| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cirencester and Tewkesbury): Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the granting and revocation of firearm and shotgun certificates is arbitrary at the moment, and depends on the views of the chief of police in the area in which one is applying for a certificate? That is unfair to the average citizen, because in some areas it is almost impossible to get a firearm certificate. Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider national guidelines, so that a national standard will apply to such matters?
Mr. Howard: I shall consider my hon. Friend's request, although I am not sure that I share the premise on which his question was based. He has asked whether we would consider national guidelines on such matters, and although I cannot give him any kind of assurance, I shall certainly consider his point.
Mr. Howard: I shall give way to my hon. Friend, and then I must get on.
Mr. Gallie: May I take my right hon. and learned Friend back to clause 8? Ammunition is not mentioned in connection with the transfer of pistols between one location and another. Is there a case for building in a separation factor, so that ammunition and pistols are never on the streets together?
Mr. Howard: I take my hon. Friend's point--an important one, which we shall consider. I am not entirely certain that what he suggests is necessary, but we shall certainly consider the idea.
There will be some changes to the present way in which target rifle shooting clubs are run. The approval criteria will be given a statutory basis and will be revised to include other recommendations made by Lord Cullen, including keeping a register of members' attendance, appointing a club officer to liaise with the police, and requiring clubs to notify the police when someone leaves the club.
Those are the main provisions of the Bill that I published two weeks ago. The Government recognise that there are real concerns about the historical tradition of firearms in this country. I can give a categorical assurance
12 Nov 1996 : Column 186
In addition, I intend to exempt certain other narrowly defined categories of historic weapons. I intend to exempt from the controls in the Bill muzzle-loading firearms that are fired. Such firearms--both historic weapons and modern replicas--are used by historic enactment societies. The Government believe that they can safely be kept at home so long as their owners obtain certificates for them.
Secondly, there is a category of handguns that I shall describe as historic handguns, but not antiques. The Government have received proposals from owners of such weapons for a scheme that would apply to any pistol manufactured before 1919, except for those of 9 mm calibre, for which ammunition is commonly available. In addition, rare handguns, and those with strong historic associations manufactured before 1939, could be brought within the scheme provided that they were authorised by the relevant chief constable.
Under those proposals, pistols in the relevant categories would be subject to stringent restrictions. Their owners would have a choice. They could keep their guns securely at home on the condition that they were never fired, or they could keep and fire them at the national shooting centre at Bisley. The Government see merit in that approach, and will give it careful consideration in discussion with the authorities at Bisley.
Thirdly, we will table an amendment to the existing legislation to allow museums registered with the Museums and Galleries Commission to apply for a museum firearms license. That will exempt from the general ban regimental museums and other similar institutions that are not publicly funded.
The dreadful tragedy of Dunblane placed on the Government an inescapable duty to consider what controls there should be on the ownership and possession of guns. We have not shirked that duty. We have derived great assistance from Lord Cullen's report. We shall implement all 23 of his recommendations. The Bill sets out the way in which the Government believe that his objective of strict control on access to handguns can mostly effectively be achieved.
Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn):
As the House knows, the Labour party believes that there should be a complete ban on the general civilian ownership and possession of all handguns of any calibre. We also want other parts of the Bill to be strengthened. None the less, the Bill as it comes before the House represents a considerable advance on the current arrangements for gun control. We therefore support it.
Members of the parliamentary Labour party will have a free vote on the Bill. If there is a Division, my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) and I will vote for the Bill, and we invite our right hon. and hon. Friends to join us in the Aye Lobby.
12 Nov 1996 : Column 187
The Government have done the strength of their case no good by imposing a Whip on all Conservative Members. Such a matter should not be an issue for party politics.
Mr. Howard:
Has the hon. Gentleman entirely forgotten his party conference?
Mr. Straw:
Mrs. Ann Pearston is a Conservative, and if the Conservative party had any sense it would have invited her to speak to its conference too.
Mr. Howard:
I was referring not to Mrs. Pearston's contribution but to that of the Leader of the Opposition who, having repeatedly said that he would wait for Lord Cullen's report before coming to a conclusion on the issue, declared at his party conference that he favoured a total ban on handguns. Moreover, that declaration was made after the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), had specifically asked the Government to postpone publication of the report so that the matter would not be dragged through the party conferences.
Mr. Straw:
If the Secretary of State has any complaints about Members of Parliament who sought to make party political capital out of the tragedy, he should look behind him and admonish the six members of the Home Affairs Committee--Conservative Members--who refused to accept motions from my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) and other Labour Members stating that the issue should not be one of partisan concern until Lord Cullen had produced his report. Nothing that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) said differed from the evidence that my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton and I gave to Lord Cullen in May.
Dr. John Reid (Motherwell, North):
Does my hon. Friend agree that this sort of argument will be received with some dismay outside the House? The crucial question is how is it that a debate and decision on the administration of a smack on the hand or another part of the body can be a matter of individual conscience for Members of Parliament, but the possibility of the shooting of a gun taking a young life is not? That is what the people of this country will not and cannot understand.
Mr. Straw:
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. When trying to distinguish between the Government's positions on firearms and on caning, the Secretary of State said that the former was the Government's considered position. I can only assume that that confirms that their position on caning is their unconsidered position--in fact, they appear to have no position at all on that matter. As my hon. Friend said, if caning is to be the subject of a free vote, I fail to understand why the same logic does not apply to gun control--a matter of far greater importance and one that touches the conscience of hon. Members far more. The Secretary of State must recognise that he will have resolved very little if he wins next week's vote as the result of having dragooned his colleagues into the Lobbies against their better judgment and their consciences.
12 Nov 1996 : Column 188
It is the essence of a democratic society that people should have the right to undertake activities of which a majority might disapprove. Indeed, the test of a democracy is not the freedom that we allow those with whom we agree, but the freedom that we allow those with whom we profoundly disagree. As the trustees of people's democratic rights, Members of Parliament must always be careful about removing or restricting the freedoms of others.
I have never used a firearm in my life, but many decent, responsible citizens do. Some people, such as veterinary surgeons, casualty slaughterers and farmers who have to keep down vermin, need guns for their jobs. Hundreds of thousands of people take part in field and country sports and certain individuals, who between them hold around 200,000 handguns, are involved in various target sports. Although I do not share his conclusions, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) was right to say, in the debate on the Loyal Address on 28 October:
Following the establishment of the inquiry chaired by Lord Cullen, my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton and I drafted evidence on behalf of the Labour party, which was submitted after considerable discussion in both the home affairs and the Scottish groups of the parliamentary Labour party. In that evidence, we sought to distinguish--as the law presently does--between shotguns and other firearms. We recognise that shotguns can kill human beings, but they are not designed for that purpose. Their size and the time it takes to reload them mean that they are far less likely to be used to effect a massacre than a pistol or other handgun. However, we said that there should a tightening of the licensing procedures, to which point I shall return later in my speech.
Handguns are different from, and inherently more dangerous than, shotguns. I know that that view is not recognised by the British Shooting Sports Council. In its "Public Relations Guide for Shooters", it made the astonishing statement that "guns are not dangerous". That assertion received short shrift from Lord Cullen, who said:
"We are assembled here to weigh carefully the rights and liberties of every section of the community, and gun club members have as much right as anybody else to have their views carefully considered when they are unpopular."--[Official Report, 28 October 1996; Vol. 284, c. 385.]
Everyone's freedom to do anything must, however, be balanced against the consequences that exercising that freedom poses to others. On any scale, the right to life--especially the right of a child to life--must come higher than the right to practise a sport. Where two sets of rights appear to collide, it is for Parliament to establish a new balance; that is what the Bill and this debate are about.
"No doubt a gun cannot kill if someone does not pull the trigger, but it is right to regard a gun as dangerous and to treat some guns as more dangerous than others."
Handguns can be fired with greater speed and accuracy than shotguns, and can be far more easily concealed. Unlike shotguns, handguns have been developed for the purpose of killing other human beings. That puts them in a category by themselves.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |