Welcome to the fifth meeting in 2015 of the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament, which I'm pleased to say is being translated for users of British Sign Language. I welcome our BSL interpreters, Shona Dixon, Paul Belmonti. Before we start our formal proceedings, I would like to remind everyone to help our BSL interpreters by speaking clearly and not too quickly, which something should really apply to me as well, I suppose, and keeping questions short and concise, and allowing a short pause after the last speaker has finished. Could I please remind everyone present to turn off any mobile phones, tablets or other electronic devices? We have received apologies this morning from Gavin Brown, who is unwell. Our first item of business this morning is to decide whether to take item 9 in private. Are members agreed? Members have indicated their agreement. Our next item of business is to take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy on the land and buildings transaction tax, addition and modification of relief's Scotland Order 2014. The Cabinet Secretary has joined for this item by David Kerruchy, Neil Ferguson and John St Clair of the Scottish Government. I'd like to invite the Cabinet Secretary to make an opening statement explaining the instrument, and I remind him not to move the motion at this point. Thank you. The UK stamp duty land tax legislation includes a number of miscellaneous reliefs, which apply only in relation to specific organisations or types of property. The purpose of this order is to include in our LBTT legislation five similar miscellaneous reliefs using the power in section 273A of the Land and Buildings Transactions Act Scotland Act 2013. The five reliefs are, first, friendly societies relief, which provides relief from LBTT where two or more registered friendly societies amalgamate. Secondly, building societies relief, which provides relief where two or more building societies amalgamate. Thirdly, visiting forces and international military headquarters relief, which provides relief for land transactions involving the building or enlarging of barracks or camps, for a visiting force facilitating the training of a visiting force or promoting the health or efficiency of a visiting force. Fourthly, relief for property accepted in satisfaction of tax under section 11A of the National Heritage Act 1980, which extends to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A land transaction entered into by any museum, art gallery, library or other similar institution is relieved from stamp duty land tax where property is offered to HMRC by a tax payer in respect of tax. The property may be transferred to one of a range of heritage bodies. Some government-sponsored cultural and heritage bodies in Scotland do have powers to acquire land or buildings. That includes acquiring as acceptances in respect and, usually, it requires the specific agreement of ministers. If LBTT was to be incurred by culture and heritage bodies in such cases, any acceptance of land or buildings in lieu would result in a liability on the part of the accepting body to pay LBTT on the acquisition. That would, in fact, be a charge on the public purse. That relief from LBTT, which is an equivalent provision to that, which is currently in place for SDOT, has therefore been added to avoid that outcome. Fifthly, lighthouse relief under section 221 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, which extends to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A land transaction is relieved from SDOT if it is entered into by or under the direction of the general lighthouse authorities, including the commissioners of Northern Lighthouses who oversee the lighthouse infrastructure in Scotland, for the purpose of carrying on services funded through the General Lighthouse Fund. The Northern Lighthouse Board has confirmed that, given the widely distributed network of lighthouses and the need for regular changes to reflect changes in shipping traffic to ensure the continued safety of navigation, it has a regular number of land transactions and that will carry on into the future. On rare occasions, the board may be directed by the Secretary of State to undertake activity that may require such transactions. This relief has therefore been included in LBTT to deal with such circumstances. Finally, convener, the order also makes two amendments to existing reliefs within the LBTT Act. In support of crofting in Scotland, it provides for full relief from LBTT for transactions involving the crofting community right to buy, under which two or more crofts are bought rather than the partial effect that is available under SDOT. The order also makes a minor but crucial amendment to the relief for certain acquisitions by registered social landlords to ensure that, if any one of the conditions is satisfied, the relief is available. Thank you very much for that opening statement, Cabinet Secretary. I have no questions. I will receive any colleagues around the table if there are any questions. Malko, you will only get partial relief for one property, but you get full relief for more than one property. Is that different from stamp duty land tax? I am just trying to clarify the position. If that is the case, why have you decided to give full relief for multiple purchases? It is full relief, and the justification for that is to remove a particular obstacle that may influence the judgment that has been arrived at, whether to exercise the right to buy or not, in order to assist that process. I just wanted clarification on the visiting forces in international military headquarters relief. Can you give an example of circumstances in which an EU army might buy land? The only circumstance that I can consider is where there may be a military exercise under a way that might be planned and taken forward over a sustained period of time, such a circumstance would arise. There are no further questions from members of the committee. We therefore move to the debate on the motion. I would like to invite the cabinet secretary formally to move motion S4M-12186. I put the question on the motion, and the question is that motion S4M-12186 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Members are all agreed. The committee will now publish a short report to the Parliament setting out a decision on the order. My next item of business is to take evidence again from the cabinet secretary on this occasion on three pieces of subordinate legislation relating to the land and billions transaction tax and one concerning the landfill tax. I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement. I will explain the purpose of each of the three instruments that are all subject to the negative procedure in turn. The LBTT administration regulations 2014, the main purpose of this instrument is to allow taxpayers who are unable to quantify their land and buildings transaction tax liability when the price they are paying is either uncertain or is dependent on a contingency to apply to the further payment of tax in the same situations as they would currently apply for deferment from UK stamp duty land tax. The regulations set out the framework for such applications and include the decision making process that Revenue Scotland must adhere to, the grounds for refusing an application to defer a tax payment and the arrangements for making tax returns and payments. The regulations also prescribe the evidence that must be provided to Revenue Scotland for the purposes of relief for alternative finance investment bonds. On the ancillary provision order 2014 to ensure prompt payment and delivery of administrative efficiencies, the LBTT Act requires agents to make a return and pay any tax due before any application to the Registers of Scotland in respect of the land register or books of counselling session can be accepted. Section 43 of the Act creates a link between land registration and payment of LBTT by providing that documents affecting or evidencing a land transaction may not be registered unless a land transaction return has been made and any LBTT due has been paid. The rule has relevance in relation to registers managed and controlled by the keeper, including the books of counselling session, which is a court register. The purpose of the ancillary provision order is to introduce a mandatory requirement to submit the appropriate application form when applying for registration in books of council and session of indeed implementing a notifiable transaction. That will enable the keeper to fulfil the duty in subsection 43, one of the LBTT Act, not to accept an application for registration of documents in the books of counselling session until a tax return and payment have been made. The transitional provisions order 2014 relates to LBTT when it becomes chargeable. The commencement date will be set in a commencement order made by Scottish ministers under subsection 72 of the LBTT Act. SDRT will be disimplied in Scotland on a date to be appointed by the Treasury under subsection 294 of the Scotland Act 2012. That order defines the commencement date for LBTT by reference to the day after the date appointed by Treasury order under those provisions. Subsection 295 of the Scotland Act 2012 makes provision for certain land transactions to which SDRT will continue to apply, namely a land transaction for which the contract for the transaction was entered into or was substantially performed prior to royal assent of the Scotland Act 2012 on the 1st of May 2012. Section 296 makes provision for certain land transactions to which SDRT will no longer apply, for instance, where there has been an assignation or sub-sale in a contract entered into prior to the 1st of May 2012. The purpose of the order is to make provision for certain transactions that began under SDRT but have an effective date on or after commencement of LBTT. The intention is to ensure firstly that through the transitional period where SDRT is disciplined in Scotland and LBTT is introduced, such transactions are not taxed twice by both SDRT and land and buildings transaction tax, but are subject to one of the taxes. Secondly, to ensure that if the outcome of the Scotland Act provisions is that no tax would be payable, it is payable under LBTT if it would otherwise have been payable under SDRT. The order makes provision to achieve those intentions for 13 different types of land transactions or arrangements involving land transactions. Thank you very much for that, cabinet secretary. Colleagues are on the table with any questions. In the consultation, three respondents asked whether guidance would be issued to address a perceived lack of detail regarding the information to be provided in a deferment application. The policy note confirms that Revenue Scotland will publish such guidance in due course. How long will it be until this information is made publicly available? 16 February. Questions from the committee. I would like to thank the witnesses this morning, and I will call out a one-minute recess to tell you the witnesses to leave. Have we not still got land for tax? Oh yes, you are absolutely right. I am afraid that there is a mistake in my briefing that says that you are going to leave at this moment, and it does say that we should consider it after you have left. My assumption was that you were actually going to leave, but we will go through the landfill tax first. Apologies for that. Can you speak to the landfill tax then? Apologies. Thank you, convener. The regulations use powers from both the landfill tax Scotland at 2014 and the Revenue Scotland tax powers at 2014 to provide a number of provisions relating to registration, accounting, credits, the Scottish landfill community's fund and rules for the weighing of waste. The regulations formed a significant part of the Scottish Government's consultation paper on second legislation for Scottish landfill tax published in May 2014. We also received feedback on the proposals from a number of consultation events held over the course of the year. Landfill operators will be able to register with Revenue Scotland from 16 February 2015. They must do so within 30 days of their intention to carry out landfill activities. The regulations also make provision to allow the landfill operator to correct any inaccuracy or make changes to their details. A landfill operator's first accounting period begins on the day they become registered. Tax returns should be submitted along with any payment of tax no later than 44 days after the end of each accounting period. In recognition of points raised in the consultation process, we increased that from 30 days in recognition of aligning tax accounting periods with environmental reporting periods return could result in transitional cash flow issues for some operators. The regulations provide for a tax credit system insofar as a person who is paid or is liable to pay tax may be entitled to credit, providing prescribed conditions are fulfilled. The credit provisions cover three areas, bad debts, removing material for reuse and recycling and the Scottish Landfill Communities Fund. I will focus on the regulations that establish a Scottish Landfill Communities Fund, which provides funding for community or environmental projects in recognition of the disseminity experienced in the vicinity of landfill sites. I have already made Parliament aware of my intention to introduce a proposed enhancement to the tax credit arrangements under which the Scottish Landfill Communities Fund will operate. As we landfill less, it is inevitable that less money will be available to the fund in the coming years. Increases in the credit cap will not offset the expected decline in tax revenues caused by the amount of material going to landfill. I have ensured that the regulatory approach is appropriate for capping administration costs at a maximum of 10 per cent to ensure that as large a proportion of contributions as possible goes to project expenditure. The 10 mile radius rule that is applied to the UK fund is a matter of much debate. I believe that community's most effective landfill should benefit most from the fund. I also recognise that, under current arrangements, those that suffer from the transportation and transfer of waste going to landfill are ineligible unless they live near a landfill site. The regulations also provide that projects near a transfer station will be eligible to apply to the fund. The objectives of the fund are set out in the regulations. During the consultation, a significant number of stakeholders observed that including waste prevention was a logical addition to the community reuse and recycling objective. It was also support for including sites of archaeological interest to the objective, allowing funds to be spent on historical buildings, provided that the sites are accessible to the public and within the vicinity of the landfill site. Those proposals have been incorporated in the list of objectives for the Scottish Landfill Communities Fund. A contribution and any income that is derived must be spent on an approved objective of the fund within the two years of the original contribution that has been made. Work is continuing with stakeholders, CPAC and with the other regulator of the UK fund interest to ensure that processes are in place to establish the landfill community's fund. Finally, as part of the consultation, we propose changing the way waste is weighed for determining tax when entering a landfill site. Under the existing system, a landfill operator can apply to discount the water content of waste in certain circumstances, for example where water has been used to damp down waste to reduce dust. The proposal in our consultation was to exclude water discount provisions in the Scottish landfill tax. The main reason for that was that the arrangements can be quite complex and can allow for tax evasion whilst liquid waste are banned from landfill. Stakeholders identified concerns around health and safety, waste tourism and that it would put Scottish business at a competitive disadvantage. In the light of those arguments, I have introduced provisions that discounting tax due on non-naturally occurring water from waste deposits along the lines of the UK discount. Thank you very much for that. You mentioned the discussions on going regarding the establishment of the landfill community's fund, which at present is administered on a UK-wide basis by entrust. Have you any indication as to when you expect that to take effect? A number of organisations derive funding through landfill community's fund and are waiting to see the successor arrangements that the Scottish Government envisages. I would want that to be in place for the first of April. Thank you very much for that, cabinet secretary. We will have a one-minute break while our witnesses leave and then we will go on to consider the negative instruments. I shall restart the session. The next item of business is to consider the negative instruments and which we have just heard evidence. I would like to ask members if you have any comments or wish to report on the instruments that members have no comments to make. Moving swiftly on, the next item on our agenda is consideration of the community-charged debt Scotland bill at stage 2. For this item, we are joined by Marco Biagi, the Minister for Local Government and Community Empowerment, who is accompanied by Lauren Glen, Katrina Graham, Laura Barry and Colin Brown of the Scottish Government. I would like to welcome you to the committee. I know that it is your first time at the finance committee. I hope that it will not be your last. I invite the minister to make an opening statement if he wishes. Thank you for that slight air of threat to your welcome. This is not just my first time in front of the finance committee. This is my first time in front of any committee in my capacity as minister, setting aside the Scottish youth parliament that once grilled me very, very effectively on education policy. I hope that this experience will be perhaps a little bit smoother. I would like to welcome the finance committee report that was published. It was very helpful. The committee raised a number of points and the cabinet secretary and deputy First Minister has already responded to those points by letter. This session is focusing more on the content of the bill itself. For an opening statement, I would like to reiterate the Government's thinking as to why the bill is drafted as it is. Our overriding concern was that local authorities might use the information gathered from voter registration to pursue outstanding poll tax debt. We wanted to make crystal clear as well that local authorities were absolved of any obligations that they felt they had to collect poll tax debt. We wanted to make sure that the legislation itself was simple, straightforward and unambiguous. We decided therefore to take the approach of extinguishing the liability for the debt. Had the legislation been phrased differently, for example, making it illegal for local authorities to collect poll tax debt, that might have caused difficulties for the local authorities had payment arrangements not being cancelled by the debtor. We also wanted to ensure that local authorities had sufficient warning of the extinguishing of the liabilities so that the existing payment arrangements could be closed down. In section 2, the interpretation section shows the associated liabilities, which are also extinguished by the bill, are many and various. They include interest charges and fines, all of which were imposed as part of the process for collecting poll tax. If Parliament passes the bill, all of those liabilities will be extinguished with effect from Sunday past. That not only lifts a burden from the debtor, but also from local authorities, letting them concentrate, as some of them have told the committee, on breaking the cycle of debt. Getting rid of this historic debt will help to do that. No amendments have been lodged, but we are obliged to the reach section and the long title and agree formally to each. Standing orders allows us to put a single question with groups of sections that are to be considered consecutively, and that is what I propose to do. Firstly, the question is that sections 1 to 4 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Members are agreed. Secondly, the question is that the long title be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. That ends stage 2 consideration of the community charged debt Scotland bill. The Parliament has agreed that stage 3 proceedings will take place on Thursday 19 February. Because of the recess week, that means that the deadline for lodging stage 3 amendments is 4.30 pm on Friday 6 February. Amendments can be lodged with the clerks in the legislation team. I thank the minister. I have a five minute break to allow him and his officials to leave and to give members a natural break and allow the next witnesses to come into the committee. I will now reconvene the session. Our next item of business is to take evidence on the British Sign Language Scotland bills, financial memorandum, from Mark Griffin MSP, and Joanna Hardy of the Parliament's non-governmental bills unit. I would like to welcome our witnesses to the meeting and invite Mr Griffin to make an opening statement. Thank you, convener. It's good to be at the finance committee this morning. The bill, as it stands, would introduce the responsibility of the Government to produce a national plan on British Sign Language and to promote the use of British Sign Language in public life in Scotland. I think there's been a gap in provision in Scotland where people who use BSL are their main language. They don't have the opportunity to learn any other language, and the bill should start making improvements in the recognition of that language and the culture of the language and access to services. I'm happy to take any questions on the financial memorandum that you have in front of you. Thank you very much for that. I know that you haven't been to the finance committee before, so generally what will happen is that I'll ask you some opening questions and then I'll just pass or open the session up to colleagues around the table, and we'll take it from there. First question is about the overall cost estimates. Paragraph 11 of the financial memorandum points out that the cost estimates provided involve such large margins of uncertainty, and what we've got is cost variances of several million pounds on an annualised basis. Your view is, I take it, that this should be funded fully by the Scottish Government? At first glance, a £6 million estimate at the top of the range seems to be a large amount of money, but I think that it should be noted that that's across 117 public bodies. That figure has spread over five years, and with the Government's suggested amendments that that would probably be spread over a period of seven years, and spread right across those public bodies. I think that the Scottish Government has already committed to £2 million of funding, so that leaves a gap of £4 million that would need to be made up. Some public bodies in response to your call for evidence have said that they would be able to absorb the costs of the bill in their own budget, but ultimately it will be a decision for Government and ministers as to whether they choose to provide any additional funding over the £2 million that they've committed to. The issue, of course, would be that if the Scottish Government was not able or indeed willing to fully fund as you have suggested—I mean, East Lothian Council says, and I quote, there is a risk of plans having no substance, because local authorities are not in a position to allocate new monies to new activity and do not themselves say that BSL should be championed over other inclusive means of communication. I mean, how would you respond to those concerns? I think that that gets to the heart of the reason for the bill. There's postcode provision of services across Scotland, and the bill would aim to have the Government set out their priorities for BSL through a national plan and for public authorities to draft their own plans and then report to Parliament on the progress, which would allow BSL users and all of our constituencies to scrutinise what public bodies are doing. Like I said at the start, which time language is, for many people, the only language that they will ever know. It's not like another minority language where people have the opportunity to learn English or Gaelic or any other language. For most, it's the only language that they'll ever know and never learn. I think there's a responsibility on public bodies to recognise that and provide the level of service that you and I would expect in English. Midlothian Council says that the FM, and I quote, assumes a planning process very specifically for BSL, rather than incorporating BSL issues into other strategic planning streams associated with inclusion, disability and equality, in particular work associated with the implementation of C here. There are a number of other organisations that have similar concerns. I understand what you are saying about BSL being obviously unique relative to, for example, sport languages, but what about their concerns that Midlothian has that by implication detracks from some of the things that they're doing already, for example, as they've already said in terms of the C here implementation? That's a view that they are able to take. I take a different view in that I don't see British Sign Language as a disability issue. British Sign Language is a language. It's a culture in its own right. For me, I don't think that when people consider it their language and their culture, we should ask people to define themselves as disabled, to be honest. I think you'd have a big fight on your hands if you were to try and tell a lot of people who have met over the course of this, developing this bill, who use BSL that they are disabled, just because you use a different language from most of us around the table doesn't take away from your ability to do anything that we can. I do have an issue with British Sign Language being classed as a disability or equalities issue. This bill has been clear from the start that this is about a language and the language and culture of British Sign Language. It is unique in that you can't learn another language. There are some differences with Gaelic Scots or English, but this is about the culture in language aspects rather than any disability aspect. Surely it must have some equalities considerations, because what you are effectively looking for is people who use BSL to the same equal access as other people in Scotland. I am looking for BSL users to have the same access as you or I if we were contacting our local authority about the education service that they were providing. If a BSL parent was wanting to inquire about my service for their child, I would expect them to get that same level of access. The quality of access, I think, pops up just because of the unique nature of the language and that you can't learn any other language. You are straining into issues of equality, but I have been trying to keep the focus of this purely on a language and cultural issue with the added complication that there is most of the time no opportunity to learn any other language. I will give another area before I open up to colleagues around the table. The Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters has suggested that no costs are provided for ancillary organisations that may be requested to provide information expertise and advice to meet their objectives. I understand that there are only about 18 interpreters in Scotland, so one could suggest that there is a real shortage of people. How confident are you that, assuming that the costs issues are addressed in terms of the Scottish Government and local authorities, that other organisations that will not have intended consequences will impact upon them and that there will actually be the resource in terms of people to actually deliver this? The lack of interpreters is one of the big motivations behind the bill. It is a chicken and egg situation where, if you never address the situation, you are never going to increase the number of interpreters available, so if we do nothing, we could carry on with 80 interpreters or a fallen number of interpreters forever. We consulted on the legislation in Sazled, come back in previous consultations and said that they did not expect there to be any financial implications as a result of the bill. I am going to go away and speak to Sazle about their submission today, just because there is a slight conflict. While they might be expected to contribute to local authorities or public bodies' consultation, that could well have a resource implication for them at the same time. There will also be increased demand for interpreter services and the ability for organisations that provide interpreter services or represent BSL users. There will be an opportunity for them to contract for interpreting work and translation work, so there may be an increase in income to those bodies as well. The Government has also suggested streamlining some of the work around public bodies' plans and whether that can be streamlined to more locality-based consultation or a simpler BSL statement, which I have said that I am happy to accept those Government amendments to streamlining some of those costs, which should reduce some of those burdens if there are going to be any on those other organisations. I am now going to open up the session. The first colleague to ask questions will be Dippie Convenor John, to be followed by Mark. I have to confess that this is not an area that I am hugely familiar with, so some of my questions may be on the simple side of things. Just following on from what the convener said, if there is a shortage of interpreter services or people able to interpret, would that have an impact financially? If there were not enough people would not be able to spend the money, even if the money was there, or would there be any kind of danger of inflation that costs go up if everybody is looking for those services? It could be the case that costs for interpreters go up if they realise that there is a market for that sort of demand, but the Government has already started work on a national online translation process. It has that in place for NHS 24, where, if you are a BSL user, you can dial into the online translation service. There are things in development that will reduce some of the translation costs if you are reducing travel on time. It goes back to my answer to the convener, though, if you do not do anything about it, you are in a chicken and egg situation. In Finland, where they have a similar population to us, they have 750 interpreters in Scotland, we have 80.  I hope that, if the bill were to pass, that promotion of BSL and public life would increase the number of interpreters who were coming through the system because they were already overstressed. There are 80 interpreters and they are serving a population of how many people would only use BSL as a language? It is difficult to say exactly. There is no exact figure. The last census estimated around 13,000 BSL users, but a lot of the BSL organisations would question that figure simply because the census is an exercise carried out in English. For some BSL users, English is not their language and cannot respond to the census figures. Other figures put any level of hearing loss in Scotland at around £1 million, but that ranges right across from mild, severe to profound. With a similar population in Finland, like I said, there are 750 interpreters. If you could say 13,000 or a bit more than that, is that all people who have only BSL as a language or do some of them have another language like they could read English? There is not that level of sophistication or detailing the figures for the census, so I would be able to answer that accurately. I could come back to the committee with that level of detail if it is there. I can go back to those organisations. One of the points that was made was that the bill does not require the plans that are to be drawn up to be translated into BSL. Is that something that you are looking at or taking on board? That was something that was purely to keep the costs of the bill down. The Government and its memorandum have suggested an amendment, and I am delighted to see it there. They feel that the plans should be translated into BSL and that they would support that, so I am delighted to accept that amendment. Have we got a cost for that bit? The Government has suggested between a range of £2,000 to £3,500 per authority. A range of £1,250 to £3,150 per authority to translate the plans into BSL. On that headline, £6 million has been taken into account. That is not huge money, but that is fair enough. The other suggestion that the Government had made was that things could be done locally. Does that mean that several local authorities are working together? The Government has spoken about Dr Allan when I met with him and used the example of Orkney. Having Orkney council, Orkney health board and other authorities responding each responding separately to different consultations and whether there is a possibility to streamline that into a locality, whether that could be a stratclide region idea, whether it would be a health board area region where public bodies could come together and respond collectively to reduce the burden. I was open to any amendments on that basis. Another question that came up was the question of the cycle about how often or how quickly people need to get the plans and then report on the plans. Your legislation is linked to the parliamentary session, whereas the Government was suggesting seven years, which I assume would reduce the cost slightly. Is that too long? The reason that I had linked it to the parliamentary cycle was not for any consideration of language planning. It was purely related to the political process, in which I felt that it would be beneficial for the Government of the day to introduce its national plan at the start of a parliamentary session and report on the progress at the end of the parliamentary session, rather than having an incoming Government report on the performance of a previous Government's policy priorities. My suggestion was purely on that basis, on speaking to the Government and its experience with the Gallic Language Act. It has suggested that the four- or five-year timetable is perhaps a bit tight and a bit short, and that, just because of its experience with the Gallic Language Act, it is more practical to extend to seven years. Obviously, there is a balance between scrutinising a Government on its own performance. However, if the Government advisers have had those issues with the Gallic Language Act, then, as with others, I suggest the amendments from the Government that I have been happy to accept. When subsequent plans were produced, they would cost less, and the suggestion was 30 per cent less, presumably because you are revising something that is there already, which makes some sense. Although the counterargument is that, while expectations are going to rise, they are going to become more complex, therefore there would not be a saving, how do you respond to that? It was an anticipation that the first plan to be produced would require the largest amount of work. For the most part, any subsequent plans would be building on that initial plan and also incorporating whatever came out of the performance review. It was an expectation that a large amount of the work that would feed into the second, third, fourth plan would have been done in the performance review, and that was the basis for the reduction in costs. Thank you, convener. I think that most of the ground has been covered, but perhaps I can just query a couple of things. The expectation behind—well, the legislation is that there would be the production of the plan, and that is what all the costing is based on, is based around production of the plan, is that correct? Colleges Scotland, in their submission, has said that the committee will want to note that, although the requirement is to produce a plan only, the publication of such a plan will almost certainly increase public expectation that would require additional funds in future years. That is obviously talking about implementation, because, if you are going to produce a plan, the expectation out there would be that that plan would then be implemented. Why did you not factor in implementation of the plan in terms of either your legislation or your costings? I see this bill as enabling and providing a platform for the Government to set out its policy priorities. I could tell you what I think the policy priorities for the BSL community would be in terms of support for a curriculum in BSL and secondary schools and the minimum requirement for BSL teachers of a specific level of qualification. There are a whole range of policy priorities that would improve BSL users' lives, but the bill is given the Government that platform to set out their policy priorities. It will be up to the Government of the day to decide which area it chooses to focus on, so it is difficult for me to then, with that in mind, choose a particular area that would tie the Government's hands. If we were talking about that kind of focus legislation, if it was focussing on education or provision of classes, then the price tag associated with that would mean that it would really need to be a Government bill rather than a private member's bill, to be honest. Your expectation would be the cost of the list about the production of the plan, and then it would be for the assorted public bodies to, in the production of that plan, determine what the cost, etc., would be of implementation and produce their plan accordingly. My question is perhaps not around the financial memorandum in which you should be, but just an observation, really, given the Scottish Government's ambition for one-plus-two language plan in primary schools. There are experiments in that happening just now in primary school, but I was in a primary school recently, and they've selected BSL as the first language that's for primary one to do BSL, which means that they would do that through and start their second language in primary five. Is that something that you're aware of in the landscape in Scotland just now, and that that might be something that the Government will already be looking at financial implications of introducing one-plus-two? There are pockets of good work going on. Art galleries and museums in Glasgow have translated massive amounts of information into BSL, but one of the prisoners is HMP Grampian. I've started training all their prison staff in BSL. You've got excellent education facilities like Dingwall academy, which is a centre for BSL, so there are pockets of excellent practice going on right across the country on the issue of education, and Dingwall academy has made representations on that. Pupils are given the opportunity to learn BSL as a subject in first and second year. When they go on to their new national exams, there is no curriculum and no qualification available to secondary pupils in BSL, so because of the pressure for qualifications to get a job into college or university, most pupils end up dropping BSL, which is an issue for training the next generation of interpreters and teachers of BSL users to come through. There are pockets of excellent work there, and I hope that the authority plans would flag up and give the BSL community in their own individual constituencies to then start saying, well, if that has been provided in Dingwall, why can't I get access to that service in Malone area in North Lanarkshire? How long does it take to learn BSL? There are different levels of qualification in level one, two, three, and going right up when there are classes available to Harriet Watts. I am sure that you can look into that, but I do not know exactly how long it takes to reach a particular level. The costs are mainly, if not exclusively, about developing and publishing the plan. Is the assumption there that there will be one member of staff who will be doing that for a year? How did those figures get arrived at in terms of how much you would go? It was a middle management staff working over a period of months. Joanna, are you able to comment on that? We based the estimate on a member of middle management staff working full time for six months over the period of the plan, so some of that work would come in at the production of the plan and more work would come in at the end when they are feeding into the performance review. Sorry, I have not looked at the precise wording of your bill. Are there requirements in terms of what is in the plan or is it left fairly general in terms of what the plan would include? The national plan would give the direction to public bodies and local authorities as to the expectation of what should be in their plan, so the direction would come from the national government. Finally, Mark McDonald has touched on the cost of implementation. You are saying that it is not pertinent to the memorandum. Are you saying that the plan will lead to extra cost, but it is just not pertinent to the bill or what exactly is behind your statement that it is not pertinent to the memorandum? The memorandum is purely focused on the requirement of the bill. The requirement in the bill is that public bodies should produce their own plan and at the end of the cycle report on the progress that they have made on implementing their plan. There is no policy direction or particular initiative that is set out in the bill that we would be able to put a price tag against that will be up to national government and public bodies as to their own priorities for their own individual unique constituencies as to what they chose to put in their national plan with the amount to how they themselves would fund it. I am totally supportive of the bill, but it is quite an interesting position from a point of view of the finance committee and the financial memorandum. Presumably, your expectation is that, following all those plans, there will be more expenditure, because otherwise the plans presumably would just be paper plans that did not change anything. Would that be a fair assumption? Certainly, public bodies who drafted a paper plan and made no effort to implement them. The Government would report on the performance review to Parliament, so constituents would be given their opportunity through their MSP to effectively name and shame public bodies who were not living up to their own aspirations through their local plans. As I said, there are pockets of excellent work already on-going, and there is no reason why that should be restricted to those individual areas. By getting a national picture of what is going on, it will give BSL users the ability to challenge their local authorities on why they are not getting the service that has been provided elsewhere. That concludes my question to the committee, but I will get one or two more to ask myself before we wind up the session. It is on the submission from your local authority in North Lanarkshire. As you have pointed out, you said that the bill does not describe any minimum level of activity beyond the production of a local authority plan, but what North Lanarkshire is saying is that there will be potential additional costs for implementation, as has just been touched on, and it says that it has not been recognised in FM. What North Lanarkshire is then going to say is that, in relation to education, the training costs for training of teaching staff and teaching resources have not been calculated, as the impact of the bill has not been fully explored with an educational context. Are you not concerned, though, that because we have not gone beyond the development of plans, there could be a circumstance whereby hard-pressed local authorities are saying that, with the best will in the world, we can produce a wonderful plan, but we simply cannot implement what we want to do in rolling that out beyond the plan, making it really mean something for people? That will be the responsibility of local authorities. I cannot see a local authority producing a wonderful plan with a whole range of outcomes if they know that, financially, they have no intention of backing or supporting any of those outcomes. I think that that would be bad faith in the extreme part of local authorities. When it came to reporting on performance that, if an authority had a fantastic national plan and it had done nothing to implement it, that would be something that the new minister for BSL would be rightly raising with that authority and informing Parliament of. You understand what you are saying in the union about naming and shaming, but I take the view that, if the resources are not there, the resources are not there, even with the best will in the world, figures cannot be put in any additional costs arising in this way because it is not possible to estimate how much additional activity we generated from the local plans. They say that they are unable to quantify them as unknown, and they have said that, to provide 24-hour covers, for example, seven days a week from the service would cost the council over £0.25 million a year alone. There is a situation whereby a concern could be that expectations of the bill will be high, but the local authority's ability to deliver on the ground might be much less so than we would like. I can understand the local authorities' concern that they are not able to put a figure on the activities that they might be expected to carry out, but that is because as yet there is no national plan. There is no level of detail of what will be in that national plan and what authorities would be expected to have in their own plan. That would be at the direction of the Government. If the Government had chosen, for example, that 24-hour provision of interpreter services for access to a local authority's service, if they set that out in the national plan and expected all public authorities, I would expect the Government to set out how they themselves intended to fund that service or how they expected local authorities to meet that service. That will be up to the Government of the day to fund its own policy priorities. Is there any further point that you want to raise to the committee that maybe we have not covered that you want to touch on? I do not think so, just to thank the committee for the time this morning. I would like to thank you very much for answering all our questions. That being the end of this particular session, I am just wondering if the committee would agree to consider our submission to the lead committee in private at our next meeting. Thanks very much, Mark. We will call on a five-minute recess to allow a change of our witnesses. Our next item of business is to take evidence on the Air Weapons and Licensing Scotland bills, financial member random, from the Scottish Government bill team. I would like to welcome to the meeting Quentin Fisher, Ewan Rus, Keith Mayne, Walter Drummond Murray and Peter Reid. Good morning to you all. Members of copies of the financial member random along with all written evidence received. Before we go to questions from myself and the rest of the committee, I would like to invite one of our witnesses to make an opening statement. Who is drawing the short straw? I have. Thank you for introducing us and for inviting us today to offer evidence to the committee. If I may do, take the opportunity to offer a couple of brief and also broad observations. The bill makes provision in respect of a number of new and existing licensing regimes. Any additional costs associated with the bill should be read against the wider cost to society of the activities that are regulated or indeed of the risks associated with the regulated behaviour. The bill has a number of purposes. It aims to protect public safety by creating a new licensing regime for air weapons. It aims to improve aspects of locally-led alcohol and civic government licensing such as those of scrap metal dealers, taxis and private hire cars. In order to preserve public order, safety, to reduce crime and to advance public health. It also gives local authorities the power to regulate sexual entertainment venues in the areas so that both the performers and the customers benefit from a safe and regulated environment. The breadth of licensing regimes covered means that there is not an insignificant variation in the specific legislative detail and therefore, of course, variation in the financial impact in respect of each of these. This variation, I hope, is reflected accurately in the financial memorandum. In keeping with current licensing practice, the bulk of the costs associated with these licensing regimes is ultimately borne by the individuals and organisations that seek to carry out the licence activity. Finally, I believe that it is worth noting that many of the costs identified, particularly in respect of part three of the bill—that is the civic licensing provisions—are dependent upon future decisions that will be taken at local authority level. Local authority discretion is quite an important principle in all of this. In these instances, we have sought a way possible to offer some indication of what those costs might be. We will do our best today to ensure that the answers that we provide will be helpful to you in informing your consideration of the bill. Thank you very much for that brief opening statement. When I ask a question, you can decide among yourselves who would be the person most appropriate to answer and if there is a follow-up from another colleague, I am quite happy to take that also. I suppose that it would be logical to go through them in part one, two and three. Let's start with air weapons. I note that those who hand in unlicensed air weapons will not be entitled to compensation. Obviously, the bill will make it illegal to possess them, but surely, if you do not have any compensation, that is going to suppress the number of people who are entitled to hand them in. A lot of people will think that, at the back of my garage, I am not going to go at the bother of digging it out to take down at the local police station, so what is the thinking behind not compensating people, even a token amount, £20 or something like that, to hand in those weapons? Can I answer that? It is simple by saying that this has been an issue that has been discussed quite a lot in the course of the three or four years. We have been looking at those provisions and working with some of the stakeholders. I understand that it is a concern of people. There have been occasions in the past where changes in firearms law have led to outright prohibition or banning of certain types of guns. For example, in 1997, handguns were effectively prohibited. At that stage, the Government of the day offered compensation. In the Air Weapons and Licensing Bill, the Government does not intend to ban air guns as such. What we are seeking to do is ensure that the people who have them are the appropriate people who can have them safely, etc. However, we are not banning guns, so it is open to people to, if they no longer require their guns, our view is that there are an awful lot of guns, as you say, convener, in the backs of garages and things. Over the course of this, lots of people have said to me that we had one of those when I was a kid, it's in the loft or somewhere, I haven't seen it for years. A lot of low-value old air weapons, which have never been used, are quite possibly broken or no longer in a fit state for use. It's open to people to hand those into the place when we'll be putting arrangements in place for that to sell them on through private sales or through registered firearms dealers, or to make other arrangements, pass them on to other users or whatever. However, ministers' policy has always been that, because this is not a ban, and because we are talking broadly about a quite high number of what we think are low-value weapons, that compensation would not be part of those arrangements. I was just thinking more as an incentive to get them out of circulation. Clearly, if you do compensate people, you'll get more out of circulation for people who no longer have an interest in using them than you would otherwise. The issue that Cweton touched on was that the new system will not be on duly burdensome. That, of course, is hotly contested. The FFM suggests that it costs a process on a new-year weapons application of around £85.55. It's a remarkably precise figure, but one that is contested by some of the people who have given submissions. For example, the British Association for Shooting and Conversation and Conservation. I'm going to try not to use acronyms where possible. I quote that the cost that will be associated with introduction or lyceum will be very high and huge is as eruptive to already overstretched firearms, lyceum and administrations in Scotland. The Scottish Air Rifle and Pistol Association talks about the fact that 98 per cent of people according to yourselves will be dealt with. They need to further enquire, but they say that that's incredibly misleading, because half the folk who use those weapons are for informal target shooting in their own gardens, which, of course, isn't something that we want to see because of the safety impact. They basically completely refute the financial assumptions that have been made by the bill, and they are suggesting that the average cost will be significantly higher. They talk about almost £120. If you can talk us through how you come to that 98 per cent figure and, indeed, that application is not requiring visits and so on, how you come to that £85.55 figure as well? If I can take the 98 per cent point first, it's a figure that we've arrived at in discussion with Police Scotland, who will be the licensing authority. The air weapons provisions and the whole process of applying for and licensing people to have air weapons is based around the existing firearms regime for high-powered rifles, shotguns, etc. The aim has been to provide a fairly light-touch approach to air weapons, recognising that they are not, generally, as dangerous as more high-powered guns. It is a relatively light-touch system for licensing the weapons themselves. In talking to Police Scotland, we have discussed a lot about how they would do that. We accept that their point is our view that there are some 60,000 to 65,000 existing certificate holders for other types of firearms. Many of them will also have air weapons and will be brought into the new regime. Obviously, the security issues have been looked at in licensing them and providing certificates for those holders, so a large number of people will be taken out of the system already. For those who are new applicants, it is a relatively light touch. Police Scotland has said to us that a disclosure style of arrangement where they will look at an applicant, they will check basic criminal history systems, etc., should suffice for the majority of applicants, and that has been the view of Police Scotland throughout. They therefore believe that a 2 per cent full-home visit and security check is the right level. Obviously, as a new system comes in, that may vary a little bit, but over the piece, that is the view that we have taken. Therefore, we worked up the figures on that basis. The figures themselves—I agree, I looked at it again in the last couple of weeks, obviously—85.55 is very accurate. We used figures that have been used by colleagues down south for the Home Office and from the Association of Chief Police Officers, who have done a lot of work over the past couple of years in looking at the costs of processing existing firearms applications, etc. A lot of the figures that we have adopted with their agreement for work that has been done for a working group in that context. That takes account of processing times, the type of staff who are doing different bits of work, etc. The calculations behind 85.55 pretty much reflect the work that has been done. That has led the Home Office to consult recently on an increase in firearms fees more generally as a result of the work in that working group. Therefore, we have continued to adopt that. If I can say so, the British Association BASC—sorry, I will just fall into the acronyms—and the Scottish Air Rifles and Pistols Association are aware of that work and, in fact, BASC were part of the working group that agreed those figures in the working group down south. There are always differences in how we treat those figures. I understand BASC's concerns and the impact on its members, but we think that there is a generally accepted basis for the background workings behind those figures, which we will review as we come further into the year and start to look at fee levels as well. I imagine more than 2 per cent of the population about a criminal record, so it seems a bit odd that it is such a low figure. It is quite burdensome, even if it is going to be £85. Your law-abiding citizen will grudgingly apply for that, I imagine. However, the folk who you are most worried about in relation to the legislation—there is no go any bother, are they? Paying £85 to get it licensed—all you are going to do is impact adversely on your shooting clubs and all their members, etc. There will be an impact on shooting clubs and members, absolutely. That is part and parcel of the licensing system, but then again existing firearms and shotgun owners will pay a certificate, which is currently £50 for five years. We have not set a fee level yet for air weapons, but the fee reflects the work that has to be done by Police Scotland in order to ensure that the right people have air weapons and that, therefore, the police can help to protect public safety through that way. If it is £50, £60, £70 over five years, that is a relatively small price when compared to membership of a club or the amount that somebody will pay for some other interest, for example. I accept what you say that there is going to be a core of people who will just say, we will hide our guns, we are not going to get involved in this licensing system. It is part and parcel of the implementation. We have to make sure that we are getting the message out and there is provision in the financial memorandum for a media campaign. We have had the verbal agreement of the shooting organisations, for example, to help us to get that message out. However, we need to get it out to the wider community to make sure that people know that there is a requirement in the future to licence their guns. If people choose not to licence those weapons, they are committing an offence, and the police will deal with that appropriately. Over time, it will help the police to identify air weapons that are in circulation with people who should not have them. There are provisions elsewhere in the bill that will then allow for the courts to order forfeiture of those or to deal with them appropriately. If there is half a million weapons in circulation, you are talking about between 10,000 and 30,000 applications. To me, that means that between 94 and 98 per cent of people are only going to bother getting them licensed. The SAPA has said that there is a more realistic licence number between 100 and 150,000 applications. Even then, that would be a maximum of 30 per cent of people who appear to have those weapons. Most people still blank the legislation, but those who do apply, but the cost of that will be millions of pounds. How is this going to deliver on what the bill is proposing in terms of enhanced and improved safety? We are talking about only small minorities, so people are currently their own figures. Will they get those guns licensed? If I can say, I cannot remember the paragraphs in the memorandum, but what we have done is that the 500,000 air weapons estimate is one that is generally accepted around the table of the working group that we have had as potentially the number of air weapons that have been out there and are potentially out there in Scotland. In actual fact, we expect that a lot of them will simply be handed in because they are old, broken and wanted. A lot of them will be sold on. Many people who own guns of any sort, but air weapons included, will have a number of different guns possibly because they have upgraded over the years, possibly because they do different types of shooting. By the time that we come down through those assumptions, it is how we get to, in the financial memorandum, potentially 40,000 existing firearm certificate holders will also have air weapons certificates in future. The 20,000 estimate is brand new applicants to the system who have not got more powerful firearms, but who will come in and seek a certificate for the air weapon or multiple air weapons that they hold. It will be one certificate and a person can hold one, two or any number of air weapons on that certificate. I am just going to ask one more question this year, because obviously there are other parts of the bill, and colleagues also want to come in. The FFM states that the estimated maximum additional enforcement testing and reporting costs to be incurred by Police Scotland are amounting £90,000 per annum, which is an estimated £500 cases per year, £180 a case. However, the BSc questioned whether the figure implied that Police expected to see 500 weapons that result in non-compliance. How is this figure compared with an estimated 50 to 100 summary prosecutions quoted in the FFM? There appears to be a wee bit of an anomaly there. Again, what we are looking at is the line between the existing regime and the new regime. The 500 tests that are sent against Police Scotland costs is an estimate based on the number of actual weapons that might have to be tested and there would be brand new tests. In fact, Police Scotland may well be finding, and this is one of the benefits of the provisions in the bill, may well be investigating other crimes, other complaints, and in the course of that find air weapons in a property or whatever. In the current regime, they would not be able to take them from the point at which the bill provisions come into force. The Police would be able to seize them and test them. However, as part and parcel, that would be as part and parcel of another investigation. For example, if they go into a property because of a domestic complaint or anti-social behaviour or whatever, there will already be a prosecution going on because of those other complaints. Alongside that, if air weapons are seized, there will be tests. The 500 tests are on potentially the number of air weapons that could be taken in those sort of investigations, but they may only become 50 to 100 brand new prosecutions simply for an air weapons licensing offence. There are already in the existing firearms legislation as well offences related to air weapons. For example, if somebody fires an air weapon beyond the boundaries of their own premises, or if somebody is carrying an air weapon in the street, those are already offences. What we are looking at is that, in the licensing, there will be a number of new licensing-related offences that sit alongside existing investigations and existing prosecutions. I did say that last one, but I want to just mention one other thing. How many appeals would you expect from people who have been refused licenses and what would be the cost of that? I have to say that I looked at the evidence, and we do not have, in the financial memorandum at the moment, a specific provision for appeals. I apologise. I will look at that again. On the basis of criminal prosecutions, and we expect a relatively small number of brand new ones, at the time, the thinking was that that will lead to a very low number of potential criminal appeals. The other discussion at the time, I understand the point that is being made by the British Association that there will be potentially a number of appeals against refusal of a certificate or against revocations. In the existing firearms regime, the people who apply generally are people who are known in the system and are known to the police and are existing firearms owners. There is a very small number of refusals. Around about 1 per cent of applications are refused in each year on the last sticks that we have. As our system rolls out, I think that that will be something that will look to the place that will provide advice. It is very difficult to estimate the number of appeals at the moment, but it is something that we will have to be aware of and perhaps revisit. I am also conscious too that there is a whole new sheriff appeals court system coming into play with the new legislation last year, so we have to look at how that will work through the system as well. It is difficult to say at the moment. I am clearly ministers and officials who are hoping that we are not looking at a lot of appeals because of a light-touch system that we do not expect it to be a lot. I will now move on to alcohol licensing. We will spend less time in the next two sections, not least because we have taken 20 minutes. As I said, I want colleagues to come in. In terms of alcohol licensing, Western Martinshire Council and their evidence has said that the legislation sets a maximum fee that licensing boards can charge, but even though ours is charging the maximum fee, we incur an annual deficit of almost £89,000. Glasgow City Council said that it should be noted that it is difficult if not impossible for bodies to print all of these fees to account the Scottish Government's proposals. South Lanarkshire says that the council does not currently have the funding in place to meet these. Surely this regime is going to add significant burdens to local authorities? The proposals within the bill are a broad mix, and they are really derived from suggestions that were floating about among stakeholders and came from the consultation exercise. The idea was to finesse and improve the existing legislation. The idea is not to impose substantial additional burdens on local licensing boards. On that basis, we felt that it was reasonable to say that we felt that the cost would be broadly neutral. In relation to the fees, there was detailed work carried out on reviewing the fees, although we would be sympathetic to the idea of amending the existing limits on the licensing fees. Having carried out the work, we got a very scant response from the local authorities, and we really felt that we did not, at that time, have enough information on which to base increase on the fees level. However, by inserting a statutory duty on local authorities to report on the income and expenditure, that will give us a basis to understand all the local authorities' costs and expenditure and in time to raise fees if it is felt to be appropriate. Certainly one of the main findings coming out of the fees review was that the current occasional licence fee of £10 was felt to be insufficient, and that is something that we feel that we could move on without extensive further work. It would be working to move on fairly soon to increase the occasional licence fee. Thank you for that. COSLA, looking at the actual reports, said that there are concerns at the introduction of a duty for boards to publish a financial report that may be administratively difficult for local authorities, depending on current accounting procedures. COSLA recognises that that increase is transparency and provides evidence for any future fee increases, but SAC has gone to add that there are particular concerns about the fee for occasional licence that has not been reviewed and that the current fee was already insufficient to cover the cost of work involved in processing applications. Yes, the current fee is £10. It is set within secondary legislation, so that is something that we could increase outwith the scope of this bill. Okay, thank you for that. Just one final bit. I am kind of skimming because I want to allow colleagues in, but just to touch on civic licensing, the FFM says that the bill will give local authorities a power to refuse to grant private, higher car licences on the grounds of over provision. But the Scottish Taxi Federation has said that the financial memorandum had, I quote, got things badly wrong and questioned how the financial memorandum's estimate had been reached stating that no super methodology or measuring tool existed at present, and indeed they go on to say that it would be difficult if not impossible to survive such a tool. I am just wondering how you have actually reached these kind of estimates. At the moment, there is no equivalent test within private, higher cars. There is a similar test in relation to taxis that relates to unmet demand, but that is a different test. We took the figure from Napier University that quoted 15,000 to 20,000 or so—it is in the financial memo—that quoted an indicative level for the unmet demand test and quoted that as an example. In practice, it is a completely new test. We do not know how we have not devised a procedure yet for what would be appropriate for it. I think that the point that is raised by the Scottish Taxi Federation and others that that figure of around 15,000 might be on the low side is possibly the case for a large authority like Edinburgh or Glasgow. However, those are quite exceptional. A lot of local licensing authorities have very small numbers of private hires, and where they can carry out an unmet demand test then the figure would probably be a lot lower. We would certainly be happy to work with local licensing authorities and relevant stakeholders to work together in developing an appropriate methodology for testing that. I said that I was going to open up the session, but none of my colleagues have indicated that they want to ask any questions as yet. I hope that they will. I will ask one where they all get themselves psyched up for that. The fact that the FM notes that some local authorities might receive no fee income from sexual entertainment venues—for example, where none exists in all local authority areas—could incur tens of thousands of pounds of legal fees should an operator challenge a decision not to grant a licence? We recognise the risk within the financial memorandum, but the precise costs of how much challenge could cost are very hard to pin down. In respect of a low-level challenge on a civic licence, for example, a private hire car driver, a licence going to the sheriff's court, a Glasgow council estimated that between £2,500 and £3,000. If something goes all the way to the inner house of the court of session, then the costs are very substantial and there is no getting away from that, although it is hard to be precise. Within the 1982 act, there was a responsibility for local authorities to ensure that the cost of licensing in totality is covered by the licensing fees. Ultimately, on a very expensive case, it is for the local authorities to take a judgment whether it is worth pursuing and whether the public benefit that they are trying to achieve would warrant pursuing all the way through the courts and to incur that expenditure. A number of points during the financial memorandum have highlighted concerns around costs of appeals. It occurs from the British Association of Shooting and Conservation in relation to air rifles, from the Scottish Taxi Federation in relation to taxis and from various licensing boards in relation to some of the new changes, particularly around fit and proper person. There are concerns that costs of appeals have not been properly factored in in those areas. I wonder if you would like to respond to that. That is a question that covers all the licensing regimes, so I will deal with it in an appropriately broad fashion, if I may. If we are talking about appeals in respect of decisions taken by either the local authorities or the police in respect of whether or not to grant an application or whether to revoke an application, it strikes me that it is right that the way to eliminate the possibility of an appeal would be to have no appeal system, but I do not think that anyone suggests that. The moment that we have an appeal system, the possibility of appeal arises. The likelihood of an appeal largely will depend on the quality of the decision taken among other things. It also depends on the mindset and the positioning of the potential appellant. It is one of the situations where, yes, the moment we have an appeal system in place and we do for all of the licensing decisions the possibility of an appeal exists. However, the likelihood of that appeal is a different factor and it is a factor that has a decision. It is something that can only really be ascertained on a case-by-case basis as to how likely that is and what the costs of that will be. I do not know if any of my colegs want to say anything about the specific regimes. Mr Gibson made a point. There are, of course, only about 17 to 20 section entertainment venues in Scotland that, of itself, limits the scope for appeals that could be taken through the courts. Will you say that in relation to sexual entertainment venues? Of course, in the responses that we have received, the point has raised that, obviously, there may be appeals against refusals. Obviously, while there is a small number in existence, there will, of course, be potential applications that, prior to the legislation, would have gone through the alcohol licensing or other route, but the creation of a new licensing regime would potentially lead to refusals under that regime and, thus, appeals to those refusals. I think that basing it on a small number in existence perhaps does not reflect what may happen, and I think that that is the point that licensing boards are attempting to get across. I realise that it is difficult to put an exact figure on it, but, of course, the point of a financial memorandum is that it is supposed to deal also in best estimates. When you look at the scenario around applications that were refused rather than simply those that are already in existence? You are perfectly correct that there would be applications on top of that, but the point is still that lap dancing clubs have been in existence in Scotland for perhaps 15 years, and, still after that period, we have only reached the point of about 20. It is reasonable to infer that the demand is limited, so there will be applications, but it is not going to be an enormous number. In terms of the costs of appeals, it just depends how far they are prosecuted to the courts. Going to the house of the court of session will be expensive, but we never had a better estimate of how much it would exactly cost than the figure of tens of thousands. There is a feeling in relation to the introduction of the fit and proper person criteria in relation to personal licences that the definition is vague and could lead to a number of challenges on the back of it. Glasgow City Council licensing board, for example, says that the current drafting of the bill creates uncertainty as to the scope of the test and, unless corrected, will expose boards to increase litigation costs until case law provides necessary judicial clarity. Is that something that you have raised with you directly around the fit and proper person test and is it something that the Government intends to look at as it moves forward with the legislation? The fit and proper test has been very carefully drafted. There are existing fit and proper tests in other pieces of legislation that the local authorities will be quite familiar with, so it is not a completely new concept. It has also been framed in that it has reference to the overarching licensing objectives for the Licensing Scotland Act. Those are broadly framed and ensure that the local authorities provide certain constraints on the decision that the local authority can make, but where the local authorities ignore those constraints, they would still be bound by the overall scope of the bill—the bright true decision that is frequently referenced related to a board making decisions beyond the scope of the bill. By referencing the fit and proper test to the overarching licensing objectives, it ensures that the decisions that are made by the board are constrained within the scope of the bill, whether the scope of the act. On the issue of public entertainment venues, the financial memorandum states that the abolition of theatre licences would represent a decrease in regulatory burden overall, but evidence to the committee from Dumfries and Galloway Council says that those authorities are not currently licencing places of public entertainment would need to undertake a substantial and detailed process to assess whether there is a need to licence theatres as places of public entertainment, and further states that those that already do would incur significant press publication fees for statutory notices if the authority's resolution is to be widened to include theatres. Glasgow City Council has urged the Government to introduce provisions to allow the necessary amendment to the resolution to be expedited, which it has suggested would reduce the costs to theatre owners, etc. On the one hand, we are being told that there is a reduction in the burden, on the other hand, we are being given evidence that would suggest that there will be an increase in terms of the costs in some places. I wonder if somebody could perhaps reconcile that. I think that the point about decreasing regulatory burden was actually upon the theatres themselves, some of whom may have to have a theatre licence and a public entertainment licence at the moment, whereas there would be a more streamlined system that would allow a theatre, for example, to apply for the one licence. In the longer term, we would also expect that having to operate a single regime rather than two would have benefits for local authorities. In terms of expediting the nine-month period between a local authority passing a resolution and coming into force, it is reasonable that there has to be some period between an authority announcing that something needs to be licensed and actually coming into force so that people have time to apply for licences and to get ready for it. The current period is nine months, which we are not especially wedded to, but it is hard to see how it could be less than a matter of several months. I should also point it out that public entertainment licence is very wide, it is very flexible, so the local authority could decide to license and many of them do billiard halls, for example, or snooker clubs, and from the point of making that decision to actually coming into force, you do need a period of months. The requirements of the 1982 act are that an authority publishes the resolution, invites comments and then considers those representations. There is a degree of work obviously to reach the point at which a draft resolution can be published, but that matter of work should be proportionate to what it is being proposed to do. In this case, I would expect that there will be a strong assumption that theatres should fall under public entertainment licensing. They are already licensed and they have largely the same characteristics as many of the other forms of entertainment, which are licensed as public entertainment. In these circumstances, we would not expect a substantial and detailed process to actually be required. Finally, on the fees, we do recognise that publishing the classified advert that is required under the act just to notify people of a change in resolution has a cost. Glasgow estimated that a cost of an advert would range from £300 to £550, the last two having been £340 and £522. It is a cost of a few hundred pounds, but it is not an on-going cost and it will probably have to be inquired twice during the process of changing a public entertainment resolution. I was just going to ask on that. I am by no means an expert, so this is very much the daft laddie question. Presumably, those adverts do not need to be applied collectively for each individual licensing. For example, if a number of venues are going through this licensing process, they can all be captured within the one advertisement that obviously reduces the cost burden. The cost that is being referred to is that when a local authority determines the change of public entertainment resolution, that is to say what it is that we are going to licence, they have to advertise that fact and invite comments and then they have to put another advert in at the end of that process saying that this is what the final resolution looks like, so it is not about individual applications, it is about the totality of what is changing within a local authority area. I want to return to the submission from the Scottish Taxi Federation. They say that this will impact on their members because of the Government's comments that additional costs should be charged to licence fees. In Paragraph 170, you have given that an indicative value of the cost to driver's vehicles and booking officers from the examples of fees set out in five licensing authorities. Do those examples include any additional costs that you expect to see for the implementation of the legislation or do the comments from the Taxi Federation reflect the fact that they think that those costs will go out, are likely to increase in the future because of additional costs that could be through appeals and other impacts of legislation? The financial statement includes reports, actual licence fees that were being charged at the time we asked for those existing ones. What assessment have you made then of what impact the legislation might have in terms of additional increased costs for licence fees for taxi drivers? It is very difficult to gauge because an awful lot of the overprovision in relation to private hire is a discretionary part. It is up to local authorities whether they wish to introduce it. Although, when we consulted, it did seem to be broad support for it, certainly in the call for evidence, there does not seem to be a lot of indication that local authorities are keen to use the additional part. If local authorities decide not to use it, there will be no additional cost. Finally, in terms of that additional cost, if it is the fact that an authority applies that power, the Taxi Federation wishes to be clear whether the cost of the administering of the overprovision section and the possible court challenges will only be charged back to the licence fees for private hire car operators, or is that to the regime in general? I have had a look at the legislation. I am not a lawyer, so I cannot really offer a legal view. It does not seem to me to be prescriptive as to how the local authority would allocate that as to whether it was within just the private hire element or within the taxi element. At the moment there is an unmet demand test in relation to taxis. I am not sure whether local authorities restrict the cost of that to the existing taxis or whether they spread that across the private hire. I suspect that it is really an issue for the local authority to decide on for themselves. There appear to be no further questions from committee. I am just wondering if there are any further points that you would like to put to committee before we wind up the session. Rheona, thank you very much for hearing evidence today. If there is anything further that we can help you with, please let us know and we would happily provide further comment. Okay, thank you very much for that being the end of the public part of today's deliberations. I am going to call a small recess before I do. I just want to get the agreement of committee that we will look at this report in private at the next session. Thank you very much.