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Miss Widdecombe: I can assure the hon. Lady that, of course, we shall take cognisance of the need not to create a large loophole when we are considering the issue of historic weapons and what may or may not be classified under that heading. Indeed, it is for that reason that I have found the new clause too wide and insufficiently tightly drawn for me to accept.

Since the issue of administrative burdens and charges has been raised several times, perhaps it deserves rather closer consideration. First, we are talking about people who already have a firearms certificate. That is important to understand. Secondly, there is already a standard charge for a firearms certificate. As I understand, £56 is charged for the granting of a certificate and £46 for its renewal. Those charges are intended to cover police costs.

Mrs. Liddell: Could the Minister give us some advice? It was my understanding that no fee was charged for an old weapon. Can she confirm that there is no fee for a trophy firearm?

Miss Widdecombe: I may have to wait for my brain to catch up with me, but it does not have far to travel. I hope to be able to supply the necessary information to the hon. Lady before the debate is concluded. Meanwhile, that does not affect the stand that I have taken on the new clause.

Mr. Leigh: I wonder why it is morally acceptable--indeed, legal--to keep at home a lethal weapon simply because it was manufactured before a certain date, but immoral and against the law to keep a weapon at home because one wishes to indulge in a sport. I suspect that such a value judgment cannot be sustained.

Sir Ivan Lawrence (Burton): They are cherished.

Mr. Leigh: They are cherished or cosseted, but embarking on such a value judgment is dangerous for the House. One can usually tell a bad law by the number of exemptions attached to it.

Sir Jerry Wiggin: One or two matters have arisen that go rather wider than my new clause. The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), as so often, put his finger firmly on an important point about the expertise and knowledge of firearms officers. One of the complaints that the British Shooting Sports Council has had for many years is that the firearms certificate system is not being used properly. Not only, sadly, was that demonstrably proved at Dunblane, but the 54--I think--constabularies all administer their own system on their own computers, which do not talk to each other.

Although things have got much better in the past few years--I give full credit to the Association of Chief Police Officers and its committee that deals with such matters--we were keen to have a national firearms board, staffed by ex-armourers, ex-police firearms officers and real experts, who would be long-term appointments, understand the shooting fraternity, be experts in firearms, know the law inside out and maintain a national computer

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network. If a firearm is found on a Friday night and the police wish to know whether it is a registered firearm, the chance of ascertaining that before midday on Monday is currently zilch.

6 pm

For some reason, which we have never discovered, there were those in the Home Office who decided that by commissioning certain studies they could come up with an astonishing cost for a national computer network. The figure of £10 million was mentioned, which I find astonishing bearing in mind the small numbers involved. I hope that, during the passage of the Bill, our idea might be given a further airing, because the way that we keep the register is inefficient.

I do not suggest that civilians should be permitted to give firearms certificates, but the very expertise that a civilian board would have would allow the oddball to be noticed because the people on it would deal every day with ordinary shooters.

Mr. Henderson: The hon. Gentleman knows a lot about the detail of firearms. One issue that has been raised in discussions with the police is that of the registration of firearms and we may come on to that subject in Standing Committee. Is the hon. Gentleman in favour of having a national firearms list on computer, because I understand that that does not exist at the moment?

Sir Jerry Wiggin: It certainly does not exist. Each firearms certificate identifies the weapon concerned with a serial number. Unfortunately, some weapons do not have serial numbers. There is always some problem, so it has been suggested that each item should have a log book, as cars do. I have never personally been against that suggestion, but it is not the policy of the British Shooting Sports Council because it would add to the complexity and paperwork. It is reasonable to expect that a national register should be kept or, at least, that the individual registers should be nationally accessible. That is within the capacity of modern technology. If one can run the national lottery and sell tens of millions of tickets every Saturday, 1.5 million certificates could easily be controlled by modern technology.

I have no brief for the way in which that is done today and I do not believe that the Home Office seriously considered our proposals. The studies were done in a most biased manner and I hope that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson), during the passage of the Bill, will learn a little more about the subject and, perhaps, seek to persuade my hon. Friend the Minister of State of the merits of our solution, which would reduce costs and--just as important--improve the expertise.

My hon. Friend the Minister of State has made all the right noises, if I may put it like that, about the principle behind my new clause. Exempt weapons are exempt and do not require a certificate. There is no charge for exempt weapons, but the owner has to prove that they are exempt. If they are deactivated, some proof must be provided that they have been properly deactivated. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North was right to say that some clever people were undeactivating their weapons,

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but now more stringent standards have been drawn up under the masters of the proof houses. Weapons that have been deactivated under those standards will not only never work but are almost valueless, so many people do not wish to do that to their weapons.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New clause 6

Exemption for dealers

'. The authority of the Secretary of State is not required by virtue of subsection (1) (aba) of section 5 of the 1968 Act for a registered firearms dealer to have in his possession, or purchase or acquire, or sell or transfer, a short firearm for the purpose of selling or transferring that firearm to a person who may, by the provisions of this Act, lawfully possess, purchase or acquire it.'.--[Sir Jerry Wiggin.]
Brought up, and read the First time.

Sir Jerry Wiggin: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I recognise that new clause 6 is slightly controversial. Its effect would be to give dealers a general exemption to enable them to acquire short firearms for sale or transfer to an exempted person. They would draw their authority for that from the fact that the person with whom they were dealing was an exempted person under the legislation in respect of the gun in question. Since the market in exemptions will be so small, few dealers will apply for a section 5 licence, with all the difficulties that that will entail and the rigid parameters that will have to be followed for the occasional and probably not very profitable deal. Large geographical areas will therefore have no such service available.

The House will recognise that the Bill will ban mail order, so guns will have to be transferred from hand to hand. The new clause covers a small matter, but the role of licensed firearms dealers could be much more helpful than the Government have recognised. Dealers now have to have secure premises, with the latest alarms connected directly to local police stations. That is right, and they go to much trouble to establish those premises. They are experienced and trustworthy people. I would not say that it never happens, but I can remember only one occasion--apart from the obvious crooks--on which a firearms dealer has got into any trouble. If those people and their facilities are used, not only will expense be saved, but they will be able to replace some of the trade that they will lose.

Mr. Dalyell: The hon. Gentleman knows a lot about the subject. Can he tell the rest of us roughly how many licensed firearms dealers there are in Britain?

Sir Jerry Wiggin: The hon. Gentleman is very complimentary, but even after all these years I do not claim an encyclopedic knowledge. I believe that there are just over 3,000 registered firearms dealers in the United Kingdom.

I suspect that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will be suspicious of new clause 6--because the whole tone of the Bill is to suppress, eliminate and put out of business all handguns over .22--but I wish to try her on it. Although I do not intend to press it at this stage, I should be grateful for her full explanation.

Miss Widdecombe: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for saying that he will not press the new clause as it would

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be impossible for us to accept it. For a moment, so as to stay strictly in order under the new clause and so that I can give the Committee the information that I promised under the previous new clause, let us imagine that the dealer in question is trading in old weapons and he is asked whether there is a charge for a firearms certificate. The answer is that the only free certificates issued are issued for trophies of war--they are not issued for collectors' items or other historic weapons. I thank you, Dame Janet, for letting me get away with that.

I regret to have to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Sir J. Wiggin) that we consider that the new clause would create a huge loophole in the general requirement for dealers to have the Home Secretary's authority to deal in prohibited weapons. We are not prepared to make concessions for dealers who deal in prohibited handguns. If dealers wish to sell prohibited weapons of any sort--including handguns which will be prohibited once the Bill becomes law--they must apply for the Home Secretary's authority to do so under section 5(1) of the Firearms Act 1968.

I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare that this may cause inconvenience for people who will have to find a dealer with section 5 authority, but we are not aware that the current requirements cause problems for vets in respect of tranquillising weapons, for example. There are no exemptions to the requirement of section 5(1), nor do I propose to make any. Therefore, I have to say to my hon. Friend rather more firmly than previously that we cannot accept the new clause.

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