Chamber and committees

I will finish off the evidence session with some questions on pyrotechnics such as the flare-type things that we see at football matches and other events. Do you have any particular comments to make on the provisions around pyrotechnics? We have heard from the Scottish Police Federation about public possession issues, but I want to pose that question to you.

That brings the evidence session to a close. I thank the witnesses for attending. We have picked up a lot of very helpful evidence. We will have a short break to allow witnesses to leave.

Welcome back, everyone. The next agenda item is consideration of the Prison and Young Offenders Institutions (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Amendment Rules 2022. I refer members to paper 5. The committee has previously taken evidence on the instrument, which is subject to the negative procedure, so I invite any further views that members might have on it.

While we are online, I invite Rona Mackay and Fulton MacGregor to indicate whether they would like to make any comments.

Katy, do you want to say anything?

I appreciate members’ comments on the matter. I, too, put on record, on behalf of the committee, that although we agree to make no recommendation on the Scottish statutory instrument, we do not want the powers to remain in place indefinitely and we expect to be kept updated on how they are used and implemented.

That concludes the public part of the meeting. We will now move into private session to review the evidence that we have heard this morning.

Do not worry; we are just glad that you have arrived safely.

I hand over to Russell Findlay.

Thank you, Stuart. I will perhaps come back to you on a couple of points in relation to the impact on your crews, but I will bring in David Hamilton first.

I have a quick follow-up question for both of you. David, you mentioned that, recently, you have had to go to the extent of having full public order deployments. To what extent has the fireworks season had an impact, from the point of view of not just resources and planning but, ultimately, the cost of responding to fireworks and the issues that arise from the use of fireworks?

I think that Jamie Greene has questions for Alasdair Hay about the review group.

Likewise, if we have time later on, I will come back in on a couple of points about injuries. We now have questions on the licensing proposals.