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3.47 pm

Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn): As I made clear in the Second Reading debate last Tuesday, it is appropriate that compensation should be paid to those private individuals who have to give up their weapons, which, until the Bill becomes law, they have held lawfully under arrangements previously agreed by Parliament. We therefore support the money resolution.

Whether the Government's proposed scheme for an 80 per cent. ban on handguns goes through, or the alternative 100 per cent. ban--which we support--it is that huge majority of decent, law-abiding handgun owners who will be seriously affected by the Bill. Their sense of grievance, which we all understand, would be all the greater if no compensation were to be offered.

Of course, no compensation of any sort was offered when a previous Home Secretary--the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd)--made his original proposals in the December 1987 White Paper, "Firearms Act 1968: Proposals for Reform", which followed the atrocity at Hungerford. In that White Paper the Government were emphatic in what they said:

"We have concluded that as a matter of principle it is undesirable and unjust to require the taxpayer at large to pay for the removal from the public domain of weapons which are an acknowledged threat to life."

Significantly, the White Paper went on state:

"Although there will be no market for prohibited weapons in this country, authorised dealers will still be able to export them abroad, and owners will be able to recover some of the value in this way."

Given today's revelations in The Times about a wholly unacceptable arms trade between British-based companies and rebel forces in Rwanda, I think that we can all appreciate the fact that a payment by the Government would be far preferable to allowing 160,000 to 200,000 handguns to be sent abroad to who knows where.

Sir Jerry Wiggin (Weston-super-Mare): The hon. Gentleman mentioned the compensation situation in 1988,

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and, to the Opposition's credit, in Committee on the Firearms (Amendment) Bill that year, they insisted during the debate on the sittings motion that proper compensation was payable. May I take it from what he said that he will support the proposition that compensation should be paid to anyone who is affected by the Bill--to include dealers, manufacturers and others--whom the Home Secretary has said he will not compensate?

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover): Yes--in the same way as the Government compensated miners.

Mr. Straw: I was planning to deal with that point. I said that we support the money resolution and, as I said in last Tuesday's debate, that we are willing to consider proposals other than those currently on the table. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand if I do not offer him a blank cheque before I see the proposition.

The point about the possible export of weapons that are handed in is very important. As I said, one of the many defects in the original proposal by the right hon. Member for Witney in December 1987 was that he said that former rifle owners could receive compensation by selling their weapons abroad. I think that all hon. Members believe that that is unacceptable. After the Bill becomes law, at least 160,000, and perhaps 200,000, weapons will be surrendered on payment of compensation to the police and the Government.

I should be grateful if the Secretary of State would give us an undertaking that the weapons surrendered will be destroyed or that they will not be exported by the Government without the clearest guarantees about the acceptability of the end user. In no circumstances, however, should those weapons be used for internal or external repression. I hope that he will give those undertakings in his reply.

Mr. Michael Colvin (Romsey and Waterside): The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) made a sedentary intervention about compensation paid to miners who lost their jobs in the rundown of the coal industry. Does the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) agree that if dealers, who currently will receive no compensation, were to receive anything like the compensation paid to miners, they would be more than satisfied? Does he also agree that the figure of £25 million to £50 million provided in the resolution is lamentably short of what will be required if one considers the valuation of firearms and of pistol shooters' equipment--which, luckily, is now being included in the compensation terms provided for by the Home Office?

Mr. Straw: If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me for a moment, I shall deal with the first issue that he mentioned. On his second point, I look forward to hearing any details that the Secretary of State may offer about the calculations.

I am glad to see the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) in the Chamber. During the debate on the Loyal Address, he mentioned the

"possibility that the judges of the European Court of Human Rights may oblige the British taxpayer to provide compensation on a much wider basis".--[Official Report, 7 November 1996; Vol. 285, c. 1350.]

As I said last week when he was not in the Chamber, we are very glad to have his full support for the European convention on human rights. I should tell him that the

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rights that he feels he has under the convention--which of course has nothing to do with the European Union--would be far easier to adjudicate upon if the European convention were incorporated into British law. After the next election, when we endeavour to do just that, I hope that we will have his full support.

As the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare(Sir J. Wiggin) pointed out, in the end the right hon. Member for Witney did agree a compensation scheme, although the right hon. and learned Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), who was then his Minister of State, went out of his way to say that it was not to be seen as a precedent.

I mention this background because, although I certainly understand the sense of grievance among many handgun owners, they are now, under this money resolution, likely to be treated in a relatively generous way compared with others in a similar position. It is worth our bearing in mind the fact that many people whose private property is specifically affected by decisions agreed or approved by the House are not compensated at all. That is simply a fact.

Turner and Newall traded in asbestos and had no interest in running anything other than a lawful trade. It was discovered that the product was causing injury and death and it was decided that the firm could no longer produce it, but, as far as I know, it received no compensation. Nor did the manufacturers of foam-filled furniture, which turned out to be inflammable and therefore dangerous. Nor do the manufacturers of drugs that may have passed various tests and are thus approved but which are subsequently taken off the market.

Very different principles apply to the compensating of private individuals and the compensating of businesses. If we decide to compensate whole businesses, it will have huge implications for the public purse--implications that the House needs to consider other than during a debate on firearms.

Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield): My hon. Friend is absolutely right to mention the danger of underestimating the enormous possible cost of compensating too widely or too generously. Is he aware that there is an even better parallel for non-compensation--the plight of the many British beef farmers who have been pushed to near-bankruptcy? Government action has almost destroyed the industry in which some of my constituents work.

Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend makes an important point.

Even where the private interest of constituents is directly affected by a decision made or approved by the House--for example, a decision on a road scheme--there is not necessarily a direct right to compensation. I have two such cases in my constituency at the moment. One involves individuals living close to the M65. The Department of Transport entirely accepts that the value of their homes has been reduced by more than 15 per cent. but they are to receive no compensation. The other involves the owners of a public house whose trade was reduced to virtually nothing because of a road scheme which meant that no one could reach the public house for six months. They, too, are to receive no compensation whatever.

We are today considering the compensation payable to the holders of guns. Eighteen months ago, the House was considering the far more serious Government proposals

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to cut compensation to the victims of criminal injuries, including those injured by guns. It is a very great shame that the Tory Back Benchers who are so vocal in calling for more compensation for the owners of guns were wholly silent in May last year when we were discussing compensation for the victims of users of guns. Had they been as vocal then as they are today, a far better scheme for compensating the victims of gun injuries and deaths might have been agreed by the House.

3.58 pm

Sir Hector Monro (Dumfries): I should like to add a few words to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Sir T. Higgins) said, but I must first point out that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) is wholly wrong. The Government have--rightly--provided about £500 million to help farmers and the meat trade as a whole. I am glad that farmers have received that income.

As for the money resolution, I want to put a few suggestions to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State to try to ease the pain felt by many pistol and revolver shooters relative to the valuation of their weapons. Will he give us his thoughts on how the scheme will proceed? Should the Bill become an Act at the end of the year or in January, will everyone have to take all their weapons to a police station on that very day? I suspect that the police stations would be swamped with weapons. We cannot have people queuing down the street with firearms waiting to hand them in.

Are the police to take the details at that stage? When will the valuation take place? Who will do the valuation? The valuation of arms and weapons is a specialised business. It is important to have some idea of how the valuation is to be carried out. If it takes place some months after the handing-in date, will the owner of the weapons be allowed to be present at the time of the valuation and discuss it with whoever is doing the valuation?

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Sir T. Higgins), I am glad that the Government have had second thoughts about the money resolution. It now seems that they will be a little more helpful to those who have to hand in their weapons. However, bearing in mind the fact that one reads in the papers of guns being valued at an average of £400, has my right hon. and learned Friend allowed for sufficient money? That average figure may be on the high side, although some weapons, particularly the rare and valuable ones, will inevitably be worth a great deal more.

I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will also think about gun clubs. I am thinking not of commercial rifle and pistol clubs which try to make money, but of those many private clubs at which members have scraped money together to make a secure shooting range. They may have only a dozen or 20 members, who shoot only occasionally. They will feel that all their efforts are wasted and will receive no compensation for the significant amount of money that they will lose.

We may cover the issue in more detail when we consider the specific provisions of the Bill, but will my right hon. and learned Friend give a little more information on Olympic and Commonwealth games weapons and their valuation? I went to the

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Commonwealth games in Victoria, in British Columbia, and saw immaculately run ranges and high-quality pistol and rifle shooting. Has my right hon. and learned Friend given second thoughts to the Commonwealth games? I appreciate that only .22 pistols are used in the Olympics, but the Commonwealth games has always featured larger calibre pistols as well as .22 pistols and airguns. The Bill might make the shooting competitions at the Manchester Commonwealth games impossible. Those who have international shooting weapons will want to know where they stand on valuation.

All in all, I am glad that my right hon. and learned Friend has listened to those of us who have talked to him about valuation. I hope that he will be able to give us more information when he winds up, so that we can tell those hundreds of people who have written to us how things will work out.

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