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Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): Disassembly.
Mr. Cook: It is not dissembling, and that is a fact--it could be disassembly.
Mr. Andrew Faulds (Warley, East): I am finding my hon. Friend's contribution fascinating, as I am ignorant on these matters--[Interruption.] I know a great deal about more things than most of those sluggish lads on the Conservative Benches. I am finding my hon. Friend's speech fascinating, and I am prepared to wait until he finds the lost papers.
Mr. Cook: There is no need, Madam Speaker. I said that I would speak from memory, and I will do just that. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) for his intervention, in so far as it shows his experience and knowledge of the theatrical and the voice from the wings.
Mr. Faulds: Never from the wings--centre stage.
Mr. Cook: I am sure that, in another incarnation, my hon. Friend will acquire safe employment as the prompter.
I started my observations on negligence by commenting that there was no central register of licence holders--a grave weakness, as I pointed out, because Jack the lad can
run about. What is probably even worse is the fact that there is no central register of the weapons. We have never had one, and it is not proposed that there should be one. Perhaps the Government's reluctance to accept that principle is born of their doctrinaire attitude towards deregulation.
We are told that there could be 4 million illegal weapons out there, and that there are perhaps 120,000 certificated weapons. Without a central register, we are making those 120,000 weapons illegal--adding them to the 4 million which are already illegal. We do not have an account of any of them, and we do not propose to have one. We are making a bad situation worse, and we are making it worse in a hurry. We are not allowing anyone to talk about it sensibly. When people try to put a sensible point, they get shakes of the head, as I am getting from my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench.
Mr. Nicholas Budgen (Wolverhampton, South-West):
I agree with every word that passed the lips of the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook). This is a bad Bill, which has been badly considered.
At least some of my hon. Friends will be concerned about the wider problem of creating an unnecessary confrontation between this House and the House of Lords. We who are anxious to preserve our constitution and its checks and balances should realise what a grave disservice we are doing with this guillotine motion.
When the House of Lords says that it is not sure that we have got something right, amends our legislation and sends it back to us, it is saying in the politest possible way, "Please think again; we think you might have got this wrong." Sometimes that is said especially insistently, as when the Bill or the amendments we have passed obviously do not have the support of a decision at a general election or of the people.
When we are in our most populist--and especially our agreed populist--mood, when we are at our worst and most tyrannical, the House of Lords says, "Hang on a moment. Think again, and please discuss the matter more carefully." Surely we as Tories should understand the importance of that request, yet we are giving the matter a cursory debate on a guillotine, after which we plan to have a short, truncated discussion on a few selected items, which, as the hon. Member for Stockton, North said, will be kept even shorter by the agreed discouragement that will be evinced from the Front Benches against every dissident voice; so 50,000 people will go unrepresented because of the gross tyranny of the House.
We who most of all represent the checks and balances of the constitution should draw back from an unnecessary confrontation.
Mr. Winnick:
The hon. Gentleman spoke about the 50,000 people. I wonder what he would say to a couple I met in my constituency, near the hon. Gentleman's: Martyn and Barbara Dunn, who came to a ceremony to commemorate the massacre at Dunblane, in which they lost their five-year-old daughter Charlotte. They are very
Mr. Budgen:
I would try to be as sympathetic as I possibly could, and I would explain to them that I understood entirely their wish to have the use of all guns banned; but I would say that people who engaged in the lawful and honourable activity of target shooting were entitled to continue to do that. I would say at the end of the conversation, as quietly and as carefully as I could, that as a matter of fact I thought that their appalling tragedy probably did not make them better judges of legislation, and that it might indeed make them worse judges. I would say that, fortunately, we have in general a rather good system of considering legislation in a way that is somewhat detached from their raw emotions, and that the most important thing was to consider legislation carefully and not in a mood of deep emotion. I think that, on reflection, they would understand that.
If the hon. Gentleman says that that is not so, it might be of some interest to him to note that, after the Duke of Edinburgh had made some remarks about the legislation some time just before Christmas, it was obvious that the public as a whole took a more reflective attitude.
In our constitution, it is not only the newspapers, the royal family and others who have a right to comment; it is the legitimate interest of the other place to ask us to think again. If we pass this guillotine motion, we are palpably not thinking again.
The other place faces a difficult tactical question about which issues to disagree with us on, but I hope that it will not disagree with us about the Crime (Sentences) Bill, because the proviso in that case--the argument as between exceptional circumstances and circumstances that are unjust--is not a big issue. While great lawyers make great fortunes arguing the difference between such words, it perhaps does not affect many people.
Perhaps we could say respectfully to the other place that there is some presumption in its proposals for extra compensation. If £500 million of public expenditure is to be made, it should be authorised by this place, not the House of Lords. However, if we reject the Lords amendment on disassembly, I hope that their Lordships will persist with it.
Mr. Michael Colvin (Romsey and Waterside):
My hon. Friend suggested that 50,000 people were affected, a point that was picked up by the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). The figure of 50,000 firearms certificate holders is merely the Home Office figure, not the real number of firearms certificate holders affected, which is more like 100,000. To those one must add the number of people who legitimately shoot with pistols in recognised and registered clubs, who do not need firearms certificates. The matter goes far wider than the 50,000 people my hon. Friend mentioned.
Mr. Budgen:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I was trying to put my point as moderately as possible. When I mentioned figures, I wanted to quote the lower end of the scale.
I hope that their Lordships will recognise that, whether it is 50,000 or 100,000, it is not a fashionable section of the community. I hope that they will consider how they would feel if that many game shooters were being prevented from carrying on their lawful activity.
I do not want to put this offensively to their Lordships, but it would be sad if the suspicion arose that because, by and large, these are unfashionable people, their Lordships were not prepared to exercise their proper duty to prevent populist legislation, but that, in a future Parliament where hunting or game shooting was threatened, they would come bustling along to exercise their constitutional rights. The 50,000 involved are honourable people, who have been treated in a disgraceful, hurried and populist way. I hope that their Lordships will go very slowly in considering the measure.
On this point, I am able to join the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), who, last Wednesday, in discussing the Police Bill--which had come from the Lords--sensibly asked why a Firearms (Amendment) Bill could not be introduced at the beginning of the next Parliament. I agree entirely. One could be introduced slowly and carefully. If their Lordships suggested that other measures could be brought forward in the interim, I would agree.
The House knows that the Home Office firearms consultative committee was not invited to give its opinion on the Cullen report. The proposals were rushed out. We could in the interim tighten the rules on the qualities and characters of people who own firearms certificates. There could be some extra surveillance of the membership of gun clubs. All those things have been suggested as sensible administrative measures by the committee.
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