Hansard

The Convener Lab

On petition PE1169, I welcome David Primrose, director of George Street Research, to the table along with Graham Ross from the Scottish Parliament informatio...

David Primrose (George Street Research)

Certainly, convener. To put the research into a bit of context, the industry’s guidelines for the display of publications that are referred to as lads mags a...

The Convener Lab

Okay. Thanks very much. I invite questions from committee members.

Robin Harper Green

I am afraid that I am displaying a degree of ignorance. Is there no definition in the guidelines about what a child’s height is? Has that deliberately been l...

David Primrose

Well, those are your words—saying that it has deliberately been left out.

Robin Harper Green

Sorry—I should not have phrased my question in that way.

David Primrose

There are no specific heights in the industry’s guidelines. As I say, we spoke to some of the major retailers and saw their internal guidelines, which they w...

Robin Harper Green

That is well within the sight lines of most children who would be walking around with their parents in a shop.

Cathie Craigie Lab

Thank you for talking us through your research findings. The petition raises the point that the magazines should be screen-sleeved before they are put on the...

David Primrose

The magazines are not bagged, but we observed that some of the major supermarkets have started to put them into plastic containers that have just the names o...

Cathie Craigie Lab

They had complained about them being in sleeves.

David Primrose

No, they had complained about them being within sight. Some retailers appear to have responded to concerns, but they have also said that not many people are ...

Anne McLaughlin SNP

I know that the survey that we asked you to undertake was limited, but we wanted to establish whether there is a problem out there—and there clearly is. I am...

David Primrose

Yes. That is a feature of the forecourt retailers. I am sure that you know the type of unit if you regularly drive along the M8 and pop into Harthill service...

Anne McLaughlin SNP

In your demonstration with a tape measure, at the first height level that you demonstrated it was almost as if the magazine placement was aimed at children, ...

David Primrose

I had to do a bit of explaining in the office about why such magazines were on my desk.

The Convener Lab

You said that some of the bigger retailers place their magazines in boxes. Is that because they have a tighter code of conduct than smaller retailers?

David Primrose

I cannot say, because I did not speak to individual representatives from the major supermarkets. The major supermarkets said that they have written policies ...

The Convener Lab

It might be interesting to find out what is in them. The committee can perhaps look into that.

Nigel Don SNP

I think that I know the answer to this one, but I would like to ask Mr Primrose the question while he is here. The survey is based on a relatively small samp...

David Primrose

In any market research survey there is an element of sampling error. In a survey of this size, with 152 mystery shops, the sampling error is quite large, by ...

Nigel Don SNP

It is consistent with what some of us see. My colleague Anne McLaughlin may be blind to those things, but some of us are genetically predisposed to perhaps b...

The Convener Lab

I shall not comment on that.As there are no more questions, I thank David Primrose and ask committee members for their views on where we go with the petition.

Robin Harper Green

We should continue the petition and include it in our legacy paper.

The Convener Lab

It is proposed that we include the petition in our legacy paper. Do we want to suggest what actions might be taken?

John Wilson SNP

We could forward a copy of the research report to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and ask what action the Scottish Government will take as a result of the ...

The Convener Lab

Thank you. So it is agreed that the petition will be included in the legacy paper. I presume that the committee would have no problems with publishing the re...

The Convener Lab

I thank David Primrose for his attendance.