a licence, so it is a trade-off on benefits, I guess. Anyone else want to come in on that? What we are asking for here effectively mirrors what exists with approved rifle clubs for cartridge firearms, where the club can hold a club certificate and its members may shoot them the rifles without having a firearm certificate themselves. It is already a well-established practice in club shooting and causes no problems. Sorry, but it would have to be on licensed premises. It would not be an individual. People could not practice in their gardens, for example. It would have to practice on the premises of the particular group or pony club or something. Not necessarily, because the existing approved club system allows for a club to exist, which does not have its own range, so it uses other people's premises or MOD ranges. Sorry, that is understood. Obviously, they would not necessarily have their own premises, but if they went on sporting events, such as when you go trap shooting for the Olympics or whatever it is like, they could presumably use the premises of the society or club that they are at. Indeed. Dr Shedden, in your comments earlier, you mentioned the plinking that takes place in Scotland and whether there is a clear divide between rural and urban areas as to where that takes place. I grew up in a housing scheme, and it was not something that I was certainly aware of in the area that I grew up in. You were not aware of plinking. Dr Shedden? Yes. Plinking does occur. It may not occur in areas where gardens are relatively small, but it is relatively common where gardens are large. What concerns me is that there is a sort of sized element creeping into this, and it is probably financial as well. If you live in a large leafy suburb with a large garden, then inevitably the police will think that that is a suitable place for an air rifle to be used either for controlling rabbits or pigeons or squirrels or rats or for informal target shooting. However, if you have a relatively small garden, it may be deemed unsuitable. That is certainly what the policy memorandum states. The advantage of air weapons, as we have already discussed, is that they are relatively low power and can be used in confined spaces for both pest control and for target shooting. In lots of situations, you can safely set up a small range in a small garden and safely use that air rifle for your own informal target shooting. As I said before, that is probably what the majority of people with air rifles in Scotland and the rest of the UK actually do. I hope that that would be grace for all those only. Anyone else want to come in, gentlemen? We must add it, Mr Batley. Under most circumstances, young people start their informal target shooting within the confines of their own premises. Normally, most often, I believe, they are supervised either by a guardian or a parent. What we are doing is introducing people to shooting and introducing people through air gun shooting. As Colin says, they are relatively low-powered items. They have good discipline and they are taught good safety. There does not seem to be a problem with the actual size of the place where they are doing it. Providing the supervisor, who will have the certificate, because the young person probably won't at that point, the supervisor has been proved to be a fit person and has good reason. A good reason is shooting on their own premises. There is a considerable legislation in place like the Antisocial Behavior Act, which does not allow one to shoot outside the premises, one's own premises or the boundaries of the premises. There are quite a lot of legislation which protects the public therein. We are mainly concerned with the fact that this is an introduction to air gun shooting, which we would lose if this piece of legislation is too draconian. Mr Jagd? Certainly for Mr Batley, you mentioned that you feel as if you could lose this. Are you suggesting then that there would be an adverse effect upon the sport of shooting if this legislation were to go ahead? If we are not clear about where these air weapons can be used, quite possibly. If it is too restrictive, you are going to restrict people to joining clubs, and as far as I understand it, there is not a great number of clubs in Scotland. Not everybody has access to private land, so therefore they probably have to start their shooting, their air gun shooting, within the confines of their own premises. So there could well be a restriction and we could lose people to shooting. Dr Shedden? Or you could increase the amount of people who come to shooting if there were more clubs in Scotland. That is a possibility, is it not? Yes, it is indeed a possibility. Sorry about that, Stuart. Sure. Thank you, Dr Shedden. In your comments earlier, you highlighted in terms of the current regulations with looking after the weapons. Was your organisation supportive of the current regulations when you went through the particular process at the time? The legislation that I referred to is the one that compelled owners of air weapons to ensure that those underage could not access them. It is something that our code of practice has always advocated. While there is no legal requirement to store air weapons, for instance, in a steel box, as there is basically with firearms and shotguns, we have always advised owners of air weapons to ensure that young people cannot access their weapons without supervision. But were you supportive of those regulations? That was Westminster legislation. I tend to deal with Scottish legislation, but I do not remember us opposing something and we would not oppose anything as simple as that. I am sure that David will be able to confirm that. Mr Penn? I can confirm that the measures that were recommended were discussed at length with the Home Office and agreed by the shooting organisations. Mr Bately had mentioned earlier about the impact on transporting or the sale of air weapons to perhaps people who come in from abroad that may well want to purchase them here. Have you done any scope on what the financial impact that may well have to the gun traders? Mr Bately? Yes. It is a difficult thing to calculate, but we do believe that there will be an effect, but this effect will only be able to be determined when we know how many licences or certificates have been issued and how many people are handed in weapons, and then we will be able to recalculate what trade there is left. At the moment, it will be pure guesswork for us to say there will be this number of people with air weapons certificates and how it will affect the trade. There are going to be complications because of the fact that there is no border. There are going to be complications with visitor's permits, which we would like to address. There is a particular complication where one deal is in Scotland with what we call remote sales. In other words, a register of firearms dealer in Scotland sells an air weapon to somebody who is a visitor to Scotland, who neither has a certificate or a visitor's permit. The bill, as it is drafted, says that the dealer in Scotland may send this air weapon out with Great Britain. That means the way it is written that the dealer will not be able to send it to somebody in England. It will have to send it elsewhere. The wording is out with Great Britain. England is most certainly in Great Britain. That is an anomaly that we have picked up in the bill. In terms of what you said earlier about the possibility of an increase in clubs, if the legislation does pass, does that mean to use a well-known phrase that the market may go up as well as down in terms of your trade? I wish I knew the answer. I'm afraid I don't. Mr Penn, you wanted to come in. No, John Batley covered the point I was going to raise. And you want to come back? The last question is really about does the panel see any positive outcomes from the bill? Dr Shedden? One of the unintended consequences that could affect an organisation like BASC is the fact that people who have had air weapons in the past because they were unlicensed and now would be exposed to a licensing regime may well think to themselves, well, I have a low-powered air weapon just now, but if I need to get a licence, I might as well get a licence for either a more powerful rifle or for a shotgun. We may see a number of people moving from unlicensed air weapon shooting into licensed firearm and shotgun shooting, which, from my perspective, would be quite rewarding, because I monitor how influential we are by the number of people who have firearm or shotgun certificates in Scotland. We may see an increase in inverted commas-serious shooting in Scotland because of the consequences of this legislation. Mr Penn? I concur with Colin Shedden, and I'm afraid I cannot see any other benefits arising. Okay, Mr Ellis? Certainly the feedback from our membership is that, should a heavy licensing system come in, it will migrate on to, as Colin called it, proper shooting away from low-powered air weapons. Mr Batley? Yes, I think one of the important things here is going to be the cost of the certificate. We have to take into account that a considerable proportion of the air weapons that are held in Scotland are worth probably less than £100. If the certificate is enormously expensive and the security requirements are more than they are described in the bill, there is a temptation for some people perhaps not to register voluntarily at the start, so I think that that is going to have an influence on how many people actually register. I'm not really sure if that was a positive or not, but it's just raised even greater concerns. No, that's me. John Wilson, please. Good morning, gentlemen. The sense of disclosure, I should say, is that I used to blink as a child and received a visit from the place when I was blinking out of my back garden. While the place was satisfied with what I was doing was safe and within limits, it was because of the alarm and distress that could be potentially caused to the neighbours that they suggested that I cease carrying out that activity. That is part of the problem in relation to the issue about the alarm and distress that is perceived to have been caused and the legislation that is proposed is for public safety. Do you think that it is sufficient to bring in the issue about public safety, particularly in terms of blinking, because many, as you said, young adults, children get into the sport through that activity, and it may be subjected to, as I was for a year ago, a visit by the police because neighbours were concerned and the fact that they weren't causing any harm or any serious danger to anyone else in their activities. I never heard the police visit. Mr Batley. Public safety forms the background of all firearms legislation, and public safety is paramount for anything to do with firearms legislation. I think that's the succinct answer to the question. Public safety has to be maintained, and all the shooting organisations that I'm aware of and part of are very, very keen on public safety. Mr Ellis. On your comments there, I think that it highlights that licensing probably wouldn't have done anything to resolve that situation. If you're licensed to shoot in your backyard, that concern with your neighbour would probably still have arisen. The police would probably still have turned up. I think that it highlights that there's a lack of public education. They don't really understand what your gun shooting is, what the obligations and responsibilities of your gun shooting is, and I think that it also highlights the lack of communication that probably goes on between the shooting community and the general public. Do you mention there that folk don't know their obligations? Do you think that if they were licensed, they would have more idea of what their obligations actually were? I think that it would depend very much on the shooting organisations, and Dr Shedden would be able to answer this, but shooting organisations are very keen on codes of practice and explaining and training and education. Mr Penn. I can only go back to the large numbers of air weapons that are out there in the hands of private individuals in Great Britain, and the very small number, relatively speaking, of incidents that occur, and the low levels have complained so far as we are aware. There's an awful lot of shooting going on that isn't causing very much of a problem, and I very much agree with Graham Ellis that it is a question of better education of the public at large. Dr Shedden. Public safety is obviously very important, and education is something that we spend a considerable amount of time on, whether it's with young people and adults. We've also, on occasion, been able to get along to schools to give information and practical advice on the use of air guns. It just points out to me the fact that there probably are people out there that could, if they took their air gun into their garden, cause some public concern. It would be wonderful if publicly funded facilities could be made available in certain situations, that could help to both educate and facilitate safe air arrival shooting in urban areas, for instance. Mr Ellis talked about the obligations, though, and said that you were maybe better placed to answer it. Would a licensing regime maybe actually ensure that folks knew what their obligations were? I think those that come forward voluntarily to submit themselves for a licence probably do understand what their obligations are and what the law actually states. What we've found certainly over the past 10 or 20 years has been that the law is complex. There are about 30 pieces of legislation covering air weapons in Scotland just now, and to put that into simple codes of practice so that parents in particular can understand it has been a challenge, but we've achieved that. I think it is very important that we get a simple message across. The message has been, from Scottish Government and ourselves, that air weapons are not toys, and they're not to be treated as toys, but they can be used safely and responsibly in many situations. Having said that, Dr Shatten, some of the evidence that we've been provided with in terms of the power of the weapons, and it's to do with the power of the weapon, we've been provided with evidence, particularly an act called report from south of the border that says that air soft weapons now have a capacity greater than that of some of the air weapons that will be licensed in Scotland. Do you think that the paintball weapons and other air soft weapons should be looked at in relation to the legislation? If we are following guidance and research from elsewhere and we are putting in limits in terms of their weapons that have to be licensed, then could that potentially mean that we then go for a wider licensing regime which may include air soft weapons and paintball weapons? Can I defer that question to John Barthley? He's much more knowledge. I think what you've done by introducing a lower limit of one jewel covers that quite adequately. There's a lot of conflicting medical reports talking about the level of lethality. By utilising the term air weapon, you have very neatly given it a band. You've got between one jewel and six and twelve foot pounds. Six and twelve foot pounds over that we know they're licensible. Below that, one jewel level which you've introduced, the medical evidence that we've seen which we've looked to into considerable depth confirms that items like the air soft that you're talking about are not lethal, providing they're properly used. You could say that about air weapons if they're properly used are not lethal. Sorry? If air weapons if they're properly used are not lethal. No, an air weapon or the definition in 13b is always lethal. There's no question about that. It's a lethal barrel firearm. Below one jewel, it should not be lethal. It is not potentially lethal. Therefore, we don't consider it to be a firearm. Right. It's just trying to get around the technical aspects of what you've just indicated there in terms of the lethality of a weapon in terms of air weapons. It's just all to get out on the record. In relation to the question that was asked earlier about the number of clubs that currently exist, I could ask Mr Ellis what is the average annual membership fee to members of an air weapons club in Scotland at present day? It varies marginally from club to club, but on average an annual membership will cost you £75 for an individual up to about £115 for a family membership. You have range fees above and beyond that for the use of facilities, competitions etc etc. So it is an entry-level sport and it is relatively low cost. Potentially, the annual membership fee can be more than the cost of an air weapon? Yes, but you will find that once people enter a club shooting environment that they will rapidly want to upgrade their equipment to take part in whatever event competition disciplines that they actually choose to be part of. So while your home plinker target shooter or domestic shooter may well be sub £100 for an entry-level air gun, you could be talking £2, 3, 4 or 5 up to £7,000 for a competition air rifle. Could you give an indication of how many clubs exist in Scotland? In Scotland under our regime there are 13 clubs. The average membership of those clubs varies from about 40 through to about 120 so that they are on about 80 to 90 members each. We are struggling to set up additional clubs because securing facilities and getting planning approval is exceedingly time consuming and complex. You said 13 clubs under your regime? Under our regime. Obviously there are the NSRA clubs who also support air weapon shooting, which I believe you said this morning that there are about 150 NSRA clubs in Scotland. Those are predominantly full bore and rimfire rather than air rifle, and the air rifle representation within those clubs would be very small. Alex Rowley, please. Can I pick up on the question of plinking again? For what I can see from the policy in the random, really what the Scottish Government seems to be saying is that if an individual applies to have a licence for an air weapon and the police judge where they want to use that air weapon, a built up area, anirbing garden, running on to gardens, children run a bit of it. If the police judge that that could cause a difficulty hazard for others then they would refuse it. Does that not seem reasonable enough that I know somebody mentioned earlier that this could come down to whether you have a big garden or a small garden, but is it not about the police judging whether it is safe to be able to use that in a built up area that could be a threat to others? Who wants to go first there? Dr Shed? Yes, I can answer that one. Yes, it is reasonable that the good reason is investigated. The unfortunate thing is that the paperwork indicates that the average amount of time spent in each application, 98 per cent of applications, would be 1.2 hours, which does not give enough time for consideration or even a site visit. I do not think that, based on the notification from Police Scotland, I do not think that they will have the ability to take each case on a case-by-case merit and basically they would look at someone in a suburban or urban area and decide that no, it would not be suitable. If each case was to be looked at in the same way as far-arm shotgun certificate applications are, that usually requires five hours of licensing officer time, which would significantly increase the cost. I think that that is what Callum Steel was trying to indicate. Some of the figures in there seem to have been plucked out of the air without real consideration as to what happens in the ground. What concerns us is that there would be a blanket presumption against informal shooting in a garden. Anyone else want to come in on that, Mr Eilis? So, just to highlight where the complexity comes in, we have competition shooters who shoot pistol at the six-foot-pound, 10-metre rifle at the six-foot-pound level, within their own house. They do not need to go outside to the garden, so that is within the safe bounds of their home, within concrete walls, but how would you differentiate that between a built-up area and a controlled environment? So there is the complexity of it is not just a zone, a house, a garden, it is the facilities that they have constructed. Alex, do you want to come back? I think that it is that question. Just looking at the policy memorandum, if we are going to get to the crutch of this in a sense of where the Scottish Government seems to be coming from with it, it is that question whether somebody can have an air weapon and use that air weapon in a built-up area that could be perceived to be a threat to others. What they seem to be saying is that the judgment of the police would come down to that. It seems to me that, I think that you seem to be agreeing that that is not unreasonable to be able to introduce a law that would have that. I suppose that it comes back to then the question at cost, and that is another matter and one that we were trying to probe earlier as well. But in terms of the cost to the licence itself, do you have any views on that? I mean, should the taxpayer bear any of the cost to this or should it be the licence applicant that should the licence resemble what the cost is a process in it? Who is going for that one? Dr Shearer? Very briefly, the certificate holder obviously has to pay a proportion of the cost, but we would also expect the taxpayer to pay a proportion of the cost because the whole process is designed to ensure public safety. It is not just the certificate holder. As has been the case with firearm shotgun certificates in the past, a proportion of the cost that the police face will be paid for by the applicant and the rest should be paid for by society because society benefits from the benefit. You all agree with that statement from Dr Shearer, and I have seen the nods of heads. Do you agree, Mr Penn? Yes? Mr Ellis? Yes? Mr Batley, so you believe that the taxpayer should pick up a proportion of the cost. Mr Riley? No, I'm fine. Okay. Any other questions? Committee? Nope. In which case can I thank you very much for your evidence this morning, gentlemen? I suspend and may now move on to private session.