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Amendment 76, in the name of Mr Greene, seeks to place a requirement on the Scottish ministers to be satisfied that the information that is provided on previous convictions, revoked licences and a successfully completed training course is accurate.

During stage 1, no concerns were raised that the bill as drafted left any gaps or issues regarding the information that is to be provided during an application and whether that information will be considered when the decision is made to grant a licence. It has always been our intention that that will occur in practice as part of the process of considering and, most importantly, verifying applications. Section 18 provides for regulations to be made about exactly how information that is contained in licensing applications is to be verified, which will allow for a more nuanced and detailed approach to be taken.

Amendment 78 sets out that a fireworks licence will be valid only if it contains information about the licence holder’s purchase history. I do not consider it to be necessary to require licence holders to upload information on each purchase that has been made using the licence. The licence will be held by an individual for a period of time, rather than being linked to specific transactions involving fireworks.

It would not be particularly cost effective to incorporate that very specific requirement in the bill with, for the most part, no appreciable benefit from the information that it captured. If amendment 78 was accepted, I would be concerned that it could lead, for instance, to all licences being invalid if the purchasing history could not be uploaded due to unforeseen circumstances, technical issues or something of that nature. For that reason, I cannot support the amendment.

Amendment 79, in the name of Mr Findlay, seeks to restrict to no longer than two years the length of time for which licences can be given. Stakeholders have expressed varied opinions on the length of time for which a licence should be valid. It is important that we strike a proportionate balance and have robust checks without being overly restrictive and requiring licences to be renewed too frequently.

The working assumption is that the licence will be valid for five years, which was carefully considered during the development of the bill. That consideration included looking at responses to the 2021 consultation and at other similar licensing schemes in Scotland, such as the air weapons licensing scheme, under which licences are valid for five years.

Ultimately, however, the licence term will be set out in subsequent regulations. The amendment would pre-empt the consultation that we are going to undertake to inform the licence term. That consultation is really important, because it will allow us to get the views of the public and stakeholders and take them into consideration before we determine what the licence term should be.

The amendment would also limit the ability to adapt to future circumstances and to change the licence term in a timely manner to either reduce or increase the time period, if it was determined that that was more appropriate.

I am not convinced that amendments 76, 78 and 79 are proportionate or necessary, or that they would strengthen the bill, so I do not support them.

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.

The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee recommended that the broad regulation-making powers at section 18(1) should be subject to the affirmative procedure. I welcome the committee’s recommendation, and amendment 21, in my name, gives effect to that. However, I believe that section 18 also contains powers on administrative and operational points of detail, to which it would be disproportionate to apply the affirmative procedure.

Therefore, amendments 14, 18, 19 and 20 make adjustments to other sections to ensure that the change does not disproportionately impact on the administration and operation of the licensing system, while ensuring that enhanced scrutiny applies if section 18 is used to make any further provision about licensing that might be required.

I believe that, collectively, these amendments reflect the DPLR Committee’s recommendation, so I hope that committee members will recognise the balance that is being struck and will support the amendments.

With regard to the other amendments in the group, amendment 58, in Mr Greene’s name, seeks to make the regulation-making power about persons with “specialist knowledge” at section 2(2)(b) subject to the affirmative procedure.

Where the DPLRC has recommended a change of procedure, I have lodged an amendment to ensure that Parliament is afforded the appropriate levels of scrutiny. I do not consider that the affirmative procedure would be appropriate or necessary for section 2(2)(b). That section provides Scottish ministers with the power to make further provision in respect of persons demonstrating “specialist knowledge” for the purposes of the definition of a category F4 firework.

The requirements for specialist knowledge are currently set out in the Pyrotechnic Articles (Safety) Regulations 2015. The power in section 2(2)(b) should be required only if we need to respond to any changes to the requirements made by the United Kingdom Government on such persons, to ensure that high-hazard fireworks remain subject to the required stringent safety measures.

That provision does not enable amendment of the bill. The requirements are technical in nature, and it is appropriate that regulations to change them are subject to the negative procedure. Therefore, I hope that members do not support amendment 58.

Amendment 89 seeks to include a list of specific groups that the Scottish ministers must consult when making regulations about the licensing system. The bill sets out that the Scottish ministers must consult those who

“are likely to be interested in or affected by”

the licensing system. That was deliberately drafted to ensure that a wide-ranging and effective consultation takes place.

It was always intended that the listed groups would form part of a wide-ranging consultation on regulations. However, I believe that actively identifying and engaging with groups who are most likely to be affected is a more effective approach than listing a limited number of groups in the bill. Therefore, I do not support amendment 89.

I ask Mr Greene not to press amendment 58 and not to move amendment 89. If he does, I hope that the committee does not support them.

Amendments 47 to 51 seek to make a change so that the regulation-making powers in part 2 of the bill that are currently subject to the negative procedure are subject to the affirmative procedure instead. The consultation requirement set out at section 19 means that Scottish ministers will have a duty to consult before making any regulations under part 2. That provides the opportunity to gather views on proposals for what may be included in the regulations, such as, for example, the licence fee.

It is not intended that any of those powers will be used frequently. However, when they are used to set out administrative or operational detail in the system, it is necessary that that is done in a timely manner in order for the system to continue to operate efficiently and at an optimum level. I do not consider the affirmative procedure suitable or proportionate for those types of regulations and, as such, it would not be a good use of valuable parliamentary time.

On amendment 52, the regulations made under section 3 are already subject to the affirmative procedure. The provision is a technical regulation-making power, which will be used if necessary, to adapt to changes to the categorisation of fireworks or if new classifications or types of fireworks enter the market. It is important to be able to utilise such a power in a timely manner and ensure that the system covers relevant fireworks. That is paramount in ensuring safety and that the system operates as required.

If the power is used, relevant stakeholders such as the fireworks industry, experts or trading standards will be consulted. However, it is not necessary to include that in the duty to consult under section 19.

Amendment 53 seeks to include a new section setting out certain requirements for Scottish ministers before laying regulations in relation to part 2 of the bill and the licensing system. I am open to enhancing parliamentary scrutiny of the licensing system. I have demonstrated that by accepting the DPLR Committee’s recommendations and having included a requirement to consult on regulations about licensing from the start. However, the matters to be covered in regulations under this part of the bill are not of a nature that require such a super-affirmative procedure, which amendment 53 would apply. In most cases, there are powers to set out operational details or administrative procedure.

I urge Ms Clark not to move her amendments, but if she does do so I ask the committee to reject them.

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.

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.

Yes. That is part of what I was saying earlier about making sure that there is awareness raising and that people are clear that what they will be doing is an offence. Black market or illegal fireworks—however you want to describe them—will not have the same kinds of safety checks, so will potentially be dangerous, and people could injure themselves by using them.

There is a potential risk of displacement of sales and, as the bill has been developed, we have carefully considered that in three areas, about which I will ask Elinor Findlay to speak in a second. However, I come back to wanting tighter controls because that is what the public wants, because of some of the evidence we have talked about. We are trying to strike the right balance between introducing restrictions to ensure public safety and not introducing things that are too much of a barrier to buying fireworks.

I take your point about the black market. However, I am sure that you have spoken to Police Scotland about the fact that there has been a lot of national, multi-agency work by the enforcement agencies, including the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and trading standards, to tackle illegal sellers of the type that we have been talking about, to tackle illegal products, which I have no doubt we will talk about later, and to undertake various actions such as removing websites, referring cases on and reporting breaches to the Health and Safety Executive. Routes are in place and are already being taken, and if people see white vans selling fireworks to kids in the street, I am confident that they will ring the police and that the police will deal with that. I ask Elinor Findlay to add a little more detail.

We want to get the licensing scheme right. As I said in my exchange with Pauline McNeill, we want to ensure that it works really well, so we need to do quite a lot of work on the implementation. We think that the scheme should be set up and working by the end of 2023, but I am afraid that we cannot be any more specific than that. We have to do some consultations and, as you would imagine, we have a lot of work to do with stakeholders on the scheme in order to get it right. We will also have to introduce secondary legislation on it.

Does Elinor Findlay want to add anything to that?