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Mr. Colvin: A lot of figures are being bandied about. Whether it is £200 million or £300 million--

Mr. Budgen: Would it be £300 million extra?

Mr. Colvin: It could be extra. But the Treasury says that we cannot pay out more than £50 million. The dead hand of the Treasury, rather than justice, is dictating policy.

Sir Anthony Grant (South-West Cambridgeshire): If the Government had accepted the advice of the high-powered review that they set up, headed by a distinguished judge, they would not be in this mess. The Government will have to pay up: they are the authors of their own misfortune.

Mr. Colvin: My hon. Friend puts it rather better than I did. Whether the figure is £300 million or £500 million, the present figure of between £25 million and £50 million is a gross underestimate. The Government are legalising the confiscation of private property and paying very little in return. It is nothing short of legalised robbery.

There was some evidence in Standing Committee that the Government will move on compensation for related equipment and accessories belonging to people who shoot

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with pistols. A good case has been made for compensation for them. I searched the Bill as amended in Committee and could find no reference to compensation going beyond weapons. Perhaps the Minister could tell us what is proposed when he winds up. That will have a profound effect on the amount of money required to pay compensation.

To give the House some idea of what is involved, I shall quote some letters. Throughout the debate it has been interesting to observe the litmus test of our postbags. Normally when we are dealing with something controversial and emotional--the whole debate has been surrounded by a welter of emotion, which is unfortunate but a fact of life, or death, that we must accept--our postbags are a good litmus test. The letters that I have received in support of the new clause, and generally in support of Lord Cullen's proposals, outweigh the others by 10 to one. There were no letters saying that the Government have got it right, but a few said that the Government should have gone still further.

I have a letter from a constituent who came to see me, Mr. R. G. Newnham. He has weapons worth £645 that will have to be surrendered and destroyed. His equipment is worth £810--more than the value of his guns. I have half a mind to hand the letter to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, because it is in fact an invoice made out to him in the hope that he will pay. There are others. If my right hon. and learned Friend is minded to accept that invoice, I have another bill that he might like to deal with from Mr. John Southey of Chiswick. His guns are worth £5,000 and his equipment £3,700.

Mr. Michael Stern (Bristol, North-West): Under the Government's proposals, can my hon. Friend imagine the reaction of those gentlemen if their invoices reach the Home Secretary and they are told that he disagrees with their valuations and has no intention of entering into discussion about what he intends to pay them, whether they like it or not?

Mr. Colvin: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is even more important to support amendment (a) to amendment No. 74, which provides for arbitration in such circumstances.

I have other letters. Mr. Peter Brown of Great Missenden states:

"I am one of the unfortunate members of the gun trade who are going to lose their business, livelihood and house, all because of the actions of a madman. Our loss adjusters, MPC, who are working on behalf of the gun trade report to us that the Home Office will not compensate us for consequential losses.


I am going to lose everything!"

Mr. C. A. Reddy of Itchen Valley Shooting Club, another constituent of mine, will lose about £2,000-worth of guns and £3,500-worth of equipment. Worse than that, his gun club will have to wind up because there is no way that it will be able to preserve its membership if large-bore pistol shooting stops. Most of its members will not change to .22 shooting: one or two might, but the vast majority will not.

5.45 pm

The Snowdrop campaign argues that compensation should not be paid to such people, because, having had to surrender their large-bore pistols, they will buy .22s

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instead, so the number of firearms will not be reduced. That is just not so. Anyone with experience of shooting with pistols realises that shooting with .22 pistols and shooting with large-bore pistols are as different as chalk and cheese. Itchen Valley shooting club will probably have to close because it faces costs of £6,000 or £7,000 to carry out the modifications to the premises required by the Bill. It also faces a serious loss of membership revenue.

Another typical example is the Nottingham shooting centre, which was established in 1988 by Bruce Rainford, a miner who invested his redundancy money in the business with his friends Brian Phillips and Pauline Perrins. Their business employs four other people and has an annual turnover of £300,000. The centre is used by nearly 1,000 shooters and includes a 10-point range, workshop, test range and retail outlet. The Bill would put Bruce and his partners out of business.

One of the most moving letters that I received came from Mr. Frank Spittle of Wolverhampton, who wrote:

"Having shot for my Country in peace and war, now seeing the small shop that I have worked for and the sport I have served since the war, ruined by you and this Government, how can you expect the most law abiding citizens to trust you again. Please read my small book"--

he has sent it to me and I am happy to lend it to other hon. Members--

"then tell me and my two sons who will now lose their jobs why this is happening."

The compensation limit is due to the dead hand of the Treasury. Hon. Members have made the case on precedents. The Australians decided to pay fair compensation for weapons. We could and should follow that precedent.

The true cost, when all the calculations are done, will probably be in the region of £300 million. I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) said about the European convention on human rights. Its key clause is article 1 of the first protocol, which states:

"Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided by law and by the general principles of international law."

There is every reason why people might use that convention to get proper compensation. There are probably plenty of reasons why they might not succeed, but it is worth a try. The House of Commons Library briefing refers to the Bill of Rights of 1689 as another piece of legislation which might be used in this case.

I ask the House to support new clause 4 and the other amendments to which I have referred. If the Government are determined to oppose the new clause and the amendments, at least let them undertake to look at the matter again before it goes to the other place.

Mr. Salmond: I thought that the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) was about to end with a clarion call for a written constitution, and I was on the edge of my seat waiting for that case to be argued.

I should like to speak briefly in support of some of the arguments tabled by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). The hon. Gentleman and I frequently find

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ourselves converging from initially different points to a point of agreement--a process which is deeply disconcerting to both of us.

None the less, it is undeniable that he had a point when he argued that it would be quite wrong if holders of .22 calibre weapons, who surrendered them voluntarily, were treated any less favourably than the holders of higher-calibre weapons who surrendered them under the legislation. The Government have addressed that in amendment No. 79, but part of that discrepancy is inherent in the distinction that the Government have chosen to make in their legislation between .22 weapons and weapons of a higher calibre. It has become apparent from our proceedings that that distinction cannot be intellectually defended.

The hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside referred briefly to the concern felt by some of us who are sympathetic to the case for compensation that those who are compensated for weapons surrendered could use the money to invest in other .22 calibre weapons. I generally accept the argument that in the short term the number of .22 weapons will decline, but I am much less certain about the medium term.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby put his finger on an important point, because, at meetings the Home Secretary has openly speculated on new gun clubs coming into existence which fulfil the requirements of the legislation. Those new high-tech gun clubs would be suitable for those who wished to opt for .22 calibre weapons. The Home Secretary seemed to welcome that as a potential process when we debated the matter in Committee on the Floor of the House. Some of us find extremely disturbing the idea that people could use compensation given for weapons surrendered under the terms of the legislation to re-invest in .22 calibre weapons, which in many senses are just as dangerous as the higher-calibre weapons.

Mr. Stern: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I wonder whether he would agree that his point--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Has the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) given way?

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