Chamber and committees

Thank you; that is really helpful. I have a couple of follow-up questions, and the first is for Lorraine Gillies. We are aware of the issue around antisocial behaviour, and there is evidence around the unintended—or intended—consequences of the misuse of fireworks. From some of the information that we have been given, there is evidence to suggest that most fireworks injuries happen at private events and that they often involve young people, especially young males, who seem to be the group at most risk. We are looking at how the bill responds to antisocial behaviour issues, as well as to injuries, a lot of which are to heads and hands and can be very serious. Do the provisions of the bill adequately support our efforts to tackle antisocial behaviour, particularly from the perspective of reducing injuries?

I will bring in Jamie Greene, then come to Fulton MacGregor to pick up on restrictions on use and supply.

I will stay with the antisocial behaviour theme but now turn to Gilly Mendes Ferreira. Earlier, we discussed the opportunities for pet owners to prepare for bonfire night. We know that fireworks can be used at random times, so such preparation is not always possible. I might be slightly stepping outside the provisions of the bill in asking this, but is there scope to encourage, and benefit from encouraging, owners to seek professional help to manage their pets? Other ways that could be done include turning on Classic FM’s programme for pets and the use of sedatives. Could a bit of work to be done around that?

I would like to finish things off by looking a little bit at pyrotechnics. Before we do that, though, I will bring in Collette Stevenson, who has an interest in silent fireworks.

Are you happy with that, Collette?

Rona Mackay also has some questions around licensing.

Before we move on, I will quickly pick up on an issue that we spoke about earlier, related to Jamie Greene’s questions about the impact of the legislation on the fireworks industry. In particular, we spoke about the fact that quite a lot of fireworks are sold by small, local businesses. There has been some commentary around the potential for Government compensation for businesses that might lose out on income. I am interested in whether panel members have any thoughts on the prospect of a compensation scheme. Is that something that you would be interested in seeing?

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.