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Sir Hector Monro: I warmly support my right hon. and hon. Friends who have given their support to the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Sir J. Wiggin).
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It is clear from the speeches of hon. Members on both sides of the House that pistol shooting, a great deal of indoor rifle shooting and possibly outdoor rifle shooting as well will be dealt a mortal blow by the Bill. The trade will suffer severely. It is inevitable that the majority of clubs will close, because they will not be able to afford the stringent requirements of the Home Secretary to keep them secure from attack by terrorists or other serious incidents.
Many rifle ranges are located in remote areas, so security will be hard to enforce. That task will be even more difficult if we demand that pistols be kept complete at ranges rather than storing them in different parts, as we shall suggest later tonight. I accept that my right hon. and learned Friend has made a number of valuable concessions in the past few weeks in accordance with our views. I urge him to reconsider the matter carefully, and to look particularly to the Australian example, when he winds up the debate.
While now is not the time to talk about our international prowess in pistol and rifle shooting, we must remember that it will be impossible for our high calibre shooters to practice if there are no rifle clubs. As I have said before, I visited the shooting ranges at the last Commonwealth games and saw how effectively and efficiently they were run. Sadly, we might not have even limited competition at the Manchester Commonwealth games, as the gun associations may decide to stay away if the disciplines are curtailed dramatically.
I hope that it will be possible for the Home Secretary to remove some of the current uncertainty surrounding the valuations issue. There is little knowledge of exactly how the valuations will be carried out, who will conduct them, whether there will be some form of appeal and which weapons will be confiscated. For example, when is a muzzle loader an antique? That sort of question springs immediately to mind. On 18 November, my hon. Friend the Minister said that muzzle loaders require firearms certificates, yet the Home Office information leaflet states that antiques do not require a certificate. Where do we draw the line between a muzzle loader and an antique? That is not an easy decision to make.
I hope that such questions will be clarified soon. Will all flintlocks be classified as antiques? The situation is unclear at present. Those who may lose their weapons do not know which firearms will be classified as antiques or perhaps war trophies. My hon. Friend the Minister promised to put down an amendment regarding inherited war trophies, but that does not appear on the Order Paper.
Mr. Frank Cook:
There seems to be much confusion about what target gun clubs are and what they are not. I assure the House that the target shooters I have met do not dress up like SAS Spetsnaz, and they do not shoot at each other on Friday nights with high-calibre guns. If they did--and if they were good shots--there would be very few of them left. Such descriptions refer to those foolish middle-aged teenagers who squirt paint-soaked sponge balls at each other, pretending to play the old game "Bang, bang, you're dead".
We are talking about people who engage in a very respectable sport. When its proponents returned to this country with eight gold medals, we hailed them as national heroes--and we still do. Carol Paige has competed for almost 30 years from a wheelchair. She has proved that she is every bit as good a marksperson--it is the first time that I have used that word--as any able-bodied person competing on the range. She deserves our respect. She represented her country in that sport, and she would like to continue to do so.
It is not a joke: serious target shooters do not shoot at human form or NATO targets. They shoot at measured circles in black and white--not colour--and they calculate their scores precisely. Let us get the facts straight.
I think that any discussion of compensation at this stage is a capitulation: it is a concession that the prohibition will be enforced, and that therefore we must salvage what we can. I think that that is a sign of weakness. However, we must consider the issue seriously. Ultimately, we must ensure not that we maximise the amount of compensation but that it is adequate. I wrote to the Home Secretary on 29 October, enclosing a copy of a letter from a constituent. I am grateful to the Minister of State for her extremely helpful reply.
However, she said:
Mr. John Carlisle (Luton, North):
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; my hon. Friends and I are enjoying his speech immensely.
He may be interested to know that one of my constituents telephoned the Home Office seeking suggestions as to what he should do with his redundant--I fear that is what they will become--firearms. The person on the end of the telephone told my constituent that he should sell his firearms abroad. That was the official advice provided by someone in the Home Office, and it
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Mr. Cook:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments--it is probably the only time that we have agreed on anything. He makes a serious point: that is the sort of issue that I am trying to highlight.
I have sought the views of the Greater Manchester police--which have been confirmed by observers in the Metropolitan police--who say that, according to realistic estimates, 2,500 handguns cross the Channel from the continent into Britain every week. I put it to the House that we can have all the compensation we want, we can sell the guns to the Germans, and then Jack the lad can buy them back at a lower price next week. It is easier and cheaper to buy a gun illegally than to procure one properly with a certificate. Adequate compensation must be considered seriously. I shall support the amendment.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough and Horncastle):
It is sometimes easy to speak in the abstract in this sort of debate. Therefore, I shall tell the House about one small gun club out of more than 2,000--it happens to be in Market Rasen, but it could be anywhere.
The club meets in a small hut and has 20 or 30 members. It was founded in 1906, and its constitution proclaims that its purpose is patriotic: to train people for national emergencies. There are faded pictures on the hut's walls of the club's original members, but nowadays its members shoot only with .22 calibre pistols at small black-and-white targets. They pursue their sport with immense care and precision.
In the corner of that small wooden hut is a safe. The club is likely to be required by the police to erect high barbed-wire fences all around the hut. It is in the middle of a suburban area and houses are adjacent to it. There is no way in which it would ever get planning permission. It could survive, possibly, if the local police allowed it to leave the safe where it is and surround it with a concrete structure, but if the local police demand high barbed-wire fences and reinforced doors--which are pointless, because people could simply drill through the walls--it would almost certainly go under. It is just one club out of 2,000, and that would be replicated all over the country.
I could talk about Dunholme pistol club, which is in a similar situation. I could talk about a farmer in Reepham, who has put his life savings into creating a similar club.
Mr. Robert Jackson:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Leigh:
No. I shall make a very short speech and then sit down.
"Those who have higher calibre handguns will have the opportunity to sell them before the prohibition comes into force".
I have tried hard to get my head around that statement. I ask myself, "Who on earth will they sell their guns to?" If gun owners can do so legally, they might sell their firearms to Jack the lad, who will use them on the street to enhance his income. Perhaps they will sell them on the continent. However, the German gun dealers are already saying that they will not buy guns until the prohibition comes into force, because they know that they will pay less for them then. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will acknowledge that point.
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