Rydw i ddim yn gweithio gêm, ac rydw i'r gweithiaethau cynllun o ddiefynag y cwynhau yn 2015. Mae agen ni'n cael eu gwirio gyda'i ddrefnod a'r ffordd honno ar y gyd ddim amser a i ddifennod eistedd a cael ei ddiogelIFE ar y cyflasgau. Mae kenchau trafnol gyflawniol, ac rydw i'n fwy o gynnigodd yma i gyd mewn cyfrwyddor y dyfyniad gwneud. We have apologies today from Claire Adamson, who can't attend this morning's meeting. I therefore welcome Stuart Stevenson MSP to the meeting. Thanks for attending this morning, Stuart. Agenda item 1 is declarations of interest. Firstly, I'd like to thank Anne McTaggart for her contributions to the committee and wish her well with her new committee appointment. Colleagues who have served in the committee for a while with Anne will recognise our value, particularly when it came to going around the country and meeting the public. Anne had the ability to get folk to open up and tell us things, which sometimes it was very difficult to get folks to do. So, all the best to Anne and thanks for her efforts. I'd now like to welcome Cara Hilton to the committee. Can I invite you, Cara, to declare any relevant interests that you may have? Thank you. I just refer to my register of members' interests. Thank you very much. Stuart Stevenson. Just if it's convenient to convene at this point, it might be useful to declare that I do have a member of my family who's a freelance stage manager in the theatre industry. I don't believe that it will touch on the matter that we will come to an item 4, but I would just like to put it in the record in case it does. Thank you, Mr Stevenson. Better to be safe than sorry. Item 2 is the appointment of a European reporter. I asked for invitations of interests from members and I would suggest that we ask John Walson to take on the role as EU reporter for the local government and regeneration committee. Can we agree? Thank you very much. Agenda item 3 is public petitions and that's petition PE1538 by Dr Burton on behalf of Accountability Scotland. The petition asks us to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 to ensure that complainants are shown all correspondence between the SPSO and the bodies complained about before the investigation is included, including emails in that. They are also made aware of the content of any verbal communication. We took evidence last week from the SPSO during which this issue was discussed and we have had the benefit of a written response from the SPSO and the petitioner's comments thereon. Finally, we also have received the internal guidance that is used by SPSO staff relating to information sharing. Do members have any views on the petition? In which case can I suggest that we close the petition? Although the matter is not covered by the petition, I am aware of the discussion in the petition's committee on the review of the operation of the SPSO. It is my opinion that such a review would be premature, coming relatively soon after the parent act was received in 2009 by a committee of Parliament. That review led to a number of changes being made to the legislation, including to section 19, which is the subject of the petition. Part of the 2009 review, which looked at all the bodies supported by the SPCB, was to consider their operations and whether they were needed or could be amalgamated. Given the outcome of that review, consideration of a further review now would be premature. Do any other members have any views on that position? No, thank you very much. In which case we move to agenda item 4, which is the Air, Weapons and Licensing Scotland Bill. Today is our fifth oral evidence session on that bill, and we have a round table session followed by a panel. Can I go round the table and ask our witnesses to introduce themselves? Can I start with you, please, Janet? Thank you very much. My name is Janet Hood, of Janet Hood Consulting. I offer specialist licensing services to the trade. I am here representing the Association of Licensed Adult Entertainment Venues of Scotland. We thank the committee for the opportunity to present evidence at the committee. Do you just want a brief introduction, or do you want to...? That's fine for just now, and we'll come back to you and other stuff, if you don't mind. Cameron Buchanan, MSP for the Lothians and member of the local government committee. Agdo Cox, I'm one of the managers in Glasgow, Seventh Heaven Wamp Dancing Club. John Wilson, deputy convener of the committee and Central Scotland MSP. I'm Professor Phil Hubbard from the University of Kent. I'm a leading academic authority on the licensing of lap dancing and sexual entertainment venues in England and Wales. I'm Alec Rowley, MSP for the Cowanbeath constituency. Good morning. I'm Mary Miller. I'm a legal manager for licensing at Glasgow City Council and Clark to the Glasgow licensing board. Oh, thank you very much, convener. I'm Sandra White, MSP Glasgow Kelvin, who has obviously a declaration of interest in regard to part of the bill, and I thank you very much for allowing me to be here today. Tara Hilton, MSP for Dumfremont. John Morgan, director of the Federation of Scottish Theatre, a membership body for dancing theatre companies and venues, around 160 members across Scotland. Stuart Stevenson, member of the Scottish Parliament for Bamshire and Bucking Coast. Good morning. Eric Anderson, I'm deputy clerk to Aberdeen City Licensing Board and also legal advisor to the licensing committee, the committee that deals with civic government legislation. Hello, I'm Willie Coffey, MSP, Commander in Irvine Valley. I'm Laura Thompson from Zare Tolerance, which is a charity working to end violence against women. Thank you. I'm Kevin Stewart, convener of the committee. We also have received apologies this morning from Willie Taylor of Dumfries and Galloway Council as he is unable to attend because of bad weather conditions in the area. Can I say to panellists that you are most welcome, when you're called to speak, you don't need to press the button on your console to put the microphone on. That will be done for you, so just if I call you, just hands off the consoles would be glad.  Obviously, we have a situation whereby many of us who represent areas where there are such venues, they are often complaints from folks who live close by. They do cause a little bit of controversy. Can I ask folks their feelings on that situation and in terms of the positioning of some of these premises? Janet, would you like to go first, please? Yes, I would. The Scottish Parliament very cleverly regulated in the adult entertainment venues, which are what exists at the moment under the Licensing Scotland Act 2005. One of the great boons in that act to anybody who has difficulty with any type of licence premises is that any person can raise a complaint, any person can raise a review. If there are complaints about the running of those premises, they would easily be able to be brought to licensing boards who I have no doubt would deal with them. The act is predicated upon five objectives, which include the protection of people, the preservation of public safety, the prevention of crime and disorder and the protection of health. It is highly surprising that comments are made that those complaints are out there, given that, as far as I am aware—and, of course, I am not omniscient—there have been no complaints on those grounds to do with the running of premises. One could say that people might feel intimidated to come to a licensing board, but the Scottish Parliament thought about that. There are licensing standards officers and, obviously, the police to whom complaints can be made. I have it in my experience had complainers on other matters such as noise nuisance from a noisy pub, when the licensing standards officer took the complaint to the licensing board, as is his right, on behalf of the people who were making the complaint, because he did not have the confidence to do so. It is therefore surprising that, as far as I am aware, none of that has been raised with licensing boards to date. I feel free to indicate if you want to come in. Professor Hubbard, would you like to make a comment on that question? The academic evidence suggests that there is no particular association between criminality and the presence of lapdance clubs or gentlemen's clubs in particular communities, but we need to acknowledge that they do create anxiety and moral disapproval from certain sections of society. There is a great deal of evidence that people are anxious about them being located close to residential premises, places of worship, schools and other community facilities. The introduction of the policing crime act in 2009 in England and Wales gave adoptive legislation to local authorities allowing them to control this. It has allowed them to do that with a degree of flexibility and discretion, and in many cases successfully. However, I think that the introduction of the act in the UK was by and large farcical in terms of the way it was allowed to proceed. In England and Wales at the moment we have a situation in which I would like to see avoided in Scotland, and I think that you could learn from the lessons of England and Wales. That is that the legislation is adoptive, it is not mandatory, and what we have in England and Wales at the moment is a situation where there is a licensing regime for these establishments in one local authority, yet not a neighbouring one, for example, in London, where the fees for these establishments range from £300 to £26,000. We have a situation where some local authorities will ban nudity, others will not, and the whole situation has given rise to a whole range of appeal cases and litigation in which legal and reasonable bernist and inconsistency have been raised as valid concerns. Some of those appeals have been upheld. It has created a great deal of anxiety, expenditure and time for many local authorities who have been left to evolve policies of their own. My recommendation is that, if Scotland introduces this bill, which I think they should do, they should ensure that licensing for these type of premises is mandatory to all local authorities in Scotland, that the legislation provides a much clearer definition of sexual entertainment because that is being challenged in England and Wales at the moment. It needs to distinguish this form of entertainment from theatre performance. It also needs to ensure that the legislation is currently framed, does not allow for massage parlor owners to effectively licence their premises as brothels, which, as we know, will be contrary to other criminal law. Finally, we need to make sure that there are clearer grounds for refusal present in the primary legislation here, and not just in guidance notes. I think that it needs to be stated in this legislation that local authorities should pay particular attention to the uses in the vicinity where those uses include education, places of worship, community facilities and so on. I think that that should be stipulated in the legislation so that, if that goes to appeal, the primary legislation indicates those grounds for refusal more clearly. Sandra White, please. I can just touch on what Janet had already mentioned about no one having objected. I appeared at John Street licence and board in regards to clubs that were opening in Royal Exchange Square, along with a number of business people who had businesses there as well. It is untrue to say that people have not objected and have not went along. It is quite intimidating when you go to those places, because you have the owners of the clubs and others there as well, and you have to appear before the panel of councillors and give evidence, etc. It is quite like a mini-court, so it is quite intimidating when you go and I certainly have, along with others, been there. I just wanted to make that point. If I could pick up on the point in which Mr Hubbard, our professor, Hubbard had mentioned as well, I agree with most of what Mr Hubbard has said. We were advised, when I was pushing forward this bill, that to make it mandatory would be much more difficult. Obviously, the legislation in England and Wales went through before we managed to put this, and hopefully put this legislation through. Sandra, can you just clarify when you are talking about, put forward the bill, you are talking about your member's bill rather than the draft bill? The member's bill was intentional at the time to be mandatory, but we were advised by legal services, etc., that it would be much better to make it local authorities. Some local authorities, obviously, Glasgow City Council cost them a lot of money when they went forward to the Court of Appeal session. Invariably, they dropped their case as the owners appealed, so it was felt at the time that the choice from each individual local authority would be the best way to go forward, because then the people of the public who live in that area, if the legislation was there, they could ask their councils to enact it. I will leave it there at the moment, convener, but I thank you very much for allowing me to come in at that point, and if I could come back in some of the other points. I take in Mary Miller, first of all, please, and then I will come to Cameron Buchanan, Janet Hood and then Stuart Searance. Thank you very much, convener. I suppose that I would like to agree with some of the comments that were made by Janet in Glasgow that we have four lapdancing clubs that are licensed premises with adult entertainment, and there have not been any reviews brought by members of the public against those premises, but equally there have been no reviews brought against any licensed premises under the new provisions by any member of the public. I think that that probably says a lot about people's understanding and involvement in the licensing process. We did, of course, have an objection to a lapdancing club at the time of the transitional arrangements, which was brought by one of the licensing standards officers, and that, of course, led to the appeal in the now famous Bright Crew case. I think that one of the issues that we have is now that, because of the decision in Bright Crew, it became clear that the licensing board's responsibility is primarily in terms of the sale of alcohol, in terms of those licensing objectives, licensing standards officers now do not regulate the adult entertainment activity because of that decision, so the premises are largely unregulated. I also like to support the comments made by Sandra White when we have had new applications and it is going back some time, there has been significant level of objections to those applications, so I think again that supports the comments made by the Professor about the feelings of local communities about new establishments opening up in the area and the impact that that could have on a residential area. My understanding is that there have been no new applications for some time, certainly in Glasgow, and that we are on a falling market. There were 20 lapdancing clubs in Scotland, and we are now down to 17. One of those 17 happens to be two premises owned by the same person in the same building, so I suppose that we could say that it is 16. Aberdeen City Council certainly turned me down for an application for a lapdancing club in Chapel Street on the grounds of the protection of children from harm. They have turned down one—to my understanding, I did not act for the client at the time—in Union Street on the grounds of location, and they have turned down another on the grounds of the unsuitability of the location. The licensing Scotland Act covers, as indeed does the civic government, Scotland Act 1982 sets down criteria. One of the criteria is that local government is in fact a statutory objector or a statutory consultee. Local government already has an ability to comment or complain. Whether or not local government has commented or complained on any licensing application, I have no idea. They certainly have not done so in any of the clients with whom I have been dealing. I am taking up Professor Hubbard's point that location, character and condition already formed part of the Licensing Scotland Act 2005. If the licensing boards look at where the club is—if it was near a school or near a church or near something of that ilk—it is highly unlikely that an adult entertainment licence or premises with that activity taking place therein would be granted for that activity. If the character of the building was such that it was overtly demonstrating what was going on in it—this is barred throughout the bulk of Scotland—then not only the planning committee who deal with advertisements but the licensing board would comment on the unsuitability of that. That could be linked directly to the sale of alcohol because those adverts lead people in, whether it is a tenant sign or any other sign that might be on the premises. It is unfortunate that it is being implied that local government has absolutely no say in this. Local government has a say in this and have so far appears, anyway, to have chosen not to have their say. In England and Wales, are theatre licensing the same as sexual entertainment or not? You said that it was rather loosely worded. Could you clarify that point? Is it the same licensing? My expertise is in the area of sexual entertainment venue licensing. It is a separate licensing regime to public entertainment. As far as I know, there has been no theatrical performance or theatre that is applied for an SCV licence. There are currently 221 venues in England and Wales licensed for sexual entertainment. The majority of those are gentlemen's clubs.  There is one swingers club that is also licensed. There are no spaces of theatre, theatrical entertainment or burlesque. As far as I know, it is licensed in this way. John Morgan, I think that you wanted to come in at that point. Just a clarification about the licensing of theatres in England and Wales, they come in within a thing called a premises licence, which is a catch-all licence covering alcohol, public entertainment, theatre and cinema. There is a single licence for those premises in England and Wales. Clearly, the early part of the discussion is focused on if such premises and activities are taking place in communities that need to be appropriately located, away from sensitive areas such as schools and churches and so on and so forth. That draws me immediately to what is in the bill by way of an exemption whereby it is possible for premises to hold sexual entertainment on no more than four occasions in a 12-month period. In other words, they are outside the regime altogether. If I could draw on the expertise of the people who are with us this morning on whether that might create disproportionate discomfort communities because there is no control over the location, they would in law be nothing to stop premises immediately in extra school being used on an infrequent basis but causing disproportionate concern to people whose kids go to that school, etc. In fact, calling the whole attempt to bring some sanity to this through this legislation into dispute, I just wonder if there is anything that the experts around the table can contribute to that, because I am personally coming to this quite uncomfortable about this exemption and, in particular, on the matter of location. I am going to take Eric Anderson in, because Aberdeen City Council was mentioned, and you can cover the points that Mr Stevenson has just made as well. Please, Eric. Certainly, that was one of the concerns that we had set out in our response to the consultation, and we consider that that would have potentially created a loophole that could be exploited by organisers who, rather than having permanent premises with a licence and proper facilities for performers, could simply transfer the activity around different venues where there are no such facilities and protection and such a view, such an exemption, could therefore mean defeating the aims and purposes of the amendments to the 1982 act. Okay, and Ms Heude made some comments about Aberdeen City. Do you want to react to those? So far as the refusal of licences is concerned, I can certainly confirm that, since the 2005 act has been put in place, we have refused one premises and we have refused others in the past under the previous legislation. That is correct. I think that what has been missing in this conversation so far is what is different about sexual entertainment or adult entertainment and how that fits in with other policies across the Scottish Government. The zero-tolerance position, along with the position of many other equalities organisations in Scotland and the Scottish Government's own violence against women strategy is that sexual entertainment is a form of commercial sexual exploitation with links to violence against women. I feel that the importance of bringing in this separate licensing structure is not just because we have had issues with alcohol licensing and licensing under alcohol, it is because there are so many issues around prostitution being accessed through lap dancing, research within Scotland shows that that is very prevalent. All the issues around prostitution and women involved in prostitution are much more likely to be victims of violence against women, women feeling unsafe around the venues, women working in the venues, facing abuse and harassment. If we are going to bring in a new licensing regime, which we support with the caveat that we would like to see an end to this kind of exploitation, then it needs to take these broader themes in mind. That is why I agree with Professor Hubbard that it should be mandatory for all local authorities in Scotland to take this up, otherwise we are essentially ignoring a lot of these very important issues, again issues around child protection. It should not be up to local authorities to decide that these are not relevant issues to them. Again, with the kinds of regulations that come in, there should be guidance for local authorities on what they should be looking at, what they should be inspecting and what they should be expecting licensed venues to do in terms of allowing welfare visitors in to speak to their workers, in terms of contact or lack of contact between customers and workers, that is all very important. To come back to the point around the number of times sexual entertainment happens in a venue, I think when you take those themes into account, it is irrelevant how many times it happens, the potential for harm is there no matter how many times it happens. I think a lot of people in the submissions to the consultation expressed worries that organisers would simply move from venue to venue and I think that makes it much more difficult to regulate those kinds of harms. I would agree that there should be a limit if it is once a year, then you should have to have a licence for that. On the signage around schools, I would like to point out that if you walk down a Lothian road or what is called the pubic triangle by locals in Edinburgh, you will see that it is very clear that very sexualised, very obvious signage is being used. It is being challenged by zero tolerance and nothing has changed. It is within one or two streets of at least three schools, so something is obviously not happening right there. Before I bring in Janet Hood, who has indicated that she wants to come in at this point, one of the things that the committee has looked at in previous sessions is about occasional alcohol licensing and what we have here in terms of this four times a year seems to be that kind of occasionality again. Do those kinds of situations cause real difficulties for licensing boards? Ms Miller, do you want to go first? I think that it would be almost impossible to enforce the number of times that the activity is held. Licent boards or licence standards officers simply would not know how many times it has happened because there would be no requirement for them to know that they would be relying on the premises to self-regulate and admit to keep it to the floor because you simply could not rely on licence standards officers being able to cover all licence premises to keep track of the number of times that activity takes place. I would have shared the concerns about being unregulated generally, but I also feel that it would be impossible to enforce to limit to that number. Eric Anderson, please concur with everything that Mary Miller said there. The control would be very difficult in monitoring if it was not properly licensed. Professor Hubbard, you? I just think that these type of restrictions have been brought in to deal with the situation one finds in some holiday resorts in England and Wales, Newquay, Scarborough, but particularly things that happen around, say for example the Cheltenham Gold Cup, where for seven days premises were put on lapdancing during the duration of the Gold Cup and the rest of the year wouldn't have it and that falls within the kind of 12 times a year limit they've set in England and Wales. I think that local authorities would become very aware of the fact that a particular premise was abusing and passing that law for the whole week of, say, a particular sporting event or during Sade Edinburgh Festival, a particular pub or club that was putting on this type of entertainment. I think that it will become clear to the licensing board through reports. I'm looking at the licensing clerks to see if they would agree with that position. I would imagine in certain cases, as we've heard in terms of some of the private members' clubs that exist out there, that that may be a little bit more difficult for you guys to actually get to grips with what's going on. Would that be the case? In terms of the example, given a sort of pop-up one-off annual event, yes, I suppose there would be more visibility on that. What I was thinking of is the idea about this entertainment being taken around different premises. I think that the board or the licensed standards officer would be very difficult for them to keep track of that within existing premises or licensed premises. There are a number of private members' clubs and sports and social clubs in Aberdeen. Mr Anderson, would you be able to keep track if there was that? There are indeed, but again, it's difficult to keep track of every activity and all the activities. Certainly, there was the opportunity of an itinerant type of entertainment where they're moving from place to place here one day, gone the next day. It just makes the monitoring and the control very difficult to keep tabs on. Certainly, I would consider opposing that proposal. I agree that perhaps, as the Professor was saying, on a one-off major event where there were consistent types of regular entertainment on an annual basis, that's one scenario, but overall taking it from what could be a day-to-day, week-by-week basis, that's a different story altogether. Janet Hude, please. Thank you. I find myself and my clients find themselves in agreement with the licensing boards and with zero tolerance on this particular point. At the moment, the clubs that I represent in the association of adult entertainment venues are highly regulated. They have vast numbers of stewards, CCTV, high levels of training for management and the premises are properly and well regulated and they are places where the dancers who are not employees, they're not forced to dance, they apply to dance within the premises, come to dance. We have particular concerns about either the four events a year because we feel that those could take place in unregulated public places. That's bad enough, but what is actually happening just now and what we feel the Scottish Government should be turning its eye on is the fact that there is seriously unregulated sexual entertainment going on within Scotland. I spent an exceedingly unpleasant weekend last weekend typing in, among other things, in Google, Strippers Dundee or Strippers Perth or even Strippers Edzel where I live and discovered to my horror that I am unlikely to do this, but if I were a group of young men or whatever I might do this could engage a woman to come to my premises for the purposes of performing a striptease, I could say this is for a stag night or I could say it is for something else. To become to your private house you could come to your hotel room, they're not going to turn up in tassels in the G-string, they're going to turn up looking as if they are normal human beings, they get into a room, they're completely unregulated. I asked if I would have to pay on each one of these sites I said to have to pay for a chaperone, no chaperones. These are the people who are being seriously exploited within Scotland and this is something that my clients have serious concerns with. In comments at a previous meeting of this committee there was an implication that striptease extractor for head nights, stag nights, stuff like this was actually something that was not really particularly serious. I would say that this is where the serious harm is likely to lie within Scotland and if you have the four days then these events could be happening probably in pubs and clubs, at least they will be in pubic and there is a chance that the girls might get away unscathed but the one thing I can say is that they won't be regulated the way the adult entertainment venues are currently regulated. My clients have a toolkit which has been presented to this committee, immigration and migrant toolkit in which girls are identified with passport, with driver's licence, their next of kin is sourced, these photographs are taken of their ID documents, these are passed to the police. This all helps to keep people safe, not only within the clubs, payments are only made to the girls bank accounts or into their hands, no payments are made to third parties. This is not the case when one goes online to book a girl to come to your flat or bedroom and these are matters which I think that this committee should have concern. Andrew Cox, please. I would just like to say that working in these clubs, the one that I work in, no one has ever been arrested or charged with people trafficking, prostitution, money laundering and all those other things that have been kind of targeted towards us. I believe that Laura said something about letting welfare in. We are open to anybody, we let the police in, LSOs, anybody who is here is welcome to come in and you can come in and talk to the girls. My main concern, other than the girls, is myself. If there is a ban or the zero number of licences for Glasgow, I will get out of a job. I would like to know what is going to happen to me, is there a provision to help me to train me? There are neither 10 people full-time employees in my club and that is just one club, so you could be talking to a thousand jobs, quite easily including the dancers. I get a redundancy pay because once the club loses its licence, the money will dry up, so who helps me to pay my mortgage, plan for my future, I would just like to know if that is going to be mentioned. I just want to follow up on Professor Hubbard's description of the 12 occasions provision of the English legislation. As a substitute member of the committee, I am afraid that I may not be quite up to speed with some of my colleagues. I just wanted to explore with the professor and with others who can make informed comment what the practical effect is. The example that was given was Cheltenham Gold Cup, fair enough, but does the way that 12 exemptions work inform the committee? I started from the point of view that the four that is in the bill that is before us could, by taking those entirely outside the licensing system, if in particular there is no drinks licence associated with it. After all, bringing your own bottle is common in certain circumstances otherwise, and it could be the case here. Whether that in England causes difficulties for communities, practical examples would be helpful in informing our understanding of what we should do in Scotland. I think that the issue is quite a red herring in relation to what we are talking about, because we are talking about the licensing of a premise, not the licensing of an activity. If an activity is highly itinerant, it is not likely that any community identifies a particular premise as being associated with that activity. Therefore, I cannot think of any particular situation where itinerant striptease at a venue has caused anxiety for communities. It is where a particular premise becomes identified, visibly known and advertised as a lap dancing club. The opposition anxiety begins to be perpetuated. The itinerant activity is presumably by some means advertised, otherwise it would be difficult for clients to arrive at the venue that is itinerant by nature. How does it actually work in practice? Forgive my naivety. There are agencies in England and Wales that will provide dancers to certain striptease pubs. Those striptease pubs, you cannot find websites for them. They do it in irregular activity and they will generally advertise through word of mouth or just putting something on the chalkboard outside. It might be a Sunday lunchtime once every six months. It may be a regular Friday or Saturday nights. These places are not particularly known or reputed for sexual entertainment. They would not be understood by most residents as specifically having that type of entertainment. We will resonate with all forms of other entertainment such as live music and comedy. I think that that is a little bit of a red herring. If you have particular anxieties about itinerant adult entertainment, you should licence the dancers and the performers, not the premise. What you are saying to the committee is that the premises that are operating on the exemption basis are all premises that are otherwise regulated. You are suggesting to me, or at least I am hearing, that there are not cases of premises that are not regulated by some regulatory regime that are exploiting the exemption. Is that what I am being told? It is possible that some escape regulation, but the majority will be licensed for a standard premise for alcohol. I want to raise a number of issues. When we are talking about local authorities, absolutely they have a very hard job to do. I would like to know how many times in Aberdeen City Council that the clubs have actually appealed the decision that has been interesting to know. In the area where I represent Glasgow, we have two-lap dancing clubs at either end of the city, where a street away there is a church, the Gallic Church and the Church at Nelson Mandela Place. There are churches there, but that has not stopped the clubs from appealing the decision in winning the decision in costing the council's tax payers money. I am very pleased that Andrew says that he welcomes everyone in his club, because I would certainly be in the club. I did do my homework before I ventured on this bill. The one thing that struck me in the club— I am sorry, Sandra, because you said this bill again. I am sorry for your previous bill, not this draft bill that we are discussing. I suppose that it is all experience to take you forward. I am very pleased that the committee is scrutinising the bill in this respect. What struck me in some of the clubs was the lack of customers. I often wondered how they made the money to continue on in that respect. I think that we are missing a great point here when I come back to Laura Thomson's issue here—how women are looked upon by the men who frequent the clubs. A number of clubs that I was in, and one in particular where I spoke to a group of young men, I felt that they were exploited because they would be negged on by their friends to put money to get a dance. When I asked those young men what they thought, I could not repeat the language that they mentioned regarding what they thought of those women. When I asked whether it was their wives, their girlfriends and their sisters, they would never do that. That is another point. I think that we really have to look at that respect. When we talk about employment, those dancers are self-employed. They pay to dance, they pay for their costumes, they pay for the tables. I think that those girls are being exploited in many ways. It is a perception that men in particular have of the women when they see these dancers or whatever you wish to call them. When we talk about absolutely the pubic corner in Edinburgh—very well advertised, people are walking about—there was a lady who works in one of these clubs who was accosted outside the clubs when she was not working by a customer. I think that to me says a lot of how men perceive the actions and that poor lady was accosted outside the club. In my area, we have people who have to walk past these clubs from central stations, people coming, going from work, going about their regular business. I think that we do need to look at it seriously. Eric Anderson, there were specifics about Aberdeen and Sandra's language. Yes, certainly. In respect of Aberdeen, I think that I mentioned that since the 2005 act, we have refused just the one application for sex entertainment premises and that was not appealed by the applicant. Of course, we cannot read anything into that particular scenario, but, as far as the other two were concerned, that is a previous legislation going back into the bids of time. I could say that the case in question, if I recall, did attract about objections into double figures. I cannot remember, because I think it is boob. I am sorry, I am sorry. It just was mine. I was not at that particular meeting, so there is a particular concern, as you could perhaps detect from that. Mary Miller, please. Just to follow up on the point regarding the occasional use of premises, it could be that the temporary licence provisions would suit here that someone has premises being used on an occasional basis that could apply for a temporary licence in the same way that a one-off public entertainment event can be covered by a temporary licence either. I am not sure whether the provisions currently extend to include the temporary licence provisions. I would need to check that, but that would certainly be an option rather than having the minimus provision. Just on a more general point in falling on from some of the comments from Sandra White, it strikes me that in licensing legislation, we have regulations in licensing that covers window cleaning activity, we license and regulate somebody selling burgers from a van, we license and regulate somebody selling chewing gum at three o'clock in the morning under late hours catering, but at the moment in terms of current legislation that this form of activity is not regulated, there are no provisions, there is no control over the conduct of this activity. I think that that is quite a fundamental point about what the bill would allow local authorities to be able to do that is not currently available to them or to licensing boards. Janet Hodge, please. I would like to come in on Laura's point on advertising of clubs in the Lothian road area to start with, please. Advertising is something that is in the control of local government planning committees. If the advertising was deemed by the local government, who are according to Mary, might be anxious to control those venues, one would have thought that the advertising that causes offence and Sandra and Laura has mentioned this should be controlled by the planning authority. That is something that should be taken up with planning authorities on that matter. Mary suggests that Bright Crew has removed all elements of control. The five objectives and the requirement to consider any form of criminality through fitness and proper, which is coming back in, give licensing boards huge control. My client's premises are among the most controlled premises in Scotland. That is why we have so few incidents of any harm happening. The controls are implemented by management, staff and stewarding. All of the activities in the clubs are open to scrutiny by police, licensing standards officers and has been issued, indicated by Andrew, any other person from local government who wishes to come in or from anywhere else who wishes to come in is always welcome because my clients are not trying to hide anything they do. They welcome scrutiny because they wish to be in a position to demonstrate how well the clubs are regulated. Part of the issue in the Bright Crew was whether a kettle should be produced in a changing room. There were issues that really have nothing to do with the actual preservation of order and good practice within premises. I would defy anybody around the table to suggest that good practice, care for the dancers, care for the public, care for the staff, care for people in the vicinity are not currently carried out by the clients that I represent. Andrew Cox, please. I was talking to Sandra this morning. Obviously, the earlier she was quite daunting going to Elysus on board, so you should try to do this for me. You mentioned the premises near a church just as a layman. Usually churches are more bonding things, so I do not think that the two crowds, for example, would bump into each other, so that was strange. Again, this idea of some clubs and these clubs and that clubs, I am interested in my club. We have exceeded every single regulation that we get hit with, and we are happy to do it. You are saying how the girls are self-employed and there are a lack of customers. The girls that go obviously make money, and it does not matter how many customers if it is quiet. One million is as good as many of our people who are spending the same money on the same things. Also, when the way the girls are looked upon by men, my girlfriend, my future wife, was a dancer, and how she was looked upon by men has done no damage to her. She is more than happy, so I do not really see why you could just categorise everything with the one thing. Every girl is different and every club is different. I have a list of people, Sandra. I will let you come back. Professor Hubbard, please. I just wanted to return to the issue of advertising. In general, I am in favour of the introduction of this new power, because I think that licensing provides flexibility and discretion to local authorities, which the planning system does not allow people to react to changes in a way that, once you have been given the initial permission, perhaps the planning committee is not the right remit for doing this. One thing that I would note is that the system has to be proportionate. The fees have to be not contrary to EU competition rules, and particularly EU services directive, which should suggest that any particular business should not be unfettered by unfair legislation, which should be over-regulated. One thing that I would say in relation to advertising is that, at the moment, this is proposing an amendment to the 1982 Civic Government Act and the Schedule on Sex Shops, which mentions the control of advertising in or on the sex shop premise. I think that that should be amended through this revision to read on in or in the vicinity of, because one of the things that is occurring in England and Wales is that A-frames are being located on the street, indicating lap dance this way. Again, they might not be mentioned within licensing conditions given the current frame of the Sex Shops Act. Also, one is finding touting, pamphleting and so on, and adding in the vicinity of would allow licensing committees to impose fairly common sense rules, I think, and conditions on advertising in on or in the vicinity of premises that are licensed for sexual entertainment. On the point around communities complaining about planning or around sexual entertainment values or around alcohol licences, I think that the point of this regime should be to make it easy for local communities to complain or to raise an objection when they feel like, on Lothian Road, advertising signage outside the venues is not suitable to streets away from a school. I think that when different things are covered by different planning or licensing authorities, that makes it very confusing for them, so I think that bringing that under that the point should be to bring this all under sexual entertainment venue licensing, so that makes it easy for them to do. I think that just to respond to Andrew Cox, who said that all venues are different and all managers are different and all the women who work there are different, that is the point, and that is why the licensing should be mandatory and should be coherent across Scotland, because just because one venue is run effectively does not mean that they all are. Do you have examples, Laura, that you have maybe dealt with, where folks have gone from pillar to post with their objection, and that their objection may not be necessarily against the venue per se, but might be round about some of the advertising? I think that different people object to different things, and there are probably people out there who feel comfortable with things happening as long as their children do not have to walk past it to school every morning, and it is very obvious around Lothian Road area what is happening, and they are very objectifying views of girls and women. We know that there is more and more research linking that to violence against women and to inequality. I think that it is important that they might have some objections down there, and that they get to raise them in a way that is very simple. Colleagues have raised objections about the signage on Lothian Road. Nothing has happened, even though, as far as we can see, it does contravene policy, and we were told that we have taken our eyes of these places by the people that we spoke to. I personally do not see, in our experience, that this is happening and functioning well at the moment. Sandra, I will let you come back briefly, but I have got other folks in the list. That is absolutely fine. I just wanted to say to Andrew that I did not make up the rules about the churches and schools—that is part of the parcel of it, and I think that Janet explained that. I will leave it at that. There was one issue that I wanted to come in on that no-one else has mentioned, and that is about the immigration and licence toolkit. It is okay to mention that, but I think that it is something different. I spoke to Janet earlier, and she is going to send me the immigration and licence toolkit. I have never heard that put forward for any other form of employment. Can I just say as well that you mentioned earlier that the committee has caught sight of that, and in speaking to the clerks, we do not have that information. I think that it would be extremely useful for us to have that information so that we can have a look at it in terms of our deliberations. We would be delighted to send that in. We put it in as part of our sexual entertainment venues consultation response. We are sorry that it has not come to the MSPs and everybody else around this table, but we will certainly make sure that it is sent to your committee clerk. Could I have been to the Government response, rather than to the committee's call for evidence? Yes, it would have been. That is a separate process, so if you could send it to our clerks and we can arrange that afterwards, that would be really grand. I see the choke at the end here, is that all right? I think that that would be the best way forward, and we will make sure that that is disseminated to yourself as well, Sandra, as well as to other committee members. Willie Coffey, please. Thanks very much, convener. I wonder if I could ask our City Council colleagues to clarify the issue in relation to financial gain. Both made submissions about perhaps a lack of clarity in the bill's proposals about this. Could you first of all tell us just exactly what your concern is, how it might be addressed and tidied up within the provisions in the bill, and perhaps what the response of the club operators or associates and colleagues might have in response to that, please? Mary Miller, first, please. My concern would be that it would allow almost an escape provision that it would be arguable that the organiser or the premises owner was not making any financial gain, that it was something that was being laid on free of charge, for example, and there financial gain was through the sale of alcohol or some other activity. I think that it is something that would obviously require to be litigated in order to determine whether or not the way of properly making financial gain. I think that it is really a concern over the interpretation that might be given to that, and there again the difficulty around trying to enforce. Eric Anderson, please. Again, I find myself endorsing very much what Mary Miller has been saying. I would say that the definition appears pretty well sufficient, but some more clarity may be useful. One general point that we were going to make was that it was interesting that, in looking at the changes overall to the 1982 act and what has gone before, a similar provision for the payment of money or money's worth has recently been removed from the licensing of places of public entertainment, and yet there is the concern that there is the financial gain element to be stipulated in this particular activity. That is just a general comment that we make in terms of the act. Anyone else in that point? Professor Hubbard, please. Again, I think that this is a red herring. The provisions here are clearly direct or indirect, and there has been no case again in England where anybody has challenged the idea that somebody providing free striptease entertainment may be benefiting indirectly from increased patronage, which results in increased alcohol sales. I think that the definition is adequate in that sense. My concern is, and again licensing authorities and licences, that this has advised me of this, that at the moment there's a disjunction here, where it says a definition of sexual entertainment is live performance or live display. I think it should read a live performance involving live nudity, because at the moment it could just involve a live display of nudity. Now, live display of nudity means that that would then begin to include massage parlers, because in a massage parler there is a live display of nudity in some instances where a massage is provided by somebody who's topless or is naked. We know this goes on. It is advertised, so it is known to be for the purpose of sexual stimulation. There is financial gain for the organiser who runs the massage parler, even if he denies knowledge of that or she denies knowledge of that. So there is a danger with the way that these things are currently framed, that this does bring massage parlers into the equation. And although we would like to turn a blind eye to the fact that this goes on in Scotland, as in England and Wales, we do know that saunas and massage parlers are known and advertised as spaces where sex is purchased. There needs to be an additional clause inserted, which suggests under 45A paragraph 7 that this act should exclude any premise resorted to or used by more than one woman or man for the purposes of prostitution or fornication. Otherwise, one could get into a situation where a licensing board on a very good day could decide to issue a massage parler, a sexual entertainment licence, and therefore you have a civic regime, which is licensed in massage parlers, contrary to the criminal law, which forbids the running of a brothel or a disorderly house. This has not been challenged in England and Wales yet, but it is going to be challenged soon. I am quite surprised that, Professor Hubbard's comments, it appears that we should be turning a blind eye to prostitution and serious abuse of women, but if that is the case, then that would be rather depressing. I would say that the main point for local government, however, is that I have 21 years' experience as clerking boards and committees in local government. I think that the major problem from local government is going to be the challenge of trying to marry two separate definitions. Aral entertainment is defined differently to sexual entertainment. I think that it would be almost impossible to decide which way anybody is going to determine what is happening in premises. I think that this on of itself could tie local government up, not only in the local courts, but certainly in courts first of Scotland, should this legislation come in. My clients are particularly concerned about this because it will be impossible to get the two regimes to marry. My clients of themselves would certainly be happy if grandfather rights were issued to those places that are currently operating under the system safely and properly regulated system under the Licensing Scotland Act and would hope that the Government would be looking at the licensing of sexual entertainment venues to come in for new places. However, if you do not manage to marry up the two definitions, this is definitely going to cause enormous cost and enormous difficulty for local government. This has been canvas by Jack Cummings, it has been canvas by Stephen McGowan and it has been canvas by other people who have appeared before this committee. I think that it is something that you are going to have to take on board and decide how that works. The last question on that point is, what are you going to do about the places that are currently licensed under the Licensing Scotland Act 2005 to provide adult entertainment? They have been deemed fit to provide adult entertainment. There has been no slipping in under the rug, there has been no slipping in under the counter. Under the 1976 act, you had to declare the type of entertainment that took place in those premises. That was accepted by licensing boards then, with all the location, etc, stuff that we have talked about before. Under the 2005 act, the activities had to be declared. Those premises have been deemed to be fit for those activities to take place. How are you going to marry that up with this new regime? If, for instance, Glasgow, which is already in the press, declared that they want a zero number, which is rather odd because they have not considered anything, of those premises in Glasgow, how are they going to deal with the premises that already exist, which are providing legitimate activities in a well-regulated setup? How are they going to remove that consent from the licensed premises in terms of the 2005 act? I think that that is a quandary for everybody. John Morgan, please. Definitions and exclusions. I would like to explore potential implications for theatre and dance and other kinds of legitimate performance. Maybe, Paul, you are at it. You can talk to us about a number of your practical concerns or about the proposed new legislation on theatres, because I know that we have kind of missed out. I was not sure what was the right moment to come in. You go ahead, sir. Just dealing with sexual entertainment venues licensed, first of all, we do not have a position on the substantive proposal, but we are certainly not speaking of opposition to it. Our main concern is around the definition of sexual entertainment as it is currently constituted and the potential impact on the freedom of artistic expression for legitimate artists. Elsewhere in the bill, we are pleased to see that there are provisions to continue the ban against censorship, which was in the 68 Theatres Act and stopping local authorities from attaching conditions to public entertainment licences around which plays may be performed or the manner in which they may be performed. Those safeguards, those freedom of artistic expression safeguards, are very important. Our concern is that this part of the bill might inadvertently, although we know that is not the intention, might inadvertently have an impact on that freedom of artistic expression. We surveyed our members about this and they were unanimous in their concerns around this. I suppose that those concerns are threefold. One is potential misinterpretation or misapplication of the sexual entertainment venues licensing to restrict unreasonably legitimate artistic performance. Potential for vexatious complaint by individual members of the public on the grounds perhaps of taste or decency rather than on the grounds of this being an example of sexual entertainment and, indeed, self-censorship by our own sector, people out of fear of falling found of this legislation simply choosing not to put on a particular performance or production. The sorts of things that I am talking about, I have examples but I probably will not go into detail about them now, are burlesque artists, artists whose performances are exploring questions of sex, sexuality, prostitution, pornography. There are examples like the production Wonderland that was on at the Edward International Festival two years ago, which explicitly explored pornography and involved nudity on stage. There was a performance of the festival last year called Sister, which involved a lap dance, in fact, as part of the performance to demonstrate the different attitudes of the women in the performance to sexual performance in that way. We are concerned that those kinds of performances, which are really pushing at the boundaries of taste and decency for many people but are not illegal, may fall foul of the definition. We have some proposals about how the definition might be changed. We would request that under 45A section 7 there is an exemption for venues with a public entertainment licence and also an explicit exemption for artistic or theatrical performances whose intention is artistic or creative. I noted when there was a consultation on this in June 2013 when the consultation came out. In the guidance notes to the consultation there was an explicit statement that this was not intended to inadvertently affect artistic performances, but that explicit statement does not exist anywhere in the bill at present, so we would like to see that in the bill and in the accompanying guidance. Professor Hubbard, please. I would just like to defer slightly from that in the sense that 45A paragraph 3 already indicates that sexual entertainment indicates a live performance or a live display of nudity, which can be reasonably assumed whether by verbal or other means to be provided solely or principally for the purpose of sexual stimulation of an audience. I think that our understanding will be that an artistic performance or theatrical performance will not be construed as solely or principally for sexual stimulation. One could add, and it may be prudent to do so on advice, whether by verbal or other means, including advertising, and to add that there, because I think that there is a very clear difference in the sense that I could set up a premise called Bottoms Up, for example, or Cuddles or something along those lines, and the act of advertising in that way would indicate that the entertainment that I am providing is there for the purpose of sexually stimulating. If I have a premise called a theatre, I think that that becomes very clear that my primary objective is not sexual stimulation but artistic entertainment. On you go, Mr Morgan. Here in Edinburgh, during the fringe, there are lots of venues that are not normally called theatre, which become theatres during the festival for the sake of argument. I am not sure that that would provide sufficient protection. At this point in time, there have been similar instances, but by nature of advertising, a common sense view would be that verbal or other means, including advertising, would indicate that a programme of entertainment was there as part of a particular cultural season. If it was indicated somewhat differently that this was about sexual stimulation, then I think that the outcome would be very different, but I do think that this is somewhat of a red herring, and I think that the current legislation, as framed, makes adequate provision for local authorities to distinguish between what is exempted. If I was wanting to get round to some of the regulations, I may actually say that my venue was a theatre rather than anything else, where some of the original venues for sexual entertainment and soho were not dubbed as theatres at one point. I do not think that that instance is likely to occur, and I think that in terms of the advertising and the likely patronage, I think that in particular routes would be unlikely. There has been no event of this happening in the last five years in England and Wales. Okay, John Watson, please. Thank you, convener. It was just a further ask, Mr Morgan, about this issue, about theatre performances, because one of the fears that I have is that, because of the way in which the bill is presently laid out, that different licensing authorities may take different interpretations of a theatre production, so that you can have a theatre production taking place in Glasgow that has live nudity. The same theatre production then tries to go into, say, West Dunbartonshire or East Dunbartonshire or North Lanarkshire, and the licensing authority there decides that it is not fit to show in those areas. Part of the difficulty that I have, convener, is that trying to ensure that the legislation as it comes in has the same effect throughout Scotland that no audiences in Glasgow have the same rights as the audiences elsewhere in Scotland. That is part of the difficulty is that we are then relying on 32 licensing authorities interpreting the legislation that is laid before it. I do feel when Mr Morgan can comment on that. There may be an issue about artistic licence being taken away from theatre productions. This is a difficulty in trying to define legislation in such a way that does not allow artistic interpretation to be taken away from some areas and not another, based on the decisions of licensing boards. That is certainly our concern. The phrase must reasonably be assumed, meaning that there is interpretation involved in that and subjectivity as well. We are concerned that different local authorities or local licensing boards may take a different view on the same show or on the same production, as Mr Wilson has said. We feel that the simple inclusion of a clause that says that this excludes legitimate artistic performances or theatre performances and the exclusion around PELs would provide sufficient safeguard around that. I take your point about someone potentially saying that I run a theatre and I have a public entertainment licence. It is about proportionality for me. There are hundreds of theatres and community arts venues up and down the country and we are talking about 20 sexual entertainment venues. Surely it must be possible to verify whether someone is legitimately running a theatre or a sexual entertainment venue. I am going to let Mr Wilson come back here, but if he does not pick up on this, I will. You pick up on your point because I was going to give one. It is the definition of legitimate theatre performance, because you and I may think that something is a legitimate theatre performance and others may not. Is that definition in law? I often think that the more that we legislate for things, the more that we create a rod for our own backs in some regards, because those definitions often cause us great difficulties. There is already a definition in the theatres act that will still subsist under the new bill, because not all of the theatres act is being repealed in this. There is a definition of play and which would cover a legitimate theatrical performance in the bill. One could use that definition. To follow on from the point that was made by Laura Thompson earlier about the signage outside premises and just to seek clarification and maybe some of the round table can clarify this, the difficult way that I have is that licensing of premises is done by the licensing board or licensing committee. The display of signage then comes under the planning regulations. Has there been any discussion regarding the crossover between what is actually acceptable by the licensing board in terms of premises and then, as Ms Thompson indicated, the display of signage outside those premises falling into the planning authority regime rather than into the licensing regime? Are people clear about whether or not when they make a complaint about signage, they are complaining to the same department and how the licensing officers in the room might be able to clarify what the linkage between the planning department and the licensing department board is in relation to ensuring that the signage does not infringe on the decency of residents or other citizens within the area of concern? I do not have an answer to that. The reason that we think that it should come under the licensing of the venue is that, as far as I am aware and I am not an expert on this, the objectives of planning are able to be raised once, whereas a school or a religious centre could be built down the street from somewhere that has already had planning permission given for a certain type of signage and then there is nothing that the community can do about that as well as the fact that it is very convoluted for local people to understand who they should approach. I am going to take in the licensing folk. I imagine that some of the areas that the clubs are in are in areas that might be conservation zones or may have other planning strictures around them. I do not know if you would want to make a comment on that, because that would allow if that were the case, not just that single application for objection but an on-going scenario Mr Anderson. I can refer to one case a few years ago where we did have indeed a situation whereby premises had, I think that we are wishing to expand, signs displayed which had led to a number of complaints from members of the public. To an extent, those went to the local authority in general, some went to planning and some went to the licensing board. As far as we are dealing with that, we put everything to the planners who were able to investigate and, as a result, the offending signs were amended and adapted and displayed within the accepted terms. That application or was that something that had been in existence for a while and changed? Those were fairly new premises and, as I said, they were expanding their business, they were wishing to develop and, I guess, it was some form of advert. In the eye of the holder, as far as the signs are concerned, nevertheless it did attract quite a number of complaints. The issue was dealt with fairly quickly, I must say. Mary Millar, please. The approach that we take is that there are entirely separate regimes between licensing and planning and the two do not cross over. I think that, in my experience, that tends to be the biggest single frustration for members of the public and certainly a big misconception that one cannot enforce the other. People do come to the licensing section to complain about advertising and licence premises, but it becomes frustrated that it does not sit within the licensing board to deal with that issue. We have simply to pass it on to planning, but members of the public do struggle with that distinction. Take it that you have a level of co-operation in your local authority where the licensing board will deal with the planning department and pass on any of those complaints. Certainly, if I received a complaint, I would pass it on to my colleagues in planning to deal with it, but I would not necessarily request a report back on the issue, because there would not be anything that I could really do with that information. Professor Hubbard, please. I am sorry, chair, again, to come in on this, but it is in my area of expertise. I will just refer to a case law example in South Buckinghamshire in 2003, where the local authority gave planning permission for a lap dance club in a rural location and approved signage, advertising and elevation and had all that information approved it. Then two weeks later, the Licensing Committee rejected the license application. It is entirely possible for a licensing committee to draw completely different conclusions from the same kind of sets of evidence that they are planning. They are separate regimes, and case laws suggest that they can be treated as such. By moving the control of advertising into the licensing regime, you do have that flexibility through annual renewal to see what has been happening and to impose new conditions on signage and advertising in or on or in the vicinity of a particular premise. It would seem sensible to acknowledge that and give licensing committees that particular control. The contradiction between the two regimes and the fact that they do not have to pay much attention to one another is interesting and unresolved, as far as I can see, given that they are both considering the material effect of a premise on the locality. The legislation is particularly mindful of the impact of a premise on the locality, the locality to be decided in accordance with the facts of the application, and again a locality could be defined differently by a planning committee, to a licensing committee it cannot be defined in advance. Just a very quick point on the advertising. In the Licensing Scotland Act 2005, there is an objective which is to prevent public nuisance. If people are offended and upset by signage, I suggest that that would be a route in which they could make complaint to the licensing board and the licensing board would have a legitimate reason for at least looking at the effect of signage and they would no doubt report back to the planning service. If somebody changes a sign, and I know this because my clients do this all the time, if it was called Janet Hoots to tell today and then it was called Stuart Stevenson to tell tomorrow, you would require to get planning consent for the new sign, even though there was nothing offensive, hopefully, in either of those two names. It is quite important that the committee realises this. It appears to me that the signage that has been approved—there must be Edinburgh City Council in the Lothian Road area—must have been something that the local authority—that is who the planning committee is, they are part of the local authority—have made a decision on, and that is subject to ratification at council level. We have to be careful, the licensing board is undoubtedly the appropriate place to deal with venues of this type, they have the powers to control these matters and this dual licensing, I think, will confuse the issue and actually make it harder for the public to know where to bring complaint or attack. I think that one of the things that is maybe a bit distraught for us today in terms of the signage aspects is not having anyone from the planning section here. We may have to write to authorities and ask for clarification round about how they deal with it. I would imagine that some of those issues are dealt with under delegated powers to officers rather than by planning committees per se, and it may well be that some of the difficulties lie in that there is no anelected member overview at some points, but we may need to write to some planning committees or local authorities to get their planning view on that, and we will do so. Cameron Buchanan was next, please. I just wanted to pick up on Professor Hubbard's point. I think that the word vicinity is very important for signages. These aballs sometimes are spread all over the place, and I think that that is probably not very helpful, but that really wasn't the point that I was going to make. I wanted to ask the panel what they thought of these occasional licences. We haven't cut this, but this is a point that was covered due to the exception of venues to have sexual entertainments on no more than four occasions a year. What does the panel think about that, because I couldn't gather what people thought? I've already covered some of that. Does anyone else want to come in on this? Mary Miller, do you want to? In support of the exemption, I don't think there should be a de minimis room. Okay. Eric Anderson? Yes, I would agree with that. I would agree with Mary. Anything else on that? We agree with that as well. Right. I wonder if I could ask the panel their views on the proposal to permit those who are under 18 to work in the premises, albeit outwith the operational hours of the entertainment. Would the panel have a view on that? Any views on under 18s working in the premises outwith the opening hours? Janet Hood, please. Our clients have nobody under the age of 18 working in the premises, and I don't think that that is something that would occur. Those premises and other licensed premises are often not suitable for persons under the age of 18 to work in. Laura Thompson, please. I agree with Janet that we're talking about premises not just activity happening with the premises and it's to do with the kind of images that you have within the premises. It's to do with, I would argue, the attitudes and the daily work of most of the people who work there. It's not appropriate for under 18s to be in there. This particular clause has been added in relation to equality's legislation, which would suggest that anybody of working age would ought to be able to have employment within a premise. Again, there may be issues there in relation to age of consent, as well, coming into play. Any other views on that particular aspect? No, okay. Sandra White, first of all, please. Thank you very much, convener. I wanted to raise the issue of artistic performance and expression. That's a very important one. We have said that this bill would not have that effect. I think that you have admitted that also. We've also teased out various areas, too. The importance of this bill and the premise of this bill is to enable local authorities to licence the types of premises that provide this type of sexual entertainment. It's nothing to do at all with artistic expression, where you have a theatre, where there's visiting theatre companies. Every so often, it's a different type of entertainment that's put on there, so it's absolutely nothing at all to do with that. I'd like to say that to John and others who have raised these concerns. Even at this moment in time, with the licence laws and the laws that we have at the moment, you will find that in some areas local authorities will not allow some form of entertainment artistic expression in their theatres, and yet in other council areas, it happens there. At the moment, you've got the anomaly of the local authorities pushing that forward, too. I think that this would clarify it better to put in the committees looking at the bill, but perhaps there is somewhere on the face of the bill to make sure that this is put forward. It's no way at all to stop the artistic expressions, in particular when you've got places like the Edinburgh festival and various other fantastic entertainment venues. It's no way to affect that at all. I just wanted to say that to you. Thank you. Mr Morgan, for that reassurance. We do understand that that's not the intention or the purpose of the bill, so it's not the way—what we would like, as you've suggested, is that there's some explicit statement of that within the bill, so that that's really, really clear as guidance for local authorities. I'd like to come in at some point about theatres and public entertainment licences, even though it's a completely different subject. I intend to manage to get all of that in Mr Morgan. Alex Rowley, please. Can I pick up on that? I note that, in Glasgow's evidence, they talk about the cinemas at 1985 and that consideration should be given to repeal that. Is this question of whether there's practical concerns in moving across to a new licensing regime and what those concerns might be? Ms Miller. I think that it's part of a wider submission that we're making in terms of having so many different licensing acts and regulations. If you look at the system that they have in England and Wales, where it effectively is all covered by the one licensing act 2003, where you have a single premises licence, which authorises all the different various activities, and we're some way removed from that in Scotland. It is a significant state forward that the theatres act, in terms of licensing, is looking to repeal that and put it under generally the public entertainment and the civic government act. Something that has been missed is the old cinemas act, which still continues to be there, but it hasn't been looked at for such a long time. I think that it would be progress to bring that within certainly the Civic Government Act to bring it so that there aren't so many separate licences required. Okay, thank you. Mr Anderson. Yes, I must say that, as far as licensing legislation is concerned, I use that very broad term, I think that consolidation is what we need. Since the 2005 act, if I talk about liquor licensing for example, we have the act, we've got about 40 odd statutory instruments to add to that, and there's been two further acts, the criminal justice and licensing Scotland act, the alcohol et cetera Scotland act, now the air weapons and licensing Scotland bill, and two of those acts are adding bits and pieces of legislation to the 1982 act, and whatever is needed, it's consolidation and not bits added on a piece of male basis. I heartily endorse what Mary is saying, as far as looking at the cinemas act, for example, in adding that in any event, a far broader consolidation is what we need for the licensing legislation. Thank you very much for that. It's extremely useful. Does anyone else want to come in on that point? Alex Rowley, do you want to come back? I have a quick point, just to make on the differences between licensing boards. It's very brief. I think that it would be very unwise to try to fetter the decision making of licensing boards or licensing committees or indeed planning committees. I think that we have to allow for local decision making, whether it's for sexual entertainment venues, alcohol licensing or any other form of licensing, and I don't think that it would be the purpose of the Scottish Government to try to impose a draconian regime that had to be followed by elected members who are considering the requirements of what happens in their communities. I would cite, just for interest, the fact that the life of Brian was banned in Glasgow for 20 years. Emmanuel was barred in certain rural cinemas for years. Those are films that could openly be viewed virtually everywhere else in Scotland. Those were decisions taken by local government for whatever reasons they had and whether or not we approved them.  That is something that my clients recognise. My client's position is not the differences between local government. It's that they should be treated fairly and the way they operate should be recognised. That leads me to the inevitable question then. Should those authorities have the ability to set the number of venues at zero in their authority area? I think that the local authorities should be given the power to set them at zero. However, I think that this falls on from a point that Janet Brown made earlier. There would have to be a significant amount of research and evidence gathered in order to determine the appropriate number by each individual local authority. Certainly it's not my position on behalf of the local authority that the number would automatically be zero. It would have to be based on a wide-ranging consultation and evidence gathering process, but I think that they should have the ability to limit the number, including setting the number at zero. However, what is important is that there has to be clear guidance and regulations in relation to the situation regarding existing licence premises as to whether or not they are to be given grandfather rights. The local authority should be given the flexibility to consider the number of premises in its locality. That said that, indeed, it can't just be arbitrary. It has to be done in a proper way, with proper evidence set forth, and any guidance and proper legislation to assist the local authorities in making that decision would be very welcome. Professor Hubbard? I have quite strong views on that. I think that the whole notion of setting a nil limit in advance is legally unreasonable, undefensible and creates a huge burden of proof on to the local authority to demonstrate in advance that there are no suitable localities within which sexual entertainment could occur. I think that that's extremely burdensome. It means that local authorities have to draw up a policy that reviews the number of localities that are present and establish a basis for why they shouldn't have sexual entertainment present. That policy would have to be renewed on an annual basis because localities change annually and that will create a huge burden for local authority officers. I would strike a reference to nil limit in paragraph 5 subsection 5. I would also, in that regard, have been mindful of situations such as Andrew's club, which has been running lawfully for a good number of years. If it meets a nil limit, I think that that's legally unreasonable. I think that the clause should very clearly be in that legislation that says that every case should be decided on its merits in relation to the facts of the case to provide ultimate flexibility to local authorities to do exactly that. Andrew, you were mentioned there. Do you want to say anything on that particular? No, I'm fine. Okay. Thank you. Eric, you want to come back in. If I could just mention the new paragraph 5a in the draft, which states that for the purposes of 5c, which is what we are talking about just now, a local authority must from time to time determine the appropriate number of sexual entertainment venues for their area and for each relevant locality and publicise the determination in such a manner that they consider appropriate. It's the words and from time to time. That is that if a local authority determines a number of venues in their locality, even if that is zero, they must from time to time determine. Those words are very general, too general, I would say. I would be looking to see something more specific so that the local authority can get a proper guidance on that. I would have thought that if the word must is, it has to be remained. I had thought originally that a local authority may, if they consider it appropriate or reasonable, would from time to time. However, if it is must, then not from time to time, a more specific time limit would be very welcome. I don't think that it would be any surprise that we would support local authorities being able to have a new limit. I think that it's up to the local authority to decide if that's suitable for them. I think that it's completely appropriate that local authorities decide that based on their own violence against women and equality policies. That's a completely reasonable rationale for that. The matter could easily be dealt with by the Licensing Scotland Act 2005, which permits licensing boards to consider over provision not only on numbers within their area but on the types of premises. As has been pointed out by many people around this committee, it's hardly difficult to spot an adult entertainment venue. There are 17 in Scotland, and they're quite overt, and it would be easy for licensing boards to say that. The Aberdeen Licensing Board canvassed when I had my application refused on behalf of a client the fact that over provision might come into this, because at that time there were eight venues in Aberdeen, and the chairman of the board had stated that she was concerned about over provision, although that was not what the decision was made on in the end. However, those aspects of law already exist in the Licensing Scotland Act, and that is something that the challenge is for boards to decide to take them up. It doesn't require new legislation, and I think that the committee has to consider whether that legislation is actually necessary. A few benefits of being older than colleagues, but one of them is your member things that others might not remember. In 1964, there were abolished the veto poll provisions on alcohol licensing, and I think that the last one where people in a ward voted as to whether they would allow any licensed premises at all. I think that the last area in Glasgow to have a veto was Cathcart, which is my distant memory. There are ways in which that has been handled in the past, but, equally, that provision was abolished. My grandfather, who is a Rehobite, would not out to be designers of bringing it back to this day, but I suspect that, today, the communities would be unlikely to vote for such a provision. However, I think that we shouldn't discount the ways in which one can add legitimacy to a community quite properly taking the decision that this is not the kind of thing that it wants in its community, and, indeed, on other matters as well. Now, I intend to turn to the theatre licensing aspects. Mr Morgan, I appreciate your patience today, because I realise that a lot of this has been around about sexual entertainment. Can I ask you, Mr Morgan, a couple of questions around the theatre aspects? Can I ask you whether you have concerns about the fact that some theatres may be exempt from the requirement to hold a public entertainment licence because they have a licence to sell alcohol, and I would appreciate anyone else who wants to come in on that as well? Mr Morgan? I think that we welcome the fact that this simplifies things somewhat. As Mr Anderson and Ms Miller have both said, it could be simplified even further into a single licensing regime for premises that would cover alcohol, theatre and cinema, as is the case in England. It certainly helps to simplify things. For some venues within our membership, purely only hold a theatre licence at the moment. Some hold both a theatre and a PEL, even though they did not need to, but because there is confusion sometimes in some venues, they were not sure, so they have held both. Certainly, a village in community halls up and down the country, who typically would have an alcohol licence or maybe a PEL, but would not have a theatre licence, would no longer have to apply for a temporary theatre licence for the occasional showing of a touring theatre company. From that point of view, I think that the fact that there is flexibility between either operating within an alcohol licence or a PEL is welcome. The only concern is that alcohol licensing does not particularly give much guidance around the specifics of running a theatre venue and the safety issues around that. We want to see retention of those rules and those licensing officers having a close relationship with theatres around safety issues, because they are quite specific in theatres compared with, say, pubs or other alcohol establishments. The other question for us is around cost. There is a huge variation across the country between the cost of a PEL, that loan of theatre licence. In one local authority area, it will cost you £140 for a year if your venue is up to 5,000 seats. In another local authority area, it will cost you £1,855 for the same size venue, so there is huge discrepancy. One of the other things that the bill in the regulations in England and Wales brought in was consistent fees across the country for premises licences, which makes it much fairer and simpler for everybody concerned. Whilst that is not within the remit of the current bill, we would certainly like that to be considered. We would certainly assume that there would be no reason why licensing authorities would need to increase the current costs of their public entertainment licence because of those changes, and we would not be happy if that were to happen. In our view, that is simplifying things and making it cheaper and easier to do than rather than more expensive. Those are our main views on that. Mr Anderson or Ms Miller, do you have views on that? Certainly support the inclusion within public entertainment of the theatre licence provisions and the abolition of the separate licensing regime. We already include theatres within our public entertainment resolution because having worked with those in the theatre trade, we recognise the difficulties in applying for a theatre licence for the huge plethora of different types of premises. That is something that we took on board in terms of the fees as well. We have a broad range of fee categories that suit all the different types of premises, so we would support the provisions in the bill. Supporting the provisions in the bill. It will be interesting to see if the bill becomes law in its terms. What the effect will be with regard to some premises that have gone for a theatre licence because they do not also require a public entertainment licence but just do not restrict themselves to producing plays but may have other activities. We have premises out at the exhibition centre, for example, which has a number of different activities dependent on their programme so that they could have plays or the playing of a role. They can also have different activities that could be to do with sport or other concerts, for example, a music venue, which can be covered by a public entertainment licence. It can be covered by a theatre licence. If theatre is then, if that is all going to be changed to public entertainment, rather than just having a theatre licence, it will have to have a public entertainment licence and a variety of activities if they then wish to broaden their activities—named activities, I am talking about. If they then wish to broaden that, they will have to apply for variations, so that is just one of the implications that can result. Surely all those things are included in the PEL anyway, so you do not have to vary the PEL? Well, they will if the premises have a theatre licence to sell but then have a public entertainment licence. By having a public entertainment licence, they must name their activities that they are going to carry out. Therefore, they name three activities, for example, which may include theatres. They wish then to add another activity, then they will have to apply for a variation. What you are describing there is maybe an argument for console addition, right enough? I think that it is exactly. A lot of my licence premises have nothing to do with SCVs. I should be pleased to hear that they have theatre ticked on their activities. They also have cinema ticked on their activities. They are usually bigger premises, but often village premises, where a variety of things occur in what used to be wedding function rooms, but they happen now. If that comes into force, does that mean that a public entertainment licence will have to be applied for for those licence premises? There was a lacuna in the criminal justice act when the requirement for late-hours catering licences was brought in. That meant that places like supermarkets, which had previously had 24-hour opening not for the sale of alcohol, some local authorities decided that they had to get late-hours catering licences to enable them to sell tins of beans, and others decided that they didn't. The 76 act dealt with that by making the liquor licencing, if it was liquor licenced and covered those things, then they were exempt. I think that we should be making sure, and as you say, consolidation might be the answer, that we do not have multiple licencing on premises, because that leads to confusion and difficulty not only for local government licencing boards, but also for the police, enforcement officers and more particularly for my clients or anybody's point of view, the trade. Mr Morgan, we kind of strayed away from theatres there. It's all related. My understanding is that within the proposed legislation, in fact, and within the existing 82 legislation, if you have a premises licence for alcohol, providing you organise that entertainment during your licencing hours, you don't necessarily have to have a public entertainment licence. In one respect, it simplifies things and complicates things, because my understanding is that if I run a theatre after this bill is passed, the local authority cannot oblige me to have a public entertainment licence. I think I'm right in saying that. I could simply say that I'm going to put on my plays and my dance performances whatever during the licensing hours for the alcohol licence that I hold. I think I'm right in saying that. Is that correct? It does not require a separate public entertainment licence, where the activity is within the identical hours or within the licenced hours, within the alcohol licence. However, that is something that I do have a concern about, because more in general terms in terms of, again, this idea about unregulated activity, because of the restraints that have been placed upon the licencing board in terms of its ability to regulate matters going beyond the sale of alcohol. For an example, if you have a liquor licence, you have rules and regulations for carrying out sale of alcohol, but that could be in a theatre where you have all the props, all everything that goes with it that is not necessarily covered by the liquor licence. We will certainly try to clarify some of those points with Government as well in terms of their intentions. Mr Morgan, do you have anything else that you want to bring to the attention to the committee around about theatres? Actually, this is a slightly left field issue, but it's one that has been raised with me by some of our members. Increasingly, people are performing in pubs and the point was raised about how alcohol licences can be used to permit performances, but you have to make sure that on your operating plan you have ticked theatre. If you haven't done that and many licences don't think of that when they first apply for their licence, in order to then decide to change their mind and put on a theatre plate, even if it's a one-off performance, they have to apply for a major variation, not a minor one. It's not considered a minor variation, it's considered a major variation, which means I believe going back and forth to the licensing board. Theatre companies, who are increasingly performing in pubs, which is great in terms of accessing different audiences and a different demographic, theatres like the National Theatre of Scotland, the Village Pub Theatre in Leith, are finding that pubs just won't do it because they don't want to go back before the licensing board for a full review of their licence, just for the purposes of putting on a play. Again, I'm not sure that this can be covered in this legislation or somewhere else, but we would like to see that as either a minor variation to their alcohol licence or for pubs to be able to apply for public entertainment licence on a temporary basis to put on a play, because it seems a little bit of a such-and-much cracker nut that they have to go through a major variation on their alcohol licence just to put on a play for one day. Thank you very much for that. Can I thank you all for your evidence today? That has been extremely useful indeed. Can I suspend the meeting for five minutes for a change of witnesses, please? Welcome back. I welcome our next panellists, who are Michael McDougall, solicitor from Glasgow City Council, Gary Walker, principal policy officer of the waste unit of national operations of the Scottish environmental protection agency and Guy Jefferson, director of SP distribution Scottish Power. Would you like to make any opening remarks, gentlemen? Mr Jefferson, do you want to go first? Well, good morning, convener. I thank you for the opportunity to give evidence today, first of all. Scottish Power Energy Networks, who represent, maintain the electricity network in the central belt of Scotland. We also have interests, infrastructure interests in England and Wales, so I guess we're well placed to look across those three regimes in comparing contrast. Metal theft has been a serious problem for us over the last four years. We've had over 1,000 incidents of attempted metal theft or actual metal theft to deal with. That's cost us in the region of £4 million in direct repairs, but you could probably double that if you take account of loss of revenue and also the amount of proactive security measures that we've had to put in place. The cost is rather outweighed by the risk to health and safety, however. We have had a number of instances of fatalities, of thieves who have attempted to steal metal, and also some, what I would describe as near misses, with members of the public and customers who have been affected by metal thefts. It is not a victimless crime. On that basis, we fully support the legislation put forward. The key areas that we wish to see included, and it is part of our submission, the removal of all cash transactions, effective record retention, verification of proof of identity for those selling metals, as we see that as a big deterrent, also establishment of an accreditation scheme or a list of registered, compliant and trustworthy dealers, and appropriate penalties for those who have found to have breached the legislation. I guess the other thing that we do believe is vital to whatever the shape of that legislation is to put in a robust mechanism to implement the new processes and monitor them accordingly. Thank you again once again for inviting us to give evidence today. As you may know, SEPA is Scotland's principal environmental regulator. Our main purpose is to protect and improve the environment, but it is also to contribute to the health and wellbeing of the people of Scotland into the achievement of sustainable economic growth. SEPA is responsible for regulating environmental impacts of scrap yards through a system of waste management licensing, and we also regulate waste carriers. While SEPA has no role in the implementation of a scrap metal dealers licensing system, there is an overlap between the regimes and the businesses that are impacted and targeted by those regimes, albeit for entirely different purposes. SEPA welcomes the bill. We are concerned about metal theft and have been involved with metal theft's task force. In multi-agency work with British Transport Police in Police Scotland, the bill offers a series of proposals to disincentivise metal theft. Thank you again for your invitation today. Gladys City Council has a licensing authority. You can regulate scrap metal dealers. Gladys City Council has, for some time, been concerned at the extent of metal theft at both a national and a local level. This is not just a matter of financial implications but the risk to the public and the perpetrators themselves have been touched on already. Gladys City Council welcomes the proposals in this bill, especially the introduction of cashless payments and the removal of the exemption warrant system. Mr Jefferson, you talked of a loss of some £4 million and probably greater losses beyond that. Obviously, those costs are likely to be passed on to your customers, are they not? Yes, we have an allowance as part of our regulatory regime, which we utilise, but the costs so far have gone well beyond that in terms of what we have had to do not only in performing repairs to our network but also the proactive measures that we have put in security cameras, etc. In order to ensure that we keep the thieves out in the light zone. Have there been any examples of major safety difficulties because of the theft of metal, or have you been lucky thus far? I can give you a couple of examples. We have had a number. Probably the biggest issue that we had was a situation that we had in Glasgow about three years ago. Thieves got access to some 132,000 volt cables and set them on fire on the basis that they expected the protective systems to trip out those cables and then they could basically saw them up and take them away and sell them for scrap. They caused a major fire that closed the M8 at the time because of the smoke and it took away the infrastructure to the Govan area of west end of Glasgow, which put around about 30,000 customers at risk for a period of about three days while we repaired those actual cables. We could have had a situation, we had to invoke the gold command emergency authority, and we could have had a situation where Govan would have been blacked out for repair time of a cable about 36 hours. We came very close to a very major incident with that particular incident. Others we've seen theft and substations actually cause high fluctuating voltages to customers' premises and that has caused house fires. In Greenock about a year and a half ago we had a situation exactly like that and we worked with a member of the Scottish Parliament who used to be on this committee, Stuart McMillan. He was involved directly with that incident and we had an elderly lady suffered from smoke inhalation because there was a small fire caused by that voltage fluctuation in her premise. Those are two examples, but there are a number that I could relay. I think that that's very useful, Mr Jefferson. Thank you. Cameron Buchanan, please. Thank you very much indeed. Having already heard some evidence, I wondered if this cash ban is obviously very worthwhile and everything, but I was concerned also that because you ban the cash, if somebody could pay by check, they could just go next door and cash the check. Therefore, photographic identification is obviously essential. Do you all think that the purpose of banning cash is right and that the photographic idea would be essential? As I've said, we have no experience in the operation of the scrap metal dealer system. It's not something that we're responsible for. However, as a regulator, we can understand the importance of, first of all, identifying the people involved in transactions. We are undertaking some work through the Regulatory Reform Act 2014 to try to improve our own identity checks when it comes to licensing. That is a good part of the bill. We also understand and recognise the benefits of cashless transactions in making metal theft less attractive or less easy and convenient for metal thieves. The licensing authority is very supportive of the ban on cash payments and the adoption of a cashless system, where the view of it would be a vital tool in combating stolen metal entering the system through metal dealers and understanding that the Act in England and Wales, the Scrap Metal Dealer Act 2013, requires photographic identification. If it sets out what I think it's a mix of photographic ideas and proof of address that you tell us about, we would be supportive of something similar being introduced along with that. I think that it would probably be appropriate to bring forward some evidence that we've seen in England and Wales, where, as my colleague has suggested, the system is already in place, both cashless and identification. We've seen a big drop in metal theft in England and Wales, probably not wholly due to the legislation but certainly partly due to the legislation. As part of that, we've seen almost a complete removal of what I would call the opportunist theft, which are really the ones that you would expect to see transacting at the level that we are talking about in terms of cash. I believe that that is almost wholly down to the fact that we have cashless in England and Wales plus we have the photographic identification and CCTV in many situations. Mr McAnon, do you want to come back? I think that we're just going to come back. You don't think for somebody who's raising one of the submissions that somebody is coming just to get their car for scrap for a minimal amount. They would put them off and therefore they just dumped the car. It was raised in some distribution or somebody coming in with their fridge, for example, for a worth of fibre. Do you think that that would put them off or would you just ban roll-up cash transactions anyway? Mr Jefferson? My expertise in that is limited in that area but I can comment on what we've seen in terms of our industry and the complete eradication of that opportunist, if you like. I think that's because they have nowhere to go now to actually get cash for the small thefts that they undertake. Does SIPA have concerns about maybe increased dumping if cash payments are not made for small amounts? I think it's a legitimate concern. There is potential for that that the small-level materials that aren't valuable, there certainly is potential for that. There's a system in place that we operate alongside local authorities called fly capture that monitors and tracks fly tipping for example so we should be able to monitor the effect or impact of that potentially through that system. I wouldn't expect it to have a massive impact though. I think that the value of the materials that we're talking about being stolen is relatively high and those materials wouldn't be impacted by this. Mr MacDougall, do you have anything that you wish to add? I would agree with Mr Walker about that as a genuine concern. However, such is the extent that metal theft needs to be struck and I would submit that a cashless payment system is a vital tool in tackling metal theft. One of the things that some of the scrap metal dealers raised when they were in front of the committee was roundabout waste dealers, itinerant waste dealers, who are licensed by SEPA, who may be left out of this regime. Mr Walker, would you like to comment on that and do you think that those waste dealers should also have to be licensed for scrap metal dealing if that's what they're doing and beyond that, if they're not, do you think that this legislation may not stop some of the things that are currently going on? I tinerant metal dealers on our books would be dealers who don't operate from a site, they perhaps operate from a vehicle, they transport waste. On our books they would be registered waste carriers if indeed they have registered and are compliant with the legislation. We have many thousands of registered waste carriers and it is not possible to identify whom within that portfolio of registered carriers who is an itinerant scrap metal dealer, so our own systems don't necessarily help to cover that area. Should they be licensed, I think that that's more of a matter for the experts on scrap metal dealing licensing. I understand that it's about 50-50 that some scrap metal dealers, 50 per cent of them operate from sites, 50 per cent are suspected to be itinerant. It makes sense as a regulator to try and capture the entire sector from my perspective, but that's talking about environmental legislation, waste management licensing, that would be my approach. I suspect that the itinerant scrap metal dealers should be covered by the legislation, but as I say, we are not experts on scrap metal deal licensing. On those folks who are licensed by yourself and the waste aspect of it, do you have any information at all about how many of those folks who are licensed by you would be dealing in scrap metal at any point in time? We have somewhere in the region of 267 licensed premises who are specifically licensed to deal with scrap metal. That could be end-of-life vehicles, precious metals or a combination of metal dealing. We also have 69 sites registered with us who are exempt from licensing. It is not possible to tell. So there's a exempt from licensing. They have to register with us. It's not an exclusion from the licensing system altogether. It's a lower tier within the licensing system that sets basic standards in the legislation rather than in the licenses. They operate, for example, around the breaking of depolluted cars, so cars that have already been depolluted. It's perceived that there's less of an environmental risk with that. Operators who depollute cars deal with oils would be within the upper tier of the licensing system and require a license. 69 are registered as exempt with SIPA. It isn't possible to tell how many of those would also be registered with the 32 local authorities as a scrap metal dealer. I don't have that information. I think that the scrap metal dealers who were here seemed to indicate that some of the itinerant folks were handling quite large amounts of scrap metal. Do you have any evidence, Mr Walker, that that is the case? We don't have any evidence on that at all. Okay. Thank you very much. Mr Wilson. Thank you, convener. Just on that point, we would seek Mr Walker's view on whether or not SIPA would wish to operate a national registration scheme rather than what we have at the present moment. You made the comment about the 32 local authorities, how many scrap dealers are licensed with local authorities. Would it not be preferable that we, in the greater interest of everyone concerned, have a national licensing scheme that SIPA or some other national body oversaw and that everybody was registered with that body? Mr Walker. There are a couple of different questions within that. There is the issue of dealing with the applications, which is perhaps different from the register itself. There is also the difference between having a national register and perhaps having SIPA as one of the options to host that national register. SIPA's view is that a national register could deliver benefits and improvements. That is the kind of system that we operate. It would allow better coordination of multi-agency efforts to tackle metal theft. It could improve information sharing between the authorities and Police Scotland's British Transport Police. It could also help to address some of the concerns around the control and oversight of itinerant metal dealers. On the issue of a national register and whether that would be beneficial, we think that it could be. However, any move to a national register would require a thorough evaluation of options, costs and benefits. It would need to be considered alongside the licensing process itself. Do you separate the licensing process out, retain that with the 32 local authorities and have a central national register? Would that national register necessarily have to be hosted by one body? Could it be a virtual national register that is operated by the 32 local authorities? There are a range of potential options that would need to be explored. SIPA at the moment is not currently resourced to provide a national register of scrap metal dealers, but we recognise that delivering a national register through SIPA could be an option, and we would be happy to explore that. Mr MacDouglar, Mr Jefferson, do you have a view on that at all? Yes. I would support that national register. Certainly from our perspective, we deal with quite a lot of scrap, and our contractors mainly deal with our scrap. To have the capability to put in the contracts that we have, the register exists, and we expect our contractors to work within that register and go to those accredited or registered scrap dealers would be of help to make sure that the scrap metal is able to be traced through its various cycles. Yes, we would support that. I would also echo some of the comments of Mr Walker. I know again that, because of our involvement in England and Wales, there is a parliamentary group, in fact, in three weeks, to discuss the implementation of the metal theft bill in the south. One biggest issue that they have is around the very point at how they maintain that national register, both in terms of the responsibilities of the local authorities and, in this case, the environment agency's overseeing body. I know that the registers are having problems actually getting the registers in place, because the responsibilities are not absolutely clear, and there is a number of discussions on going about the resources that are available to undertake this task. I think that that is pretty key, and there is a good opportunity for Scotland here, perhaps, to take the lead in our, in our, um… Mr MacDougall, do you have a view? There is clearly a strong argument for such a national system, especially since you will appreciate that. A metal dealer once granted a licence and one authority to convene trade over, can trade in Scotland wide, sorry, can trade in Scotland wide. Our Civic Government Scotland act is very much predicated upon a local, on a local level, visibility for local authorities to attach local conditions, so I think that any sort of move to a national licence system would require evaluation of all options, and it might well be a national register. It might be another option. Mr Walker, you said that SEPA may not be in favour of Mr Jefferson and gave a good example in what's happening in England and Wales, because of the perceived conflicts at the present moment about who would be responsible for what. In relation to that, in terms of Mr MacDougall's response, I know that SEPA worked closely with local authority planning departments and environmental health departments. Could that same arrangement be applied with SEPA, but with SEPA having overall authority? I think that Mr MacDougall's comment about the itinerant scrap dealers, where, if they get licensed in Glasgow, they can effectively operate in Dumfries and Galloway, and no circumstances would it not be better that we had SEPA as overarching authority that actually had everyone registered under that body, rather than what we have at the present moment, where 32 local authorities issue licences to itinerant scrap dealers, and we end up with a situation where, depending on the authority and the decisions of the authority, we could have people operating throughout Scotland, but there is no apparent perceived control over what they are actually doing in different authorities throughout Scotland. We recognise the benefits of local decision making when it comes to local licensing considerations, so we can understand that and we can quite easily work alongside that and complement that. As I said earlier, I think that the actual licensing process is distinct from the national register or could be distinct from a national register. It is entirely possible that the two could work in a complementary fashion, if that was desired and if, after an option's appraisal, it became evident that that was the right way forward. As long as it was clear, picking up on the experiences of our colleagues down south, as long as it was clear what the responsibilities were and that those responsibilities were effectively implemented by all involved the 32 local authorities and SIPA, it is possible that itinerants could be registered either with a local authority if they could get that system to work or directly with a national body such as SIPA, who hosted a national register. All of those options could be considered under the pros and cons for both. On the point about SIPA having the kind of ultimate authority over decision making, it is not a good thing to have a decision making locally, for example, a licensing board and then to have some second bite of that with a national authority such as SIPA, so some distinct streamlining of the licensing decisions would need to be part of any system. Part of the problem that has been raised in the convener raised it in terms of the scrap metal dealers and dealing with itinerant scrap metal dealers is the issue about a local authority licenced the itinerant scrap metal dealer and is a given example of Dumfries and Galloway. That then allows them to operate in Orkney or Shetland and it is who then has the authority to oversee what they are doing, how they are doing it and what they are doing with materials and how they are gathering materials essentially in their trading. At the present moment, what are the circumstances as you see it, where an itinerant scrap metal dealer gets a licence in one authority but then it is operating throughout Scotland? Who has the ultimate oversight of what that dealer is doing? As I have said, we are not experts in the scrap metal dealer licensing system, we have no role in that at the moment. I am not sure how local authorities would handle an itinerant scrap metal dealer who did not comply with the law or where another authority in a different part of the country had concerns. I am not sure how that would work. Glasgow handle it. I think that we would be looking at Police Scotland as an enforcement body to take action. Obviously, Police Scotland would deal with unlicentivity, but if it was a breach of a condition, we would be able to make a complaint, and it would be brought before the committee. We would probably be dealt with that way. Glasgow's local authority officers would not have knowledge of what was happening in Orkney, so it would come to Police Scotland. Perhaps that is one of the benefits that I joined up Police for, and we would really be looking at them to make the committee aware of it. You are effectively saying that Glasgow, if it issued an itinerant scrap metal dealers license, would not always know what that dealer was doing in other parts of the country, and then would be relying on Police Scotland to then have been, and they would report that to Glasgow, I am assuming, that Glasgow would have to take action to remove the licence. I am not aware of any specific examples, but I am happy to say that we could. The police would be able to bring a complaint to the licensing committee of Glasgow, yes. From my perspective, it clearly highlights one of the issues that we have with the current licensing regime of particular itinerant scrap metal dealers that it has become difficult and the oversight of what they are doing and how they are operating in particular in other areas of Scotland. It raises another issue about the role of Police Scotland and the linkage between Police Scotland and other agencies and local authorities. Could you, Mr Walker and Mr MacDougall, indicate that you did not have any examples where Police Scotland had reported incidents? Are you aware of any incidents where itinerant scrap metal dealers are acting illegally or outwith their licence agreement? I am not aware of any circumstances. We might have to convene or contact Police Scotland to seek clarification from Police Scotland. Beyond the terminology, we have used itinerant scrap metal dealers, but itinerant waste dealers who may not be registered as scrap metal dealers because they fall out of the current regulation. Are you aware of any of them being reported to Police Scotland for metal theft and metal dealing? I am not aware of any cases in Scotland. I wonder whether I could ask Mr Jefferson in particular about the 1,000 incidents that you mentioned. To ask him the question another way around, how do you think that the bill can ultimately reduce that? I am interested in what happens in those incidents. Is the metal that is stolen repurposed really quickly and disappearing into the system? Is there an issue there? How does the legislation help with that? Or is it really all about the registration scheme, the cashless nature of it? Is that what you expect would reduce those incidents? Maybe you could give us a couple of examples of some of the incidents themselves and how they are getting through the system undetected. Yes, I am happy to do that. I am speaking from the experience that we have had in England and Wales. My view is that there are two types of thieves associated with metal theft. There are the organised groups who, I believe, are hitting sites, a variety of sites in a short period of time. That could be our overhead lines, for example, to go across the country side. We have seen a big upsurge in activity in that area, so it might concentrate in the Falkirk area for a couple of weeks. Because we have 25,000 kilometres overhead lines, it is very difficult to be proactive in terms of managing and securing that asset base. It will hit an area over a week, get quite a lot of scrap, and I believe that it perhaps is taking that out through containers and taking that abroad. I do not think that the legislation would necessarily assist in that area. The other one is the smaller opportunist thief. I think that that is where we have seen a big effect from the scheme going in in England and Wales. Yes, you are right, they do not get ready cash for it. If they do go, they have to present themselves with their identification. There may be CCTV on the site and it is just a deterrent in general to that. As I have said before, we have seen a big reduction in that in England and Wales since the legislation came in. I have evidence that I am happy to provide to the committee after the sitting in terms of the reduction that we saw in activity in England and Wales when the bill came in down south and it actually started to lift up in Scotland as some of those opportunists came north to take account of the fact that we had a less stringent system in Scotland. That is not just for electricity infrastructure. That evidence exists for other utilities as well. For material that is stolen, is it pretty much unidentifiable soon after it has been stolen? Yes, in general. Obviously, we have specific types of cables and we have information that we provide to Police Scotland. If they are on days of action, for example, which we get involved in around scrap dealers in central Scotland, they are able to identify our cables, but they are not marked Scottish power or with identifying mark. The reason for that is that one of it is cost significantly more to do that. The reality is that we turn over perhaps 1 to 2 per cent of our assets every year, so the amount of benefit that you would get from that and from a theft point of view is fairly limited for that extra expense. We tend to invest more in the proactive CCTV and guarding of high-risk sites and sites that are targeted quite a lot by thieves. Apart from that, generic cables can be identified, but they are not marked specifically with Scottish power, for example. The issue about the 48 hours, what is the panel's view and whether that should be fixed, should it be retained, should it be flexible in terms of having to retain metal within premises for 48 hours, should there be flexibility around it or should it be more stringent? If we start with you, Mr Jefferson, please. Again, it is probably a matter for Police Scotland rather than myself, but as long as the records are kept are of sufficient detail, I do not think that it is absolutely critical to have the actual metal there for a prolonged period of time, but Police Scotland is better equipped to answer that than myself. Along similar lines, Police Scotland's views are obviously foremost here. We have noted the British Metal Recycling Association's concerns about tag and hold and it raised some issues around potential conflicts with waste management licensing conditions in our licensing system. We are comfortable that the bill is drafted at the moment and proposes to remove the so-called tag and hold provision. If that was brought back in, we would just have to do a little bit more work with Police Scotland to ensure that there is an effective co-ordination and collaboration of efforts. As Mr Jefferson and Mr Walker have said, this is perhaps one where Police Scotland's comment would be useful. However, the licensing authority recognises that this requirement may be a burden upon metal dealers, owing to the market that should work in as a need to turn around metal quickly. Also, as Mr Walker alluded to, the requirements are simple licences. I think that taking the new record-keeping requirements will likely to see this as being something that could be done away with. The record-keeping requirements as proposed in the bill are sufficient to deal with this matter. Do you think that the record-keeping requirements as envisaged in the bill are sufficient to deal with the difficulty? Would you agree, Mr Walker? Mr Jefferson? Yes, thank you. Alex Rowley, please, yes. Particularly, I suppose, at SEPA, because the scrap metal dealers have argued that larger ones would have to try and find more land that could be a much bigger operation. Would that not create more difficulties in terms of yourselves, in terms of trying to regulate that and comply with the conditions that you would have to have the extra land? Yes, there would be a knock-on effect. I have visited scrap yards myself and I know that space is constrained on many of the sites for environmental protection reasons. We often impose conditions around maximum quantity limits, maximum storage limits and storage conditions. So, for example, some material has to be stored on impermeable concrete. So, tag and hold for the storage for 40-80 hours could have an impact on the way that operators respond to our licensing conditions and may cause them some difficulties. As I say, we would have to work with Police Scotland, but we would also have to work with the individual operators to try and work through that. In terms of the current legal penalties for failure to comply with the licensing regime, which is a maximum of £5,000, do you think that that needs to be increased? Mr MacDougall? The license for it does not have a specific view on this matter. The fine level is comparable with some environmental offences. If it would be helpful, I could provide some information on environmental offences and the fine levels. That would allow you to see whether there is parity there. It would be extremely useful for the committee if that could be sent on to the clerks. We would be grateful. Mr Jefferson, do you have a view on the fine? Speaking from our experience, I know that the thieves that we have, that Police Scotland and the police authorities in England and Wales have apprehended on our sites, I do not believe that that level of fine is really a sufficient deterrent, or has not been a sufficient deterrent for those individuals. So probably a higher fine or some other penalty would, I think, need to be considered, given the evidence that I gave earlier with regard to the impact on communities. That is not a victimless crime. I think that it would be beneficial to make a significant statement in terms of penalty. I am not sure that £5,000 is a sufficient deterrent, or that it should be. Again, that is not my expertise area, but in my experience in England, Wales and Scotland, I do not believe that that is sufficient deterrent. What are the value of some of these thefts? The given one, for example, that you gave earlier, what was the cost of that to Scottish power and its customers? The cost of that individual event was somewhere in the region of £3.25 million. That is an extreme event. That is the worst one that we have had over the last four years. On the other end of the scale, the greenic example that I gave where we had smoke in relation to an elderly member of the public and a number of small house fires, the value of the metal that was stolen that resulted in that incident was probably, for a scrap point of view, probably not more than £10. Can I go back to the given scenario? The £750,000 was at the cost of the metal that was stolen or the cost of the entire event? It was the cost of the entire event. The cost of the entire event? There was no metal stolen because... There was no metal stolen, but that cost £6,750,000. The fire was set, but it went out of control and the thieves had to abandon the scene without actually recovering any metal. Okay, thank you very much. It's ju