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10.31 pm
The Minister of State, Home Office (Miss Ann Widdecombe): First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) on raising such an important issue. I note that interest has been shown in the hon. Gentleman's concerns by the presence of other hon. Members, especially that of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton). Throughout the debate, the hon. Member for Monklands, East (Mrs. Liddell) has been in her place. The same must be said of the hon. Members for Falkirk, East (Mr. Connarty) and for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram). Other hon. Members are present, but they have not been in their places throughout the debate.
The hon. Member for Motherwell, North has clearly raised a matter of importance when at this hour of the night, after all the business that has been dealt with, there should still be sufficient concern for Members to be present.
Seven years have passed since the extremely tragic incident to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. However, I express deep sympathy to all the victims and to the relatives of everybody involved. Having seen the very thorough report of the fatal accident inquiry, chaired by Sheriff Lockhart, I agree that what happened on that tragic night in March 1990 raises issues which remain of great significance as we consider further changes to the law on the possession of firearms in the wake of the tragic incident in Dunblane.
I wholly share the view about unpredictability. Time and again, both I and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State have said that there is no measure that any Government could take that would guarantee that there would never be another tragic incident. We can only do our best and endeavour to learn lessons from past events.
I want to concentrate on the three issues to which the hon. Gentleman specifically alluded and which the sheriff picked out for detailed consideration by the Firearms Consultative Committee. The Firearms (Amendment) Bill is currently under consideration in another place, and, if I have time, I want also to discuss the way in which our proposals in that Bill will affect the specific concerns mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. I believe that they will make an important difference.
Before doing so, I believe that it would help the House if I briefly described the circumstances in which Alan Parkhill came to be in possession of the pistol and ammunition that he used to shoot Mr. McIntyre and wound others. As we have heard, and as the inquiry report makes quite clear--and as the hon. Gentleman emphasised forcefully tonight--Mr. Parkhill was perfectly legally entitled to own those weapons. He had a firearms certificate for them that was issued, perfectly properly, by the police.
Under section 19 of the Firearms Act 1968, it is an offence for anybody to be in possession of a firearm and ammunition in a public place without lawful authority or reasonable excuse. In having the pistol and the ammunition with him in his car on that night, Mr. Parkhill was committing just such an offence. I thoroughly concur with the great question mark introduced by the hon. Gentleman as to what that sort of equipment had to do with celebrating a friend's birthday.
The police certificate authorised him to purchase the pistol and ammunition, and, indeed, to keep them at home. As the inquiry report says, his certificate also allowed him to own one other pistol, two revolvers, two rifles, and a total
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Mr. Parkhill first obtained a gun licence at the age of 16, when he applied to Strathclyde police for a shotgun certificate. He applied for and obtained a firearms certificate the following year, at the age of 17--the youngest age at which, by law, a person may purchase a firearm. In applying for that certificate, and, as the hon. Gentleman said, in renewing it subsequently every three years as he was required to do, Mr. Parkhill told the police that he wanted firearms for target shooting. That was true. Mr. Parkhill was a member of local shooting clubs--the Glasgow and District rifle and pistol club, and the Balornock rifle and pistol club--which were approved by the Secretary of State for Scotland under the Firearms Acts, which were run perfectly properly, and about which the police had no reason to feel any concern.
The law requires that anybody who wants a firearms certificate should have a good reason for being in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Home Office guidance to the police on administering firearms controls makes it clear that target shooting is a good reason, and it has been recognised as such ever since systematic firearms controls were first introduced in this country in 1920.
The sheriff's report describes two other occasions before the night of the shootings when Mr. Parkhill had a gun with him in public; and it also emerged after the shootings that one of his guns was missing. I want to make it clear that none of those matters had been reported to the police. As far as they knew, Mr. Parkhill was punctilious in adhering to all the rules and regulations relating to his possession of firearms and ammunition and they had no reason to be concerned that he posed a danger to anybody.
Sheriff Lockhart concluded in his report:
The police investigation of the shootings was unable to uncover why Mr. Parkhill acted as he did. The sheriff could not shed any new light on the matter. He also concluded that Mr. Parkhill had not taken advantage of any loophole in the law to obtain guns or ammunition.
The sheriff went on to conclude that the Secretary of State for Scotland should refer three specific topics to the Firearms Consultative Committee: the age or ages at which persons should be permitted to hold a firearms certificate; the number of firearms and the amount of ammunition which any member of the public should be entitled to possess; and all aspects of the storage of firearms and ammunition owned by members of the public.
We shared the sheriff's concern, and the Government asked the committee to discuss these three points. It did that in some detail, and the hon. Gentleman is aware that it
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Dr. Reid:
I said that the report was considered and noted, and that no further action was taken.
Miss Widdecombe:
Indeed. The committee published these conclusions in 1992 in chapter 5 of its third annual report. There is, of course, a copy of the report in the Library of the House.
On age limits, there are, as the Committee said, very detailed provisions in the Firearms Acts. The minimum age for purchasing or hiring a firearm of any kind is 17. The law does provide for people of less than that age to be in possession of firearms and ammunition without having bought them, but it imposes significant restrictions. I gave the Standing Committee a detailed description of age limits, which it would not be profitable to repeat tonight in the limited time available.
On the quantities of firearms and ammunition which people should be allowed to own, the Firearms Consultative Committee concluded that the present arrangements are adequate. I agree with that conclusion. In addition, the greater controls imposed by the Firearms (Amendment) Bill will place important new restrictions upon the ownership of legally held firearms.
As far as security is concerned, the Committee correctly pointed out that the law imposes a requirement on all owners of firearms and shotguns to keep them secure from theft at all times.
It is tempting to draw parallels between this case and that of Thomas Hamilton. Both involved the tragic shooting of innocent people by men who were perfectly legally entitled to possess large calibre handguns. There are, however, some differences. There was nothing to indicate that Mr. Parkhill was not fit to be entrusted with a firearm. There was no evidence that he had planned his crime. There was, as the hon. Gentleman kept saying tonight, no apparent motive. There were no grounds to refuse the granting of a firearm certificate to him. All these concerns, however, were identified by Lord Cullen as applying to Thomas Hamilton.
I therefore accept the hon. Gentleman's basic premise: that there is no easy method of predicting who may act out of character, and no easy method of preventing a tragedy such as Dunblane. But there is a major responsibility on Government to do their best to make sure that these things do not happen. Lessons have been learnt from Dunblane. We have had an independent examination, the vast majority of whose conclusions we have accepted.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising his concerns so eloquently tonight, and I apologise to at least one of his hon. Friends who was indeed present throughout the debate.
Question put and agreed to.
"there were no reasonable precautions which could have been taken by the chief officer of police in terms of the current legislation"--
that is, the legislation then in force--
"whereby the deaths might have been averted".
I fully agree with that assessment.
Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes to Eleven o'clock.
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