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Yes, I am happy to concede that my amendment 68 might not be the solution to the conundrum, but it has shown that there is still a conundrum that is unaddressed. I do not know how the Government intends to respond at stage 3, but the matter needs to be fixed. It might be up to individual members to lodge amendments at stage 3 to clarify the position.

The debate also raises the wider issue of the exemptions and the permitted days of use, and it raises the very real concern that Pauline McNeill mentioned that many individuals in a group will simply use their individual licences to acquire fireworks and put on a display. It is very much an unregulated environment, in that respect. We could have a lot of people who just happen to be using their licences to buy and set off fireworks at the same time in the same place. Quelle surprise; what a coincidence. It is not a very co-ordinated approach to dealing with public displays. Therefore, I ask the Government to reflect on that point.

I do not have a view on raising the age; I have lodged amendment 67 because it is worth having a debate.

I am intrigued as to whether the Government has consulted on that specific question. By that I mean this: were the public ever asked if the minimum age for purchase of fireworks should be raised from 18 to 21? If that question was asked, what was the answer? If it was not, why? If we were to ask that question now—while the issue is on the public agenda—what would people say? It is not for me to conject what the public’s answer might be, but I guess that a fair proportion might be sympathetic to that—more so because the industry is sympathetic to it.

There is space for consultation around the issue or, at least—in the bill or somewhere in legislation—on the Government’s ability to change the age in the future. I presume that the bill is not set up so that the minimum age could be raised in the future, through this or other legislation, if it became apparent that that was the will of people, direction of travel or something that would benefit society.

Not agreeing to amendment 67—or not pressing it—will not address the issue that people aged between 16 to 21 are the group who are most likely to be offenders in misusing fireworks. For that reason, I have lodged amendments about education and so on, to which I will speak later.

On amendment 78, I accept the point that a licence might become invalid if the purchase history is not recorded—that would be a by-product of a bad solution. However, I disagree that the information is not useful or helpful. I think that it is very helpful and useful, so I make a plea that, as the licence scheme is developed, the information is recorded where it can be captured and if the technology is available. We still have not addressed the issue of how people might misuse their licence to make repeated purchases of products in various locations and from various sources, with a view to stockpiling and selling on the illegal market. That is a real possibility, and it is unclear how the issue will be monitored. The amendment, even if it is not worded properly, may provide a technical solution to monitor that.

I have an issue with what the minister said about amendment 76, however. I will need to check the Official Report, but I think that the minister said, “That is how we hope it will work in practice.” That is very different from having a legal duty. Section 9, “Grant of fireworks licence”, explicitly places a legal duty on ministers that they

“may grant a fireworks licence only if—

(a) a valid application and any applicable fees have been received,

(b) the requirements under section 6 and 7 have been met, and

(c) they are satisfied that the applicant can be permitted to possess and use fireworks safely and appropriately.”

What is missing is what amendment 76 would add, which is a requirement on ministers that

“they are satisfied that the information disclosed or provided by the applicant under section 7(1) is accurate”.

It is a fairly simple ask and I cannot see why it would be rejected.

I am keen to hear what other members think about amendment 59. I know that you are all shy this morning and it is early, but it is important that we have a proper debate about the issues.

The amendment does a number of things. It is a whole page in length, but it is fairly self-explanatory. First, it would require ministers to review current legislation

“in so far as it relates to the supply and use of fireworks and pyrotechnic articles”.

That is the important bit.

Secondly, ministers would have to determine, as a result of that review, whether any part of the legislation requires to be repealed as a result of the introduction of the bill, and whether any legislation must be introduced to address any gaps in existing legislation.

I should put on record a huge amount of thanks to the parliamentary legislation team for helping members to produce amendments. Through that team’s research and kind assistance, the amendment includes a list of the legislation that is most commonly used in the charging or prosecution of offenders relating to the illegal sale or misuse of fireworks and pyrotechnics. The list is not exhaustive. Proposed subsection (3)(j) would allow ministers to amend the list, where that is deemed appropriate.

That is the what, but I guess that the main question is about the why. It became apparent to committee members from the feedback from stakeholders that, rightly, we already have a large number of laws that regulate the use, sale and purchase of fireworks. However, we also heard that the reality is that those laws are not being used to their full extent. The evidence for that is abundant and self-explanatory—the numbers speak for themselves. For example, we know that it is already illegal under existing legislation to use a firework as a weapon, to use a firework for antisocial behaviour or to use a firework to attack emergency service workers. We also took evidence on that latter issue, and I hope that the committee agrees that we need to tackle it.

The problem is that we are seeking to introduce new legislation without a proper and full review of what is already in the public domain and how effectively we are using existing legislation to deal with the problems that the bill, in essence, seeks to deal with. Those issues are the misuse of fireworks, antisocial behaviour involving them and their illegal sale.

Over the past five years, Police Scotland have recorded more than 6,000 incidents involving the misuse of fireworks. That is quite a lot. Of those 6,000 incidents, 518 were recorded under the Explosive Substances Act 1883 and other pieces of legislation that relate, among other matters, to the keeping and supplying of explosives. Over that five-year period, arising from those incidents, only 136 charges were brought and, of those, only 16 resulted in a conviction. There is clearly a disproportionate ratio of incidents to criminal charges, prosecution and successful conviction. We will come to the issue of convictions in a subsequent group of amendments.

In fact, it has been impossible for the committee to quantify the scale of the problem of nuisance complaints about fireworks to the 101 number, via 999 to emergency services, to local authorities or to trading standards. However, we know that the conversion rate of incidents recorded to successful prosecution is pitiful. We might not have to rush the bill through in the way that we are if we used the laws that exist to their fullest extent. Amendment 59 asks the Government to do that.

In fact, in its evidence to the committee, the Scottish Community Safety Network questioned whether further legislation was needed at all. It said that

“New restrictions ... specify limits to the quantities of fireworks that can be sold, the times of sale, and times of use. Therefore, we suggest these measures are given adequate time to bed-in and take effect. This might help government, local authorities and industry measure the impact and inform which – if any – of the additional proposed restrictions are needed.”

We have listed specific laws in the amendment, including the Public Order Act 1986, which covers the majority of breach of the peace offences and offences relating to the use of dangerous items in a public place. My colleague Russell Findlay has lodged other amendments, which he will speak to later, that relate to widening the scope for offences that could or should bar people from owning a fireworks licence. We will come to that matter. However, what we are asking is not onerous. We want the Government to prepare and publish a review of the existing legislation specifically in relation to the sale and use—or indeed misuse—of fireworks and lay before the Parliament a report, presumably for debate and scrutiny. One would think that the Government would want to proactively maintain oversight of the use of laws that govern fireworks and pyrotechnics.

Although we have no ideological problem with adding new legislation such as this bill, it is clear that many people in our communities are blighted by the misuse of fireworks, and their use in antisocial behaviour, which is intensified and concentrated in geographic pockets. That is the issue that is not being clearly addressed. With the great range of powers that are already available to the police and prosecutors, people are rightly asking why that is not happening. I rightly ask why the Government cannot agree to conduct such an exercise. I look forward to hearing members’ feedback on that issue, which the committee’s stage 1 report flagged as a point of huge concern.

I move amendment 59.

I have a supplementary question to that opening line of questioning. It is clear that you work in a very difficult area involving health, justice and prevention. To be frank, I dare say that some people would find the approach to be controversial. There is clearly a wider societal, moral and philosophical discussion about how to deal with people who have these kinds of thoughts or engage in such actions.

My understanding is that the National Crime Agency has given evidence in public that there are around 500,000 to 800,000, or possibly even 900,000, individuals who pose various degrees of risk to children. What sort of numbers do you deal with? I ask that because those numbers seem disproportionate to the number of people out there who could be helped. When I say that they could be helped, I am talking about those who have not committed a crime.

My understanding is that the instrument allows the Government to introduce its framework document, setting out the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s priorities and objectives, as it is required to do under the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005, following centralisation. The framework document was published and then subject to consultation, and a number of responses were received. It is unclear from our documents whether the priorities and objectives on which the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service will be mandated to deliver are the same as those that were published prior to the consultation, or whether the framework document that sets out the objectives has been altered in any way as a result of responses to the consultation.

I am interested in that because some of the measures that had been suggested in relation to exploring new ways of working for the fire service were not entirely positively received by those who responded to the consultation. Has the Government reacted or responded to those responses by producing a document that is in line with the consultation feedback that it received? If it has not, the consultation was pointless. There is no Government minister here, given the nature of the instrument, but I would have asked that question of the Government had I been able to do so.

I apologise, convener, for my tardy arrival. The traffic has been unkind to me this morning.

I read the officers’ submissions last night. I was quite struck—in fact, I was very much saddened and quite distressed—by some of the anecdotes that they shared about the abuse that they have had to put up with and the effect on their own mental health, which I know we will come on to discuss.

For me, the theme that came out—and which I am keen to explore—is that, although we might have a conversation about whether more legislative powers are needed, it is abundantly clear that, more and more often, the police are being used as the first point of contact in the absence of other services being available, whether they be health or social care partners or the local authority. That might involve the police simply driving someone to hospital, spending hours on site trying to restrain or look after someone or dealing with a health emergency in a private environment where they have limited powers to intervene from a medical point of view.

I want to explore that further. Putting the legislative issue aside, can you say what further short to medium-term interventions the Government can make to alleviate the immediate burden that is resulting in so many police officers effectively having to become mental health workers instead of tackling crime? That question is for anyone who wishes to answer.

I have a basic question. Is it time for fundamental reform of how people access emergency services? That picks up on the point about 101 versus 999. I have gone through the experience of calling both numbers in the past month, and those experiences were vastly different from each other. The 999 call involved a medical emergency to which the police turned up because there was no ambulance, and the 101 call involved a police situation in which an ambulance that was not needed turned up—that was utterly bonkers.

Is it time for fundamental reform? Could we have a proper triage system that deals with non-urgent access to all emergency services and public services? Things could be properly triaged and filtered out to the appropriate public service, and that would be a 24/7 service, so there would be no need to fall back on the police. If so, who would need to lead the charge for that? Which minister in Government should we lobby for it, and—this is the most important question—which fund should resources for it come from?

I see that ACC Hawkins is smiling at me, so I will go to him first.

I have read some of the testimonies. Given that mental health hubs are pretty few and far between across the land, most people will be taken to accident and emergency or hospital in the first instance if harm is involved. There are stories of nurses having to ask the police to restrain people so that they can medically intervene.

What is your view on the role of the police in that environment versus that of the medical professional, whose job is to administer medication by whatever means possible? At what point are you asked to act as security guards and physically restrain someone who has become a danger to themselves? Indeed, there are examples in the evidence that I have read of officers and others being assaulted. When does the line get crossed?

Does anyone else want to answer? We are running out of time.

What is lacking, then? In your paper, you say that

“The key challenge ... is the lack of an overarching strategy to tackle online child sexual abuse”,

and that

“there is no government leadership with the issue straddling multiple government departments and Ministerial portfolios.”

In effect, what are you asking the Government to do? Would you say that the lack of take-up of your service is due to a lack of awareness among the community of those who might benefit from it or simply a fear of contacting you, because of what might happen thereafter if they pick up the phone or access a website?