Seòmar agus comataidhean

Absolutely, because it is key. The best way to achieve the culture change on fireworks that we talked about at the beginning is to make sure that the public have that awareness of how to use fireworks safely, and for everyone to respect everyone else. People also need to have a strong knowledge of how to keep themselves safe. We provide that through consistent public messaging, which we repeat year on year. Every time the regulations change, we will update the messaging accordingly.

I envisage that the provision will result in an overall reduction in the number of fireworks going off and in the unpredictable and sporadic nature of that. However, I take your point about the use of private displays. I am open to considering the Parliament’s view on that. I am particularly interested to see what the committee says about that provision in its report.

We considered that. In a moment, I will ask David Bell to explain the process that we went through to get to the point that we are now at.

The misuse of pyrotechnics is a growing problem at certain events and in certain places. That was evidenced to us by Police Scotland, so we were really keen to get a provision in the bill that worked to address that. There are gaps in the existing legislation in relation to the carrying and possession of pyrotechnics, which might inhibit the police from taking proactive and preventative action before a situation becomes dangerous and difficult to control. That is key, and that is what we seek to achieve with the provision.

In 2017, Police Scotland had a working group on the issue, which presented recommendations. In 2021, the Scottish Government hosted stakeholder discussions, which proposed

“an offence of being in possession of a pyrotechnic in a public place without a reasonable excuse or lawful authority”.

That proposal was considered and consulted on as part of the 2021 consultation. However, when we were developing the bill, we felt that there was potential for unintended consequences to arise from the wider provisions in the bill as it was drafted at that time. There was potential that it would deter the legitimate and necessary use of pyrotechnic articles for personal safety, such as visual distress signals. That became a concern, so we thought that a more specific offence should be developed, which resulted in the provision that is now in the bill.

Perhaps David Bell will add some more details.

I feel that we have already answered that question; it is very similar to the question that Russell Findlay asked about enforcement and statistics. In fact, Elinor Findlay has already read out those statistics, and we have said—

The scale of the problem is not limited to enforcement and the number of people who would end up in prison. That is not how people in Scotland would characterise it.

Yes.

The bill is not emergency legislation—it is not right for the member to characterise it in that way. I admit that the timetable has been slightly speeded up, but the bill would certainly not come into the category of emergency legislation.

We have already covered some of the specific information with regard to the prosecution data, both in my answers and in Elinor Findlay’s answer to Russell Findlay. If the committee has not seen, or is unable to get hold of, that data, which was part of the evidence review in 2019, we can certainly send that over—I think that we have already committed to doing so. That data shows that enforcement is already taking place.

I reiterate what I said in my previous answer. Scotland spends an immense amount of resources on preparing for bonfire night and on getting people to adhere to the current regulations. If you speak to the police or the fire service, or to local government, they will tell you that themselves. That is why we need to go further, with stricter controls than we have now. The amount of effort that we expend on something that happens on only a few days of the year is disproportionate, as is the impact that that has on the people of Scotland. The people of Scotland have told us that they want to see change in this area.

I accept that some of this is a bit more complicated than we might have wanted it to be. If Scotland was an independent country, we would probably be able to do things in a slightly different way. However, various complicating factors have affected how we have had to produce the legislation, for reasons that I am sure we will touch on later.

When we were considering developing legislation, of course, we looked at the existing legislation in the area and evaluated how it was being used. The fireworks review group had all the stakeholders represented on it, including those from the fireworks industry. The group was tasked specifically with looking at the current regime, at whether there were gaps in the law and at other regimes internationally to see whether it could come up with something that would help us to change the culture around how we use fireworks in Scotland. The group presented recommendations to me, and this legislation is part of my work in taking those recommendations forward.

I touched on that in my answer to Jamie Greene. Many people would just like fireworks to be banned. I think that people want that for a couple of reasons: they think that it is simple and would be easy for everybody to understand. The powers that are available to the Scottish Parliament mean that we do not have the ability to introduce a ban in Scotland. That approach is not available to us under the constitutional settlement. Therefore, we considered what powers were available to us and have used the maximum amount of powers of the Scottish Parliament to put in place the system that we are introducing because I wanted to reflect the Scottish public’s desire for tighter controls on fireworks.

As I said, there is a legal reason not to have a ban but there is also a strong policy reason. Personally, I enjoy going to organised fireworks displays, as I am sure many people do. I know that many people use fireworks responsibly and want to continue to do so. That is important. It also reflects the debate that we are having about proportionality. We do not want to be seen to be punishing people who use fireworks responsibly. We want people to be able to continue to do that if that is what they want to do.

The measures that we have come up with in the bill are an attempt to change the way we use fireworks, respond to what the public have asked us to do, examine the evidence and use as many of the powers that are available to the Scottish Parliament as we can to make that happen.

We hope that some parts of it will be in force this year. It is my attempt to reflect what I saw as the will of the Parliament in the previous session. I gave an update to the Parliament on the action plan. I think that I gave a statement to Parliament in two consecutive years on what we plan to do and what legislation we were introducing.

We realised that we were able to deal with some of this through secondary legislation, so, as the committee will be aware, we did that last year. The bill is an attempt to keep up the pace of change and to keep moving and working towards creating the new regime. The will of Parliament, which I felt came across strongly, was that we work on the bill as quickly as possible, so I am very grateful that the committee agrees that it is important to do so.

The sooner the bill can go through and be agreed to by Parliament, the more time we will have to work on the implementation and enforcement parts of the bill.

I will ask Natalie Stewart, who is appearing remotely, whether she wants to speak to the earlier part of Ms Clark’s question about the constitutional angle.

Another piece of evidence is national health service injury data, which includes firework-related diagnosis. I will say—if I do not, my officials will get very cross with me—that we have to be a bit cautious about that data but, nonetheless, broadly, it tells us that such injuries have increased fairly consistently over the past 10 years.

The final example of evidence is lived experience. We know that that has been reflected very strongly in all the consultations that the Government has done, and I am sure that it will have been reflected back to the committee. It includes powerful testimonies about the significant impact that not only the misuse but the legitimate use of fireworks can have on people and on animals.

The bill has been carefully constructed to reflect the evidence that I have gone through and to be proportionate. Many people have said to me over the past few years that we should just ban fireworks. Under the devolution settlement, Scotland does not have the power to do that, so that is a legal reason why we did not go down that route. However, there is also a policy reason, which has a kernel of Jamie Greene’s question about whether the bill is proportionate. It is proportionate because there is still an obvious route for people to go through to purchase fireworks. Albeit that we are putting slightly more restrictions on it by suggesting that we set up the licensing scheme, if people want to, they will still be able to buy fireworks and use them.

People have made it clear that they want tighter controls on fireworks so that people can continue to use them safely. I hope that that answers Jamie Greene’s question.