National Campaign for Firework Safety
1993 Annual Report


The European Commission have accepted the need for stronger firework controls following a year when we lobbied and put our case to the European Parliament.  In the coming session of Parliament at Westminster we will be presenting a bill which will include, licensing of fireworks, training for operators, and a ban on local retail sales, where children can get hold of dangerous fireworks.  The instance of injuries to children and animals has increased considerably in the past year.

The Commission is studying our Bill and have said that they will be looking for greater controls on dangerous fireworks in the EC, and those coming in from Third World Countries. The Irish Republic is the latest country to introduce our proposals, in order to deal with increasing numbers of Pop and Arts Festivals.  The proposals are based on the Canadian model of 15 years ago.  The Canadians have wiped out their injury totals and train over 5,000 display operators each year.

Meanwhile Consumer Affairs Minister Baroness Denton has said that the Government will not be supporting our Bill.  The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) plan to blame the EC Single Market for dangerous fireworks coming into the UK.  However the dangerous fireworks debacle really got off the ground in the late '80's when Peter Lilley, Edward Leigh, and John Redwood were Ministers at the DTI. They de-regulated firework imports both for reasons of ideology and also to make cynical cuts in the numbers of Explosives Inspectors.  They allowed importers of fireworks to check their own imports, by-passing Inspectors.  When we pointed out the dangers of this we were given lectures that there could be no interference with the 'market place'.

Similarly when the DTI were putting together the new British Standard on fireworks (BS7114) three years ago, they  included a category 4, for the most dangerous fireworks.  Some of these fireworks enter the UK in an unfinished chemical state.  Lady Denton told the campaign recently that category 4 fireworks "are not available from retail sales anyway".  They are available from companies some which are listed in magazines and the Yellow Pages.  They will sell anything a display operator wants.  No licenses are required.

Last November 942 people were taken to hospital with a firework injury, a 25% increase on the previous year.  249 were seriously injured.  There were 295 Eye Injuries.  Almost half of the total injured were young people under 15 years.  The majority of injuries occur in the November part of the 'Guy Fawkes Season'.  There are other reported injuries throughout the year.  We have seen press reports of accidents during last summer.  Shops registered to sell fireworks need no special license to sell outside the voluntary agreement of 3 weeks before November 5.

The injury statistics for 1992 were issued this year on the eve of the Parliamentary Easter Recess, despite assurances from Lady Denton that they would be available by February.

London and Liverpool Trading Standards Officers published a survey last October, carried out in 1990, of children who had been treated not only in hospitals but by parents, GP's and First-Aiders.  Injuries outside the hospital category have always been ignored by the DTI.  NCFR have maintained for 24 years that there are many more injuries than those which appear on the official DTI list.  The surveys produced by the Trading Standards Officers, produced a figure of 80,000 injuries.  The response of the DTI to the survey was to hold a meeting and tell the officers to say nothing about the survey until they had time to carry out a survey of their own.  After a year the officers realised they had been conned, because nothing had been done.  The Liverpool Trading Standards Officers went ahead and published their survey.  The DTI are now conducting a survey but in one area of the country, the Borough of Islington in London.  We are asking local authorities throughout the country to carry out their own surveys so that we will have a true picture of the real accident totals in the entire country.  The game is now up for the DTI and the strategy of publishing only some hospital returns has gone forever.

In response to the 25% hike in the hospital treated injuries, Lady Denton has announced that there will be a "serious campaign" this year.  All previous Government firework safety campaigns are now judged as not serious.  The Government spent a quarter of a million pounds and they used comedians Hale and Pace.  Previous campaigns using media stars have all been rejected.  The Government PR company having won the contract to present this year's campaign lost no time in contacting us to pick our brains and ask how it should be done.  A freelance journalist putting together the Press pack wanted case histories of children injured by fireworks.

Last December in a phone call to Lady Denton's office asking for a reply to our letter sent some six weeks previously, a private secretary asked if we were part of a delegation attending the Conference on the European Directive on Fireworks, in February.  This was the first we had heard of it, and the private secretary immediately realised that he had made a rick.  When we asked for further information he said that somebody would call us back with details.  Three days later Standard Fireworks Ltd called us.  It was a conference organised by Lady Denton, not Standard Fireworks.  It was admitted that we were not supposed to have found out about it.  The gentleman from Standard said that the conference was between the industry and the Government, and he doubted if the DTI would allow us to attend.  We wrote to Lady Denton as representatives of consumers interests in the same way as Standard Fireworks Ltd represent the industry, asking for a seat at the conference.  We reminded her that we had been included in all past conferences on fireworks going back to 1973.  We had written a code of conduct for firework displays that year, and a year later the Home Office had invited us to write a National code with the industry.  Lady Denton dodged the question, dealing with another matter.  We wrote once again and also took the matter up with her Shadow Minister, Nigel Griffiths, who also wrote to her.  Lady Denton replied that it was really nothing to do with anybody except the Government and the firework industry.  After two more letters from Nigel Griffiths insisting that we be given a seat at the conference, Lady Denton said that she did not want to broaden the meeting.  So even the usual courtesies had not been extended to the Opposition Party.

We have since asked Lady Denton to give us a full report on the conference.  Lady Denton said that discussion on the European directive on fireworks "was somewhat preliminary……..as we do not know what detailed proposals are likely to emerge…….It was agreed however, that the UK would maintain equivalent safeguards at present in force". This answer means precisely nothing because there are no safeguards in force for families who can purchase dangerous fireworks in categories 3 and 4.  We are still operating under the 1875 firework laws.  Lady Denton would have been aware of the questions that we had put down in the European Parliament calling for controls on dangerous fireworks both in the EC and coming in from the Far East, and calling for the licensing and training of display operators.

In previous years there has been an arms length approach between Government and Industry.  During the 1980's some commentators spoke of a whiff of corruption between Ministers and Companies, with civil servants looking on.  In the 1990's the charge of gross incompetence has been added to that of corruption.  When we phoned Lady Denton's office we did not expect our call to be taken by Standard Fireworks Ltd.  It is one thing to have a relationship with Company Directors.  It is quite another to have them answering Government enquiries.  We are not accusing Standard Fireworks of any impropriety.  We know them better than that.  We certainly could not vouch for any of the other firework companies in a similar position.

The Government no longer seems to understand the difference between the public and the private interest.  There is something called the National Interest.  For instance millions of families expect up to date laws that protect children and their pets from abuses with fireworks.  Equally the public attending firework displays expect the display operators to be trained and the displays to be licensed, so that the best safety requirements are in force.

Consumers have the right to ask "When this Government legislates who are they legislating for? Are they legislating for consumers in the National Interest, or are they legislating for the greater delectation of the companies and their directors. 
We would suggest it is the latter

NOEL TOBIN - DIRECTOR