Seòmar agus comataidhean

Amendment 15 will remove the requirement for disclosure, during the application process, that covers only spent convictions, and widen the provision to include any relevant conviction, whether that conviction is spent or unspent.

The Management of Offenders (Scotland) Act 2019 reduced the periods in which a conviction becomes spent. For example, a fine is considered spent and therefore does not need to be disclosed after 12 months, rather than the previous period of five years. For those who are under 18 when they are convicted, the disclosure period for a six-month prison sentence has been reduced from three and a half years to one and a half years, and for a fine from two and a half years to six months.

Following careful consideration during stage 1, I consider that amendment 15 is a proportionate and balanced way to strengthen the effectiveness of the licensing system while ensuring that only relevant offences are taken into consideration.

I want to make clear that a person’s having a previous conviction does not lead to a blanket ban on their holding a fireworks licence, nor will disclosure of such a conviction lead to an automatic refusal of a licence application. The purpose of the amendment is to allow an informed and balanced decision to be made on each application.

Although I understand that Mr Findlay is keen to ensure that a robust system is in place, I consider that amendments 70 to 74 adjust the wording of the disclosure requirement in a way that could cause confusion and which does not substantively change the requirement on applicants, and, therefore, I do not support them.

However, in relation specifically to the requirement to disclose convictions for offences involving fire, I can see the potential value in progressing an amendment to that effect. That would include offences such as wilful fire raising, and I consider that there is a valid point to be made that it may not be appropriate for those who have demonstrated such past behaviour to be able to hold a fireworks licence. I would welcome further discussion with Mr Findlay to explore that specific point further ahead of stage 3.

I do not consider amendment 77 to be necessary or appropriate to include in legislation. Scottish ministers will, of course, take into account all disclosed convictions when making an assessment of whether to grant a licence.

I do not support amendments 70 to 74 and 77. I encourage Mr Findlay not to press amendment 70 and not to move the others, and I hope that the committee does not support them if he does so. However, I clarify to Mr Findlay that, on amendment 74, I would be happy to work with him ahead of stage 3 in order to create an amendment for stage 3 that I can support at that point.

Yes. Obviously, there are a number of ways in which you could approach that. As we know, the firework review group came up with a set of recommendations. The licensing scheme is a key part of the bill, but it is a key part of a wider set of provisions. As Pauline McNeill mentioned, there are other provisions in the bill to deal with certain types of behaviour.

The idea behind the licensing scheme is to make the purchase of fireworks a planned event and to move away from the situation where people can buy fireworks spontaneously without having to understand how to use them, where to use them, how to use them safely and so on. If the bill is passed and people have to apply for a licence, they will have to learn about the safe and lawful use of fireworks before they are able to use them. Therefore, I consider the licensing scheme to be a key part of the set of provisions.

It is both. There is a requirement on suppliers to take reasonable steps to establish whether the purchaser has a licence or is exempt. There is also a duty on the person purchasing to have a licence in order to comply with the law. That will also apply to delivery drivers, which covers the point that Russell Findlay and others made about online sales.

No. Training is just a part of the whole policy intent, as I think I have outlined in my responses. I take the member’s point, but if you said that you would just like people to be trained before they use a firework, without a licence and mandatory training, you would be reducing it to some sort of voluntary system—[Interruption.] Is that what you were implying?

Within the powers that are available to Parliament, that is the method that was designed in order to effect the policy intention, which is to make people use fireworks in a safe and lawful way and to ensure that people cannot spontaneously purchase fireworks—they could not just run into the shops, buy fireworks and use them in ways that most of us would consider to be, at least in part, antisocial. I hope that that answers Katy Clark’s question.

For those reasons, I do not support amendments 46, 60 or 61, and I ask the committee not to support them.

Can you give me a moment? I do not have that information in front of me, so I will have to look it up.

Will the member take an intervention?

The licensing scheme is designed to be used by individuals. The member is therefore correct: the individual would apply for a licence, not the community group, and in that case they would be responsible only for use of fireworks. Some wider issues about organised displays have been raised, but they do not fall within the scope of the bill; instead, such displays are covered by a public entertainment licence and would potentially include public liability insurance. Just to clarify, I point out that an individual would be responsible for only the fireworks element of a display, not the wider display itself.

It is unclear how amendment 68 would work in practice. It does not enable a licence to be applied for or used differently than is currently drafted; the licence is still held solely on an individual basis. I am concerned that if the amendment were accepted, it could be perceived that, because a licence had been granted to a person on behalf of a community group or charity, everyone connected to that group or charity would be permitted to use it. I wonder whether the member will take that point on board, because it would be at odds with the system’s aims of ensuring that everyone who is permitted to purchase and use fireworks in Scotland knows how to do so safely and lawfully, having completed the mandatory training course. I am concerned that the amendment could create a situation in which members of such groups inadvertently commit an offence by using a licence that has been granted on behalf of a community group to a person.

Again, I am sympathetic to the intention behind amendment 68, but for the reasons that I have set out, I cannot support it and ask committee members not to support it, either.

I do not consider that the amendments that Mr Greene has lodged would make necessary changes. As an example, amendment 75 would have no practical effect, because the 2014 act already applies and will already have to be complied with. For the reasons that I have given, I do not support Mr Greene’s amendments and I ask him not to move them.

Amendment 16 agreed to.

Amendments 48 and 72 to 74 not moved.

Section 7, as amended, agreed to.

Section 8—Fireworks training course

Amendments 75 and 49 not moved.

Section 8 agreed to.

Section 9—Grant of fireworks licence

We have heard Mr Greene speak about raising the minimum age to apply for a licence and about seeking to add a provision to enable a fireworks licence to be granted to an individual on behalf of a community group or charity.

With regard to the minimum age, the Pyrotechnic Articles (Safety) Regulations 2015 make it an offence to make fireworks available on the market to anyone under 18 years old. If the amendment were accepted, the legal age to purchase fireworks would remain at 18 while the age that someone could apply for a licence to be able to lawfully possess and use fireworks in Scotland would be 21.

I disagree with Mr Findlay—I think that there are comparable age-restricted products in licensing schemes in Scotland, such as the scheme for air weapons, which align the permitted age to purchase the product with the minimum age for licensing.

The Scottish Government is of the view that 18 is an age at which most persons are able to assume the full rights and responsibilities of adulthood. Denying persons aged 18 to 21 the right to apply for a licence to possess and use fireworks, when it is deemed to be appropriate for them to possess and use other goods that require similar levels of maturity, could undermine—and possibly discredit—the fireworks licensing system.

That could also discourage compliance with the law—a point that was made, I think, by Rona Mackay. It could also remove the opportunity for better training and education in safe, lawful and appropriate possession and use of fireworks, as per the mandatory training course, which is the point that Fulton MacGregor made. Although I am sympathetic to the intention behind it, I cannot support amendment 67.

Amendment 68 seeks to include a specific provision enabling a person to apply for a licence on behalf of a community group or charity. There were no calls during stage 1 from community groups, or similar organisations, to include additional provisions within the licensing system to enable a licence to be applied for on behalf of that type of group.

In fact, the bill has been drafted to include exemptions to enable community displays to continue to take place. There is nothing to stop a member of any such group applying for a fireworks licence, should they wish to do so. That provision in relation to community groups is set out in section 4(3), which states that a person with a fireworks licence can “purchase ... possess or use” fireworks on behalf of their own group or, indeed, another group.