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Mr. Straw: We shall not be able to train our competitors. There is no dubiety about that. I am not

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making any pretence about it. The passage of the Bill, along with the 1997 Act that was passed by the previous Parliament, will make it impossible for British residents to practise their sport of pistol shooting. That is the reality. The House must take that into account when deciding whether to back the Bill. There should be no doubt about that.

As for our hosting of either the Commonwealth games in 2002 or the Olympic games at some stage in the future, it will be possible for pistol shooting competitions to be held within the confines of those games. That is because of the provisions of section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968, which is not affected either by the 1997 Act or by the Bill. Under those provisions, special dispensations can be issued on strict conditions to permit target shooting competitions within the context of the games. Those decisions are made by the Secretary of State. Should I be in that position, I would require a guarantee from the organising committee that guns would be handled with the necessary security measures in place.

We shall get in touch with the organisers of the Manchester Commonwealth games in good time, to ensure that arrangements are made to allow target shooting to take place at those championships. As I said earlier, similar arrangements would have to be made for pistol competitions held during any future Commonwealth or Olympic games held in Britain.

Mr. Quentin Davies (Grantham and Stamford): Is it not an extraordinary prospect that the right hon. Gentleman is holding out? Foreign teams will be allowed to come to this country to practise a sport in which, in reality, no British team will be able to participate. Is that what he is saying to the House and the country? Is he really saying that foreigners will be allowed to come here and legally do something that our citizens are not allowed to do?

Mr. Straw: Yes, I am saying that. We have to make a balanced choice. My hon. Friends will have a free vote tonight. I am not sure whether Conservative Members will have a similar free vote, but, in the light of the events of the past week, a free vote would probably be advisable on almost every issue. Most people in the country and, as I am sure will be clear in the Lobby tonight, most Members in the House support a ban on handguns in general civilian use. That is the truth and I suspect that that opinion will be approved this evening.

We then have to decide whether to allow that general ban to affect our hosting of the Commonwealth or Olympic games. I have considered the matter closely and I have looked at the powers that the House and the other place agreed in 1968 for special provision in exceptional circumstances. Those provisions are acceptable. There is a world of difference between controlling and securing the safety of the public at specific games such as the Commonwealth games in 2002 and allowing handguns to be held generally by civilians on a licensed basis.

Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed): Has the Home Secretary completely ruled out using that

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dispensation to enable British competitors to participate in the games and to have a period of training before doing so?

Mr. Straw: I have not ruled that out altogether and if realistic representations are made to me, I shall think about the proposal. But I should require a high degree of convincing before going ahead with it.

Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath): While the Secretary of State is thinking about that matter, will he consider the special position of Bisley? He is well aware that it is the world centre of shooting--a sport in which we have been conspicuously successful in a number of Olympic and Commonwealth games. If the Home Secretary is to consider allowing practice in the way that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) suggested, will he also consider the special worldwide importance of competitive shooting at Bisley?

Mr. Straw: I shall look at the subject again, but we cannot impose a general ban and then make many exceptions.

The provision will not mean the end of all shooting disciplines for British competitors in the Commonwealth games--it is important to get that message across. There are 26 separate shooting disciplines in the Commonwealth games, and the effect of the 1997 Act and the Bill will be to ban British participation in eight of those disciplines; the other 18, including rifle shooting and airguns, will be fully available to British participants.

Mr. Colvin: Will the Home Secretary give way?

Mr. Straw: I am afraid that I cannot as I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman once.

Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill): In view of the questions that we have heard, I hope that my right hon. Friend will not believe that the views expressed are those of the whole House. I, for one, fully support what he is doing and believe that it would be no bad thing if throughout the world there were an end to all sports involving murderous weapons.

Mr. Straw: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is entirely right. We must not forget the extent of public revulsion at the holding of handguns in general civilian use that followed not only Dunblane, but Hungerford. I have no doubt that Labour Members and quite a number of Conservative Members speak for the public and also have the public's safety in mind.

Sir Nicholas Lyell: Will the Home Secretary give way?

Mr. Straw: No, I have already given way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I think that I have dealt with his points at great length.

The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 allowed the continued use of .22 pistols under certain conditions. That Act envisaged a complex system of pistol clubs, licensed by the Secretary of State, where .22 weapons could be stored and used. In the debate on 18 November 1996, the then Secretary of State advanced three arguments for

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allowing .22 weapons to be licensed in secure clubs. First, he claimed by implication that .22 weapons were inherently safer than higher-calibre weapons. He said:

"high-calibre guns are particularly attractive to criminals and their storage in gun clubs in large numbers, whether dismantled or in one piece, would make gun clubs more attractive targets for theft."--[Official Report, 18 November 1996; Vol. 285, c. 787.]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman's view that criminals would distinguish between higher and lower-calibre weapons is palpable nonsense.

The House was invited to believe that if a criminal gang thought that it could break into a gun club--as surely a determined gang could do--it would then turn away and relinquish the loot the moment it discovered that it contained not .357 magnums, but .22 semi-automatics. It will not happen like that.

Throughout debates in the previous Session, I was struck by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's curious unwillingness to face up to the fact that .22 weapons can kill. However, as I said earlier, they can. Many murderers and assassins choose .22 weapons, and the criminals of whom we are talking would quickly switch their affections to lower-calibre weapons if they thought that they were more easily available.

The truth is, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman by implication accepted, that no level of security could guarantee that .22 pistols could not be removed from licensed clubs; nor is it possible to safeguard the public when those pistols need to be removed, for example, for servicing or repair or for participation in a competition elsewhere in the country or overseas. In his report, Lord Cullen quotes the British Shooting Sports Council as saying:

"no matter what system of checks and paperwork is maintained in such circumstances, it would be a simple matter indeed for a shooter intent on recovering his guns to enter a competition, provide evidence to his club secretary that he had done so, recover possession of the complete gun together with the ammunition for it and perpetrate an outrage."

The second argument advanced by the right hon. and learned Gentleman to justify the partial ban was that higher-calibre weapons are

"four to six times more powerful than a .22 pistol."--[Official Report, 18 November 1996; Vol. 285, c. 787.]

As we have seen so often, he allowed his casuistry to get the better of him. The issue in terms of public safety is not the absolute power of the weapons, but their ability to kill. Lord Cullen destroyed the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument when he wrote in his report:

"It should not be supposed that .22 rimfire cannot be as lethal as other ammunition. The BSSC pointed out that . . . .22 cartridges would be as lethal as 9 mm."

The truth is that .22 weapons can kill as surely as a higher-calibre weapon.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman's third argument was that if there were a complete handgun ban, much shooting would be driven underground. As he knows, I would never dismiss that argument--indeed, it should be taken seriously--but the more I consider it, the less weight it carries with me. By definition, all the weapons under consideration are clearly identified, with the owners known to the police. Penalties of up to 10 years' imprisonment apply to those who break the law and fail to hand in their weapons. For legitimate sportsmen and women, opportunities remain for competitive sports with shotguns, rifles and airguns.

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My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) raised the issue of the number of crimes committed by those in possession of unlawful weapons. We have to bear it in mind that the Bill will release a great deal of police time from licensing gun clubs so that they can search for and identify criminals who use guns. For example, section 13 of the 1997 Act requires pistol holders who want to move their gun outside their normal club for certain prescribed reasons to obtain police permits. Section 13 is written in complicated language and that process would be especially bureaucratic for the police to administer, involving them in possibly endless checking and double-checking of the movement of single guns or small groups of guns.

There is a wider point to be made in support of the Bill. Too often, we wait for disaster or worse to strike before taking effective action to secure the public's safety. I have two words for those who say that a total ban goes too far: Hungerford and Dunblane. I claim no special foresight, but if the House had listened over the years to the sage warnings of several hon. Members on both sides, those appalling tragedies might have been averted. Those hon. Members include my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Soley) and for Worsley (Mr. Lewis), both of whom have called consistently over the years for tighter controls.

The House might also have listened to the warnings of the Home Office. Almost 30 years ago, my Department established a review of firearms controls, the findings of which were published in a Green Paper in 1973. That Green Paper recommended highly restrictive controls on firearms, a ban on all semi-automatic rifles and tighter licensing procedures. Had those recommendations been implemented, Michael Ryan could not have lawfully possessed the AK47 rifle with which he killed eight of his 17 victims at Hungerford, and Thomas Hamilton might well have been denied a licence for the 9 mm Browning with which he killed all his victims.

We have to recognise that all of us failed after Hungerford to put in place the controls necessary to reduce significantly the risk of a repeat tragedy. Some 15 months on from the Dunblane killings, we cannot afford to make the same mistake again.

We should listen carefully to the advice of the police, who know best about the dangers to society of the criminal use of weapons. Both the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents Association have come out in favour of a full and total ban. The Police Federation said about our proposals:

"The proposal to ban the private possession of handguns is a victory for common sense. No system can guarantee to exclude every potential mass killer, but we owe it to the victims of Hungerford and Dunblane to take the strongest possible action to prevent a repetition of past tragedies."

It also said:

"We believe the public will strongly support this decisive action."

I believe that the police are right in their opinion of the merits of the Bill.

If, on the basis of the votes today--and later in the other place--this House agrees to extend the ban in the 1997 Act to all handguns, I hope that it will be possible to speed up the remaining stages of the Bill before it goes

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to the other place. Subject to the views of the other place, I hope that the ban on .22 pistols can be introduced well before the end of the year.

No system of controls, however tough, can guarantee that there will never again be another Dunblane or Hungerford. There will always be a way for the desperate, the cunning and the wicked to murder and maim their fellow men and women. A responsible Government must do all that they can to mitigate the risks and to set a legal framework that gives the maximum possible protection to the innocent. The 1997 Act, introduced by the previous Government and passed by the previous Parliament, did, I accept, go a long way in improving firearms controls in this country. However, as I said at the time, that Act did not go far enough. Its fundamental flaw was that, illogically and dangerously, it allowed 40,000 handguns to remain available for use. I believe that it is now the duty of the House to close that loophole and institute a total ban once and for all.

I recognise, as I always have recognised, that many law-abiding shooters will be inconvenienced or worse, and I regret that. But I am in no doubt about where the balance should be struck between the right to practise a sport and the right to life--especially the right to life of a child. By banning all handguns, this short Bill will contribute greatly to public safety. It will meet the legitimate demands made to the House by many people since the events of Dunblane. To deny the public the protection that the Bill offers would be an abdication of our responsibility. I commend the Bill to the House.

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