National Campaign for Firework Safety
Noel's Page                                  March/April 2003

"As the Australian crews from Sky TV have said to us on a number of occasions. "What is it about you people in this country.  We went for a professional firework situation over a decade ago.  Why do the Brits have to oppose so many reforms when your people are being killed and injured.""

This year promises to be a very interesting year.  In my 'Noel's Page's' for  this quarter I would like to share with you a letter I have sent to many of the MP's who were present at the Second Reading of Bill Tynan's Firework Bill, on February 28 2003.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to thank you for your interest and for taking part in the debate on the Second reading of the Fireworks Bill fireworks on behalf of your constituents on Friday 28^th February.

As founder and Director of the original national firework campaign in the UK the National Campaign for Firework Reform, (now Safety) which was an amalgam of various groups around the country, we came together at the House of Commons in November 1969, with a huge petition, and support from the then Home Secretary, James Callaghan, and his deputy Merlyn Rees.  The first campaign was led in the Commons by the late James Johnson MP our President, with a group of MPs, which included Janet Fookes, now Dame Janet in the Lords.

In  1973, we wrote the first code of conduct for organised firework displays on behalf of the Lea Valley Regional Park Authority.  The great success of that display meant that the following year we were invited to the Home Office, which used to look after the subject of fireworks, to write the national code with the then firework makers, (now importers).

That voluntary code was used for many years by the Home Office and later the DTI, before all things reverted to the firework industry, and the campaign which represents most people and organisations in the country was given the cold shoulder by the DTI acting for the firework industry.

Why? For representing the people of the country. When we first began we were asked to visit with a members child in hospital who was blind in one eye, and had the other blown out by a firework he should never have been able to get hold of.  I will never forget that, nor the thousands of letters since from every part of the UK, from families of children many seriously injured, with some fatalities, injured animals and many more killed or who have had to be put down because of stress and trauma,  and elderly people who are suffering in the millions every year and all the year around, since fireworks are sold all the year around. 

We worked with and spoke to the firework industry for over 25 years and their spokesperson Mr John Woodhead has said and has been saying from the time we started that if it had not been for the work of the campaign reforms such as Linda Gilroy's Bill of 1997, the present Bill and all other measures would never have taken place.  For although the bulk of the firework industry hated the campaign and its work it was forced into backing essential reforms.

The campaign carried out an international report on the firework legislative situation abroad in the early and 1970s, and early 1980s it was amazing the amount of controlling legislation that most other countries had brought about, including a ban on retail sales, licensed firework displays and training facilities. When we were writing the firework display code in 1975, we were also campaigning for a national training scheme to up the skills in the firework industry.  We have been campaigning for it ever since.  We supported the scheme introduced by the industry under Tom Smith.  However the DTI said they would not cherry pick a scheme so the whole thing came to nothing.  That has got to change.  The DTI must puck one scheme for everybody.

So to licensing, the licensing of firework displays. We should have got there in 1975, but the old men and backwoodsmen of the firework industry said they did not want an all-professional display situation.  They were too concerned about their shop sales and profits. How things have changed. Now they want both.  We say there has got to be a professional firework situation in this country, because too many people have been hurt, or have lost their lives.  As the Australian crews from Sky TV have said to us on a number of occasions. " What is it about you people in this country.  We went for a professional firework situation over a decade ago.  Why do the Brits have to oppose so many reforms when your people are being killed and injured." 

We are supporting Bill Tynan's Firework Bill and all praise to him for having the vision to bring in a Firework Bill. We support the Bill as we supported Linda Gilroy's Bill.  It will no doubt be amended in committee, but that can only make it stronger, and in any case it is a first step in something that should have happened four decades ago. Somebody mentioned Northern Ireland in the second reading debate. What they did not say was that the Minister there, Jane Kennedy showed great courage in saying in October 2001 that she had had enough of the retail sales of fireworks and the damage they had done in most Constituencies. She wanted to get rid of retail sales she said. There was short review of the UK laws and there was not one MP against her proposal. Further there was licensed firework displays there. She got rid of retail sales in February 2002. All praise for her courage. The same situation exists in the Republic of Ireland. In England we have had to wait for 128 years  (1875 Explosives Act last main Fireworks Bill) to get a Bill that should have been brought in at least four decades ago. Yet there are some MPs who will judge the Bill as too radical.   

We make no apology for backing a professional firework situation, and taking fireworks out of the hands of  hooligans and nutters. Licensing of displays, of shops that should have been licensed many decades ago, but not sales in small High Street Shops. It has been too tempting for those shopkeepers not to sell fireworks to children and dangerous fireworks in display categories to just about everybody else. They cannot help it. Give them the opportunity and they will flout the law to sell higher category display fireworks from the back room of the shop or their own homes. Then there is the illegal black market sale of fireworks at street markets from car booths. But most reprehensible of all are the big garden centres and supermarkets who should no better. In most places you can buy all display fireworks in categories 3 or 4 which are already banned to the public and that is where things have gone badly wrong leading to a huge increase in firework injuries, to children and teenagers, pets, not to mention the noise and trauma that has affected most people, and once again their pets. On the noise front David Manley an expert on noise and consultant and member of the UK Noise Association, of which I am a member, has said that 120 dB is too loud, not just the RSPCA.

This Bill will be the first Bill to attempt to deal with these problems.  It will be amended and improved upon. The next Bill must be a ban on retail sales of fireworks, licensed firework displays and a national training scheme.

Yours Sincerely,

NOEL TOBIN - FOUNDER & DIRECTOR NCFS