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Mr. Richards: In his remarks a few moments ago, the hon. Gentleman made the highly offensive comment that hon. Members might somehow regard themselves as being more important or worthy than the children killed at Dunblane. Will he withdraw that remark?

Mr. Robertson: I do not see why the hon. Gentleman wishes to get away from the issues to which other hon. Members want to move.

Handguns are special. The Government have conceded that, as has Lord Cullen. Because they accept that point, the Government have gone beyond Lord Cullen's recommendations. The critical issue today is whether we can make our society safer simply by banning the higher-calibre guns, or whether it remains unsafe, for exactly the same reasons that the Government have put forward, to leave 20,000 .22 guns--the figure at the moment, but there is a potential for even more if the compensation is used to trade down--in legal circulation.

Sir Jerry Wiggin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Robertson: No, I am coming to the end of my remarks. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman hopes to catch your eye, Sir Geoffrey.

Thomas Hamilton took 473 rounds to Dunblane primary school on 13 March. He shot 106 bullets, causing 58 wounds of which no less than 26 would have been individually fatal. He killed 17 human beings--16 of them tiny children, the other being their dedicated teacher--and he then killed himself. He did all that within three minutes of unimaginable horror. This was not a random slaughter; this was not a madman picking up for the first time a killing instrument and spraying out shots with it. This was a creature of real evil who used the skills that he gained at the gun clubs. He was the model of what Lord Cullen said was the unease that we now express about those in the combat and gun cultures.

Those children and Gwen Mayor were not killed or murdered, but were executed in an orgy of directed and precise violence by a suicidal maniac using the only instruments--rapid-fire pistols--that could have done the

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deed in that time, and simultaneously ended his own life. There could be no discrimination between the methods and the weapons that he used on that day, and we should not allow ourselves to place an artificial distinction between one set of these instruments of death and another set that we are prepared to continue in legitimate use.

A full ban on handguns will prevent another of these atrocities--which have happened twice within the last 10 years in our country--at the hands of maniacs using legally held guns. A full ban, as the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales have said, will be the only administrative means of implementing a policy of minimised risk in this area. A full ban is what the Committee should be voting on if we are serious about minimising the risks that face us.

There were snowdrops growing in Dunblane on that awful day in March this year. That is why the grassroots campaign--with hardly any money, but with conviction and common-sense arguments on its side--set out to make sure that no similar tragedy could affect any other small community in this country. The snowdrops will be back in bloom in March next year and the memories, which are still so fresh to so many people, will flood back to remind us and the world of what happened so close to us.

We must make the balance between a sport and whether it continues to exist, and human life and public safety. If we leave loopholes that we could have closed, if we maintain a risk that we could have avoided, if we have not done all that we could have done to prevent another atrocity, if we make a mistake, if we compromise here in this Parliament, others will pay the price. Are we capable of living with that responsibility?

Mr. David Mellor (Putney): I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this important debate. During the Second Reading debate, I felt an emotion about my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary that I never thought I would feel in the context of this matter--I felt sorry for him, as he found himself assailed from both sides of the argument. Having regard to the strength of feeling among some of my hon. Friends that the measure that he proposes goes too far, it is only right, before I suggest that he should certainly go further, to recognise that if, as I hope, the measure proceeds to the statute book--with or without this amendment--largely unamended by others, it will be a significant step forward in enhancing public safety and ridding Britain of the danger of falling victim to a gun culture as part of our ready importation of American values into our way of life.

I deeply regret that, for the first time in 17 years--perhaps it shows what a craven, snivelling thing I have been for most of my career in the House--I shall vote against my party on a three-line Whip. It is fair to say that no Whip has approached me. I wish I could add for colour that some huge effort had been made to persuade me to change my mind, but the Whips Office has treated the matter as one of complete indifference. Nevertheless, I resent the fact that I am being offered a free vote in a couple of weeks on the vital question of whether little Johnny should be spanked for sticking his tongue out at teacher, while I am not being offered a free vote on what is literally a matter of life and death. I do not see the logic of that and, with the greatest of respect to those who

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decide these matters, I do not see the benefit to the Government. If they win tonight--maybe they will--it will be said that they did so only because they imposed a three-line Whip. They will be seen to have won the vote but lost the argument--a pyrrhic victory indeed.

7 pm

The outstanding and deeply moving occasion when the two party leaders, accompanied by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and his opposite number, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), appeared at Dunblane was a proper sign of solidarity by the political system to mark what we all know will be a lasting stain on the history of this nation: the slaughter of 16 innocents and a teacher in Dunblane by someone whom we collectively--society--permitted to be the holder of licensed handguns. Before we hear too many other references to the unquestionably serious, but separate, issue of illegal firearms, I remind the House that Lord Cullen found as a fact that it was profoundly unlikely that Hamilton would have obtained a weapon from the illegal market had we prevented him from having a legal firearm.

Against that background, I do not understand what is so precious about the compromise that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, with his typical eloquence and attractive imperviousness to any contrary opinion--the latter is a great asset in a lawyer, but a more questionable one in a politician--is suggesting with his customary vigour. This is not a carefully considered decision by the Government, but a decision forced on them by legitimate debate within their ranks between those such as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, who no doubt took one view, and those who took another. The compromise does not reflect the views of Lord Cullen.

At least I agree with the Government that, whatever the merits of asking Lord Cullen to do something, the policy on handguns is nothing to do with the judge. Indeed, there was no spectacle more ridiculous than the Government, having accused hon. Members such as me of knee-jerk reactions when we called for changes to be made, scuttling off to brief the press that they would not accept Lord Cullen's remarks unless they went in a certain direction, and before he had even delivered the report. If I were Lord Cullen, I would feel slightly ill used.

Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd (Morecambe and Lunesdale): Does my right hon. and learned Friend think that it was wrong to appoint Lord Cullen to conduct the inquiry?

Mr. Mellor: Yes, and I have said so from day one, as my hon. Friend would have known had he been active in the debate. That is my view and it may be eccentric, but it is one that I hold strongly. Judges are there to deal with the law and politicians and Members of Parliament are there to make policy. Otherwise, why bother to have a Government at all? Let us have a standing committee of the judiciary to tell us how to deal with such complex issues. Sometimes I think that they could have it, and damn good riddance to them, frankly.

The Government compromise is not some carefully selected piece of ground, but a piece to which they have been dragged by the pressure of events. I find it difficult to know why they are so attached to a compromise that

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has no merit beyond the undoubted skill with which it has managed to alienate almost every party to the debate. It is extraordinary that the people who have said how unworkable and hopeless are the Government's propositions are the very people whom the Government are striving officiously to save from the ineptitude of their campaigning--the gun lobby. Why be more Catholic than the Pope on this issue? I am in some doubt as to why that should be the case.

I should have thought it self-evident that Lord Cullen--whose use in considering the evidence is in quite a different quarter from the question whether he can help us on issues of policy--points in paragraphs 9.42 and 9.43 to the deadly nature of the .22, particularly rapid-action .22s. I have seen the advertisements that the hon. Member for Hamilton cited. As a consequence of the Government's proposals, people will trade down to.22s and the evidence clearly shows that rapid-fire .22s are capable of inflicting just as much damage as Thomas Hamilton inflicted with an altogether more powerful pistol.

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