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Mr. Budgen: Let me explain. The hon. Gentleman may think that I am too much of a libertarian, but I think that, when police refuse a citizen a firearms certificate, that citizen should have a right of appeal to the Crown court. However, I think that the criteria by which such certificates are granted should be tightened.

I am sorry that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) is not with us, because I have been privileged to discuss the matters publicly with him. He speaks in a manner which I am sure he finds extremely persuasive, because he repeats it so many times. He says that he does not want there to be any gun culture

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as in America, and that there is no right to bear arms. As far as I know, with the exception of the European Union, we do not have a written constitution, anyway. There is no right to bear arms.

I think that the first barrier I mentioned should be made more difficult to climb. I am glad that Lord Cullen made those suggestions. It was also entirely sensible for him to erect a further barrier--the membership of those clubs. Here we come to the doctrine of proportionality. Of course, I repeat, we are not dealing with the literally millions of handguns and firearms that are held illegally. We are dealing with the problem that arises as a result of the 4 per cent. of crimes in which firearms are used which are held legally.

I should have thought that Lord Cullen's two new barriers would have eroded that 4 per cent. quite a lot. If, for the sake of argument, his two new barriers reduced the 4 per cent. to 2 per cent., is it reasonable to extend the Cullen recommendations to reduce that remaining 2 per cent. at such enormous cost?

What is the cost? First, we are depriving 55,000 people of their lawful activity, an activity that has been regarded in the past as a patriotic one, not unlike the Territorial Army. [Interruption.] Oh yes, that is so. I concede that, in the past, odd, deranged and unstable people have engaged in target shooting, as no doubt there have been such people in the Territorial Army. I maintain that the two Cullen barriers deal with that possibility.

We are depriving 55,000 people of their lawful pleasure. We are also bankrupting--yes, bankrupting--a lot of people. I had intended to vote for the wider element of compensation, and I was, and remain, very angry on behalf of those who are to be bankrupted. I did think, however, that my right hon. and learned Friend made a distinguished and, to me, persuasive speech as to why compensation should not be extended.

If we, the legislature, say that the fire regulations that we impose upon an hotel must be made stringent, we should not then compensate the owner when he goes out of business. That is analogous to tonight's argument on compensation. But that means that a large number of people will, in aggregate, bear losses amounting to about £300 million as a result of our attempt to reduce that 2 per cent. of crime that is committed with legally held weapons.

Call it the doctrine of proportionality, call it reasonableness, call it better legislation, call it what one will, this is a grossly arbitrary, unjust and unreasonable Bill. It is has been bashed through the House in a way of which we ought to be very ashamed. It is bad legislation, badly made.

11.28 pm

Mr. Frank Cook: It was my fortune--good or otherwise--to act as Whip on what became the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988. I see on both sides of the House tonight several of my colleagues in the Committee on that Bill--indeed, the Minister who led is sitting on the Treasury Bench at this moment. I remind the House that the limitation of time was also applied on that occasion and we were left with 67 clauses that had not even been thought about, let alone discussed. The legislation was ill thought out, ill conceived and badly enacted and, as we now know, it was also ineffective. We are in danger of repeating that nonsense tonight.

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I have already pointed out to the House, and I am prepared to stand by my statements, that it is easier to buy a gun on the illegal market that it is to buy it from a gun dealer. It costs less to buy a gun on the illegal market than it costs to buy it from a gun dealer. The Bill will not affect that fact.

Mr. John Carlisle: It will make it worse.

Mr. Cook: Indeed, I fancy that it will. The Home Office is now advising that the larger calibre guns should be transported to the continent to be sold to gun dealers there, who are waiting for the prohibition to come into force so that they can buy them at a cheaper price. They can then send the guns back across the channel among the 2,500 that come here every week anyway. There will be more guns available; there will be more of them more available; and there will be more of them more available at less cost. It is nonsense.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) said that, as and when the Labour party is elected to power--I firmly believe that it will be--legislation will be introduced to prohibit all handguns. There was a country that did that some time ago. One of its statesmen said:

"At last a civilised nation has complete firearms restriction. Our streets will be safer, our police more effective and the world will follow our lead into the future."

That was said in 1935 by Adolf Hitler.

The Swiss have a proverb--they say that, if the Government cannot trust the people, the people cannot trust the Government. Hon. Members might be surprised to learn that 6 million legal handguns are held in Switzerland, a country whose population is much smaller than ours, yet there are far fewer murders in that country. That suggests that the problem lies not in gun ownership, but in law enforcement. If law enforcement had been executed properly in respect of Thomas Hamilton and, before that, in respect of Michael Ryan at Hungerford, perhaps those incidents might not have occurred.

What is certain is that we would not have had to listen to Front Benchers saying that those incidents were committed with legally held weapons. In my view, they were not legally held. Those certificates should not have been granted. If due diligence had been exercised by the police, as it should have been, our debate today would have been quite different and the people who have conducted themselves so properly while following a respectable sport would not be the process of being penalised for something that none of them ever did.

11.33 pm

Sir Jerry Wiggin: The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) gave a welcome assurance to the House on the subject of shotguns, but, as I recall, his reason for so doing was that shotguns are not designed for killing people. Nor are .22 handguns, .32 wadcutters or .38 wadcutters. For reasons that I nevertheless understand, the Labour party has decided that all handguns are to be banned--it has been carried away by public opinion, about which we have heard so much during this debate.

During the debates on the Bill, I have been constantly asked about public opinion, not only by politicians, but by the media. My assessment is that it is not public opinion that has carried us into this extraordinary position, but press opinion.

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It would be intriguing to learn the weight of Members' mailbags from throughout the country. Earlier, there was an exchange on that subject. Before the recent debate started, my mailbag on banning guns was very small, but the newspapers were raging away, day in, day out, and holding competitions to discover who could call for the most draconian measures--newspapers that subsequently refused to take advertisements from those of us who were on the side of the shooters.

Emotion has been turned on full flow. Anyone who heard the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) speak earlier will acknowledge that he earned an Oscar for emotion, and it is ridiculous to suggest that he was not using the situation.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) has materially changed his earlier views on the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, as he was entitled to do. He is a supporter of football. Since the war, 289 people have been killed at major football matches; we do not hear much about that. By contrast, the so-called shooting lobby, the respectable, law-abiding citizens whom I have had the honour to represent throughout the Bill's passage, have been subject to denigration and vituperation, as though they were evil.

We do not approve of some people. The gentleman who was arrested this morning falls into that category. The so-called Shooters' Rights Association and the Sportsmen's Association are not members of the British Shooting Sports Council. We have sought to stick together as respectable, respected, self-disciplined, proper organisations, and I hope that we have behaved as such.

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary for his kind comments. I thank very much those in the BSSC who worked hard, under great duress, to prepare the amendments.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East(Sir T. Taylor) said many times that the Bill was a bit of a mess. That is the understatement of the evening--it is a shambles. The Times said that the largest revolt by Conservative Back Benchers this Parliament occurred on Second Reading, and I suspect that tonight's vote on compensation will have been even greater.

The Government never learn. The mistakes that were made, were also made in 1987. To rush through a Bill based on perceived public opinion, without careful consultation, leads to the mess that we are in today. The tragedy is that nothing that we have done will prevent another madman finding an illegal weapon and committing a similar or worse crime. I said that in 1988, as did many of my colleagues, during the passage of the 1988 Act.

The simple solution, to say, "We shall reduce legally held firearms," does not bear inspection. Year after year, the number of legally held firearms has decreased and the number of crimes committed with firearms has increased. I share the Government's objective, but the Bill is no way to attain it.

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