Fireworks: Sale and Use

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for bringing this issue to Westminster Hall.

As we have already heard, fireworks can be a very polarising subject. Like many other Members, in the run-up to this debate I have had countless emails from animal lovers in my constituency who want to see certain fireworks banned, and noise limits and other restrictions introduced. However, I have also had briefings from fireworks fans and lovers of our bonfire night traditions who worry about moves to change the law.

Someone who has always understood both sides of that debate is Alan Smith and it is on Alan’s behalf that I speak today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley has said, Alan is the son of my constituent, Josephine Smith. She was a beautiful 88-year-old lady from Harold Wood, who lost her life in a house fire after a lit firework was stuffed through her letterbox in October 2021. Alan is in the Gallery today and I am very grateful to him for his courage in highlighting an issue that has caused him and his family such pain and trauma.

Alan recently came to Parliament to speak to me, and I know that he has also spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley. He described the role that Guy Fawkes night always played in his happy family when he was growing up; it was one of the few times in the year when everybody got together. Each year his dad, Derek, would go to the shop to buy a little display box, a pack of sparklers and maybe a pack of rockets, as happens in many families; Josephine would make the jacket potatoes; their two ponies were put in their stables and the cattle put in another field; and the dog would go into the house, with the radio on. When raising his own family, Alan always had a fireworks display in the garden, or they attended a local organised display. His experience was like that of countless of our constituents.

However, on 28 October 2021, those happy memories and traditions were upended. Around 9 o’clock, he was woken by his wife, Lisa, with the words he still hears every day: “Al, your mum’s house is on fire.” When he rushed to Josephine’s home, he recalls, he saw emergency services outside the building, and then saw his mother’s body being brought, lifeless, in a fireman’s arms. The scene, he says, was like a horror movie. A fire officer later came over to say that they found a firework just inside the door.

Early the next morning, the family were told that arrests had been made: an 18-year-old and 15-year-old had deliberately put a firework through Josephine’s door. They were later charged with arson and manslaughter. During the trial at the Old Bailey, CCTV of the night in question was shown. It showed teenagers laughing and joking with the salesperson. I have seen the CCTV with Alan, and it is very worrying. The conversation from the two youths included the following: “People are going to get terrorised tonight,” and “We are going to throw them at the police.” The person manning the shop goes on to say, “You can hold them, throw them, do what you like with them.” Alan’s entire family were distraught. Two stupid boys had been sold fireworks by a man apparently with years of experience in selling them, and full knowledge of the boys’ intentions. Both those young people are now serving custodial sentences.

A further trial had to take place for the shop owner and sales assistant. As Alan says:

“The two youths were stupid, irresponsible thugs who had not had the best of childhoods and were not even thinking when they caused havoc in our lives that night.”

In contrast, the retailer

“was a grown man with years of experience in selling fireworks, yet still decided to sell them to a minor who had stated his intentions to ‘terrorise’.”

Fireworks4Sale, the shop involved, was fined in the region of £17,000. The seller himself was fined £1,200 and received a six-week sentence, which was suspended for 12 months. The actions of the shop that night made Alan question whether the laws and regulations for the sale of fireworks are robust enough. That brings me here today to debate the petition that Alan started, from his grief and desire not to see future tragedies like that which led to the loss of his beautiful mother.

The debate around the use of fireworks creates a great deal of division, but despite the tragedy Alan can still see both sides of the argument. He says:

“Arguing and insulting each other is not the way to a sensible and mutually agreeable solution to the problem.”

He asks for

“a sensible, respectful debate, so those that wish to enjoy fireworks on the few important days of the year can do so. And in turn, those who have pets, PTSD, mental health issues etc only have to manage their situation on a handful of dates a year.”

The fireworks used to take Josephine’s life were bought on a whim on a local high street. Alan asks whether a more robust licence requirement might have prevented her death.

The Minister has kindly agreed to meet me and Alan in the new year. Before then, I want to ask some brief questions on Alan’s behalf. First, fireworks can currently be used from 7 am to 11 pm, 365 days a year; would a 4 pm to 10 pm window be more acceptable? Secondly, the safe distance from F2 fireworks is 8 metres, and the safe distance from F3 fireworks is 25 metres; given that the vast majority of UK gardens do not meet that minimum size, is it safe to use them in private gardens? Thirdly, fireworks can be bought easily on the high street—it was an impulse that resulted in Josephine’s death—so do regulations around high street sale need to change? Fourthly, even when fireworks are set off legally at organised displays, organisers often do not take into account the surroundings, so should there be safe buffer zones around such displays?

Many debates have taken place over the years, and the response is often that the industry is already heavily regulated and that the regulations are adequate. I therefore ask on Alan’s behalf, and on behalf of everybody whose constituents are affected by this: is now the time to look at the issue much more deeply, so that future tragedies, like that which affected Josephine, do not happen?