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I am pleased that the minister is confident of such, but I think that that itself adds another layer to the confusion that the public will face.

We have been working on the bill for a number of months and scrutinising it line by line. This year, Diwali is on 24 October. In a community where there is problematic behaviour with fireworks, if someone hears a firework going off on 24 October, are they going to say to themselves, “Oh well, it’s Diwali—it’s okay; there’s not a problem there”? Alternatively, are they going to call the police? If so, are the police going to dispatch someone or not, given that it is a permitted day? Will the police think, “Oh no—this is probably problematic behaviour”?

Whether or not the person using the fireworks has a licence, and whether they bought the fireworks from a retailer or illicitly from white van man, is irrelevant. The problematic behaviour is what lies at the root cause of many of the complaints around usage.

My other point is a concern that, by having permitted days, we will simply be creating firework days. If someone wants to let off fireworks on 24 October, whether or not they are celebrating Diwali, the law says that they can do so on that day, and if they have stockpiled fireworks, they will do it.

There is also a valid point around adverse weather conditions that we have not discussed. It is dangerous to let off fireworks in adverse weather. If someone gets to the last permitted date in the range of permitted dates, so it is the last day on which they are able to use their fireworks, on which they may have spent quite a lot of money, are they going to put them back in the garage or let them off anyway? That could create a safety issue.

I am not querying—

Arguably, the safest way to dispose of fireworks is to let them off. However, if the law does not permit people to do so, we are creating a problem which, currently, does not exist.

I am happy to leave it there.

I want to withdraw amendment 98 but it is a technical, consequential amendment of the substantive amendment, which comes later, so although I am withdrawing amendment 98, I may move a future substantive amendment, if that makes sense.

Let us ask them. This is stage 2; the bill has not yet been passed. If retailers with a vested interest who sell only fireworks and do so all year round want to talk to the committee, I encourage them to do so. The question is simple: what effect will the bill have on your business? If the answer is, “Yes, you’re right, we can move online”, “We can reduce operating costs by shutting a store”, or “We might need less compensation because we are able to operate on a different model”, that is fine, and I am sure that the Government will take heed of that and compensate appropriately. If the answer is, “No, there is no way we can operate and we will shut down”, the Government will need to react to that. We will not know until we ask them, which is precisely what I am trying to do by lodging amendments 132 and 133.

I welcome the minister’s comments that the intention is that much of what the amendment provides will form part of everyday Government policy. However, the problem is that Governments change, so having those measures in the bill would be helpful because it would ensure that, for as long as the bill remained law, any future Government would have a requirement to produce a firework safety plan, rather than it being taken for granted that that would be front and centre of future Governments’ plans. That is the point of putting it in the bill and not just leaving it to policy and manifestos. That was the intention behind amendment 127, which I will press.

Members will be very pleased to know that this is the last group. It is a single amendment but an important one. I am pleased that it is the last amendment that we are debating because some of the most shocking evidence that we took was from our blue-light services and front-line emergency service workers who, for many years, have been repeatedly and openly the targets of assaults, violence and abuse in which fireworks are used as weapons.

I appreciate that there is existing legislation to deal with that, but our stage 1 report asked the Government to go a little bit further. Although we acknowledged that there is legislation to deal with such behaviour, we included wording that is not reflected in any of the Government’s amendments. We said:

“In order to deal with the impact that dangerous firework use has on emergency workers, the Committee asks the Scottish Government to consider tougher punishments for those who use fireworks to assault emergency workers.”

That was the committee’s collective view and my amendment seeks to implement that.

The approach that I have taken is to amend the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005, to introduce an aggravator for those who assault emergency workers specifically using fireworks or pyrotechnic articles. The effect would be to allow judges the opportunity to impose harsher punishments on those who attack emergency services workers specifically using fireworks or pyrotechnics.

I am pretty sure that we all agree that we do not condone attacks on emergency services workers. We understand that those can be dealt with in the eyes of the law but, if we are going to stay true to our word, in relation to the Government considering the imposition of tougher punishments on those who assault emergency services workers, this would be one way to do it.

Last year, on bonfire night, eight fire crews—that means multiple individuals—and several police officers were attacked and injured. Three firefighters were also injured. Such attacks happen every year—last year, one of the firefighters required hospital treatment. The missiles included not just fireworks but golf clubs and other items. However, this legislation is about the misuse of fireworks.

When the committee reached that conclusion at stage 1, we considered a number of submissions with detailed and alarming anecdotes about fireworks specifically having been used as weapons, particularly around football matches, where it affects not just the individuals but, for example, police officers on horseback as well. It is particularly intimidating in those instances.

I think that our emergency services workers deserve nothing less than what I have suggested. I worked with the legislation team on the best way to approach this and we felt that amending the 2005 act to include an aggravation in relation to the use of fireworks was the best way to go about it.

The minister has the benefit of solicitors who may disagree. I am hoping that the minister will agree to the principle of adding the aggravation. However, if my proposal does not meet the objective and the minister could suggest a better way of doing it in relation to amending the statute books, I would be very open to that, because I think that we all want the same result. I am keen to hear what other members and the minister have to say.

I move amendment 128.

This is my last summing-up; what a relief—to all of us.

I thank members for their contributions. I do not doubt for a moment that this issue is taken seriously. As the minister rightly said, it is particularly galling that people use pyrotechnic devices and fireworks as easy-to-buy weapons that they can chuck at ambulance workers or at the people who fight the fires that they have lit. Those stories are shocking.

On the question of whether this is symbolic or has a direct impact on sentencing, if we were to ask rank and file emergency service workers whether they would support their Parliament’s strengthening of legislation to include an aggravator of fireworks being used against them, to involve the potential for a harsher sentence, the unanimous answer would be yes. It is what they expect of us because it is what we said we would do and it is what we asked the Government to do.

I hope that the minister’s offer—that we can think about how we could do this in a better way—was genuine. As it was a committee recommendation that the deterrent should be increased, it would be good to have something in the bill at stage 3, even if it were to be partially symbolic. I would be happy to sit down with the minister and work out what that might be. Once we have drafted something, we also need to get feedback from the emergency services on whether they think that it goes far enough or too far.

As has been said, no one wants to overlegislate; however, as lawmakers, legislation is our only tool. It would be an important and poignant move by the committee and the Government to get on with this and make sure that it is very clear to the public that using fireworks as a means of attacking our emergency services workers cannot and will not be tolerated. If amendment 128 is not the way to do it, let us find a way to do it.

Amendment 128, by agreement, withdrawn.

Before section 45

I thank the minister for that response. The reassurance that has been given, with her accepting the point, is helpful and appreciated. For that reason, I will not press amendment 81 and will not move the other amendments in the group.

Amendment 81, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 50 not moved.

Section 10, as amended, agreed to.

Section 11—Register of fireworks licence applications and licensed persons

Amendment 51 not moved.

Section 11 agreed to.

Section 12—Revocation of fireworks licence

I have two amendments in this group and Colette Stevenson has the other two, which I will come on to.

My two amendments are on post-legislative scrutiny, which is a theme that often crops up at stage 2 and is often notably absent in the first draft of legislation. Nevertheless, it is a common feature, and the wording that I am proposing is based on wording that has been not only debated already but agreed and included in legislation.

Amendment 90 seeks to introduce a review of the licensing scheme. It is further to the debate that we had last week about the concept and nature of the scheme and to the long conversation that we had about the fee structure and the effect that it might have on applications. Although there is consensus—or, at least, acceptance—among the committee that there will be a licensing scheme of sorts, members have sought to improve it.

Because much of the scheme will be subject to future legislation, although not primary legislation, with limited opportunity—and I say that respectfully—for the committee to review the nature of the Government’s proposals, I felt it important to introduce a review that would ask ministers to

“carry out a review of the operation and”—

more important—the

“effectiveness of the ... scheme.”

Subsection (2) of the proposed new section to be inserted by amendment 90 makes three asks of the review that the Government must undertake, the first of which is that there be a review of the “fee ... and its appropriateness”. I am stipulating that the Government review not the nature of the fee—we have had the debate about rises and whether there should be a fee at all—but simply the “fee ... and its appropriateness”, which is the key word in that paragraph.

Secondly, the review should consider

“whether there is any evidence that a fee is a deterrent to a person or persons applying for a fireworks”

licence. The Government will not know that until after the scheme has been launched and it has quantitative data on whether the scheme is putting people off, as members have suggested and as the committee discussed robustly at stage 1.

Lastly, the review should include consideration of

“whether there is any evidence that the ... scheme is contributing to illegal activity including the illegal supply and purchase of fireworks.”

It is clear that, by “illegal activity”, I mean the black market in any form.

I am also asking that, on completion of the review, ministers

“(a) prepare and publish a report of the review’s findings,

(b) lay a copy of the report before ... Parliament,”

and, thereafter,

“(c) make such proposals ... as they consider appropriate”

to change the licensing scheme where it is clear that there is a need to do so.

It might transpire that the review of those three points concludes that the licence scheme is working well, effectively and appropriately, in which case no further changes need to be made. However, without putting a requirement on the face of the bill for such a review to take place, there is, first of all, no guarantee that it will take place, other than the minister promising, “Of course we will do that.” Secondly, and more important, such a requirement might give comfort to members who have genuine concerns.

Of course, this concerns not just members. Yesterday, the committee received a letter from the British Fireworks Association, which stated that

“this Bill will NOT reduce the misuse of Fireworks. It will have precisely the opposite effect and will create a blackmarket ... in Scotland, the likes of which has never been seen before.”

I do not have a particular view on that theory, but that is the view of the people who are at the coalface of the industry. As it is clear that people do have reservations about the proposals, a review is a sensible way of allowing the Government to proceed with its plans while making good on its promise to be open-minded and transparent about their efficacy.

Amendment 129 is slightly different, because it seeks a review of the legislation itself, and its requirements are not as specific as the asks with regard to the licensing scheme. Again, the wording is fairly straightforward; I am asking the Government to prepare and publish a review on the legislation itself. In doing so, ministers would again be required to prepare and publish a report and lay it before Parliament for discussion. More important, in carrying out the review, ministers should

“consult such persons as they consider appropriate.”

In previous amendments, I have tried to outline the people whom I think should be consulted, but they were rejected by the Government, which is fine. I hope that this amendment is more helpful in that respect.

In my view, the timescales are reasonable; the review period is

“no later than 3 years after the commencement”

of the act and

“at least once ... every ... 3 years thereafter.”

That will ensure a cross-parliamentary session review of the legislation. If the Government has a problem with the timescales, I am very happy to work with it on changing them.

Post-legislative scrutiny and review is an important concept and accepted practice. I therefore welcome and support amendments 56 and 57, lodged by Collette Stevenson, which also impose a requirement on ministers to report on how effective the legislation has been. However, amendment 90 itself goes further by seeking a review of the licensing scheme, which would be additional to post-legislative scrutiny, and I hope that members will carefully consider, debate and support it.

I move amendment 90.

Can I have clarification of the difference between withdrawing and not moving an amendment?