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My ministerial colleagues and I are always prepared to keep the law under review. Indeed, that willingness to review the law led us to introduce the bill.

The bill reflects a period of significant consultation and engagement with the public and stakeholders, alongside careful consideration of the evidence available, a key component of which was examining the existing legislation. The conclusions of the firework review group and the misuse of pyrotechnics stakeholder discussions identified gaps and a need for primary legislation.

Just to be clear, the firework review group reviewed the existing legislation, and the bill that you have in front of you is based on its programme of work and its evidence gathering. Further, amendment 59 would require a review of gaps in existing legislation or unnecessary legislation, not enforcement. Therefore, I consider that further review before commencement is not necessary and that, in fact, by delaying the commencement of these necessary provisions, the amendment would do a disservice to those stakeholders and members of the general public who have made their views on the need for legislative change clear. I ask Mr Greene not to press amendment 59, and, should he do so, I ask the committee not to support it.

The member is partly right, in that we cannot regulate behaviour outside of Scotland. That is why we used the term “supply” in drafting the legislation, so that it covers all parts of the process that are not at the point of purchase. Only specialist couriers can deliver fireworks, and the fireworks will be marked as explosives so that they cannot be delivered by normal couriers.

There are lots of examples, so I do not want members to read too much into the particular one that I will use. I use it for illustrative purposes.

Let us say that a parent sees their child with a firework, does not know where they got it from—they certainly did not give it to the child—takes it off the child and then takes it to the police station or goes to destroy it. Under section 4 as drafted, they would not commit an offence because they would have a reasonable excuse for having that firework in their possession without having a licence.

We cannot foresee what situations might arise. I have no doubt that they will be infrequent. However, section 4 as drafted enables people to rely on the reasonable excuse defence to avoid committing an offence and the prosecution and conviction that could follow. I do not wish, and I am sure that the committee does not wish, to criminalise people who have done nothing wrong and find themselves in highly unusual circumstances. The entire section needs to be read to give the context. Section 4(4) already makes it clear that the section is subject to the exemptions that are listed in schedule 1. Therefore, amendment 60 is not necessary.

We also heard from Mr Greene regarding amendment 61, which would require a fireworks licence to be presented at the point of purchase, either online or in person.

There is already a requirement upon suppliers to take reasonable steps to establish at the point of purchase that the person they are supplying has a licence. Rona Mackay made that point. Crucially, that requirement extends to other parts of the supply process, such as a courier who makes a delivery following an online purchase. Other points in that supply chain—for instance, a delivery driver—will have the duty to check the licence. That happens with other age-restricted products as well.

I believe that the maximum penalties that are set out in the bill are proportionate to the offences in the bill. That is the key point. All the offences are subject to level 5 penalty caps. Those levels have not been arbitrarily chosen—they have been deliberately included following careful consideration, and they are based on the types of offences in the bill and the levels of penalty that are applicable in other fireworks legislation. That ensures that there is consistency, transparency and proportionality across the bill and across the legislation on fireworks overall.

I have listened to the arguments from Mr Findlay and Mr Greene. Mr Greene raised an instance in which something very serious had happened involving fireworks. However, it is likely—Mr MacGregor made this point—that, where fireworks or pyrotechnics are used against emergency workers in a very serious offence, that would be taken forward through other legislation, or possibly through common-law offences such as assault or breach of the peace. Under both those offences, long custodial sentences up to and including life imprisonment can be handed down. I hope that that gives Mr Greene some comfort on that point.

No. It was actually consideration, and it was to do with aligning the bill with other legislation that is similar.

We are not aware of any specific or compelling evidence that higher maximum penalties are necessary to deal with the offending behaviour that we are speaking about. Therefore, I believe that there is little justification for increasing the maximum available penalties, and that the penalties that are set out in the bill strike the right balance, are proportionate and give the courts the appropriate powers to deal with people who commit such offences.

Katy Clark raised the issue of other disposals. Of course, other disposals are available, at the discretion of the court, based on the circumstances of the case.

I ask Mr Findlay not to press amendment 62 and not to move his other amendments in the group. Failing that, I ask the committee to vote against them.

The Scottish Government’s policy of having a presumption against short sentences has been debated, but it is important to keep in mind the fact that it is a presumption, not a ban. In any given case, the court can decide to impose a sentence of a short period of imprisonment, but only if no other method of dealing with the person is appropriate.

I think that that information is part of the data that we gave to the committee. From looking at it briefly now, it looks as though no custodial sentences have been imposed for existing fireworks offences. However, that does not mean that, if there was a more serious incident of the kind that I described earlier, a custodial sentence would not be imposed. Let us say, for example, that somebody had injured an emergency services worker. That would be proceeded against under a different piece of legislation. I hope that that makes sense.

I will finish what I am saying and then I will come back to the member.

A defence of that nature provides a degree of comfort to retailers that they do not have to take extraordinary and impractical steps with regard to the sale of products that are subject to legal restrictions. It is for that reason that the standard approach was taken in the bill.

Mr Greene’s amendment 66 would greatly reduce that comfort, and would mean that that defence would not be available, even if the supplier took reasonable steps to establish whether the person whom they were supplying had a licence or was otherwise exempt. I do not think that it is fair that a supplier should face criminal conviction or punishment in those circumstances. The likely consequence of the amendment would be a reluctance to sell fireworks, given the possibility of conviction despite taking reasonable steps to comply with the law. Where sales continued, the transaction might prove overly onerous and time consuming, and add to the cost of doing business for both the supplier and the professional businesses that were legitimately purchasing fireworks in circumstances in which they were exempt but having to go to extraordinary lengths to prove that.

I understand and sympathise with the intent to ensure that suppliers comply with the law. However, for the reasons that I have set out, I do not think that the amendment is appropriate.

I give way to Jamie Greene at this point.

I appreciate what the member is saying, and it is understandable that she is asking the question. I cannot really answer it, though, because we have not been able to undertake the consultation exercise. However, I have made it clear on the record that we are committed to ensuring that the fee is set at a reasonable rate, because I very much understand the arguments against making the fee a barrier. We do not want to do that; we want to ensure that people are able to do the right thing.

Section 4 of the bill sets out, among other things, that

“It is an offence for a person, without reasonable excuse, to purchase, acquire, possess or use a firework ... without ... a fireworks licence.”

Regarding amendment 60, I understand that Mr Greene is seeking to strengthen the language in relation to those offences to ensure that the offences can be effectively enforced and to address any concerns around that. However, I have issues with the amendment. Section 4 has been carefully drafted with the understanding that people who otherwise would not be exempt might make a genuine mistake—I think that Katy Clark was alluding to that point—or be in a situation that is outwith their control in which they are, for example, inadvertently in possession of a firework.

A similar provision for a defence of reasonable excuse operates in relation to offences involving the possession of corrosive substances under the Offensive Weapons Act 2019.

I think that we are going significantly off topic. The first few amendments in the set of amendments before us relate to use of fireworks without a licence and possession of fireworks without a licence. Those are the offences that we are discussing here. I am content that the penalties that are in the bill are proportionate, and I think that those that Mr Findlay has suggested are not proportionate for the offences in question. The penalties have been carefully considered as part of the development of the bill in order to align them with those for similar offences in other fireworks legislation.

I move on to amendment 66. For such offences, it is standard for a supplier to have as a defence that they took reasonable steps to establish that the person whom they supplied had a licence or was exempt. For example, versions of such provisions can be found in the UK Parliament’s recent Offensive Weapons Act 2019 as it applies in Scotland in connection with age-restricted sales, and in the Scottish Parliament’s Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 as it applies to age-restricted sales of alcohol.

The current defence allows for the court to make a judgment as to the facts of the sale. It means that, when a person is sold fireworks who should not have been, there is no offence if the retailer can show that they genuinely tried to follow the rules but nevertheless did not due to something that would not have been apparent to an ordinary supplier who was acting diligently. That could include, for example, a genuine mistake or clever deception on the part of the buyer.