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Presumably, that used to always be around bonfire night and now there are other dates in the calendar when you get distressed animals. Is that a new development?

I thank the witnesses for coming to see us.

David, how long, typically, would the season that you referred to last?

That is the figure for 2021.

Does the type of behaviour that we are talking about occur only around 5 November? Does it occur at other times of the year, when fireworks are used to celebrate religious festivals and so on?

From the policing perspective, is there a concern that licensing measures will create a bigger black market?

On Monday, we visited Blackburn and heard evidence from people about problems there. We were told that adults supply young people with fireworks. Apparently, there is a guy in a white van who pops up every year and does a roaring trade, and there is another adult who stockpiles fireworks in his home. Alasdair Hay has already said that an outright ban could cause a greater black market. Do you think that the licensing provision will be sufficient to stop Blackburn’s white van man?

I have a quick question about licensing that I should have asked Alasdair Hay earlier. If the licences last for five years, what would the mechanism be for having them revoked? What grounds would there be to do so? Has that been built into the bill? Would the only ground be criminal conviction or would the grounds include misuse of fireworks, supplying them to others and things of that nature?

From the submissions, it seems that there are two key issues: the noise element, which many people do not like; and the much more serious issue of the deliberate use of fireworks to target members of the public, property or the emergency services. Do you have any statistics about the number of those types of incidents over the years? It sounds as if there has been an annual increase, but has that been measured or quantified in any way that you know of?

You have figures for 2018 and 2019, and then your figures jump to 2021.

During the consultation, the term “no-firework areas” was changed to “firework control zones”. David Hamilton has already referred to a bit of public confusion about what that actually means. Before people, especially pet owners, breathe a sigh of relief, I would point out that, although the perception of no-firework areas is that there would be no fireworks in those areas, they could, in fact, still be used for official displays and by professional organisations. Have we missed an opportunity here? Should the term have been, in your view, no-firework areas? Given the nuances involved, how important will it be to properly communicate this to people?