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Mr. Tim Devlin (Stockton, South): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Straw: In a moment.

In many gun clubs, there is a constant reminder of the main killing purpose of handguns. The target shot at is not some abstract design of concentric coloured circles, but the representation of a human being--the so-called humanoid target.

Mr. Devlin: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the weapon most often used in armed crime is the sawn-off shotgun, yet he proposes to ban other weapons such as matchlock and flintlock pistols, which were last used in armed crime during the time of Dick Turpin?

Mr. Straw: The Secretary of State gave a powerful answer to that sort of intervention when he pointed out that the reason why Lord Cullen's inquiry was established and the reason for this debate is that 17 people were murdered by the use of a lawfully held handgun. That is the issue before the House.

Mr. Walter Sweeney (Vale of Glamorgan): If a person were to lose control of the coach he was driving and 17 passengers were killed, would the hon. Gentleman advocate a limit on the size of coach engines to two litres or a complete ban on coaches?

Mr. Straw: That almost comes into the same category as the views that the hon. Gentleman expressed in the South Wales Echo on 30 October--I doubt they will be echoed in the House. The article stated:

"Now he wants people to be allowed to use guns to defend themselves and their property against intruders."

Far from wanting restrictions on guns--a feeling that is widely shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House--the hon. Member wants there to be a vast extension of the use of guns.

To answer the hon. Gentleman's point about coaches, when crashes have occurred and people have been killed, the House has been greatly concerned to ensure that effective safety measures are introduced with the aim of preventing such accidents from happening again.

Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North): When referring to the weapons used by Thomas Hamilton as being legally held, my hon. Friend has repeated on at least three occasions this afternoon the form of words used by the Home Secretary. Indeed, the same was said in respect of Michael Ryan at Hungerford. Will my hon. Friend explain how, when the applications for certificates for the weapons were falsified, and when the police failed to exercise due diligence in checking the details on those applications, those weapons can be classified as legally held or lawful? How can that be?

Mr. Straw: I understand that my hon. Friend's views on the need for gun control differ from mine, but he must accept that there was no evidence in the Cullen report that due diligence was not exercised in respect of the granting of that licence. There was an argument about the judgment of individual police officers, but the issue most forcefully raised by the granting of the certificate to Thomas Hamilton is the defect in current procedures--in

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particular, the appeal mechanism that places the onus on the police to show why an applicant should not have a certificate, instead of the onus being on the applicant to show why he should have one. I am sorry to have to tell my hon. Friend that we cannot avoid the fact that Thomas Hamilton and Michael Ryan were lawfully licensed holders of the weapons they used to effect a massacre.

Taking all those considerations into account, my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton and I said in our evidence to Cullen:

"in general, given the lethal nature of handguns, we see a strong case for banning them altogether".

We held out the possibility that an exception could be made for .22 single-shot weapons. We went on to say:

"the shooting fraternity must make a case for possession and if they can, they must suggest and accept restrictions and costs necessary to prevent such guns from being used for anything other than target practice".

At the conclusion of our evidence, we said that we should await the recommendations of Lord Cullen

"before coming to final conclusions".

Lord Cullen rightly recognised the inevitable limitations on his inquiry. He confined himself, he said, to

"what I recommend should be considered".

The question of banning certain types of firearms was, he said,

"peculiarly within the province of the Government and Parliament to decide."

So, we have come to our own conclusions. Yes, they are based on Lord Cullen's expert considerations, but we do not substitute his judgment for our own.

First, we considered proportionality. Ever since the atrocity in Dunblane, those opposed to any serious extension of gun control have urged that what happened there should be put into perspective and that we should not get the matter out of proportion. I agree. In Scotland, in the whole of 1993, eight people were killed by the use of a firearm; in 1994, the figure was nine--17 people in Scotland were killed with a firearm in a two-year period. On 13 March this year, 17 people were murdered in just three minutes. In the whole of Scotland in the same two-year period, 15 children were murdered by any means--one fewer than were murdered in just three minutes at Dunblane. Those figures provide the perspective that the gun lobby seeks.

Then there is the argument that, in seeking much tighter control, we are simply being wise after the event. Indeed, it is a dismal commentary that, too often, it takes a single, terrible event to bring into sharp focus the need for action that, if taken before, might have averted the event or greatly reduced its risk. Much--perhaps most--of our safety legislation has been born of disaster.

The history of railway safety in the last century is essentially a history of fatal railway accidents. In this century, Aberfan, Piper Alpha, Zeebrugge, Hillsborough and many other fatal disasters might have been avoided if improved safety had been put in place in advance. In every case, the problem has been not a lack of proposals for improved safety, but the huge pressure in favour of the status quo unless and until disaster strikes or some terrible atrocity occurs.

Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk): I am slightly confused about the development of Labour party

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policy. The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) wrote a letter to his constituents in September saying that he had no intention of banning innocent members of the public from owning guns. He went on to say:

"It is Labour party policy that people such as yourself will be able to go on owning handguns, but they must be kept safely under lock and key."

I am well aware that the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) says that there will be a free vote on the Opposition side, but at what point in time did Labour party policy change on the matter, given the supreme importance to the hon. Member for Hartlepool of the fact that he is obviously senior to the hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman should pay more attention to debates in the House. I answered that question on 28 October.

I claim no special foresight on gun control, but there are hon. Members on both sides of the House who can. In March 1987, four months before Hungerford, my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) and for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) pressed the case on the then Home Secretary for tighter gun control. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) has consistently campaigned for tighter gun control. In May 1995, 10 months before Dunblane, he said:

"As legally held weapons easily fall into criminal hands, new gun controls are necessary."--[Official Report, 3 May 1995; Vol. 259, c. 281.]

The right hon. and learned Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) has long believed in tighter control--a lot longer than since the day in March when Dunblane occurred--and so have many people outside the House. The week before Dunblane, the Moss Side, Manchester, community association called for further restrictions on the availability of guns.

Mr. Robert Banks: The hon. Gentleman quoted some statistics about fatalities in Scotland. Can he make it clear whether those fatalities were the result of weapons that were held legally and whether those weapons were handguns, shotguns or a mixture of both? What exactly are the figures related to?

Mr. Straw: I will happily send the hon. Gentleman the full table that I was sent by the Library. Even if they were all held illegally, however, it would not help the hon. Gentleman's case because more people were murdered in three minutes by legally held weapons on 13 March than were murdered with firearms in Scotland throughout 1993 and 1994.

Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South): Is my hon. Friend aware that a large number of people have been killed with legally held guns? Mr. Tony Hall, the father of one of the victims at Hungerford, has provided me with a list of 178 cases which he has picked at random from newspapers since the Hungerford tragedy.

Mr. Straw: I am aware of that, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing it to the public's attention. There is no doubt that legally held weapons are used by

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their licensed owners to commit crimes of murder and violence and that such weapons leap across into the criminal underworld.

Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne): Before the hon. Gentleman moves on from the subject of safety legislation having resulted from disaster and of what some of his colleagues suggested would happen if we did not have more controls, will he say whether he sees a distinction between improving the safety of an aircraft, ferry or some other such thing and banning the aircraft or ferry? Can he see the difference between doing more by way of control and banning handguns?

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