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Mr. William Ross (East Londonderry): I was on the Committee that considered the Bill to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Does he agree that if some of the amendments that were proposed at that time had been accepted, the horrors of Dunblane might have been avoided, because the person concerned might have been identified by the police, who could then have taken action earlier? A man was murdered in Belfast today. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is extremely unlikely that he, like the many hundreds of others who have died in Northern Ireland at the hands of terrorists, was slaughtered with legal weapons? Nor were they shot by .22s. Terrorists and people out to kill folk use the heaviest

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calibre weapons and the most lethal ammunition that they can lay their hands on. Far too much nonsense is being talked in the House on this subject.

Mr. Cook: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he amplifies my points. I fully agree about what might have happened had amendments been accepted at that time. I remind the Home Secretary that, during the previous debate on this issue, I raised nine points related to firearms legislation that could have been included in previous legislation but were not. I was told that they could have been tabled as amendments. Have they been included in this Bill? No, they have not. How serious are we about sorting out the whole business of firearms legislation? If we are to do the job, let us do it properly. My mother used to say to me that if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well. That thought just returned to me.

The document makes the point that Thomas Hamilton and Michael Ryan both had legal handguns: the Home Secretary called them "lawfully held". That is impossible, and the evidence is quite clear on that. The document says:

"The vast majority of the population wish to see them prohibited completely."

I shall try to explain to the House what the population knows about firearms legislation.

A MORI poll was conducted less than a month ago. People were asked whether they knew how to obtain a gun licence. It was a straightforward question: nothing complex. Three per cent. got it right, 39 per cent. got it hopelessly wrong and 58 per cent. had the good sense to say that they had not got a clue. According to that sample of 850 people over 18, 3 per cent. of people have some idea of how to obtain a gun licence.

I ask hon. Members to consider on what basis people make their judgments on these matters. It is our business to inform ourselves and to make ourselves aware of the real position. The fact that a number of hon. Members are not listening to the arguments and have not had any briefings hardly gives us confidence that our decisions will be taken on the basis of illumination and light.

I should like to refer briefly to Monday's debate on compensation. In his winding-up speech, the Minister of State responded to some of my points. He has told me that he will write to me, and I am grateful to him for that. I hope that his letter arrives before Monday's Committee stage, because I may have to raise these issues again.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alun Michael): It will.

Mr. Cook: Thank you. I am grateful to my hon. Friend. On Monday, referring to me, he said:

"My hon. Friend referred to the possibility of claiming for components of expanding ammunition."

I was talking about both standard and expanding ammunition.

"That is not part of our proposal. That was a suggestion from the gun trade that the Home Office undertook to consider. It was not advice that the Home Office gave to the trade. My hon. Friend based his remarks on a misunderstanding of the consultation that has taken place."--[Official Report, 9 June 1997; Vol. 295, c. 918.]

I must inform the Minister of a telephone conversation--I have already given the Home Secretary advance notice

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of this additional information. I have a communication from Bill Hulse, sales director of Edgar Brothers, which says:

"the following is my clear and exact recollection of part of the conversation which took place between myself and . . . the Firearms Industry Compensation Group at a meeting with Simon Barrat and Chris Potter at the Home Office on Wednesday 28 May last.


I asked very specifically whether we could claim compensation for the components of an assembled round. Messrs Barrat and Potter conferred then Simon Barrat confirmed that this was the case. There was no implied or stated wording that this issue was to be considered.


As the rest of this and all previous meetings have been both amicable, positive and constructive I can only assume that Messrs Barrat and Potter are mistaken in their recollection. If so, this is one more example of the incomplete and ambiguously worded compensation scheme causing as many problems to the authors and administrators as it does to the victims.


The simple solution would be for another meeting between ourselves, the Home Office and the Minister responsible to clarify and resolve the ambiguity . . . which it is in everybody's interest to implement effectively."

I once more put the question to the Minister: for heaven's sake, can we not re-examine the schedule, even at this late stage?

Much has been made of police consultation and the clarity of the instructions that they have been given. The Metropolitan police firearms inquiry team phoned me for clarification. I referred them to the Home Office, but they had already spoken to the Home Office and could not get clarification. I then spoke to the Clerk of the House, who told me that Royal Assent was on a certain date, and he thought that it would be simply a matter of time. The Minister was helpful in telling me that the Government want to implement both Acts simultaneously. That is an example of the police's lack of clarity.

I should like to give another example of the police's lack of clarity. I have the transcript of a telephone conversation between the secretary of the Loughton Hall rifle club and an officer of a firearms inquiry team, whom I shall not identify for obvious reasons. It took place at 11 am on 6 June 1997.

Talking to the secretary, the police officer said:

"Right, well when the new law for clubs comes in on 1st July it won't be allowed to have any weapons in unoccupied premises".

The secretary asked:

"What, not even rifles?",

to which the answer was:

"No".

So not only will we require secure gun clubs, we will require them to be occupied. Presumably there will be numerous caretakers.

The Home Secretary has emphasised, not for the first time, that a free vote will take place tonight. I have to say that I hope that that vote will be a good deal freer than the previous vote. We had a free vote a couple of months ago, but two senior members of the shadow Cabinet were shepherding people who had not been party to the debate and had not listened to the arguments into the Lobby of their choice.

I lost my temper at that point, and registered the fact with both those Members, so the news will come as no surprise to anybody in the House. In fact, somebody dashed off to the press, whose representatives promptly got on to me but I refused to speak to them.

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In the House of Commons we have not only free votes but free speech, and I shall watch the performance this evening to see whether there really is a free vote. There is a three-line Whip on attendance, and there are all sorts of ways of giving semaphore signals about who wants who to go where. Thank goodness that all the Government positions have already been filled.

I tabled an amendment, but, as it has not been selected, I cannot move it. None the less, I shall speak briefly to it, because I have been informed that two major Commonwealth countries are poised and ready to object to the holding of the Commonwealth games in Manchester in five years' time.

I checked with Manchester, and apparently Manchester is "comfortably confident" that it will still stage the games. I am happy about that. The last thing that I want is to see the Commonwealth games removed from Manchester. That is why I am raising the question.

Mr. Michael: I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would be very careful about the words that he uses on that issue. He will have heard the Home Secretary make it absolutely clear how discretion will be used, and what advice he has received on the law. That means that there will be no threat to the Commonwealth games in Manchester. Indeed, as a Member of Parliament representing the north-west, my right hon. Friend is keen to see the games come there. It would not be in the interests of Manchester, of the north-west, or of this country as a whole, for any doubt to be cast on the likelihood of the games coming to Manchester, because there should be no doubt.

Mr. Cook: I am grateful to the Minister of State; that is helpful and in line with the comments that he made on Monday, when he mentioned a dispensation. I was grateful then, too. But I must speak openly. If I kept quiet and afterwards something happened, people would say, "You should have spoken out." That would probably make me want to top myself, so I have to put my thoughts to the House in this form.

The Commonwealth games may well come to Manchester, but, in five years' time, if the Bill is enacted, we shall not have qualified and experienced judges able to conduct the proceedings.

Mr. Robathan: The hon. Gentleman is making a typically courageous speech. As he is on the subject, would he also like to comment on the impact that he thinks this unfortunate Bill will have on future bids for the Olympics, whether by Manchester or anywhere else in this country?

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