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7 pm
Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East): I start from the simple proposition that the House should not pass legislation that offends the sense of justice and fair play of the ordinary British citizen. In my judgment, the response of the Home Secretary tonight shrieks of injustice. If the argument were put to ordinary British citizens, they would agree that it is wholly unfair and unjust.
In the Second Reading debate on 12 February I set out the example of a small family-run firm in my constituency--Shooters of Swansea. The family who own the business have no other assets. They have used their private homes as security. They have carried on the business with the support and encouragement of the local authority and always fully in accord with the local police. As day follows night, that pistol shooting business will be ruined and the owners will have no compensation.
Mr. John Carlisle:
I notice that the hon. Gentleman said that the club was run with the support of the local authority. Is he aware that many local authorities, mainly Labour-controlled, are actively discouraging gun clubs by making life distinctly uncomfortable for them? Will he persuade his Front-Bench colleagues, perhaps in relation to another Department, that Labour councils should be discouraged from doing that?
Mr. Anderson:
I do not know what other local authorities may or may not do. I know that Swansea city council has given full planning and financial encouragement to that family business, and that it will be ruined.
Following legal advice from a leading silk, I set out various principles of law in the Second Reading debate, relying in particular on the case of Lithgow and the
principle of the "fair balance," and the fact that in that case it was expressly said that whether that balance was fair depended in large part on the compensation offered to those who suffered.
In Committee in the House of Lords, it was said by the Earl of Lytton, who moved the relevant amendment, that no answer had been given to the legal points that I raised, based on the advice of a very senior practitioner in that field.
No answer was given then, and no substantial answer has been given today. I shall not detain the House with the arguments that were set out by Lord Lester in the other place. I will merely say that Lord Lester is a man of enormous experience in the field of human rights legislation. He set out the reasons why, in his judgment, there were indeed precedents--for instance, in Australia--of similar common law legislation where in the exceptional conditions of the gun legislation the Australian legislature, recognising that it must respond to the people's sense of fairness, compensated for business losses. A number of other examples were given--in planning law, for example, and in the rendering industry in connection with BSE.
Such examples and precedents could be cited, if the Government were so minded. The Government, however, are concerned not with fairness but with the effect on the Treasury. I understand that those advising the Home Office are fairly confident that if the matter went to the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights, the Government would be likely to lose. The problem is, of course, time. If the matter were litigated in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, it would take fully two years, and if it were litigated in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, it would probably take five years, unless and until that convention is incorporated into our domestic law.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent)
rose--
Mr. Anderson:
I must be brief. If the Home Office is simply seeking to buy time, how moral is that? That is the morality of the insurance company that plays for time in the hope that the terminally ill patient will die. It is clear that many businesses will be ruined by the time the matter is litigated and the Home Office probably loses. That is thoroughly unfair and unjust. It will offend the sense of justice on which the House should rest its legislation.
Sir Hector Monro (Dumfries):
I am as depressed with our Front Bench tonight as I was in 1988 when we debated the Firearms (Amendment) Bill. In that case, too, the Government rushed into legislation and found it singularly unsatisfactory when it reached the House.
If only we had had a debate on Cullen in the House after the publication of the report and before policy legislation was decided on, we would have removed many of the anomalies facing us today.
In another place 115 amendments were tabled. I appreciate that some of those are meeting points proposed by their Lordships and from this House, but it is clear that additional drafting was required and many changes in the legislation, all of which could have been dealt with more satisfactorily if we had not hurried forward so quickly.
The Front Bench has not addressed the matter of timing. Presumably the Bill will be enacted shortly. What will be the timing of events thereafter? Will the Home Secretary, and his counterparts for Scotland and Wales, order the police to close down all gun and rifle clubs until they meet the security regulations? When will all the pistols have to be handed in? The average police station will hardly welcome thousands of pistols, which will require valuation and many of which will be the subject of argument as to whether they are antiques or heirlooms, whether they are flintlocks or percussion capped, and so on.
That must all be sorted out. Yet no guidance has been given. Nothing causes greater annoyance than uncertainty. The Home Secretary has created a huge amount of uncertainty about the proceedings once the Bill becomes an Act.
As the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and I have pointed out many times, if mountains of weapons are deposited in police stations all over the country, how will the valuations be carried out? An enormous amount of police time will be spent waiting for the relatively few qualified valuers of firearms to come and look at many individual weapons all over the country. The cost will be substantial.
Mr. Rowe:
I have no way yet of assessing whether what I have been told is true, but a respectable constituent of mine alleges that some of the people who were due for compensation after the Hungerford change in the law have still not received the money that was due to them.
Sir Hector Monro:
I have seen that in print during the past month or two.
The Home Secretary must tell us today about the position of the gun and rifle clubs and their buildings and ranges. In those ranges, highly qualified people carry out their international shooting practice. We have a tremendous reputation throughout the world for marksmanship. I speak as a past president of the National Small-Bore Rifle Association, and I know how important the ranges are. Are they to be shut down forthwith, until they fulfil the terms of the security regulations? What are the regulations to be? What will be the difference between regulations applying to indoor ranges and those applying to open ranges?
The Home Secretary must deal with all that. He has given us little information about the valuation of weapons. I appreciate that the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe), has produced a document for us giving approximate prices, but they seem to vary only between £150 and £450. We all know that high-precision weapons will be considerably more valuable than that. It is relatively easy to value a shotgun, but it is far more complicated for precision weapons of the quality that we are talking about, which are used for international-standard shooting in this country. Who will carry out the valuations? Will they be carried out by the police? Will they be carried out sympathetically and helpfully? Will everybody be given time to discuss whether their weapon is a military heirloom, an antique or a museum piece? None of that is clear.
People want to know what will happen to their valuable possessions. It is bad enough having them confiscated, but it is even worse if one has kept a much-loved weapon
very secure for many years only to have it whipped away at the drop of a hat. We pointed out time and again that we are not doing anything to help make people in this country safer. Of course I accept the tragedy of Dunblane and understand the horrors that those people had to face, but what we are doing is not the answer. In Australia, a high-powered, multi-shot weapon was used, but such weapons are illegal here anyhow. In New Zealand, a shotgun was used. Shotguns are legal here, but we do not deal with that in the Bill. That shows that we are not being consistent, and we cannot say that what we are doing tonight will make this country safer, when the place is awash with illegal weapons.
I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will explain the procedures for all the people who will have their weapons taken away from them.
Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn):
The right hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) raised the issue of consistency. It is my belief that the application of consistent principles requires that the House supports the amendments that the Government have proposed today.
We accept, and always have--I do not think that there has ever been any argument across the Chamber about this, save on one occasion in 1988--that where individuals or businesses lose their property or property rights as a result of legislation or decisions made under legislation, for example, as a result of putting a road through a particular route, it is entirely proper that they should be compensated for that loss. That has been a consistent principle. It is also right that where people lose their business as a result of a motorway going through it, they should be compensated for that total loss of business.
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