House of Commons Hansard Debates for 29 Nov 1990

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What derogation can the United Kingdom obtain on the ground of national security if majority voting is applied? Although those matters are complex and legal, I should be grateful if the Minister would give a detailed answer.

Paragraph 8 of the explanatory memorandum dated 25 October says : "The Directive also introduces a European Firearms Pass for EC nationals wishing to travel with firarms within the Community. In general the EFP does not in itself convey authorisation to enter another Member state with a firearm, but is intended to facilitate it".

The memorandum then lists the exceptions. What is the real purpose of the pass? Who will be the issuing authority? The Minister answered the question about the British visitor's permit. It seems that we shall run the two in parallel. Will the Minister confirm that? Will Britain take part?

We had a discussion about article 5 and there is still concern about it because it has not been finalised. The directive restricts the acquisition and possession of weapons to those who are 18 years of age or more. As we know, at present in the United Kingdom, 14-year-olds can shoot with pistols and rifles if they are supervised in doing that. I regretted very much that that restriction was in the directive. It showed a lack of contact by the European Commission in understanding what goes on in this country. I am sure that the Minister realises that, if the restriction were put into practice, the effect of so limiting young people would be disastrous for Britain's future Olympic hopes in shooting events. Young people would not be able to train in their sport and that would be a serious problem. Unless there were a serious threat to public safety, the Labour party would have strongly opposed that part of the directive tonight. However, I am delighted to hear from the Minister orally that there has been a change in that provision.

The Labour party also opposes parts of article 5 because they could impose restrictions on paraplegics. Unless there are good public safety reasons for those restrictions, we should reject them. It is important that people with physical disabilities are not unnecessarily discriminated against and that they are free to pursue sport in the way that they wish.

It is important to note that the safety record of sportsmen in Britain is one of the best in Europe and, indeed, the world. The Labour party, therefore, believes that firearms sportsmen should be free to pursue their interests without having petty and unnecessary regulations imposed on them, whether by the Commission, by the British Government or by the other institutions that are involved in firearms. However, that freedom must be based on the unstinting concern by sportsmen for public safety. If they have such a concern, they will always receive the full support of the British Labour party.

We are appalled by the quality of the document. It is flawed and it is not up to date. We will demonstrate our opposition to the way in which this business has been handled, and our support for young sportspeople and sportspeople in general by dividing the House on the directive.

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8.5 pm

Mr. Jerry Wiggin (Weston-super-Mare) : I only wish that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) had been speaking for the Opposition from the Front Bench during the passage of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988. I believe that there can be harmony in this matter. In the course of his introductory remarks, my hon. Friend the Minister said several times that firearms matters were troublesome. The last thing in the world that those of us who are fond of shooting want is to have troublesome relations with the Government. There is no need to have troublesome relations with the Government if--I repeat the principle that I enunciated earlier in an intervention--it is recognised that the law-abiding sportsman is not the person on whom the force of law should descend. He does not commit the crimes ; he does not have the illegal weapons. At the time of the 1988 Act, we were carried away, quite illogically, by the Hungerford incident and I do not want to refight those battles. I must tell the House that I have an interest in the matter as I have recently been elected chairman of the British Shooting Sports Council--a post which is, sadly, unpaid. I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for acknowledging in his opening remarks that the council had given some professional expert advice on this highly technical matter to the Home Office. I can assure my hon. Friend that so long as I am chairman, the best possible relations will be established between that body and the Home Office in the hope that we can come to sensible solutions. I am sorry that we should always be considered to be a troublesome section of the community. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people get a great deal of innocent fun from shooting in all its forms. It is not right that there should be a conflict of interests between their hobby and our Government. I was immediately concerned to find that the word "firearms" had been dropped from the heading of the directive and that the word "weapons" had been used. The word is used because weapons other than firearms are covered by the directive. One mission that the Government might care to pursue in Brussels is to differentiate between firearms and all the other offensive weapons in which I have no interest and which I appreciate the need to control.

We must examine the purpose of the directive. I see it as being to establish an internal market in which the free movement of goods and services is secured, to provide for harmonisation as far as possible in national laws of member states and to ensure that member states consent to or are aware of the import of weapons into their territories. Many people in continental countries can go shooting across a national border 50 miles down the road and those countries' attitudes are, of course, quite different from those pertaining in our island state. I suspect that the civil servant who drafted the directive is a continental gentleman living close to one of the national borders near Brussels.

In the view of the shooting organisations, the directive should be primarily concerned with the question of open frontiers rather than with attempts to impose further restrictions on legitimate pursuits merely because they involve the possession of firearms.

The progress of the directive has been long and convoluted, and it has been complicated by differing

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understandings of some of its technical details which have arisen from the different use of language as well as from the different languages used in the official papers. Such is the confusion surrounding the directive--this has been confirmed tonight--that even allegedly the most up-to-date edition is likely to have been superseded already. I welcome the Minister's remarks and I understand the dilemma. As a result of masterful negotiations, concessions have been obtained in Brussels and from the other Community states, but it has not been possible to reorganise the debate. The House is well attended, given the subject that we are debating. I should point out, too, that many of us have changed our engagements and come a long way to attend the debate, and organisations have gone to a lot of trouble to prepare for it. It might have been better to wait a few weeks until the matter was set in concrete so that the few questions that remained in dispute could have been debated. Instead, we may have to make some points that have, in part, been conceded.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was here on Monday when the matter first came before the House. A couple of us tried to stop the directive being debated this week. We suggested to the Leader of the House that he should take it off and bring it back at a later stage because there was some argument about the Standing Orders and other matters. Perhaps it would be as well, even at this stage, to take the business off and bring it back at a more appropriate time. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is a typical Common Market cock-up?

Mr. Wiggin : The hon. Gentleman conducts his own permanent campaign on these matters and is most assiduous. But I am interested in the subject that we are debating tonight.

It now appears that, whatever its eventual form, the directive will place less emphasis than it should on the primary intention of moving towards the freer markets envisaged for 1992 and is unduly concerned with imposing grater restrictions on ordinary people, even though there is little--if any --evidence to suggest that it is not safe for them to possess or transport weapons. Some of the very people on whom the directive will have the most impact are individuals who have established their reputations as people of the greatest integrity and have achieved fame and honour for this country as its representatives, at international level, in a whole range of shooting disciplines. Much of the concern of the shooting organisations is centred on the confusion which continues to reign in respect of technical errors and imprecise--at times even unintelligible--translation. One could go through the directive chapter and verse, nit-picking one's way through a confusion of ideals and intentions. A number of aspects have been identified as particularly significant. The Minister mentioned age, in respect of which a concession has been obtained, but I think that my hon. Friend should examine carefully the endless debates that we had during the passage of the Firearms (Amendment) Act about the desirability of allowing properly supervised young people to shoot or to practise target drills at a much earlier age than 18. There is no reason why that should not be allowed ; indeed, many of us in the House enjoyed those privileges in our early teens. There is no question of our

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having a disastrous record in this matter. Very few young people have been involved in firearms accidents. We must examine the facts before jumping to conclusions.

A restriction on the possession and use of semi-automatic weapons would have serious consequences for certain sports. I am sure that the Minister will recognise that a number of Olympic and world shooting disciplines involve the use of semi-automatic weapons. I had the feeling that my hon. Friend the Minister had dealt with the question of military weapons, but simply to prohibit a weapon because it was once put to military use or considered to be of military calibre is a clumsy and heavy-handed way of dealing with a problem which, so far as I know, does not exist.

Some of the proposals in respect of trade appear to run counter to our supposed commitment towards open borders and would be guaranteed to cause confusion. Going beyond trade interests alone, any injudicious legislation runs two risks. The first is the risk of avoidance. The other is the risk of incurring a financial commitment in terms of compensation. Following the introduction of the 1988 Act, only 4,000 semi-automatic weapons were surrendered when the compensation scheme was introduced. At that time, the Government estimated that there were 20,000 such weapons in private possession. One can only guess at the whereabouts of the balance.

Hon. Members have mentioned the requirement for "mental and physical capability". That could lead directly to many disabled sportsmen being barred from following what is often regared as a therapeutic pursuit and would directly affect such events as the Paralympics.

The Government will need to keep in mind the effect that the proposals would have on income generated by visitors from places such as America and eastern Europe who come here specifically for the shooting. I am told that in Scotland alone the income from that source is estimated at £52 million a year.

Sir Hector Monro : It is more than that.

Mr. Wiggin : My hon. Friend says that it is more than that ; it is certainly a very considerable sum and one would not wish to discourage such visitors.

Some of the European officials concerned seem to be intent on using the directive as an opportunity to deny individuals the right to possess weapons of any nature. I am happy to say that our Government repeatedly stated, during the passage of the Firearms (Amendment) Act, that that was not their intention and that they sought merely to ensure that weapons in private hands neither fell into criminal hands nor were used to harm the public at large. All the shooting organisations share that sentiment.

The shooting population in this country is already subject to some of the most stringent safeguards and is still absorbing and coming to terms with the effects of recent legislation. It does not believe that it would be helpful or pertinent if the side effect of a measure intended to achieve a reduction in border controls merely led to yet more restrictions, uncertainty and expense for legitimate shooters, especially as there is little evidence to suggest that they bear any direct responsibility for lawlessness, the illegal use or possession of weapons, or any activity against the interests of the state or the wider European Community. The shooting community would point out

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the contribution that shooting disciplines have made to greater harmony between the European states by way of international co-operation and friendly competition.

There are minor examples such as the possession of airgun pellets, although the Minister intimated that that point had been dealt with. The directive also requires the address of the holder to appear on a passport or identity card. There is no address on a British passport and I hope that we are not envisaging an identity card for firearms use.

I hope that the Minister will ensure that the British Shooting Sports Council's wisdom and enormous knowledge are used to the benefit of the nation and will acknowledge that our laws are already sufficiently severe without our allowing the nonsense in the directive to override them. I believe that the whole country is willing to co-operate with many of the directives which come from Brussels provided that they are sensible measures involving the harmonisation of trade and economics, but when they stray into social matters and matters of practice and habit--when, like this one, they represent sheer interference--we rather resent them. We hope that the Government will carry that message to Brussels forthwith.

8.18 pm

Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) : I begin by taking strong exception to the manner in which the debate has been initiated. Even without the Minister's speech and its revelations of developments of which the House had not been informed, I should have raised some questions about that. Certain matters should have been put before the House but we have not had the benefit of considering them.

In particular, I refer to the advice of the firearms consultative committee, to which the Home Office document refers but is not before us, and to the desirability of an update of the evidence of the police in this matter. From the Minister's document of 25 October it is apparent that he has received advice from the Association of Chief Police Officers, but the latest advice that I have been able to obtain is the copy of a letter that was sent to the Home Office in February which expressed great concern about the legislation. That letter, which is dated 20 February, spoke of the

"revocation of existing legislation or its supplementation by European controls being, in the view of ACPO, extremely costly in all its collective forms, financial, administrative and, most importantly, the loss to public safety."

Does ACPO's concern persist in the light of the amendments on which the Minister has reported to the House? It must be admitted that that concern was expressed in the most general terms, but it is material to considering whether we should welcome the legislation. If we approached the debate with uncertainty about the views of the police and firearms experts, our confusion was worse confounded by the Minister who clearly has had important negotiations on matters that were giving rise to concern among the shooting fraternity, about which the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) spoke so eloquently. I am bound to say that the Minister, not just as a matter of courtesy but as a matter of enabling the House to participate in an informed debate, should have taken steps before this evening to tell hon. Members of the developments prior to the debate to which he alluded. My

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right hon. Friend the Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel) wrote to the Minister on13 November raising this matter in general terms, and he might reasonably have expected a reply before the debate, but no reply has been forthcoming. I am bound to say that the debate procedure is extremely important in offering the House the opportunity to make an informed comment and possibly even assist the Minister in his diplomatic deliberations. We know the limits of our powers in matters flowing from the operation of the Single European Act, but it does not limit our capacity-- Mr. Skinner : You voted for it.

Mr. Maclennan : I have no regrets about having done so, but it renders our power of advice almost less than useless if we are unable to speak about an up-to-date situation in an informed way. The procedure seems to be severely weakened and rendered rather a mockery by the Minister's manner--almost in the sense that he was scoring points off the House by being in a position to announce matters of which we did not know. That is unfortunate.

There is another fundamental question about the Minister's approach that I must also raise. I refer to the Government's policy in respect of challenging the legal basis of this draft directive. It is strange that he should have such substantial doubts about the basis on which the draft directive is being brought forward by the Commission and that those doubts have not been resolved even now. The Minister has no intention of seeking to have them resolved before the negotiations are concluded. In answer to an intervention from one of his hon. Friends, he said that he thought that it would have been proper to have such matters dealt with under article 165, but that he was not prepared to challenge the matter and to take it to the European Court. One is bound to question whether he attaches any significance to the little dispute about the basis of the draft directive.

Mr. Peter Lloyd : We attach great significance to the argument. I clearly told the House--if the hon. Gentleman consults the record he will find that it is so--that we are waiting for the Commission's legal advisers to come back to us on the basis of the paper that we have given them arguing that the article base that the Commission is recommending is the wrong one. We have pressed our argument and we are waiting for the definitive reply.

Mr. Maclennan : I do not find that very convincing. The draft directive has been in circulation for about two years. Is it really beyond the influence of Her Majesty's Government to obtain an answer from the Commission's legal advisers in all that time? There has been a lot of argument about the substance, but surely the base must be a question to be resolved before issues of such substance and detail are determined. If the whole thing is flawed, a great deal of effort is being unnecessarily expended by this Government and other Governments. I question whether it is sensible to wait for legal advice for about two years. As vital national interests are involved and touch our national security, if the Government have serious doubts about the legal base, those doubts should have been resolved before the debate.

I now move from extremely important procedural issues to the substance of the draft directive. I start from

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much the same base as the Minister started, by attaching the highest importance to the security issues that the draft directive raises. It is clearly of great importance that no legislation that is passed by the European Community should in any way weaken the effectiveness of our controls over firearms acquisition and possession in this country. I have mentioned my uncertainty about the attitude of the police to the directive. I hope that the Minister may have something to say about the attitude of the police.

The difficulty that we face in considering security is that it plainly is an adjunct to the central purpose of the directive, which is to effect the single market and to enable people to travel more freely across boundaries whether or not they are carrying arms. As we know, the Schengen group of countries attaches much less importance than we do to border control. Therefore, these matters have been handled in a rather different way in the Schengen group. The Minister's letter of 25 October refers to the uncertainty of the attitude of other member countries--the southern member states of the Community and France in particular--to the very purposes of the directive. Perhaps he could say whether those countries have maintained Her Majesty's Government's position in the deliberations. I doubt whether it makes sense to operate two sets of controls in this sphere within this country. There is one aspect in particular in which that appeared to be the outcome of what is happening with the proposals to introduce a European firearms pass in addition to the existing system for the British visitor's permit. I confess to some difficulty in understanding how those two systems of control over visitors will operate side by side. Perhaps the Minister can explain.

Mr. Peter Lloyd : Many European countries have asked for no more than the European firearms pass. That is required by the directive, and the Schengen group of countries in particular look for no more. We look for more than that. We require the British visitor's permit in addition, to provide us with the extra security which we believe that we need.

Mr. Maclennan : That helps greatly to explain the position, but I am not entirely clear whether visitors to Britain would be required by Community law to carry one pass while Britain required an additional pass that would make the movement of, for example, those engaged in sporting activities within the Community even more difficult than at present.

It is right to emphasise that for practical reasons one does not wish to put barriers in the way of visiting sportsmen. The hon. Member for Weston- super-Mare mentioned the reasons. My information is that the value of shooting to the Scots is even higher than the £52 million suggested by the hon. Member. In February this year the Fraser of Allander Institute said that it was worth £78 million to Scotland alone. That is not an insignificant contribution to the Scottish economy, particularly as a great deal of it is spent in the less-favoured and sparsely populated areas where alternative employment is sometimes extremely hard to come by. We are not anxious to see that income lost.

I noted the opposition of sporting groups, at least at an early stage, to the provisions of article 11 of the draft directive. Article 11 would tighten control over entry from third countries into Britain. A great many Americans, east Europeans and others are interested in Britain's sporting

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facilities. We should not wish to make it unnecessarily more difficult for them to come here. I do not know whether the anxieties about article 11 were dealt with in the negotiations in a way that meets our needs. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that. The minimum age limit provisions and the professional competence requirement for firearms dealers aroused the greatest anxieties among the sporting fraternity. The Minister seemed to say that those difficulties had been removed in the working group. If that is so, a considerable step has clearly been taken in removing the anxieties of those who rightly take the view that young people should not be debarred--indeed, they might reasonably be encouraged--to enjoy the sporting opportunities of shooting at targets. Young people, especially those living in rural areas who are trained in the use of firearms for vermin control on farmland, should not be inhibited in acquiring skill and competence in handling firearms at an early age. Country people throughout Britain attach great importance to such matters. We must have absolute clarity on them, not merely an assurance that the Government believe that they have got it right. It would have been better if the Government had come to the House with a firm statement in writing to enable us to be clear about the matter. It would be appropriate for the Minister to tell us whether his view has changed from that expressed on 25 October when he said : "It is difficult to see how partial harmonisation can achieve the establishment and functioning of the internal market."

That goes back to the legal question that I raised earlier but it is also a policy question. If partial harmonisation is not strictly necessary and will not bring about the establishment of the internal market, why are we doing it? That is a serious question. The Minister may have told us of the advance that he has made in eliminating difficulties, some of which I referred to, but that does not solve the problem that I raised. Perhaps the principle of subsidiarity should have operated in this case. It was not strictly necessary for this draft legislation to be considered. As the Minister and the House are aware, I am a strong supporter of the operation of the internal market and the development of the European Community's institutions. But I am not in favour of meddlesome legislation that gives rise to widespread anxieties about security.

I shall be delighted if the Minister can put his hand on his heart and say that disabled sportsmen will not be precluded from participating in paraplegic sporting activities as a result of changes which may or may not have been agreed in discussions. Let him be in no doubt that the majority of hon. Members would regard it as preposterous if, by a side wind, the disabled were deprived of that opportunity. It cannot be sensible and it cannot be the purpose of the legislation.

The draft directive is of considerable importance. I acknowledge that it is difficult to reconcile the interests of the various communities that have an interest in it. Plainly, some people would like to see the controls greatly relaxed. Others, particularly the police, would like to see perhaps even greater and tighter national control. Then, of course, there is the European Community dimension. I understand what the Minister is trying to do. He is probably broadly on the right lines, but if the House is to participate in ensuring that he gets it right, he will help us

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considerably by making available the relevant information prior to the debate. That is perhaps the message with which I should like to leave him.

8.37 pm

Sir Hector Monro (Dumfries) : I agree with the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) that what we really need at the end of the day is clarity about exactly where we are. My hon. Friend the Minister certainly helped us greatly tonight, but I wish to clarify several points with him because his speech was interrupted so often that he never made a firm statement on some important issues.

I begin by seeking to clarify the distinction between weapons and firearms. I caused some consternation at Edinburgh airport yesterday when I brought a skean-dhu with me to wear with my kilt at a St. Andrews night dinner tomorrow. However, it all arrived in one piece. We seek to achieve a common denominator and harmonisation within Europe on firearms. Helpful as my hon. Friend the Minister has been, he must realise that many voluntary organisations and governing bodies such as the National Small-bore Rifle Association--of which I happen to be the president--the National Rifle Association, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, the British Field Sports Society and the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association have all worked in recent weeks to produce intricate briefs for Members of Parliament for the debate. If they had been aware of the information that my hon. Friend the Minister would deploy early in his speech, it would have saved many people a great deal of time.

Those organisations had to go into the matter because, naturally, those who are interested in shooting are suspicious of the Government. In recent months the Home Office and the Department of the Environment had the shooting world in some turmoil over the birds directive which was to put pests on a special list. That would have been most unreasonable and, fortunately, the Government changed their mind. We are anxious to keep a close eye on what the Government are doing about shooting.

The 1988 Act, in which many hon. Members who are present were involved, showed how the Government, for the right motives, reached wrong solutions. The Act makes sporting shooting more difficult to enjoy than it should be. Many chief officers of police have different interpretations about firearms and shotgun certificates and make life difficult for legitimate sporting enthusiasts. I hope that the consultative committee set up by the Home Office will smooth out some of the continuing problems which are not going away.

Because we have already had so much detail in this debate, I can skip over some of the issues which I wished to raise. I want to be clear on where we stand on three important issues. My hon. Friend the Minister said that he was dealing with the age 18 restriction. Can he say whether, under this directive, those aged 10, 12 or 14 will be able to shoot under supervision?

Mr. Peter Lloyd : Perhaps I can help my hon. Friend on the agreement of an age limit. Our domestic law should apply to those who come from abroad and wish to shoot here. Provided that they have the right papers and a British visitor's permit, they are permitted to come.

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Sir Hector Monro : That is helpful. In other words, the British shooting public of any age can shoot under supervision without any problem, for example, at clubs and in school competitions such as the Ashburton.

Mr. Lloyd : I tried to explain in my opening remarks that British domestic firearms legislation would not be modified by this directive. What has changed is the Community rules for movement from one Community country to another. Our legislation remains as it is.

Sir Hector Monro : That is helpful. We are getting a useful collection of Government statements which I hope that the Minister will put together so that the firearms world may know where it stands. When he produces that document, I hope that he will be clear about the legal meanings of the words, "use", "own", and "acquire" because the firearms world seems to be in some doubt about where it stands on them.

Can the Minister tell us whether air rifle pellets will be illegal? As the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland said, that is important, as are questions about soft-nosed bullets which are used in deer stalking. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) asked about weapons usually used as military weapons. Most rifles and pistols commonly used in target shooting have a military use or originally had one. Therefore, that is not a good definition for dealing with firearms.

My hon. Friend the Minister was interrupted when he spoke about disabled people. Will he be a little more explicit about mental and physical capacity? He said that Europe would give way on that, but I am not sure how far. Who is to judge mental capacity--the chief officer of police? Who is to judge physical capacity? During the passage of the 1988 Act the Government were not sympathetic towards disabled people and paraplegics.

I remember having to divide the House on an amendment because they refused to allow disabled people to use self-loading rifles, which is essential for those who cannot withstand the normal recoil of an ordinary bolt-action rifle. The Government did not help the disabled in that instance. Will disabled shooters have problems using a rifle in this country in future? If so, it would be a harsh decision for people who get great enjoyment from this form of sport. One of our paraplegic shooters is a world record holder and it would be unfortunate if we restricted his opportunities to participate in competitions. I hope that the Minister will be explicit about where disabled sportsmen stand. Shooting organisations would not have raised that with us in such detail if they were not gravely worried. I am particularly interested in those who come here from without the European Community. We have British visitors permits and now we are to have a European certificate. I do not want to see controls intensified for those who come from beyond Europe to enjoy our sporting facilities. Both my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare and the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland spoke about encouraging sportsmen to come here to enjoy our shooting facilities, particularly those in Scotland. As the hon. Gentleman rightly claimed, the Fraser of Allander Institute conducted a detailed survey and published a report this year showing that it is worth £78 million to Scotland. A large proportion of that sum comes from overseas visitors. It is immensely important for the Scottish rural economy, particularly for

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hotels, restaurants and estate staff, that visitors come to shoot. Anything that prevents overseas sportsmen from coming to put money into the Scottish economy, or the English or Welsh economies, would be gravely resented. I hope that the Minister will not build up a bureaucratic licensing system for these visitors.

We are talking not only about visitors who come for sporting facilities, but about those who come for target shooting. Sporting shooting developed from the old Commonwealth. Many of our visitors come from beyond Europe to participate at Bisley and elsewhere. Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians are at the heart of the visiting shooting community. We do not want to build up a whole host of problems for them because we are harmonising a system of firearms certification within Europe.

I hope that the Minister realises that the directive has caused a furore in the shooting world, particularly in sporting and target shooting. Although what he has said shows a substantial step forward, until we have it in black and white we shall be worried that some points will again be changed in Europe. He must fight as hard as possible to help those who are interested in this legitimate form of recreation.

8.49 pm

Mr. Teddy Taylor (Southend, East) : My hon. Friend the Minister will have noticed that most of those who have spoken tonight have found the proposals highly disagreeable. Some have said that they will cause inconvenience to the shooting sport, others that they will cause damage and danger to the general public. Whichever way we look at it, hon. Members have spoken of the new proposals as being unnecessary, dangerous, bureaucratic and costly nonsense. What worries me is that it is purely accidental that we have had the benefit of debating these proposals at a reasonable hour. My hon. Friend the Minister is aware of the circumstances that led to the directive being debated here today rather than in one of those anonymous Committees to which the Whips send safe people to discuss such matters so no one will notice them. We also have an obligation to the Welshmen, who did not take so long today as they usually do. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) was greatly exercised about the use of article 100A, but that is nothing new. The EEC Commission has been deliberately and systematically using article 100A for a variety of measures which have nothing to do with free trade. The Minister said that he has raised, and will raise, the matter with the Commission, but what we are discussing is not just a problem which may affect sportsmen or marksmen but something affecting the basic democratic rights of the House.

I am sure that the Minister will recall, as he took an interest in these matters at the time, that the then Prime Minister assured us that under the Single European Act majority voting powers would be used only in matters concerning free trade, rather than for irrelevant nonsense. The Minister may recall reading the report of the Select Committee, which sought the advice of Speaker's Counsel on one directive and was advised that if the Commission used majority voting on this directive, it could use it on anything.

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I see the Minister sitting with letters from the shooting organisations and taking a great interest in them, but what can he do? We can make a complaint, but unless every member state agrees with our complaint, we have had it and the Commission will decide. If the Commission wants a majority vote, it stays a majority vote unless Portugal, France, Italy and Germany and all the others say that it is wrong. I have done some careful checking and, so far as I can discover, that has never happened, so there is a constitutional problem that we cannot ignore. While hon. Members hope for great things from 1992 and free trade, we should be aware that we are not getting free trade. For example, we are not getting it in insurance or any other sectors which count and which would help people and jobs, but we are getting piles of harmonisation on silly issues such as this, which have no real relevance to free trade.

I hope that the Minister will accept that this is a dangerous measure which could cost lives. We know that people are constantly trying to get weapons into the country--from the Republic of Ireland, but far more regularly through Belgium and other European countries. To stop this, we need regular checks, but the directive will not allow us to have those regular checks. The Minister said that we shall still be able to have target checks. If Customs and Excise have reason to suspect certain people because they look funny or because they are carrying big bags, they can make checks, but the regular checks on which we depend to find weapons and save lives will not be allowed.

The people of Northern Ireland have gone through agonies for a long time, but people throughout the country are concerned about guns and their uses, as we should be. I telephoned the Police Federation today to find out its view on this. I am sure that the Minister will know that it has strong views, and I am sure that his excellent officials will be able to tell him what it thinks. I also know what the Association of Chief Police Officers thinks, and I am sure that the Minister's officials will have had its advice. I know that it does not think that this is a grand idea. It is a dangerous idea. I appeal to the Minister, to the Labour party and to all other parties to say what we can do about the situation. We know that the directive is illegal because the Commission is using article 100A when it should not and is taking over policy from the House of Commons. I am not being anti-European--I am anti the abuse of EEC powers by the Commission. We must do something about this, because unless we do, we shall find that in all areas of policy--even on shooting magpies, as my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) said--the EEC will decide to do something and get it through by majority voting. That is illegal and against the rules. Speaker's Counsel said that it is not just a question of interpretation. Some of the officials who go backwards and forward all the time know exactly what is happening. My hon. Friend the Minister is one of the honest ones, and he knows what is happening. He knows that huge areas of policy are being taken away illegally, and we can do nothing about it through the rules. We have to get everyone to agree that something illegal is being done, but nobody ever will, so what on earth are we going to do about it?

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Mr. Maclennan : The Minister said that it would be possible to take the matter to the European Court. The oddity is that he has not done so already.

Mr. Taylor : The Minister will be able to confirm that, until a determination is made by the Council, one cannot go to the court, and if one goes to the court, the case will take two years. In which case, has the court turned down a request for extra authority for the Commission? It never does. The European Court is not a legal court. Understandably, it is a political court, biased in favour not of political parties but of taking more and more power and authority for the institutions of the Community. Any hon. Member who doubts that should consider the case of the Spanish fishermen, which led to a huge area of power being taken away. For the sake of people whose lives will be put at risk by this directive, should we not say what the House of Commons can do? We can do nothing under the existing rules, but something has to happen--something has to be done. Regular inspection is not just about guns. I am sorry that the Minister did not make this point. Without regular inspections, other objects will come in as well, such as flickknives, knuckledusters and swordsticks, which cause great offence. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare will be glad to know that we still have our British law which says that such objects are illegal, and the Common Market cannot touch that British law, but without regular inspections those items will still come in, as will guns. I assure the House that the police and the Department have said that without regular checks there will be an increase in the number of such objects coming in. All of that is set out in the Select Committee report.

Sadly, as always happens when we debate anything to do with the EEC, although it is vital to our democracy, the Press Gallery is empty. All the bright twits who represent The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent and who say that they are concerned about people and their rights are interested in everything except the EEC. That is a threat to democracy, but ideologically they think that it is the best thing since sliced bread.

Mr. Colvin : Does my hon. Friend agree with what was said the other day about the EEC--that if the European Community applied to become a member of the European Community, it would not be admitted because it does not, as an entity, conform with the democratic principles enshrined in the treaty of Rome?

Mr. Taylor : My hon. Friend makes a fair point. The European Community is not democratic in that sense. It is not as though we are transferring powers from this House to another democratic body. These are non-elected bodies. That is one reason why the previous Prime Minister, whatever the views of her people, did a fantastic job in telling the people of Britain, "We must look carefully at the whole issue of economic control by a central bank." We may or may not want it, but we in Parliament do not want to talk about it. Nobody wants to think about it. Our former Prime Minister did a great job in forcing people to say, "These matters must be examined."

There is nothing we can do about the directive at this stage, even if the Government were to describe it as scandalous and shocking. It will probably be passed by a majority vote, and there is nothing we can do about that

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either. We cannot do anything about the use of article 100A because, as we know, the Greeks and all the others will never agree to our proposals.

Although we can do nothing in that context, we can try to find some procedure by which we can restore to this House the rights which legally we should still possess. I accept that we have surrendered power to the EC. We may describe that as sad or otherwise, but we must find some means of drawing the line. The Minister knows that this is an illegal document in relation to article 100A, but no one has any chance even to argue that it is legal. He knows that is a dangerous document which could cost lives. It is a bureaucratic and costly document which will involve a whole new lot of controls, computers and civil servants, and all of that effort will be unnecessary. Indeed, it is a dangerous load of rubbish. We must consider how we can prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.

9.1 pm

Mr. Peter Griffiths (Portsmouth, North) : I congratulate the Minister on his opening remarks and I do not agree with those who have said that there was something undesirable or improper in his providing the latest information, beyond that given in the written documents. I admit that I did not come to the debate with a carefully prepared speech, because I gathered that we would listen to the Minister's explanation first and then respond on the matters of interest to us. That has been the procedure and, to that extent, the Minister's comments led us forward in the debate.

Because some hon. Members have been cross with the Minister, they have overlooked the fact that not only did he give us the information that many of us had come to the House to obtain, but he invited us to point out to him those points on which it would be desirable to make further progress in the working party, through officials or through Ministers. We should be grateful for the progress that has been made, and the Minister was able to remove most of the fears that law-abiding shooters in my constituency have been putting to me in recent weeks.

I trust that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) is not seriously thinking of dividing the House on the issue. If he does, he will be behaving like Henny Penny. She had every right to be cross when an acorn fell on her head, but she grossly exaggerated matters when she set out to tell the world that the sky had fallen in.

It would have been nice to have all the information when preparing our remarks for the debate, but the Minister did us the courtesy of providing the latest information. Not only has it been important for us to have that knowledge, but we should do nothing that might discourage Ministers from providing information in future simply because it had not appeared earlier in written documents. The key factor is that the directive was designed to improve the flow of trade and the movement of people across EC frontiers. I regard that as an excellent idea, but I accept the point made by the Government that we must ensure that that does not disadvantage those concerned with legitimate matters of trade.

Out of tonight's debate has come the almost unanimous feeling that we must not damage the interests of legitimate, law-abiding shooters. Although we frequently use the

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phrase "law-abiding shooters," it should be unnecessary for it to be used. Shooters, almost by definition, are among the nation's most law-abiding people.

A constituent wrote to me this week saying that he was particularly careful in all matters concerned with shooting, even with parking and driving lest the constable with whom he happened to clash visited his home to inspect his firearms storage and security arrangements. We must also remember that those who engage in shooting are not just passively concerned with security, as most of us are for most of the time, but are actively concerned with it--the law provides that they should be. However, they go beyond the requirements of the law and recognise that the very nature of their sport, be it target or rough shooting, could create a danger to security ; they are greatly aware of that.

A misunderstanding has arisen during the debate about the security of people entering this country. Nothing in the directive will make any difference to the security checks that airlines carry out. They are conducted on the basis not of EEC directives but that people cannot board aeroplanes unless they are prepared to accept security checks, and that will continue. We have never searched every motor car coming into this country, and the idea that we have always checked everything in the past and are suddenly going to stop doing so is nonsense. Motor cars that could carry all sorts of goods come into the country and it would be physically impossible to check every one.

When intelligence suggests that an operation may be being undertaken, be it to do with drugs, weapons or people using false papers to enter this country, checks take place. That is the point at which the process of careful checks on papers, people and their property takes place, and there is no reason why that should not continue in future. As the Minister said, it will be possible to carry out security checks if there is a specific reason for doing so in an individual case, which is exactly the same as at present. Presumably, the Minister could increase security by introducing far more checks. Border checks between Scotland and England might stop criminals with weapons moving from Glasgow to London, but nobody is suggesting that that is a desirable feature. We must appreciate that we live in a world in which people move more frequently and easily than in the past and national borders must facilitate the movement of people and goods. We need compensatory measures to ensure that there are careful checks on those coming into the EEC from outside and that we improve our intelligence networks with countries both inside and outside the European Community.

We should welcome the way in which the Government have developed the debate since the original directive was put forward. Has the Minister noted that the Vice President of the Commission responsible for the original directive was Mr. Bangemann? I do not know whether he considers that to be relevant, but I wanted to be the one to read that fact into the Official Report.

9.8 pm

Mr. Michael Colvin (Romsey and Waterside) : It is often said that, when bad news comes, one should not shoot the messenger. The Minister came to the House this evening with news that we all wanted to hear, containing points that we were to raise in some of our speeches. He came with good news, but I have seldom known such a

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messenger to meet such a fusillade of shots. The reaction he received had less to do with the content of the draft directive and much more to do with the messy way in which the House deals with European legislation.

It seems pretty weird that the draft directive has been around since July 1987, yet the final amendments to it, which are so crucial and which the Minister has set out to us this evening, were not known until a few days ago. That is a strange way of proceeding. The news that the Minister brought us, to use yet another sporting analogy, has shot our foxes. He made the very points that we were going to ask him to note before the Secretary of State went to the Council of Ministers arguing the toss on this country's behalf. The Minister said that this debate and the directive would be of great interest to marksmen and sportsmen. I must declare an interest : I am both marksman and sportsman, and thus I am a member of a fairly large lobby. It is not often appreciated that a great many people in this country have firearm and shotgun certificates--about 1.1 million of them in all. That is 2 per cent. of the population ; averaged out, it means that each of us represents about 1,300 constituents with such certificates. That is a significant lobby and it becomes vociferous when it feels that its rights are threatened.

Sportsmen and marksmen are the first to recognise the need for adequate controls on all firearms. The United Kingdom cannot be accused of not being a good European, as our regulations are probably the most stringent in Europe already. We are concerned that our rules and regulations should not be diluted by these proposals. The firearms laws of this country had a good airing during the debate on the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, so there is no need to go over them again this evening. We were worried, however, that under this directive visiting sportsmen might be able to enter the United Kingdom with weapons issued to them under less stringent controls than obtain here. The Minister has reassured us to some degree about that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) mentioned the importance of shooting in Scotland and its contribution to the Scottish economy. In February this year a report was published by the Fraser of Allander Institute, of Glasgow university, showing that shooting in Scotland produced £78 million income, of which almost 25 per cent. was said to come from overseas visitors. About 12,000 jobs in Scotland come directly or indirectly from shooting--a considerable contribution to the British economy.

I was pleased to hear from the Minister that the age

limits--probably the aspect of the draft directive that worried us most-- are to be changed and those enshrined in our domestic law are to prevail.

Two of the provisions of the directive have not been fully covered by my hon. Friends and need further explanation from the Minister. The first has to do with the technical difficulty of categorising weapons. As drafted, the directive could have the effect of banning rifles and pistols which are of service issue--but those weapons are the mainstay of target shooting.

The other point that worries me is the condition in the directive that possession of a firearms certificate will depend on

"the necessary mental and physical capacity"

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