 Hei. Welcome to the 34th meeting of the committee, in 2014. Everyone present has been asked to switch off mobile phones and other electronic equipment to see the effect of the broadcasting system. Some committee members may refer to tablets during the meeting. That is because we provide meeting papers in a digital format. The first item of business today is our fourth oral evidence session on the Air Weapons and Licensing Scotland Bill. We have two panels of witnesses this morning discussing the alcohol licensing and scrap metal dealership provisions in the bill. I'd like to welcome the first panel this morning, Dr Deborah Shipton, Programme Lead, Alcohol Focus Scotland, Dr Sonia Scott, Consultant and Public Health Medicine, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, Janice Thomson, Alcohol and Drug Partnership Coordinator, East Renfrewshire Drug and Alcohol Partnership and Audrey Watson, Maraging Solicitor of the West Lothian Licensing Board. Good morning to you all. Would you like to make any opening statements at all? Dr Shipton? Do you want to go ahead? Thank you for the opportunity to give evidence. AFS is a national charity working to reduce harm experienced by individuals, families and communities. We know the significant harm in Scotland to those who consume it and also to those around them. One in two people each year affected by alcohol in Scotland in terms of family, friends, co-workers, et cetera, and one in three have a drinker in their lives. In total, alcohol harm costs Scotland £3.6 billion per year in terms of health, criminal justice, et cetera. The evidence across the world suggests that tackling availability of alcohol is the most effective means of addressing alcohol harm and licensing is one of the key levers that we have to do at the local level. This bill strengthens previous legislation and is a potential to create a very robust licensing system for Scotland. There are some issues in how this is translated into practice and this has been identified in the evaluation of the 2005 act, but there still remains an issue in terms of the accountability and the transparency of the current licensing regime, which limits how the system can function in practice. I hope that I will have the opportunity to discuss that this morning. Alcohol and drug partnerships are responsible for planning and delivering effective local strategies to prevent and reduce harm from drugs and alcohol on the basis of evidence and need. The alcohol licensing system is an important means through which the Scottish Government priorities set out in changing Scotland's relationship with alcohol—a framework for action can be achieved. Furthermore, the licensing system plays a key contribution to make through the implementation of the licence and policy statement and the overprovision assessment to support the achievement of community planning and alcohol and drug partnership priorities to prevent and reduce harm. The ADP welcomes provisions in the act to include criminalising the supply of alcohol to children and young people, introducing a fit and proper test for applicants and redefining overprovision. We raised some issues in our submission regarding the accountability and transparency of boards and how they exercise their function with regard to the licensing policy statement. We made recommendations in relation to the guidance that should be reviewed and amended to assist the proper interpretation of the use of the evidence to support effective licensing practice, and boards should provide a summary of how they achieved their decision on overprovision. Finally, we recommended that boards should provide an annual report on how they discharged their duties with regard to the licence and policy statement and five licence and objectives. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. Like my colleagues, I would like to emphasise that there is good evidence showing an association between availability and harm. I am here particularly to advocate for the retention of the requirement that boards consider capacity and number of outlets when thinking about their overprovision assessments. Thank you very much. Let's look at overprovision first. Can I ask you what your current experience is of how licensing authorities deal with their duty to assess overprovision? Dr Shipton, would you like to go first, please? Yes. From the information that we have, there was an IFS conducted a review of policy statements. In that, there tended to be a lack of evidence for how the overprovision assessment outcome was derived. We would feel that there is greater need for evidence to back up the decisions that licensing boards make around that. Other colleagues will probably talk to the difficulties that licensing boards have in trying to take the evidence to make those decisions. Dr Scott, please. I think that licensing boards have difficulty understanding the concept of overprovision and what it actually means. Initially, there was lots of evidence given by our board around levels of harm at mainly local authority level. There are issues about data in terms of harm and the appropriate geographical level at which we are able to provide it, and it is most robust for us at higher geographical levels. There is also a difficulty in transferring from an individual perspective to a population perspective. As a public health doctor, I am interested in that population perspective, so it is about aggregate levels of data. On one level, given that we have all-correlated harm and it is entirely avoidable, we could say that any harm equals overprovision. It could also be considered in terms of outlet density, weighted for capacity, and that would be a reasonable measure of availability. However, as I say, boards struggle with that, and there is no guidance or criteria for them around that. We know that many boards have stated in their policy statements that they are not overprorided for, but there is no justification for why they have reached that decision or their process in reaching it. Ms Thomson? I would like to agree with my colleagues here that, in terms of boards' struggle with overprovision, there should be clear guidance on how that is interpreted. We have, at a local level, discussed with the board about the data that would be required, and we have provided very comprehensive and robust information. Again, we have looked at that from an intermediate data zone level, but we have made clear recommendations that are currently with the board. However, having looked at the EFS report, there is not clarity about how some boards have made their decisions, about the evidence that has been used to underpin the five licensing objectives in the policy statement and how licensing boards come to the decision on overprovision. It is our role to support that, but to be much clearer than the guidance about what should be contained within that. Ms Thomson? Certainly, last year, when our board looked over provision, we had some difficulty in getting any evidence from the people that we contacted. We sent out information to all the parties laid out in the section 142 guidance, and we got very little back, apart from Police Scotland, who identified some hotspot areas that allowed us to identify the localities. Beyond that, we got no response at all from NHS Lothian and very little response that was up to date from any of the other parties. In your submission to the committee, Ms Watson, from West Lothian, it said something along the lines in a paraphrase that health issues were not taken into account. Would that be correct? Well, we had no evidence, and the guidance makes it very clear that boards must make decisions on evidence. In your area, the NHS Lothian has never given any evidence at all to the West Lothian board. They have never given any evidence, nor do they respond to any application sent to them. There has never been a presence at the board. In terms of the rest of Lothian, are you aware of any other licensing boards where NHS Lothian— I can really only speak for the last couple of years. It may have been at the beginning of 2009 that there was a presence, but certainly in the last two years, since I have been managing the team, there has been no one from NHS Lothian either writing to us or engaging with us in any way. In terms of the other witnesses, are you aware of any health authorities contacting boards about overprovision? Dr Shipton, please. I think that we have 40 licensing boards, and I think that it is a good opportunity to identify best practice. There are some licensing boards who have worked very closely with their ADPs and their health board areas to develop the evidence for that. I think that it is worth learning from that. Some licensing board areas have developed quite nuanced overprovision statements. For example, just as Western Isles have vertical drinking establishments and off-sales only establishments in a particular area, so they are really responding to the needs in that area. I understand that there is variation across the country in terms of engaging with the partners, but I think that it is probably worth identifying that there has been progress in this. The overprovision statement is fairly new, under five years, in terms of—more than that, it is fairly new in terms of this type of policy development. It is worth understanding that there is a lot to be learnt from that, but there is good practice that is happening across Scotland. Dr Scott? Certainly, our board has provided significant evidence to the three local authorities, which are our partner local authorities, the three alcohol licensing boards. I would say that we do rely on alcohol and drug ring-fenced moneys, like other areas of the NHS, to provide a service around alcohol and drugs. Obviously, that can be an issue as budgets become tighter. As Dr Shipton has already indicated, it does rely on really strong relationships, particularly with ADPs. We would see our work around alcohol and drugs from a public health perspective being very much through our alcohol and drug partners. I am sure that Ms Thompson can speak about her experience of ADP evidence in Easter End for sure. Before I take Ms Thompson in, you mentioned local authorities. We all make the mistake when we are talking about licensing boards about talking about local authorities. We have to remember that licensing boards are quasi-judicial bodies. It may well be that a local authority has a single outcome agreement around alcohol, but the licensing board is somewhat different. Do you want to expand on that a little bit and tell us how you deal with boards rather than authorities? No, absolutely. That was my error. I accept that correction. It is just in our area that they are coterminous with our local authorities rather than any local authorities being subdivided. I think of them in terms of North, South and East Ayrshire. Apologies. The reason you did not get any response was because they were reluctant to commit themselves that you got no responses to this inquiry. What was the reason that nobody replied? I think that it was a lot of understanding as to what was required. I think that the guidance should be updated and it should be clearer. I think that in West Lothian we are kind of alone in that we have an increasing population. I think that there is an assumption that there is over-provision everywhere, but I do not know that that is correct. Our board is certainly very concerned with over-consumption rather than over-provision, and I think that the committee should be looking at how that can be addressed. Do you think that the two of them go together? Not necessarily, because you can have an area where a new armadiel, for example in West Lothian, has a new-asked supermarket there. That was necessary for the number of new houses that have been built in that area. I do not think that they would have come had they not got an alcohol licence. However, there is over-consumption and boards are saying that all the time when Police Scotland is doing review applications, but the reality is that it has become social acceptable that people fall about drunk every weekend. We see it in CCTV evidence and yet no one has ever prosecuted for it. On that over-consumption versus over-provision scenario, going back to the submission that you made where health is not being taken into account, how do we deal with that? You are saying that there is a problem of over-consumption, but your board is not looking at the health aspects according to what you have said. We were unable to look at the health aspects because we simply had no evidence of them. It is not to say that we would not look at them if that evidence was available. We are out to consultation again with our key stakeholders in relation to whether we should be looking over provision and whether there is evidence. That door was meant to have closed, but we were asked to keep it open until the end of this calendar year. We will certainly be looking at the issue of provision in West Lothian again, subject to any evidence coming forward. If that evidence comes forward, we will have a full consultation exercise with all stakeholders. How proactive are you in seeking that evidence? You said that you have talked to stakeholders, but if I was in the position of being on a board—although I was a local authority councillor and never was on a licensing board—I would be doing everything possible to try and gather up that evidence and be proactive with the local alcohol and drugs partnership and the NHS board to try to get that evidence. What efforts have you made in that regard? We have certainly written to all those stakeholders. We have attended a number of licensing forum meetings where those stakeholders have been asked to attend to discuss the issue of provision. We followed that up by more correspondence and we had a number of online surveys. We heard from the Scottish Retail Consortium that supermarkets and places would not open a supermarket unless they could get an alcohol licence because that is where they made the biggest profit. Could you comment on that? I think that it was the Scottish Retail Consortium that said that. I think that I am unable to comment on that from a commercial or legal perspective, but it would appear to me that they would not come unless they got an alcohol licence. Put on record, I did serve on the licensing board, but 32 years ago since I last served on the licensing board, so my experience is a bit dated. The issue in terms of the over-provision—I note that what we have before us is a panel with two members from smaller local authorities. Last week, I raised the question, how does the panel feel that we should use the over-provision criteria? When you are looking at local authorities such as West Lothian in East Renfrewshire but then you look at Scottish Borders or Dumfries and Galloway in the Highlands, how do you determine over-provision if some of the outlying villages are not being served by an off-license or licensed premises? How do we deal with that in terms of the criteria that we may be setting in terms of over-provision and denying communities the opportunity to actively participate in social drinking? Just in terms of when you are defining over-provision, you will look at the totality of the area and you will also break it down into intermediate zones and align that with the licensing board's regional areas. That will look at the number of licence premises, the capacity of licence premises, both on and off sales in that area. The way that we looked at it from an East Renfrewshire perspective included in that the range of health harms and also crime and alcohol-related violence. We also did an extensive consultation with both the public and the licences around over-provision, so we had a triangulation of both quantitative and qualitative evidence there. Clearly, it may be that, depending on the level of health and alcohol-related harm that boards may decide in their over-provision assessment based on that evidence that the whole area is over-provided. However, that does not preclude current premises from trading. The other factor is that it may also state within the over-provision assessment that only certain designated areas are over-provided. That does not preclude areas in rural areas having access to alcohol. When we did our assessment, we looked at the mobility of people. We asked how long it took you to access either on sales or off sales in your area and by what means that you travel to get there. We found that, by far, all areas in our area were well-served in terms of alcohol, but we have not made recommendations that the whole area is over-provided. Ms Watson? We certainly had evidence of a number of licensed premises surrendering their licences because it is no longer commercially viable for them. In that background, it is quite difficult to see where there is over-provisioning. We also have some areas where there is high in social deprivation, so they perhaps are going to be increasing the NHS figures. However, there is not a lot of alcohol available in those areas. However, a short taxi ride away is one of the biggest stazards in the country. A lot of us surrender licences. Is that down to the fact that the big chains have moved in? Are those mainly off-sale premises that have surrendered licences, rather than on-sales? Both on-sales and off-sales. I agree with Ms Thomson on the need to respond to the local needs. That is the advantage of the over-provisioning statement in the research that you presented with last week by Dr Shorts from Edinburgh. They have identified the outlet density across the whole of Scotland, and you can see that there are very large areas within a licensing board area that have very high levels of provision, and other licensing board areas are pockets. That is where the over-provisioning statement can respond to that, as I demonstrated with the western aisles, and other boards have responded with very nuanced over-provisioning statements. They can protect the rural areas and respond to the higher levels of provision in, for example, the urban areas. I agree with what Dr Shipton has just said. Just to answer the question directly, density is a good way of considering availability. I would argue that there is strong evidence of an association between availability, as it relates to over-provision and consumption, and, obviously, consumption and then harm. I think that the two are very interrelated, the provision in terms of availability and consumption levels. You can consider that comparatively. Per capita outlet waited for the capacity of that outlet would be a more robust measure than just the number of outlets, but you also need to consider levels of harm. In Scotland, our levels of harm are twice what they are in England and Wales. About 72 per cent of that is accounted for by off-sales. There are also issues about the types of premises, but, in general, I would suggest that we are over-provided for across Scotland. To follow-up in Ms Watson's response on the surrender of licences, and Ms Watson seems to equate that with the opening of a large supermarket. If we are looking at, as Dr Scott just said, the level of off-sales consumption is now potentially greater than it was from on-sales, it surely raises the issue that we should be looking more carefully at the large supermarket selling of alcohol than some of the provision in terms of on-sales and some of the smaller off-sales premises. If what you have said, Ms Watson, is that licences are surrendering licences, you seem to allude that it was down to the opening of a large supermarket that was selling alcohol, or licencing boards should be seriously asking major retailers such as the major supermarket that you hinted at in terms of Bathgate or Livingston, surely we should be looking at those types of off-sales rather than just restricting the on-sales. I have perhaps confused at members, there are two as the stores within Westlothian, the biggest one is in Livingston and there is a smaller one in Armadale, the new development. I really struggle with this because there is no six licensing objective that says that boards must reduce consumption of alcohol. I think that we would all agree that that would be a good thing, but I do not think that it is for boards to be able to tackle that problem on their own. I think that there has to be a multiagency task force set up. I think that if Scotland wants to reduce alcohol consumption, it needs to do something about it in the same way as we have made drink driving socially unacceptable. I think that we should make public drunkenness unacceptable because people are learning that from the very time that they are going to their prom to when they are going throughout their whole life that alcohol and being drunk is acceptable. It certainly was not the case when I was growing up and I do not know how we have got here. On that issue, Ms Watson, are you saying that the current legislation for us does not go far enough? As far as I can see, the act was meant to regulate the sale of alcohol, not restrict the sale of alcohol. I think that some within the alcohol focus type organisations would wish that it was not different. However, when cases go before the courts, they are interpreted in relation to what is said in the legislation. As I said, there is nothing in the legislation that says that boards have to take measures to reduce consumption of alcohol. We all have a health and wellbeing component. Obviously, there is an explicit protecting and improving public health. From a population perspective, the best way to achieve that objective is to reduce availability. I think that there is a wee discrepancy from an individual perspective and that population perspective. Dr Shipton. I would agree that the licensing regime has a public interest purpose. I think that that is where we say what is in the public's interest at the moment, the level of harm that we have and the level of consumption that we have in Scotland is very high in terms of within the UK and within Western Europe. The public interest purpose would be to reduce that. Two of the main levers for that is availability and price. At this point in time in Scotland, I would agree that in order to serve the public interest purpose, it is important to reduce the availability to reduce consumption and harm at a stage where that is not the case in Scotland, then there would be possibly a different requirement from the licensing regime. I want to go back to Dr Acton, Ms Watson's point about boards have no remit to reduce consumption. I go back to the point that I made earlier to Dr Scott around about the separation of boards as quasi-judicial bodies from local authorities. Ms Watson, you talked about a multi-agency approach, but at this moment in time, because of that scenario where it is not up to boards to reduce consumption, how can that multi-agency approach be taken and then brought forward by boards? It seems to me that there are a number of licensing offences, including being drunk on licence premises and serving a drunk person. Yet, because of the difficulties in interpreting what drunk means legally, those offences are very infrequently prosecuted. We have certainly in the West Lothian board only seen two cases in the past five years of licence holders being prosecuted for licensing offences. When you take that with the CCTV evidence that we have seen at boards of drunk people staggering out of nightclubs at 2am and 3am, the two things do not add up. I have had personal knowledge of cases where a procured to fiscal has decided that it is not in the public interest to prosecute a licensing offence. Attitudes need to be changed. I do not think that, although boards can play their part, I do not think that it is for boards to reduce consumption on the board. Does the West Lothian board go out with the police and actually visit premises? Yes, we have on occasion. How often? In every board cycle. So that is once every four or five years? Yes. However, there are inherent difficulties with that as well because there are difficulties at particular premises, which then comes before the board in a review, and a member takes something into account that he has seen on a night when he has been out with the police rather than a night that we are talking about in the review. Then all those things are legally challengeable, if they are said. I want to play devil's advocate, Ms Watson, and I am sorry, it seems that we keep coming back to yourself. However, in terms of the licensing objectives, number four is protecting and improving public health. Do not you think that overconsumption comes into that scenario of protecting and improving public health? Therefore, do you not think that boards themselves should have an interest in that overconsumption issue? Yes, I do think that they should have an interest. I think that if people were prosecuted for these offences then the way that the legislation set up, boards should be notified if people have been prosecuted, licence holders have been prosecuted for selling drink to drunk people, and then they should be able to take appropriate action. However, what we have found is that there have been a number of reviews for late night premises where there have been CCTV evidence of a lot of drunk people milling around, and yet when the lawyers representing the licence holder asked the police, was anyone ever prosecuted? The answer is no. Surely that is one of the reasons why maybe the board should be a bit more proactive in actually going out with the police to see what is going on, because that maybe changed the attitudes there, would it not? Yes, but I think that the answer is that it is going on everywhere, it is going on everywhere in every street where there are licence premises when the sun goes down, and we all know that, and it has become socially acceptable. Dr Scott, please. I think that it is also important to remember that environments influence behaviour, and making healthy choices easy choices, again from a population health perspective, is often the best way to achieve good population averages, but also to narrow inequalities. We know that some of our most deprived citizens are particularly affected by alcohol-related harm, or there is certainly deprivation gradient. Again, from an inequalities perspective, the levers that boards have at their discretion in terms of reducing availability are the best way to narrow inequalities as well as reducing overall harm. This idea of creating healthy environments, I think that boards have some powers there, and perhaps they are just not being used as effectively as they could. In addition, I just may say one final thing about social norms, because I think that that is something that is coming out quite strongly in Ms Watson's evidence. Availability has an impact on social norms, it is not just about physical availability, it is about price competition, and in addition, it is about social norms. John Watson, please. Sorry, Ms Watson, I just want to try and tease out an answer to a point you raised. That is the issue about boards and the evidence presented to boards. One of the questions that has come up in terms of legislation is the issue of police intelligence being presented to boards. Tied into your comment about the level of convictions that take place in licensed premises, there was a national newspaper reported yesterday that premises in a particular west of Scotland local authority area, there were 94 visits by the police to those premises and the board finally decided to take action. Could you give any examples of where police have tried to take action against a licensee and the courts have been reluctant to prosecute? I am afraid that I cannot, because I do not know what cases are referring to prosecution. I do not know what was referred to prosecution. All I can talk to you about is what happens when there is a review of a license in West Lothian. We have had a number of reviews recently of late night premises, and in all the cases there have been very few cases referred to prosecution, and those that have been referred to prosecution have not all resulted in a prosecution. However, in terms of the police notifying the board of a potential prosecution or court action, is there no co-ordinated approach between the police and the board that the police indicate or notify the board that a licence or premises have been reported to procurator fiscal for court action? Yes. The legislation allows for the police to ask for a review, and often in a review application there will be reference to at least some of the matters that are under review being referred to prosecution. Of course, there is the difficulty that the board has to then raise with the procurator fiscal service to see whether we can have a hearing about it given that it is potentially subjudice, and we cannot ask people to come and force them to speak about matters that they have pled not guilty to in a criminal court. Given that the commercial viability of premises and the difficulties that are caused in terms of what has been said about the licence and boards, and the fact that a large supermarket can have on an area, can I ask if any consideration has been given to how minimum unit pricing of alcohol might change that situation and if licence and boards are on any consideration of that, and also just given that we have been talking about consumption and whether minimum unit alcohol was the opinion that that would reduce consumption? Shall we start with Dr Shipton first and work down, please? I probably cannot speak to how the licensing boards have acted in terms of the possibility of minimum unit pricing coming on. I think for us there is a lot of evidence, overwhelming evidence, that minimum unit pricing would reduce consumption. In terms of the licensing availability, what we have, if we have a high density of availability, it reduces its price competition locally, and that will drive price down. In terms of minimum unit pricing, that will help to prevent some of that happening at the local level, so that is something that we would welcome. I cannot comment on the impact of minimum unit pricing specifically on supermarkets, but what we can say is that the most recent monitoring and evaluation of Scotland's alcohol strategy report shows that the available sales data between England and Wales in Scotland shows that it is driven by about 72 per cent off sales. Within that, cheaper spirits are a big bulk of that sales. Minimum unit pricing, and there is fantastic evidence around price as a good lever for reducing population levels of consumption and therefore harm. It is likely to have an impact on that area of sales. From an alcohol and drug perspective, we wholly support minimum unit pricing for the reasons that are cited. Both price and availability of alcohol have very strong evidence base to support reductions in population consumption and reduce harm. During our discussions with the board in relation to the policy statement, we touched on minimum unit pricing and were very much in favour of it. Our board is also very concerned about the way that some of the trade has found around the legislation that was supposed to prevent happy hours. The legislation is quite complex if you look at the condition. It talks about price variations and does not talk about price reductions. Some premises in our area have brought in cheaper types of alcohol, which are not normally on sale, so they are not reducing the price, not varying the price, but they are bringing in, for example, Glen's Ward cut £1 a shot rather than Smirnoff at £220. That is how they found the way around it, and I think that that definitely needs to be tightened up. Clare Llywydd, can I pick up on this point about on and off licences? We did here last week for the licensing trade, and I know that a number of pubs, for example, would point to figures that show that I saw that there are a number of pints being consumed in Scotland that fell massively, but the amount of alcohol being consumed. We see a lot of pubs closing. Is there a difference to being looked at in terms of off sales versus the local pub? Certainly, in the over-provision assessment, we looked at on-sales and off-sales, and we looked at capacity, and we looked at the period between 2010 and 2013 to look at where the growth was. It was not on-sales, it was not on-sales. My point clearly is that it is important to consider your evidence so that when you are reviewing what is happening or what is required to happen in a local area, you have that vital information to hand. We have had evidence at our board that a number of late night premises have been struggling recently, as a result of people preloading, drinking at home before they go in and going out very late. That alcohol is freely available both from the big supermarkets and online. Dr Shepton, please. I would add that there are obviously different requirements or issues on and off sales, and I agree with Ms Thompson. The difference in price between on and off has widened, and that has been driving the general increase in availability. We have had 60 per cent increase in availability of alcohol since the 1960s in Scotland, so it has become a lot more affordable and is driven by the off sale. That is something that locally needs to be looked at. On sales, there would obviously be evidence for local areas around on sales, and a more generic comment would be that on sales is also contributing to the social norm, so if you have a very high provision of that, that is dictating what is available in that area to do, so that is something that locally may need to be looked at, too. Dr Scott, please. I agree that both off and on sales contribute to availability, and good data for both would help us to have a more nuanced assessment. Going back to my initial point in my submission, we need to retain the need to look at number and capacity of outlets. It would be good to have a capacity-weighted number of outlets and look at that in terms of population density. We could subdivide that by off and on sales. Alex, please. I pick up that there is a real mix out there of what data is available, what licensing boards are taking what into consideration. It may be, convener, that we can ask for some of the best practice. I think that there is a suggestion that there is good practice, and it may be that we can ask the witnesses to make that available. I saw somebody in the evidence who talked about community planning partnerships and the ADPs' roles in that. Again, is that something that you think could improve this situation? Who wants to have a crack at that? Dr Shipton first? I think that there is notwithstanding the comments of the separation between the licence and board and the local authority, I think that for this process to be very effective, there needs to be some working with the other planning structures, community planning or land planning structures for this process to work appropriately. In some areas, I think that that does work very well in some of the review, the policy statements, there is reference to the single outcome agreements, etc., which I think is appropriate to allow a more joined up working within this regime. Dr Scott? I think that there is a synergy between the licensing board objectives and what community planning partners are trying to achieve. I think that both would be strengthened by greater consideration of each other's objectives. I think that it would be good not just for boards to have stronger links with ADPs but with the wider community planning infrastructure. From an ADP perspective, we directly report into community planning in terms of the delivery of seven national outcomes. As Dr Scott highlighted, there is a synergy between the licensing, the licence and policy statement over provision assessment. We clearly have that embedded within our delivery plan and therefore report annually to the community planning partnership and how we are progressing with that in terms of taking forward support and evidence in relation to the over provision assessment, etc. Ms Watson? I do not have any knowledge of community planning partnerships. Again, convener, it may be that this is an area that we need to explore. Given that we are looking at, for example, the community empowerment bill in the role of community planning partnerships and for the licensing committee point of view, there seems to be that there is not a lot of link in there. You would expect to assume that the ADPs would have the kind of information that would be very useful, I assume, for licensing boards when looking at over provision. Perhaps that is an area that I will just flag up for us moving forward. I did notice—we are right there—that the Scottish Government, at one point, was talking about social responsibility tax, which would be some kind of power. I did ask the finance secretary last week if he did not intend to bring anything forward on that. I wonder about the funding. The idea of social responsibility tax is that a local authority would be able to put a penny on a bottle of wine or whatever social responsibility tax that money could be then reinvested. I wonder whether the funding of the ADPs and what the third sector out there seems to be where a lot of the work is being done in supporting people with alcohol and drugs problems. Is there a gap in funding? Is the issues of alcoholism and alcohol problems seem to be getting worse? Is there available funding to try and support people? We are beginning to go out of scope, but I am going to allow that because I think that it is necessary to get the answers to that. Ms Thomson, please. There is funding available and it is directly provided by the Government for alcohol and drugs to address alcohol and drugs problems in the area. The issue is always coming back to the evidence. There is a great need in terms of individuals being supported in relation to alcohol problems. At the moment, we know that probably about 25 per cent of people have been through a recent study on access and alcohol treatment services that need that support. Obviously, within the economic constraints that we are all facing at the moment, there is generally never enough money to support or, when you are looking at true unmet need. However, we do within our plan in terms of there is funding within the ADP and all the partners. There is direct mainstream funding, and there is also funding directly from the council and through other budgets in terms of prevention, early intervention. We clearly define what those budgets are and how they are spent across prevention and early intervention treatment supporting people into recovery. We have a financial framework in place that details that spend. Dr Scott, please. I think that it is a perennial tension from a preventative medicine point of view in meeting the needs of raging fires or immediate problems and carving out a little bit of money that is about primary prevention and stopping calls that are not yet lit from becoming raging fires, if you will excuse the analogy. I can see the attraction of a social responsibility levy. As we have already indicated, price is a very good way to reduce availability. Increasing the prices that we have done with tobacco will have an impact on sales, consumption and therefore harm. If that money could be ring-fenced for preventative medicine, all to the better. Dr Sheptill? I think that there is also a possibility of looking at the fees trying to recoup some of the costs. Down in England, they have a late night levy. We have heard about the premises where police have taken calls to the premises lots and lots of times. There is a possibility of, and in several other countries they explore this idea of the licensing fees being directly related to the harms that might be caused by the sale of the product from that premises. That is something that can be explored. We have a large public sector bill in terms of paying for the costs of overconsumption. If that could be recouped in some way, I think that that would be something worth exploring. This is outwith my area of expertise. I think that there are two quick points. I want to make a comment on the point that the order of what was made. Last week, it was made pretty clear to us for people from the licensing trade that there is a conflict where you have large supermarkets wanting to come into an area and set up a supermarket in an area. There may well be an overprovision, but licensing boards, I think that it was put who is sitting there that is wanting to get re-elected, going to refuse a supermarket with hundreds of jobs. That seems to be a tension that certainly has been brought forward to us in terms of overprovision that we need to look at. My final question would be—I know that you broadly welcome the proposals that are in here, but if you were a policy maker and you were looking at this, what is missing? What would you be, top of your agenda? For us, it would be the issue of accountability and transparency. Currently, we would say that there is no independent oversight of the licensing boards, how they perform or how they carry out their functions. We do not have any outcomes on monitoring data that is reported. There is no review of performance internally by the licensing boards or externally. We know that licensing boards are required to produce a policy and overprovision statement and also a public register of licensing data. Six months after the deadline, 11 license board statements were still not published and 17 overprovision statements were not published. That is out of 40 licensing boards. More recently, using standard online searching mechanisms, we found 13 public registers of licensing data. Again, that is out of 40. Given that it is a policy-driven process, not having a policy has huge implications for how the licensing board can function. In terms of the information deficit, this is absolutely key to monitoring performance locally and nationally. Without that, we have an accountability deficit. You heard from the Edinburgh researchers and also the Health Scotland evaluation had to put in a freedom of information request to get the data that they required. We think that it is unlikely that stakeholders can regularly put in a freedom of information request to get that. We would ask, as with others, for two main outcomes here. One is to have outcomes data reported. We are asking for data that the licensing boards have through the application process, so not asking for any extra data that they would have needs to be collated and made publicly available and a duty to annually report on their performance, the performance against outcome measures but also, more importantly, the performance against their policy statements. We have no way of identifying that. There will be the two things that we would really push for. Dr Scott, please. In complete agreement with what Dr Shipton has just said, we need much better data on the decisions that are being made, on the numbers of licences, on their capacity, on their opening hours and that should all be freely available for members of the public as the electorates who the boards are ultimately accountable to. An annual report would be very useful. I think that a public consideration of how decisions have achieved or not achieved the board's objectives would also be very helpful. Just one final thing in terms of the tension between economic regeneration and the public health perspective around the licensing board objectives. I think that it is really important to remember that it is not just work that is good for health, it is good work that is good for health. I think that there has to be some consideration of the types of jobs that are being brought into the economy as well and there is no evidence that increasing licences, whether it be through off-sales, large supermarkets or elsewhere, have a net benefit. In fact, when we hear about £3 billion to possibly £5 billion worth of costs to the economy, I might suggest that it is an overall economic drain. I would also agree with Dr Shipton and Dr Scott in relation to improving the accountability transparency of licencing boards, particularly in relation to how and what evidence is considered and who is consulted. Publish policy statements underpinned by evidence to promote the licensing objectives provides clear guide to licencing practice and supports consistent and well-reasoned decision making that makes the licensing process more transparent. It is important that licencing boards publish an annual report. That could be considered at the joint meeting of the Licencing Forum and, as we know, the Licencing Forum is there to keep under the review the way that the Licencing Board exercises its functions. That would be a key opportunity to show how the Licencing Board is exercising its functions with regard to the Licencing Act and promoting the licensing objectives. I would like the guidance to be looked at and to be much more clear and also the powers of the board to refuse applications to be much clearer to take into account the issues that members have discussed. In terms of section 55 of the bill 554, 55 looks at the annual financial report, but 554 says that a report under this section may also include such other information about the exercise of the licensing board's function as they consider appropriate. Do you think that those issues should be brought up under that section? Yes, I think that it is probably worth being quite explicit, because currently under the 2005 act, as I said, licencing boards are required to produce a public register of licensing data. That is not being efficient in that one, not all licencing boards seem to have an accessible register. The data that is in there is not appropriate for monitoring, so I think that it is great that that is in there, but I think that there needs to be more guidance. That needs to be teased out. That is exactly it. Okay, thank you very much. One other point before we move away from some of the points that Mr Rowley has raised, it would be very good for us if you could provide us with good and bad practices, as you see it. Beyond that, Ms Watson, I understand that every year licencing boards gets together in some conference, or whatever it may be. Is good practice actually shared at these events? You mean the alcohol focus conference? Is that what it's called? I have no idea what it's called. I've never been to one. Dr Shipton, if you want to come in. Possibly the alcohol focus conference, there's quite a few licensing conferences. I think that it's one run by Alcohol Focus Scotland. I think that it's a different one. Okay, we'll leave that then. Finally, on that point, and on those points that Mr Rowley has been making, is it a real problem, the fact that licencing boards are quasi-judicial bodies that seem to be apart from other things, such as community planning partnerships? I guess that no answer would suffice, so if you don't have any comment, that's also fine. Dr Shipton? I probably can't speak to the legal side of the separation of it, so I think I'd struggle to talk to the details of that. I think there needs to be some working together exactly how that happens in accommodating the legal side. I'm afraid I can't comment. But the legal side may cause barriers. Ms Watson, you're probably the expert in the quasi-judicial aspect. Except I don't really know how anything else works. Okay, that's very honest. All I can say is that every decision that a licencing board takes, while it's not open to scrutiny by alcohol focus and others, is open to scrutiny by the courts. And when the courts deal with a licensing matter, all they do, they don't know about how it works. They just look at the law and look at the words used, and the words used need to be tightened up. Okay, I came to say in transparency before we move off of that, licencing board are supposed to take all of their decisions in public, but often there are back-room discussions on certain points. Do you think that that should stop Ms Watson? No, I think that that's essential, that there is a forum where discussions can take place, where legal advice can be given in private, as long as it's reiterated in public and parties have an opportunity to comment on that. And do you think that it's only legal advice that's given in private and board? It is on my watch. Anybody else have a comment on that, Dr Scott? I don't think—well, I prefer it to be done in public, but I can see perhaps there could be some justification. But if we had an annual report that was detailing the decision-making, the rationale for that decision-making and how it contributes to the objectives, I think that would provide a level of comfort for us in terms of the accountability. Grant, thank you. I'm Mick Taggart, please. Thanks, convener. Really just to go back to a point that was mentioned way, way back at the beginning, it was about the proposal to create a criminal offence of supplying alcohol to someone under the age of 18 in a public place. Do you think that that goes far enough? I know that one of you has mentioned it at your opening speech, but do you think that it goes far enough? Let's start with Ms Thompson, please. This will be more about how that's enforced, but I think that it does go far enough. I think that it's very, very welcome in the context of what's been welcomed by Police Scotland in terms of the conversations that we've had and in terms of how it will go far enough that it will be about the enforcement of that. Dr Scott, please. I'm not sure as to how it could go further. I mean, I probably also welcome it. I think that these things send a strong message as to what is and isn't acceptable. I suppose that I'd be interested to hear what the further step might be, but it's a starting point. Dr Shipton, please. I would agree. I probably want to know the other steps before discussing those. I agree. I welcome it, and it seems to be... Do you think that what's been opposed just now, then, is fine? It's essential that it'll do the job. Dr Shipton. From my understanding, it was also a response from the police in terms of in that you could take away alcohol, but it could then equally be supplied again. It seemed to me a response to difficulties that police were having around this area, maybe other areas. Ms Watson, please. It'll be enforced in practice, and whether there are sufficient members of Police Scotland to enforce all of the various licensing offences that I've said before, I just see that these are not being enforced. I know that that's true, thank you. Willie Coffey, please. Good morning to you. Can I pick up again on this accountability transparency issue that all of the panel members have offered some contributions on? And it's to talk really about over provision and where, and whether it should be defined and who should define exactly what we mean. I've heard from Mr Wilson's questions that there's quite a variation across Scotland. Wherever you go, you'll see different circumstances in place. Dr Shipton, you mentioned the western aisles. Had some clear definitions that applied locally. Who should define what over provision means in a locality? Should it be on the face of this bill? Or should the bill say that it should be defined? And it's perhaps the board that should define it. Who's best placed to define what we mean over provision, do you think? Okay. Dr Shipton, do you want to go first? I think it's right that it's part of the licensing board's policy statement to define what over provision is. I think in order to, what over provision is for their particular area, in terms of how it is defined, it probably would be quite good to have a national steer on that and support and greater guidance around exactly what that is. We know the current guidance for the 2005 act is quite ambiguous around the level of evidence that is required for over provision and that has made it quite challenging for some local authorities, some licensing boards to evidence the over provision in their area. So I think there is a need for all stakeholders to support the licensing board in order to develop that in terms of supporting evidence, providing evidence and a national steer in terms of how that's done. Alcalfochol Scotland has a toolkit for that, so that's helpful, but I think it does need to come from a national steer as well. Dr Scott, please. I would agree that it probably does need some national guidance. I think it's a very tricky concept. As I've already said, you can consider it in terms of availability, weighted for capacity, the number of outlets and the density of those outlets, or you can consider it in terms of harm. From a community empowerment perspective, I think it's about engaging the community and having them fully informed and thinking about what harm they would consider acceptable and what costs they'd be willing to pay for that harm and being able to relate that to availability and understanding that evidence. Further to that, the issues about geographical boundaries and the difficulty there, because one, the geographical area that one board serves is clearly bounded and where the boundary is, you could have an area that's fantastic in terms of its over provision, assessment and regulation and another that isn't at the boundary, you can't control that. So there's something about a national perspective on it all as well. Before I take in anyone else, there's a lot of confusion in my own head around the guidance that you're talking about. At the end of the day, courts will make decisions if they think that licensing boards are in the wrong. If there's a set of guidance that says one thing, how likely is it that the courts will overrule guidance that is not legislation and not in the face of the bill, as Mr Coffey has said? Ms Watson, you're probably the best place to answer that. The act says that we must follow the guidance in doing our job in taking decisions in the licensing board, so I think that the courts would welcome more detailed guidance. It would take cognisance of that guidance in terms of their decision making. The members of the board are a local authority elected representatives, they're not specialists in any of the matters that my colleagues are. Neither am I, I am a lawyer, so I'm advising them. I can only look at what the guidance says, and it seems to me certainly in West Lothian that the people that we've asked for the evidence have struggled to know what sort of evidence we're looking for, and I think that that needs to come from government. Okay. Ms Thompson, I'm sorry about... That's fine. I think that the guidance should be strengthened in terms of relation to overprovision and particularly around the data that can be used to make that evidence, that assessment of the evidence. That helps the board to make that decision, and I think across areas what we've seen in Scotland is that the extent to which public health data is used in practice continues to be subject to varying interpretations of the evidence by licensing boards, and the licensing policy outcome does not always reflect the health evidence presented. From our perspective, we have actively engaged in licensing board about the data that we would be looking to provide and also looked to consult with our local communities about overprovision, and I think that that's vitally important because you can have the statistics there in hand, but you also need the community views as well, and I think that that's been very good in terms of engaging discussion. If we don't get clear or rigorous national guidance along the lines that you're hoping for or are expecting, should the bill then make a requirement that it must be defined locally? I think that Janice Thomson you were saying that it's okay or rather you would like to see boards reporting and summarising how they came to their decisions, for example. If the public licensees and the public don't know the criteria that was applied that allowed that decision to be made, have we still got an issue there? Should people be able to see that part of the process, just what the different criteria may be, because it could be different across Scotland? The issue will always be about how areas assess overprovision and the evidence that is considered in relation to alcohol-related harm and additional evidence in terms of capacity licence premises availability of licence premises across the area. It will be down to licensing boards to finally make that decision. We can provide the evidence and make the recommendations about what we think designates because of the health indicators, the alcohol-related harm indicators and what the public are saying. We would make our recommendations to the board and then it's down for the board to consider that. However, because we have provided the evidence, we would then be looking for the board to justify whether we are taking on that recommendation or why it isn't. It's a transparent two-way process. Should the public be able to see in advance what overprovision means in their legality? There is a clear statement. The board must provide or circulate for comment and consultation a draft over provision assessment. That has to go out so that people have the opportunity to see that. We have also engaged the public in wider discussions about alcohol availability in that area as a precursor to the evidence. You are opening remarks and you are saying that you are here to argue for the retention of the numbers and capacity elements. Do you foresee any circumstances where a board would not include issues about numbers and capacity if they were assessing overprovision? Are you worried that they might exclude that? I would be worried, given the variation in practice that already exists. It's not an insubstantial thing to have to collate and gather. We already don't have a database, so that second step would be very useful. I would be concerned that it might not. As Dr Shipton has already indicated, a number of policy statements state that areas are over provided for with no backup of how they have come to that conclusion or what they have considered. I think that it's really essential that it remains a must rather than a may. I have a number of other questions. I hope that you are okay with that. I want to extend that a little bit if I possibly can and get everything in. Clare Adamson, please. Thank you, convener. At our session last week, there was representation made about changes in the way private clubs and members' clubs were operating. Because they are subject to a less vigorous regime than a non-trade club or club, occasional licences in those areas may have an impact. Those situations are not considered when over provision has been looked at by the licences boards. I would like to get your comments and view on that. As we don't have an over provision policy because we never got the evidence, it's difficult for me to talk about that. I can say that there are a number of members' clubs in West Lothian that cater for the needs of a number of people in the more rural areas. Ms Thomson? The east transfer alcohol and drug partnership has concerns regarding the rules and use of occasional licences. The current rules create a loophole enabling legal requirements of fully licensed premises to be bypassed. That allows commercial premises to be run under a series of occasional licences and is inequitable to permanent licence premises. Furthermore, it can increase the availability of alcohol in an area that is not presently taken into account for over provision assessment purposes. We would advocate that both members' clubs and occasional licences need to be included in the over provision assessment as they both increase the availability of alcohol. I agree. I think that it is the aggregate level of availability that you want to consider and that you want that assessment to be as robust as possible. Every contributor to that availability should be considered. I understand that occasional licences are not insubstantial and that they potentially have an impact on young people in our area. Dr Shipton, please. I agree with both of those that they need to be included in the over provision assessment. On the over provision, can you give us an indication of a change in increase in the number of occasional licences that are coming from members' clubs? Yes, I have. Over the past year, that has been largely due to Police Scotland taking an interest in members' clubs and how they run. It would appear anecdotally that a number of those clubs have been effectively running as if they were not members' clubs and the police have been telling them that they need to get occasional licences when they are opening their doors to everyone that they do at this time of year. On the one hand, it is allowing them to operate legally, but on the other hand, I can see that from an over provision perspective, that might be a problem. The other problem that I have is that we get large numbers of occasional licences and they are very difficult to deal with. In a short timescale, we cannot get people to tell us soon enough that they are arranging the event that they have been arranging from once on end and they will only come to us at the very end of the process and they will only pay a £10 fee. However, that occasional licence can be—we had one recently for a school who were running an event and they wanted to sell drink at half time. If that is equated as the same as perhaps 250 people in a large venue, I do not see how you can really count these up and say that they are the same. Dr Shipton, you looked as if you wanted to come in there. I think that it comes back to the data. If we have an issue on capacity, it is something that you could do. What we do not know is how occasional licences have changed over time. What we are saying is that if we could have good outcomes data, that would be publicly available at the click of a button. We could identify how these have changed over time. The idea of capacity, we need to get better at identifying capacity in all types of licences. Surely the definition of occasional maybe needs to be looked at as well. A school selling alcohol at half time for something is probably very occasional, but by the sounds of what we have been hearing, it is regular rather than occasional in terms of some of the licences for some of those places. Would that be a fair thing to say? Thank you. John Wilson, please. A quick comment on that, convener. The problem is that a lot of members' clubs have changed their operational structures to allow them to open up to the public because of the pressures in terms of the trading pressures to sustainability. What I wanted to tackle was the issue in terms that has been raised in the West Lodian submission that we have received in relation to minor variation, and Ms Watson can maybe address that. Within the submission that raises issues about a minor variation to the licence premises could be an extension or extending an area for the supply of alcohol. I am assuming that that would include things like a beer garden. It is just how that relates to, particularly beer gardens, alcohol supply in public places. I have a local example where a local bar decided to stick on a beer garden just in the front of the premises next to the shops, but we have also got a situation in terms of public places in relation to the Glasgow, for instance, during the summer. Every bar in Buchanan Street, Salki Hall Street, Gordon Street, Ingram Street seems to want to open up what would effectively be, in my mind, a public place for the consumption of alcohol. How does that equate with the responsible drinking, and the promotion of responsible drinking, particularly for those under the age of 18? One of the issues that we should be trying to address in all of that is the responsible consumption of alcohol, not the total abolition or the promoting temperance that might be worthy cause to promote, but surely we should be trying to, in some way, promote responsible alcohol consumption, and surely that starts before the age of 18. In my submission, there was an example of a recent variation that crossed my desk, and it made me think that perhaps the people in the area who would have been notified had it been a major variation, might have been interested in objecting to what was the extension of outside drinking, but because the way that the legislation is written and because it already had a small outside drinking area and they were not seeking to increase their capacity, because, effectively, on a good day they wanted everyone outside rather than everyone inside, then it fell under the term of a minor variation and not a major variation, and yet that is contrasted with an off-sales premises that want to open earlier than licensed hours. That is a major variation and has to be advertised, and yet, when we have advertised these recently, people have written and objecting and said that they are objecting to the sale of alcohol, but the sale of alcohol is not changing. It is only the opening hours of the convenience store, so I think that there is an issue and that should be looked at. Does anyone else wish to comment on that? Dr O'Scollar, please. Just that it is a potential increase of capacity, so if we were thinking about the aggregate amount of licences for every application and its contribution in terms of additional capacity, it could be considered from a public health perspective and from the objective perspective, and in terms of social norms, the more availability you have, the greater the social norm, so from a young person perspective, yes, I would agree that that is a concern. Ms Watson just said that the minor variation to the application was to accommodate the existing clientele rather than to increase the clientele, so have we not got a contradiction in terms of minor variation in terms of licences? I am using an example of city centres because city centres, as I said during the summer, you find that a lot of areas have been opened up, the pedestrianised areas have been opened up for consumption of alcohol, and that is how we get that message over in terms of minor, and I am not sure how those premises apply for those outside area consumption of alcohol, which, as I said, would argue as a public place, because you are walking through a city centre, it is very much a public place, and how we do that and compare and contrast that with public places versus consumption of alcohol and licences premises, and what message that sends out to particularly young people and Dr Scott's comment about social norms? Who wants to comment on that? I know that it is very difficult, because in different areas I think that different rules apply in terms of the licensing outside scenarios, am I right in that? Yes, we have a policy that those areas should only be operated until 9 p.m. Of course that is only a policy and people can apply to open later than that. I think that the difficulty is that a lot of the discussions that we have had are about applications coming before the board, but the reality is now that licences last forever, some premises just never come to the attention of the board unless through a review. If there are problems at premises, we hear about it and that is the way that it is meant to happen. Otherwise, we have to assume that those outside areas are being run properly and that the licence holders are putting in appropriate steps to make sure that there is no underage drinking or no overconsumption in those areas, whether by monitoring by CCTV or staff positioned in those areas. Does anyone else have anything to add? Depends on the need for the policy and for adherence to the policy, that is where that kind of issue can be detailed for a particular local area. Finally, there are plans to reintroduce the fit and proper person test. What are your views on that if you have any at all? Dr Shipton, can we start with you, please? Yes, it is important that licensing boards have the ability to determine the suitability of an applicant, but our concerns would be around whether the factors that are included are not specified, so we would recommend that, in the policy statement, licensing boards identify what factors that they would consider relevant—possibly a non-exhaustive list—to allow some clarity and transparency around the issue. I agree that it is reasonable to reintroduce it, and I also think that it should be required to specify the factors that it will consider. In terms of spent convictions, I think that that is more of an issue for police and criminal justice colleagues to comment on. Thank you. Ms Thomson, please. I agree that, from an alcoholic partnership perspective, we would totally agree with the introduction of the fit and proper person's test, and that there should be clarity in what the considerations would be within that. Again, in terms of spent convictions, that should be a matter for Police Scotland or criminal justice colleagues to identify. Ms Watson? Yes, the Westlodian board totally supports that. We have some concerns about the suggestion that Police Scotland might wish to bring forward information that is less than a conviction information, which has perhaps come to them through different sources. It is a ground of appeal that a decision of the board can be appealed if the board has proceeded on an incorrect material fact. It is very difficult if you get the police saying, well, we think that he has done this, or we think that he is involved in organised crime. All they have got to do is say that we are not to prove it, and then that is a difficulty. What about the situation where the licence is held by somebody other than the owner of the premises? Again, that is a difficulty. We have experienced that locally as well. The system seems to have, ironically, the licence holder is the only person in the system who does not need to be trained. The designated premises manager does, but sometimes there is no correlation between the two. We have had a lot of issues with people who are the day factual manager who are not the designated premises manager. I think that the definition of designated premises manager or premises manager, as it says in the legislation, needs to be looked at so that it is actually the person who is in control of the premises. Thank you very much for your evidence here today. It would be useful if you could supply us with best practice and bad practice as well if you have that information. We have run a fair bit over time, and I thank you for your forbearance. I now suspend and we will commence again at 11. I would now like to welcome our second panel of this morning, and they are Jake Adams, director of JR Adam Ltd, Ivar Williamson, managing director of the Rosefield Salvage Ltd, Ian Hetherington, director general British Metal Recycling Association, and Joe McCann, site manager for Stephen Doughton's scrap metal merchant. Welcome, gentlemen. Would you like to make any opening remarks at all, Mr Hetherington? Thank you, convener, and thank you for listening to us today. We appreciate that this is a rather different topic than the one that you have been dealing with previously. We also recognise that you will not probably, as a group, be familiar with the scrap metal industry. If I may say a few words about the industry, the recovery and processing of metals from consumer goods and demolished buildings and industrial processes are more recently and particularly important in Scotland—recovery from the oil industry—are a critical part of Scotland's industrial infrastructure. Every ton of metal that is collected and processed has one destination. It goes into a steelworks or a metalworks and is reprocessed to become what it was in the first place. It is a perpetual and continuous process. Metal recyclers and scrap metal dealers are interchangeable. We are not proud or worried about either definition, but metal recyclers process in the region of 1.3 million tonnes of metal every year in Scotland. The industry is net turnover and contributes around 500 million to the Scottish economy. In the current climate, with the demise of the steel industry in Scotland, around £300 million is generated in foreign exchange every year from the sale of recycled metal to metalworks overseas. The industry has a really unusual shape. It is relevant to the licensing of it in that we have around 200,000 Scottish individuals and small businesses and large businesses who sell and supply scrap to our members every year. Our members only sell to somewhere between 200 and 350 customers, as you would traditionally know them. This is an upside-down industry in that we have multiple suppliers and a very small number of end customers. What this bill sets out to do is to regulate the way that we conduct our business with that large number of suppliers. It is an unusual practice for a licence to dictate your buying practices. Licences would typically dictate how you sell your products or services. The metal dealers bill and the principles in it, our members actively support the intentions and the principles that underlie the metal dealers licensing components of this bill. All the comments we have submitted and all the evidence we will provide today are aimed at supporting those intentions and strengthening the bill, as well as making it more practical to implement and to enforce. We should make clear also that we do believe that the bill could be a great deal clearer and that we believe that the enforcement of its provisions in their current form will be extremely difficult for the police and licensing authorities. The crucial point, from our point of view, will therefore potentially disadvantage law-abiding metal recyclers to the advantage of those who work on the margins of the law. Thank you. Does anyone else wish to add anything at this moment? Mr Williamson. Business is possible. My personal business, Mr Covina, is part of Williams and Group, a family-owned metal recycling company that was founded in 1923. We are a fourth generation in operating five sites throughout Scotland, from Peterhead in Fraserborough in the north to Addingston in Dumfries in the south. We bought Rosefield salvage in January 1995 and moved from its existing Dumfries town centre to a fully-concreted recycling facility on the edge of town. When we took over the business of two employees, we now have 10 employees and have increased the tonnage from 5,000 tons to 25,000 tons. In one hundred terms, that is from about £200,000 to 19 million turnover. We have been in the top 20 companies in the Business Insider magazine in the last three years. At present, we have a wide variety of customers ranging from small householders who come in with their poles from his garden shed to alley cans to large multinational companies who dispose of hundreds of tons of material a week. The majority of our business is not cash-based, it is account. However, it does represent a smaller number of profitable trades, what we call door trades, where we get about 20 to 40 customers per day who come in and get cash ranging from a householder disposing of aluminium cans to a plumber disposing of a redundant heating system. Those are generally paid in cash for convenience and customer ease, and most customers do not carry ideas such, and we only see them maybe once or twice a year, depending on the nature of their business. At present, we serve as Dumfries and Galloway in the area buying both ferris and non-ferris metals, which we have large machines that chop and bail ferris metal, which is transported to larger ferris merchants who generally export it abroad. The higher non-ferris metals we bail and sort and export abroad are in containers. Obviously, with a new proposal, we hope that tight regulation and strong enforcement would cause a reduction in business if there was not tight regulation and strong enforcement. The legislation to work, we want to cut metal theft, but we want to incorporate other companies such as car breakers, waste companies and demolition contractors, who also deal in the metal industry, who are not regulated the same way. Anyone else? Mr Adams? Thank you, Mr Convener, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss this with you today. I do not want to be a pedant, but if you can just say convener. It is a good Scottish term that can apply to a man or a woman. Very true, very true, thank you, convener. As you said, I am a director of JR Adam and Sons Ltd. We are a family business based in Glasgow. We have two facilities in Glasgow, one in Ayrshire. We employ over 70 employees. We are one of the five exporters in Scotland. We export scrap metal all over the world. Steel scrap mainly to Europe to sell on to steel mills, who then remelt it into reinforcing bar for the construction industry. Over the past four years, our turnovers have been over £70 million, and in 2009 we won a Queen's Award for Enterprise for international trade. Thank you, and Mr McCann, do you want to add anything? Basically, what you gentlemen have said, I agree with many respects, but I have been in the industry for 60 years. Yes, there has been a lot of changes, and what I have seen, some for the good and some for the nuts of good. In my opinion, the way that the licensing has been run, which was said earlier by Mr Williamson, is the fact that there is an awful lot out there who do not work under the same conditions that we do, and if that is going to have to stop, we have got to look at it, the fact is how can we stop it and where can we get co-operation, but we do not get co-operation if we are not playing on a level playing field? Let's start off with a question about police investigation of metal theft. What is your experience of that at this moment in time? Can we start with Mr Williamson, please? Generally, if I'm in stolen, the police will normally appear at your premises maybe three or four days later, sometimes even a week later. We've actually had them in six months. Some things have been reported stolen, which obviously makes it very hard to identify if it was in your yard. Generally, I find them not too big a problem with it. We don't encourage any particular dogeness to come in our yard, but we want to go on with the police. We show them our records. We generally don't have a problem with them, but I think that the biggest problem with them is the lack of time that takes them to, from when someone has been reported stolen, till when they actually come to visit your yard. If we look at some of the thefts that have taken place of late in my own neck of the woods in the northeast of Scotland, we've seen thefts from railway lines, which put the Aberdeen Inverness line out of action for a farewell. We've seen quite a lot of thefts around about electricity substations. If anybody comes in to your yard with anything that you think is a bit suspect, do you contact the police? Yes. Lately, the police have been in and we've got a number to contact them locally if anything suspect comes in. We've got a text message system that's trying to send us quickly. We're working with the police. The thing that you were talking about, the railway line, I mean, I actually think that they thought it went abroad with organised crime, which is one of the major problems that they're saying that it's obviously coming into the, which could potentially come into the metal business and the waste business, because obviously if you do ban the cash, organised crime may have an avenue of having cash, you know what I mean, to pay potential people. So that's why we want to try and get everybody under the one bill. Okay, Mr Adams. Really, just backing up what Mr Williamson said, we fully support and cooperate any police matters with theft of material. Sometimes the police are in quite quickly after a theft a matter of days, other times it's weeks after the theft has taken place on a busy day. We buy from other merchants, from industry, from demolition industry, from councils, all the way down to householders, so on a busy day we can have 800 tonnes of material going through our yard. So quite often, unfortunately, when the police come in, if it's a couple of weeks later, if there was material that's come in, whether it's been direct from someone who has stolen it or whether it's come in from another merchant who has dealt with someone before that, quite often it's unfortunately passed through the system, but as Mr Williamson says, anything that's suspected of being stolen or rejected and the police are contacted. Mr McHanties. In Edinburgh, and I can only speak for Edinburgh, we have a system here where you've got the metal broker's licence, and there's rules and conditions which we adhere to. It tells you what time you can open, what time you shut, what you can buy and what you can't buy, because there is also a limit on the weights. We have had this for many years, but we've had no problems. If the police come in, if they want every day, they don't have to go and get themselves a warrant, they can come in any time of the day. In fact, most of the members in the scrap do the same thing with the police when they come in any time. We are quite happy, and yes, we cooperate with the police. Mr Heatherington, please. Yes, it's worth saying the industry runs a metal theft alert system, so we have an online system, so if people notify us of a theft, we then notify all our members. Again, it's down to speed, because if we don't know about it, if people don't tell us within hours, then this material gets lost. It is worth saying that, of course, one of the largest suppliers, for example, of high-value copper cable in this country to the industry, is BT. Their network renewal programme has in large part, a large amount of that work has been funded through the sale of surplus cable. We are seeing a flow of this material. It's how the electricity companies, Scottish Power, SSC, sell a large quantity of cable to the industry. So, differentiating between that, which is legitimately stolen, as part of their project renewal work, and that, which is, sorry, that is stolen and that is legitimately occurring, is sometimes difficult. BT, for example, have really sorted it, and our members now, unless you have a contract with BT, you don't handle BT cable. But lots of these other materials are not easy to identify as stolen, just because it's cable doesn't mean it's stolen. It's very often arisen. So, we work very closely with the network companies and the other provisioning companies, because if they tighten up their disposal routes, then it makes it a lot easier for our members to identify those things that are actually stolen. You say that BT now have contracts, and you only deal with BT through contracts. Surely, even before that system and dealing with other companies, surely it would be the case that you would be dealing with representatives of that particular company? If I use network rail as an example rather than BT, because I say that BT have tightened up so much over reason. Network rail, under their small works, which isn't small by my standards or else, but their small works contracts are still let through main contractors to something like 400 subcontractors across the UK. Those may well be subcontracted again. You get some very small subcontractors handling this material. It isn't just network rail or even main contractors. There is a problem with planned disposal. It's getting a lot better, and these companies have become more aware of it. In terms of cash ban, which is part of the bill, do you think that that will be successful in removing some of the incentives for metal theft? I think that it will certainly take away a portion of it. I think that there is always the corner of the trade that works outside the legal system. Obviously, if you take the cash away, there will be people who have historically been used to cash. They still want to be paid in cash, who will look for another avenue to get rid of their cash. Obviously, that's what we want to clamp down on. If we don't have the cash, we want every other avenue to clamp down on as well. We don't want—you get waste companies dealing the metal now, because obviously the value is so much higher. You get demolition companies. You get people running around buying cat-like converters off of garages. There are so many different avenues that people are paying cash. I think that because the public has been so used to cash, if you suddenly say, right, you're getting checked or paid in your account, and then somebody goes to the garage and says, well, I'm going to give you an extra amount for this cat-like and it's in cash, they're going to take it, which is obviously going to hurt the proper licence scrap yard, which is going to hurt our trade as well, and then you're still going to have the cash out there. As I say, the worry is that—I've heard rumours down in England that there is a bit of organised crime getting into it because they have a amount of cash, and obviously we don't want that up here. Okay, Mr Williams. Mr Adams, sorry about your burden. Yes, the bill will help, but it has to be tightened up dramatically. At the moment, the definition of metal has to be tightened up to include, as Mr Williams touched on, catalytic converters waste electrical equipment, end-of-life vehicles, the definition of a metal dealer has to be tightened up at the moment, because the way the bill is written presently, the metal dealers will have to adhere to it, but companies, as Mr Williams touched on, are on the periphery of the industry, the demolition trade, waste contractors, vehicle dismantlers at the moment, the way the bills written don't have to abide by these laws, so there still would be an opportunity for scrap metal to be purchased before cash by these industries. Okay, Mr Adams. Mr McCann, sorry. Well, basically, when it comes to paying cash, and the way the bill is written, and what they're asking, that it will be paid by a cheque, as you're probably well aware, you can't go in a garage and pull your car up and pay the cheques, not like they don't accept it, same even cards or cash is everybody's right. I mean, if you, we are employees, the employees can ask for cash rather than to be paid by cheque, that is our right. It's the same with the scrap industry. If somebody comes in and says, I'm sorry, I don't want to take your cheque, I'd like cash, please. What are you going to do? Are you turning them away? No, you pay them cash. And to criminalise it is totally, totally out of order, because it means that once you start that, you're going to go into, if somebody walks into Tesco's and asks a question, sorry, we're not going to take your cash, go into the car, but I haven't got a car. You're going into the realm of banking and other things that you don't want to go into. Cash is cash. People's intent would be paid by cash, if they wish. Tighten up the rules. Yes, gentlemen here, every one of them, every one of them in this company, they're quite happy for things to be tightened up. We look forward to it, but we must be on a level playing field. As each one of them said, these other elements out there will pay cash, so then they'll come back in, we buy it, we pay them a cheque, or they go elsewhere, we'll say to the criminal element, do you want that? The answer is no. What you're looking for is back what everybody's on a level playing field. Mr Heatherampton? Yes, the industry in Scotland is clear that they want a range of provisions in this bill and that they fully accept that the restrictions on payment are one of a whole suite of provisions that they would support and go along with. The industry generally is supportive of changes with all the providers that you've heard from my colleagues. Do you think that stopping cash payments will help to catch those folks who are in the periphery who are maybe up to some criminal activity? Mr Heatherampton? I don't think that changing the law unless that serves to embrace all those players that you've heard about will not do the job, but if the law, if the bill in an amended form actually does cover off the loopholes that we're talking about here, yes, I think it will serve to help. There are other provisions in that bill which we regard as absolutely critical to this process and that is a reduction in providing the industry, providing any outlet for stolen material, that's what we all want, is actually the ID provisions. It's the ID provisions that have actually driven down crime levels of metal theft in certain parts of the country where this has happened and certain parts of England where this has happened. I think that it is part of a suite of measures which hopefully will bear down on criminal activity generally. Indeed, as one of the few panel members who has actually been to a scrapyard, I gained a sort of superficial knowledge of it. The problem that I heard with checks was that people could, you could pay them my check and then they could go next door somewhere else and cash the check, so it was going to be very difficult to stop checks. I wondered if cash, because cash is a problem and you keep talking about level praying field, could we have a sort of a maximum amount that people could be paid by cash, like £100, for example? Would that be an idea, the sort of two questions there really? I think that the check thing is quite interesting because checks are now virtually going out of fashion and you can't get it, but the idea also is that when I went to the scrapyard they had photographic ID, and I think that that would put off some of the non-hardened criminals, because there's photographic ID to get in the picture taken, and they don't like that. I wondered if everybody has that. Mr Williamson? A few questions. We certainly all have CCTV now, and I think all members, when the bill comes in, if you're going to have to ID, you're going to have to take a copy of their ID and you'll have them on CCTV. I actually did mention the fact that in a rural area, if you're up in the highlands and you've got a couple of washing machines that are worth £5, if you're not going to get cash from them, you're just going to throw them beside the road. I actually think that it might cause a problem in the rural areas, maybe not in the central belt and around the populated areas, but I did suggest, but I think that we had a voter meeting and I got thrown down with that one, because I think that they were wanting to talk about a complete cash ban, because they were worried about potential people coming in 10 times in one day, things like that. It goes back to the point that, if the cash is going away, it's the same as a check cash-in. If somebody gets a check, they can go up the local high street and cash the check. Personally, if I'm issuing a check in the future, I wouldn't have one in the same, because you're going to go through all this different legislation for check cash-in. It would only work probably in the big cities like Glasgow or Edinburgh anyway, I don't think that there's a lot of take for it down in the small areas. But it just goes back to the fact that you want to get everybody, nobody paying cash where it is, if you've got a car breaker or a scrap car and you say it's worth £100 and it's got five bags of copper in the back of it, it could be worth £500, so it's like all these little pulls we want to get out. Mr Rathans, please. Yeah, really the same as Mr Williamson, that the photographic ID will help dramatically on the check cashing issue in a way going forward. If my business issues a check and then that customer is able to go to a check cashing facility in Glasgow somewhere, I think there's still the full identification required by the check cashing facility, so there's still the full paper trail and traceability, which is one of the big issues, so that the material can be traced from whichever yard it's been sold to, if it's my yard, that's who the material was bought from, that's the chap's name, and then the check cashing facility would still be able to provide identification for the chap who cashed the check, so that in a way is a slightly different issue, as Mr Williamson touched on, we certainly won't be looking to put check cashing facilities on our premises. Cash for us is a hassle, it's an expense and it's a security risk more than anything, so when it goes it will make our day-to-day business easier to run. Mr McCann, please. I actually agree with Mr Adams what he said, it is a hassle of cash, but at the same time it's also got to look at the rights, and where I'm coming from is the fact is that when people come in, the registration's taken, their name, address, what time they arrived at, they're on CCTV on three different occasions, as they come into the yard, as they go down to the non-press store and when they come back to be paid, they sign for their cash and they're also on the CCTV, so running it back is very simple. Yes, we do it, but as everybody else doing it, answers no. A small man doesn't have to put in all this type of equipment, which we do. Mr Heatherham, please. Yes, we dealt with really the issue around checks in terms of a de minimis payment arrangement. This was trialled in France and abandoned after six months and they moved to a full cash ban just because of the people getting around it with multiple transactions and it was impossible to trace. In other words, if there's a limit of £100, then all of a sudden there were lots of people seemingly doing four or five £100 transactions in a day. It was deemed by the industry incidentally as well as by the police in France to be completely unworkable. The industry in France sought to have it transferred to a full ban, which is now the case. I wouldn't necessarily agree with that, but surely if you had photographic ID you'd spot the guy coming in every now and again, wouldn't you? Yes, but the problem is unless you then outlaw multiple transactions, you get into a very complex set of rules and like all of these things, unless the law is very, very clear indeed, then it's difficult for industry people to enforce it. It's difficult also for local authorities, more important for the police to enforce and understand because these become very complex. If I applied the washing machine test which you gave and somebody comes to the washing machine and they can't get cash and they just go next door and say, sod it and dump it in the river, surely there should be a limit on cash for that sort of thing? It's got to be a bit of common sense on that sort of thing, hasn't it? As you say, say it was £100, the only problem you've got is say you could come to my yard and get £100 and go to Jake's yard and get another £100 and go to the next yard and get, you know, you could split his load up into three loads and they would have got four or five different yards and the same thing. Well, it's still getting cash out there and obviously if people are wanting to go in the steel material and they're thinking, well, I could only steal £500 but I'll split it up and sell it to five different yards. I mean, we're not wanting to encourage it, I'm just trying to be a Dale's advocate in the north of Scotland where you've got rural and less scrap yards. People who obviously historically come in and get money for the metal, they actually, if you say we can take it, you're getting nothing the time I do my check and do all the ID, it's worth nothing. They'll just say you're making a fortune and they'll dump it in the way home. Which actually does happen when the price of metal goes down. They think you're ending up making a fortune. So it's people's perception as well. Okay, thank you. It's fine for me. Thank you. John Wilson, please. Thank you, convener, and just to pick up on the issue of perception because I think everybody around the table, like the convener did in terms of the example of the BT or Network Rail and the materials losses, but for many of the public, it's a brass plaque, it's the miners memorial statue that gets stolen for scrap is the main concern. How is an industry, do you see you challenging that perception that the scrap metal industry is actually supporting that level of crime? Let's go with Mr Heatherington, please. Yes, I mean, you know, we share the distress that these things cause, and many of our members have been contributors to and subscribe to some of these monuments, and in fact, in many cases where these thefts have occurred, our members are actually being the people who've raised the money to replace them. It's not out of guilt, it's out of a sense of association. These are relatively rare, they are deeply distressing, and it's perfectly clear that where a named plaque or a memorial is presented at a responsible scrap metal yard, that will be rejected by the people there and presumably and quickly reported. I mean, as it happened, the outbreak and the most notable series of these outbreaks happened in London, I think, which reached the national press, it turned out to be one yard in south London, and they set out in a deeply, deeply immoral way to collect these things. I mean, the volumes of metal involved in those sorts of theft are so small, the distress cause is enormous, the impact is enormous, but the actual volumes of metal are so small that they're not wanted by any responsible dealer, any dealer, one because of the impact and all the rest of it, but two because the volume is small, but there are things. Church roofs is a classic one, the lead from church roofs, which causes immense community stress and distress. We've done a lot with the lead industry now to try and control high grade, heavy grade lead so that our members are aware of the sorts of grades that may come off historic buildings. We've actually done a great deal to counter this. Now, I don't say that addresses all the perception issues, that's a longer journey. This bill, incidentally, is part of that journey, in our view. Mr McCann, please. When people talk about scrap being stolen, it gets out of hand, it's elaborated, it's like a storyteller. I'd say that the members here, they're lucky if it's one half of one half percent stolen metal goes into the yard because they've got too much to lose, and this is where I'm coming from. If you've got too much to lose, you don't take it, it's as simple as that. Or, like I said, here in Edinburgh, we've got a system, we turn around, please come in, tell us what went missing, ask to look over at the yard, the yard's open to them. We're quite happy with that. In Glasgow, they do something very similar, but they don't have the same rules as we have here in Edinburgh. So we get a wee bit upset when people turn around and say, ah, the scrapies, there are a bunch of crooks, there are a bunch of nerdy wells, no. I'll hold my head up, I'm very proud of the scrap industry, very, very proud, and I can go back to whenever called junk men, but this is the point. Everybody thinks that the scrap metal trade is run by crooks, it's not, these gentlemen here, their families have been in the scrap trade for years and years and years. I mean, I've got 60 odd years experience in the scrap trade because that's the way we were brought up. You had to learn from the bottom work the way up, and if somebody come in with stolen material, there's the door, or you phone the police. The police come in, they're quite happy. You'll find that the majority of the scrap merchants, the big ones, the police have got no problems. How many have you seen in court? None, except myself, I've been in court. I'm going to weigh back about 40-odd year ago, but the point is, do you want to stop the scrap? If you want to stop the scrap, sit and listen to these chaps, go round and do it slowly, bit by bit to pull out where we went wrong. We know where the systems went wrong, but do you listen? No. You're here today for us to listen, so where's the system going wrong, Mr McCann? The systems went wrong because the way, like, say, SEPAR and DEFRAN when they produced the waste industry, now the scrap to me, pardon me, these gentlemen don't agree with me, scrap to me is a product, it's not waste. We've got to process it, we spend a lot of money in equipment, we've got to process it, even in the waste industry, which I'm also in, the fact is, you take the material in, what you recover going in skips, it goes back into the system. If we weren't doing it, it cost this country a lot of money. At one time, the scrap merchants were blue-eyed boys because we saved the country money because we were recycling, I don't like the word, but we recycled. We brought material in, it was going to the steelworks, it was going to the brass foundries and so forth. We saved the country a lot of money, but now because certain elements are causing problems, it reflects on us at all. Unfortunately, with me, I get very passionate about it. When I see some of the bills that go through and I read them, I get upset. I'd rather sit and talk to you and say, look, if you've got a waste carriers license, the police stop them, which they've been doing, they stop and say, oh, I've got waste carriers, okay, on you go, because they're licensed. We are the ones who have got to take on the flag. We abide by the law. We make sure that everything goes well. I think that it's up to us to try and safeguard legitimate traders, but the problem that we have and the reason why this bill is in front of us is because there are folk out there who are obviously not trading legitimately and we have got to ensure that the miners' memorials and railway infrastructure and the drain covers, et cetera, are not disappearing and causing lots and lots of problems. It's closing down non-legitimate criminal traders that we're trying to do here, but we're here to hear your views. You can feed on anything you like. We're not playing about with this in terms of the scrutiny of this bill. It's up to us to try and make sure that it is as right as it possibly can be, because the last thing that we actually want to do is to revisit it at a later date, finding that the problems have not been resolved. Mr Adams, please. The industry fully supports it, convener, going back to the point about the brass plaques. To summarise, in my opinion, if the bill goes through as it stands, theft will still occur because these industries that I've already mentioned that are on the periphery of the scrap trade, the metal recycling trade will fall out with the scope of the bill. I know that there's been a lot in the press recently, particularly in Scotland, from SIPA about organised crime in the waste industry. The waste industry is going to fall out with the scope of this bill as it's written, so if the bill passes through as it's written at the moment, it will not eradicate metal theft. Mr Williams, please. I fully agree with Mr Adams there. I think that Mr McCann has obviously set out the fact that the main bigger scrap yards that you're a fixed entity, the police can come in and check your CTC records, everything, but it's the smaller traders, maybe the tenorant traders that are the ones that are possibly causing problems, that are harder to police, the ones that are maybe on the outskirts of the law who don't want to abide by the law mostly. That's the ones that we were a bit worried about, and as Mr Adams says, we have to incorporate other businesses, other companies that deal with metal that are not under the scope of this bill at the moment. I think that it would be very useful for the committee if you were to list these dealers for us so that we can look at that in some depth, all of the associated trades that we are dealing in metal. I think that that would be extremely useful if you wanted to do that, maybe via Mr Hetherington's organisation or individually, whatever it may be. Thank you, convener, and thank you for your responses. As the convener outlined, we are here as a committee to listen to your concerns about the legislation, because we need to make sure that we get the legislation right, and we need to relay that message to the Scottish Government. Part of the evidence session today is to allow us to hear what the industry thinks so that we can then challenge the Government in terms of what it is putting forward. Mr McCann, on your written submission to the committee today, you made reference to the separation of waste management licence from the scrap metal brokers licence. You raised a concern there about the separation of the licences. Would you want to expand on that today so that we can fully understand what you mean by that and what impact that may have in relation to what we are trying to tackle here in the underlying problem of scrap metal theft? The waste licence, which is done through SEPA, is entirely different from the broker's licence, entirely different. SEPA's licence, anybody can go along and apply. There are no real hard and fast rules, but they are the same people, like the car breakers. They can open 24-7. We are curtailed 7 in the morning to 5 at night, Saturday to 7 in the morning to 12 o'clock. We cannot buy anything after that. That is us shut down, and we are tired of it. We are quite happy with this, but the other ones, as they say on the peripheral, they turn around and they can work 24-7, or they walk into a pub. If they are not going to buy the scrap by cash, they will go and sell it elsewhere. The fact is that, because they have a licence from SEPA, and I keep going on about this, is the fact is that they are legalised. They have a licence for recycling. We have got the same licence. We have got to apply for the same licence, because SEPA is still coming to our yards and saying, we are not happy with this, we are not happy with that. We spend the money, and the ones don't. We are penalised for material that is going on, it has been stolen and handled. What we are asking for is a level of playing field. I keep saying to you, I am happy with the system we have got with the broker's licence. We have got too much to lose. If you buy scrap, if scrap is worth £100 a tonne and you buy it at £50 a tonne over the door, and the scrap is stolen, your charge will be reset, and you can lose your cash, you can lose your scrap, in fact, you can lose your licence, naturally lost, but that applies to us. It does not apply to those who have got licences for SEPA, so it has got to be on a level playing field. That is all I am asking. If we can get the people to understand the people who stay out the laws, and have a look closely, you will see that there are so many anomalies, it is unbelievable. Mr McCann, you made reference, and I am going to stump you, Mr Williamson, because in Mr Williamson's submission, he actually says, Mr McCann, you made reference there about potentially a broker who could lose their licence. Mr Williamson's submission more or less says that if somebody found breaking their licence and conditions on three misdemeanours, they should be struck off. That gives the impression that the current penalties that are in place and the possibility of losing your licence are not that strong in terms of the current regulations and legislation, and it would be useful to find out what, if you think, the current fine system or prosecution system and the licence system are strong enough to deal with the issues. I take on board the points that have been made by the witnesses before us today, that they are all legitimate business people who are carrying out legitimate businesses, but it is how we tackle the illegitimate businesses that are actually causing most of the problems, because, as the convener said in his opening remarks, difficultly is that we now hear reports of theft from British telecom network rail, and we have seen the footage on the television where it is shipped into the back of a container, the container is shipped off to a port, and then it is in China or India before we within a couple of weeks, and it is not going through any system in the Scotland or the UK. It is how do we tackle those issues and how is the trade? Can you assure us that you are fully behind us in looking at the penalties and other opportunities that we have to actually curtail this type of trade? I think that what Mr McCann was getting at is that you need a waste carriers licence for carrying what the class is waste, whether it is rubbish from a building site or scrap metal, which is obviously through SEPA. SEPA, you can get a licence for, I think, it is £140 or something for three years, so if you are a plumber, you need a waste carriers licence or a contractor or metal. Obviously, a lot of the itinerant and some of the smaller dealers have these carriers, but a lot of the police, it is only recently they have realised that you needed a broker's licence as well to deal with metal, because, obviously, I think a lot of the legislation, the police were not up to speed. Obviously, SEPA gives out a licence for the waste carriers, whereas your local authority gives out what they call a metal dealers licence, which most of us have, or an exemption to a metal dealers licence. The smaller ones have a broker's licence, which, obviously, if we have a metal dealers licence, we have opened times, times we shut the times where they are, we are fixed, whereas, obviously, the broker's licence or for the itinerants, they are travelling around, they are harder to police. I think that that is a big of the problem, is the policing of that. SEPA, obviously, I have got their own problems with other things. I mean, we only get visited three or four times a year from SEPA, but they obviously are legal for how good your yard is. I suppose that it is all down to finances for the amount of people that they have available to check those things. The three-stage thing was something that I suggested, but if somebody, obviously, was dealing with the fringes along, it caught three times to take the licence away from them. That was just a personal opinion. I thought that it could maybe work. Mr Adam, please. Mr Heffington is probably at best to comment more. I believe on the situation in England, which has been in place, and I believe that if an individual or a company is charged with metal theft, they will lose their licence. That should be the same for Scotland. The bill was put through in England two years ago, and there was a number of errors with it, which have since been changed, and I believe that it's been tightened up. Mr Heffington is probably best placed to comment on that. We heard about fit and proper person tests in the first session this morning. We would like to see that to be a fit and proper person test put in place within this bill as well. We would also like to see some clear definition of what criteria licencing authority could use in terms of a non-exclusive list of offences, for example, that they could take into account or should take into account. In terms of sentencing, we think that the sentencing levels laid out in the 1982 act as amended are inadequate. The rewards from people acting illegally on the margins of this business are potentially very high, and we believe that a level 3 fine, for example, is not an adequate disincentive. In fact, it's at the level where certain groups of people may well decide to take the hit on an occasional basis, and the rewards are worth it. So we think that the levels of fine for certain of these offences, primarily acting without a licence, I mean that should be the number one offence and should really attract the maximum fine. So, yep, as a whole, I think we believe that the levels are not adequate and it's currently defined, and equally, there should be the ability for a licencing authority to refuse a licence on the basis of a fit and proper person test, or to revoke a licence, importantly, if a certain range of offences need to be taken into account. We'd also ask that those who are guilty and have been found guilty of serious environmental offences, not just criminal offences, should also have those taken into account, so that we don't get, as we talked about, the proliferation of waste crime into metal theft and back again, which is, I think, one of the dangers. Mr McCann, please. As I say once again that the thing comes back during date, we've actually got to look at it very, very closely and examine, I mean the paperwork, I mean I've got paperwork here, I could show you, it goes back to the waste directives and when you look at it, you've got hundreds and hundreds of waste things, but because scrap is classified as waste, anybody can apply for a waste transfer licence and a waste carriers licence, and this is wrong, it's got to be defined properly. And the other aspect of the waste, in just my own opinion, this is nothing to do with scrap metal being stolen. This comes back down to inland revenue looking for ways of collecting revenue for themselves, and it's so obvious, it's unbelievable, but to pass the buck on. Yes, I'd love to see scrap metal stock, the stone metals, that they can only do if they tighten up the rules. Can I point out, Mr McCann, that at this moment in time this Parliament has no powers over the inland revenue? I wish it were different, and we are looking at this entirely because of the aspect of the difficulties that many organisations and people in general on a day-to-day basis are having to suffer because of metal thefts. The ones that have been highlighted by the committee today, which include rail infrastructure, drains, memorial statues, this has got nothing to do with the revenue, but the inconvenience that this is causing people right across the country. Alex Rowley, please. I just very briefly, firstly, welcome and thanks for coming along today. Could I just briefly talk here about a need for a national register of scrap metal dealers? Do you maybe want to say a bit about that? Mr Heatherington, please. We recognise that the licensing process is going to be a local process. However, unlike a lot of activities licenced by local authorities, this is not really a localised activity and is highly mobile. I mean, these gentlemen's sites are static in the locations they are in and therefore they can be seen and looked at and inspected. However, they may well be buying from businesses' suppliers coming from all over Scotland and they will be selling, by definition, all over Scotland and beyond Scotland. Itinerant collectors, I hate the word, I think it's pejorative but I prefer mobile collectors if we could have that amended at some point, equally are highly mobile and will work in multiple authority areas. It is therefore, I think, essential that there is a central place, an easily accessible place, that the public, the police and our members, in other words, sites who are buying off these people should be able to identify who are licensed, legitimate licensed operators in this industry. That requires local authorities to be under an obligation to provide the data and that that could be collated in a single place and provided online. Bearing in mind that a lot of the public sell some of them on their doorstep or give to collectors and I think it's right they should know that the people who are working in their communities, door-to-door collecting, are actually legitimate because that way we might be able to also deal a death blow to the unfortunate occurrence of multiple local collectors going around some housing estates in some of our urban conurbations. I think it is an essential part of enforcement to have this national register because if the police pull over a mobile collector somewhere west of Edinburgh, they won't have any means of legitimately knowing whether he's licensed or isn't licensed on which authority to apply for to determine and having somebody present their license within five days is not adequate. A license should be displayed on premises visible to the public or displayed on a vehicle so that people can see immediately, are you licensed or aren't because the police can then take action immediately. If somebody hasn't displayed a license, they're committing an offence, they can then at least take the load away from them. It's the sort of sanction we need which is quick policing and is effective policing. SEPA for example are prepared in principle to undertake this work and provide this register. It could sit alongside their existing registers, so I think it could be done. There is a cost issue, but I think that that's one that probably is open to discussion. Does anyone else have any comments on national register? Mr Williams, please. I don't know if you could make a law where empty can sell any matter to any person at the moment, because 95% or 98% of the country wants to divide by the law and make it illegal for them to sell to somebody who is not a properly registered dealer or scrap merchant. The majority of the public is going to deal with somebody who is properly registered. I don't know if that can fit in this bill or something, it was just an idea there. I don't know if that's practical, but we've listened to that suggestion. Mr Rowley, please. Will I coffee, please? Thank you very much, convener. Mr Heaventon, you mentioned the metal theft alert system in your opening remarks. Could you tell us a wee bit more about that? Does it operate in Scotland or is it in England? Do all the dealers participate in this? How does it work? Is it a visual thing or is it a text system? Could you describe it for us, please? It's an online alert system. All our members virtually work with smartphones. The smartphone is de rigueur and so all our members get a message identifying the theft and preferably using a photograph, a photograph similar of the item or the material that's stolen. This goes out within an hour of us being alerted to it. Has it been effective so far in tracking down and tracing items that have perhaps been stolen? Yes, it has, but it's a function of speed. If we get a really good description and we get it out within hours, very often it's a member saying we've rejected the load or such and such looks familiar or the vehicle looks familiar. Who gets the information? Who participates? Do the police get it? No, the police don't. This is aimed at the trade because that's where it's dead. We assume that's where a stolen material is destined for, but as convener has alluded to, we're seeing in Scotland now some direct exports beginning to emerge, but that's a different issue. In terms of the number of traders, dealers or individuals, we're not all participating in that scheme. It would be great if they were, I suppose. How do we widen it and bring in more people to participate in that? We've actually just formed an industry partnership with a group who have a similar but smaller system, which is much better than ours technically, and we've raised some money to spread that out, and that will be linked to the police. We'll provide a service then for police notification. The problem is speed because by the time it's getting into the police, I'm not criticising them, it's a resource issue. These things are not getting out quickly enough. There is a real problem with speed, and I think colleagues have said, if we'd not notified of these things really within the day, then it is difficult to track stuff. There is more we can do with, we've done a lot with BT, there's more we can do with the Scottish Electric with SSE and with Scottish Power, who haven't really been up to speed on this. We are envisaging rolling this out on a far more widespread basis beyond our own membership. Mr Adams, please. Also, in a way, it's an issue of closing down the avenues for the unscrupulous side of the trade to take material to. If someone offers you, you've got some lovely copper cable here, you're not going to buy it, you're not going to give them cash for it, you don't want it because it's not what you do. So if the bill goes through the way it is at the moment and the metal recycling industry has a full identification scheme and not cash, but other industries on their periphery are still able to operate out with the laws, there still will be a market for the unscrupulous material. So that, in a way, if all these other industries are pooled into the bill, that there won't be much of a market, if at all, hopefully, for this material, which should shut it down. People aren't going to steal material if they can't get money for it. I want to push a wee bit on the—obviously, you've given examples of your legitimate businesses and how you operate and that you comply with all the regulations. I'm not an expert in the industry at all, but I'm understanding that, from what's been said, if you take the pyramid of the cycling, it's the ones at the bottom of the pyramid where they don't have to comply to the same regulation that you have. Mr Heatherington mentioned smartphones. Obviously, technology is becoming much, much cheaper. Is there any of the regulations that you have to comply to as the larger operating businesses that, in your opinion, could be pushed easily down to the broker level in local authorities? Mr Heatherington. Yes, we believe that all of these are quite manageable right the way through the trade, from the larger sites right the way through to the mobile collector. We've tested this across the border, mainly in Wales, where mobile collectors have been encouraged to use smartphones to photograph the material they're buying or they're collecting because, in our view, they should take some identification of where they collected material, photograph addresses, and then photograph payment methods as well if they're paying for material. It can all be done and recorded on a phone and transferred very simply. This is not Superman's stuff. It can all be done with no additional cost in terms of equipment. It does take a bit of time, but it's time well spent. All the provisions that we're seeing here for identity and for payment restrictions, in our view, should be applied at all levels of the industry and on the fringes of the industry, as we said. We don't see any barriers for the small business to gain access through that. In fact, the proportionate cost is higher on the larger business because their installations have to be more complex and networked. These are higher costs, but all that technology exists at the moment. Any other comments on that, gentlemen? When you were talking about a level playing field, did you mean the smaller businesses in that pyramid that you described, or the ones external to the metal industry as the waste areas? We agree and we do our job, but it doesn't apply to the smaller lad. It's just an anomaly, and it's something we've got to try and address. If we can address it, it's great. These gentlemen here do not want to go down the road where they end up in court and lose their business because their name, believe it or not, is very, very important to them. We guard their names very generously, but we do get upset because of the way the bill has been written. We're going to criminalise this. In fact, to make a point, and God be trust, every bill pays cash, and that's a fact of life. I'm not trying to be flippant about it, but it's something that you've got to look at then the day to say, are we going the right way or are we going the wrong way? Because once you start it and it goes through, then you've got the problems. Cameron Buchanan, please. Can I go back? Having visited a scrapyard, I see the problems of this storage for 48 hours. It just doesn't seem practical, but I see that Mr McCann at Dalton stores his metal for longer than 48 hours. What do you think about this storage thing? It seemed to me very onerous at the time because the police obviously don't come within 48 hours and they're not there. Can I ask for your comments? Let's start with Mr McCann, who manages to cope at the moment with that. Basically, because what we have in Edinburgh and the smaller material, say from the householder, you hold that stuff for 14 days. The stuff that you buy off the engineering works, no, you don't, because you know exactly where it comes from. You've got a paper trail, so that moves on. It's the smaller material and that's where I'm applying back to the small merchants. They hold it for 14 days, so that part is clear. If it goes down to Mr Williamson's yard, he realizes where he's buying it off. It's set there for 14 days. The police have had more than an ample chance. Then it sits in his yard probably for another 14 days anyway, because of the way the markets got them down. This is how it's played, but unfortunately it doesn't have play the way we would like to see the rules. We are my winner, but nobody else will buy this one, so we are the ones who are following the baby. Mr Williamson, please. I don't agree with that, because obviously in a yard, if you say you've got an acre of a yard and you've got a waybridge, and to give you an idea, you get these skip lorries coming in with the council material in like their 20ft container size, so they'll come in and you would probably tip two or three of them in this room. That would take up maybe 10, 15 per cent of your yard space. By the end of the day, you would run out of yard space if you had to keep that material, not move it for 48 hours. There is another thing in the bill about notifying when you process material a date and a time. Obviously, the bigger the yard, the worse it is, because obviously when the material comes in, we put it in machines and we chop up and we squash it and we bail it for moving on to larger steelworks or going abroad, but obviously it's just the volume of material coming in, because obviously it's always light and loose, so you have to process it. Other thing, it would probably cause a problem for SEPA because you've got tonnage limits, you've got space confinement, you've got certain areas you can only have certain materials in for a certain length of time. Certain materials could come in and you could chop it and put it in stock and wait for the market to go up, but I'm generally talking about the scrap. It wouldn't work. You would have to shut my yard down within a week. Mr Adams, please. Yeah, just an agreement with what I've stirred. Williamson said really, you saw the scrap yard matter and I'm right, it would be impossible. We'd operate on a Monday and a Thursday and that would really be it. SEPA would have huge issues with it. Also, the health and safety executive would have huge issues with it. The industry's under increased pressure from the health and safety executive and also, indeed, our own insurance companies would have huge issues with it, so it's not workable. I mean, the different aspect of this is, of course, that the definition of a mobile collector or itinerant collector is that they don't operate a site, so I'm not quite certain how a mobile collector would hold material for 48 hours or whatever it was without a site, apart from piling it up on the road outside the house. Mr Williamson? One other point. If, obviously, the cash band comes in and we all expect that it's going to stop 95 per cent of the theft, the actual 40-hour things, it's not needed as much. Yes, because you're wanting to keep the material for the police to see it. If you ban the cash and you think you've stopped the crime, in essence, you don't need to keep the material. Okay, John Wilson, please. Thank you, convener. Just to follow up, Mr Eddarton's submission to the committee, you make reference to the fact that the current bill, their Weapons and Licensing Scotland bill, wants to try to stop cash payments, and you then go on to talk about the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 in England and Wales. The bill being presented in Scotland contains significant weaknesses compared to the legislation down south. Would you want to expand on what those weaknesses are, because what we're trying to do is, while not mirror the English and Welsh legislation, but certainly get to a level playing field and possibly get a better legislation in Scotland and regulation in Scotland than currently applies if there are weaknesses with the English and Welsh legislation? Mr Heatherington, please. Thank you. We've dealt with quite a number of those weaknesses as we see them today. I'll just very quickly go through the definition of scrap metal, we believe, isn't inadequate. The definition of a metal dealer, especially where the bill describes a buying and selling of scrap metal as the definition of a scrap metal dealer which should be buying or selling in our view, very strongly our view. Payment methods, I know that Scottish Government were keen to avoid getting into some detail here, but I do think that this is an area with payments that there has to be some detail, there has to be some prescription, because this is a complex area. For example, I'll give you one example, but cash cards that don't require you to hold any identification, I mean that in our view is the direct equivalent of cash. There may be an argument that the bill as drafted is non-prescriptive, but in essence without spelling that out, I think it actually lends itself to misinterpretation and poor enforcement. Local authority licensing, I've dealt with that in terms of register. I mean inconsistent licensing conditions. If we are to see high levels of inconsistency, I take mobile collectors for example. If mobile collectors are only to be licensed in one local authority, they will license themselves in the cheapest local authority, or the one that's least stringent in terms of its condition. I mean this will, I've termed it licensed tourism, but this will be rampant and these are very bright people and I think that has to be dealt with and that probably best dealt with through strong guidance and a strong duty on consistency placed on local authorities, licensing authorities, sorry. Yes, display, I've dealt with the display of licenses, the establishing of seller's identity, we haven't talked about it too much, but again I know Scottish Government sought to avoid too much detail here, but the bill on the face of it or certainly in guidance, if guidance can be definitive, has got to set out what forms of identity and what processes are required within the bill. In other words, is it, do you need to verify the name and address by reference to a publicly available means of ID that contains a photograph and an address, for example, which would be our recommendation, and then some alternatives. Tag and hold, we've referred to, suitable applicant or the fit and proper person test, we believe is an omission, we believe that there should be consultation with CEPA on application of a new licence or for a renewal of a licence because, and Joe has highlighted this, like it or not, the correlation between waste licensing and scrap metal dealer licensing is very close indeed and if somebody is in, frankly, in breach of one then that should be taken into account. And I think there's some work needs to be done on who is being licenced. These are not all individuals, a large number of the licences in Scotland will be corporate entities of one sort or another and I think some thought has to be given as to whether you're licencing the site manager, it's back to the discussion you had in the first session or whether it's the owner or the controlling mind and the owner and the controlling mind may not be the same and that might not be the same as the site manager. So I think in a lot of these areas what our assertions are that this, I'm afraid, I think the bill needs more detail. I would also comment because I've been asked to, that I think trying to mesh this in with the Civic Government Act 1982 adds a level of complexity and interweaving here which is, does make it very difficult to read and understand, even for those of us whose job it is to read and try and understand these things. We've been important enough to actually produce a draft, a suggested rewording of some sections of this which might bring it all together in one place, which the Scottish Government officials have and your clerks have. Just to say, we would be very happy as this moves on to work with this committee and with Scottish Government officials to try and make this a better bit of legislation. We would like to see the best legislation in Scotland. Thank you very much. Do any of you other gentlemen have anything else to add? No, okay. Can I thank you very much for your evidence today? I now suspend and we move into private session.