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8.35 pm
Mr. Howard Flight (Arundel and South Downs): Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to give my maiden speech. I am privileged to represent the new Arundel and South Downs constituency. As many hon. Members may know, it is a beautiful part of England. It nestles under the south downs and is twice the size of the Isle of Wight. It comprises parts of five previous constituencies, the three main ones being Horsham, Arundel and Mid-Sussex. As is traditional, I shall pay tribute to all five Members of Parliament from whom I have taken over, particularly the three who represented the main constituencies.
Sir Peter Hordern was a Member of the House for 33 years. He was enormously respected both here and in the constituency. He was a member of the Public Accounts Committee and the 1922 Committee. He was one of the early disciples of Enoch Powell, in that he understood that this country could not achieve economic success without a sufficient market economy. I am delighted that the Prime Minister seems to have understood that, even if his deputy has not yet done so.
To the west, Sir Michael Marshall represented Arundel for 23 years. He is greatly loved in the constituency and in the House, and remains in Arundel. I viewed him as a model of an utterly decent Member of Parliament. He is also the author of five books, including a biography of Jack Buchanan. Like me, he worked in India for a while and shares my great love of that country. In recent years, he made a considerable contribution to the Inter- Parliamentary Union.
To the east, Tim Renton, now Lord Renton, represented Mid-Sussex for 23 years. He served as Chief Whip, as Under-Secretary and as Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and at the Home Office. Following his retirement, Tim Renton has become chairman of the Sussex Downs Conservation Board, where he will have an important role in protecting the beauty of our environment--a subject to which I shall return.
The two other previous Members are Michael Stephen, because a small part of Shoreham has come into my constituency, and Tony Nelson, who represented Chichester. Their successors either have already paid or will pay tribute to those two, so I shall simply say that the House will be all the poorer without Michael Stephen's contribution on law and order debates, and that Tony Nelson made a great contribution both at the Treasury and at the Board of Trade.
When the new constituency was created, there were great rows not only about the boundary changes but about the name, because Arundel is right in the west of the
constituency, which also contains three other old parliamentary boroughs--Hurstpierpoint, Steyning and Bramber.
Those boroughs have a fascinating history. The great Wilberforce represented Bramber--although he did not know where it was at the time, because it was the third rottenest borough. I discovered that one John Major represented Steyning for about 20 years, until the Reform Act of 1832 abolished the "labour" vote that had sustained him. Arundel has had the support of the great and talented Norfolk family, which continues to this day both in the country at large and in the county.
Many others made great contributions in the past. For instance, Richard Cobden, the apostle of free trade, lived just down the road. To come right up to date, I can add that many of the British citizens who have gone about the world to make their careers and build businesses in Asia retire to our part of the world, and have contributed enormously to this country and its interests.
The constituency today consists of five market towns--Henfield, Hurstpierpoint, Steyning, Arundel and Pulborough--with their surrounding villages. If there is one common major issue, it is the desire to preserve that part of west Sussex as we have inherited it. It is only an hour away from London, and is under the threat of urbanisation.
Half the constituency is a designated area of outstanding natural beauty, and if the demands for housing, roads and gravel pits that much of today's bureaucracy brings were accepted, the other half of the constituency would be ruined. In that connection, the Sussex Downs Conservation Board has been an interesting and innovative concept. It is not a national park, but it takes on many of the responsibilities of one, without the planning role.
Finally, I was amused to discover that the house that my wife and I bought in Arundel was apparently the centre of Britain's defences against European invasion along the south coast in the Napoleonic wars. The closer we get to the south coast, the more people seem to become sensitive about their nationhood.
That brings me to the subject of the debate. During the election campaign, it seemed to me that the issue that people cared about most on the doorsteps was what our future vis-a-vis Europe would be. However, I had far more letters on the gun issue than on any other subject. They were all critical of the 1997 Act passed by the Tory Government, and enormously fearful that if there were a new Labour Government, the politically correct policy of a complete ban would be embraced.
I have discovered that in Sussex we have 60 of the total of 1,600 gun clubs, with nearly 2,000 members between them--no doubt because that part of the world is fairly close to Bisley. I am not a shooter; it has not been my sport. However, like the other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate, I have thought hard and long about the subject. I believe that a law-abiding minority are suffering injustice, to no proven end. The logical conclusion of what many people who support a complete ban on pistol shooting and gun clubs have said would be to stop any activity if there were any risk that it could lead to people being killed.
The nation's hearts went out to the families and parents at Dunblane, but when I think about the tragedy, I think particularly about people who are mentally unstable and
let loose in society who may kill people with guns, poleaxes or whatever. A personal friend of mine is worried that her 23-year-old son, who is in society being minded by a 23-year-old lady, might kill somebody, and there is nothing that she can do to stop it. It is strange that the whole focus is on the means, and not on the bigger problem in society--how we strike the balance in protecting society from people who are mentally unstable.
I pay great tribute to the speech by the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook), who covered most of the details and meat of the issue with great eloquence. I have certainly learned a lot this evening. My perception is that the 1997 Act--passed by the previous Conservative Government--has imposed a tighter regime here than anywhere outside of Japan, but we have not had time to see how it works. We are in no way a gun culture society--although I might add that if there is a risk of becoming so, it will come from the media and not from gun clubs. The Act was passed following much national debate and agony in the House, and the correct thing to do would be to let it work for a year or so to see what happens.
I am nervous about the argument that banning all guns will make the life of the police easier, as we all know that the real danger--as with prohibition, when the Americans did something similar in a different area--is if a police force gets sloppy in trying to police illegal guns. The crucial issue is how we prevent weapons of any sort from falling into the wrong hands, and we must not give the police an easy ride in doing that.
Many of the speeches in the debate made me uncomfortable, and contained an overkill of political correctness. I was reminded of other issues, when the House has gone overboard in reacting to tragic events, and when the first reaction has been to legislate after the event and over the top. Are measures produced to appease public opinion, or because Governments try to get out of their future responsibilities? We should stand back and think long and hard about these problems--as with similar legislation in the past on dangerous dogs and even on financial services. One does not stop crooks by passing legislation. One will not stop madmen and murderers by getting rid of guns.
Some 60,000 people are to be told casually that they cannot do their sport. We must get the balance right between protecting the majority and looking after the liberty of the minority. I am immensely unhappy at the ease with which people are prepared to ditch the interests of the minority.
The Cullen report was the professional investigation into the subject, and I wish to end--as did another speaker--by stating the conclusion of the report. Lord Cullen--I know well that the 1997 legislation did not follow all his recommendations--said:
Mr. Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) on a thoughtful maiden speech. I have never been to the south downs, probably because they are a bit close to Europe for me, but his description made me want to go there; they must be almost as nice as Grimsby. I congratulate him also on his tributes to his five predecessors. That is approximately the working ratio in the Tory party after the election, with one Member replacing five. His tribute was entirely appropriate to the distinguished Members who preceded him.
I must declare a lack of interest, because I am not a gun enthusiast and I do not like the sport. I am terrified of guns and do not even like holding them, so I am not speaking from concern with guns and gun culture. I hope to argue that the rush of emotion is a bad basis for legislation.
We all feel strongly about Dunblane, but our responsibility in dealing with the consequences is to consider how best to prevent a repetition. The most rational and effective way of preventing it from happening again is not to rush into legislation. When the House rushes into legislation under a strong emotional influence, it always makes mistakes. We are perpetuating the rush that happened last year in the immediate aftermath of Dunblane.
I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) and for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), who made intimidatingly good maiden speeches, but, apart from the maiden speeches, we have merely heard a repetition of the speeches of November and December last year, perpetuating that rush into legislation.
The rational way is to think matters through. I hate having to differ from the bulk of people in my party, because I believe in the collective wisdom of parties and the way in which we help to shape each other's thought, but in this instance I believe that we should not go further down this road. We should hang on and think a little more.
The last piece of rushed legislation was about dangerous dogs--the persecution of pit bull terriers legislation--and it has been a disastrous mess. The rush to legislation that began with the 1997 Act has left several messy consequences that were not thought through at the time. It has left a far bigger bill for compensation than need be. We had estimates earlier this week of a total of £140 million or £150 million, and people may say that that is a price worth paying, but that is not the price, because the final bill will almost certainly be higher; we do not know how high. After this afternoon's financial statement, it is unreasonable for us to take on untold obligations. The cost could be £300 million, and I have heard even bigger estimates.
The Bill does nothing about illegal weapons, which are a major problem. It would have been far more effective if we had at the same time increased penalties and imposed greater sanctions on illegal weapons, which are far more numerous and more of a danger than legal weapons.
We are destroying the gun clubs, which are a means of restraint, of community and of people working together. In clubs, there is a discipline and people can keep an eye on each other. The gun clubs have been destroyed by the previous legislation. For example, in Grimsby, people
have borrowed money, taken out extra mortgages and run up overdrafts to build up the gun club for their recreation and their sport. The club has suffered a huge loss of members, because they have been driven out. The members feel that they have become a distasteful minority. They face financial ruin, and the discipline that comes from the gun clubs will go. The gun clubs have been crippled, but we need them to provide a restraint on the use of weapons.
We should not ignore the effect of the Bill on the police. The Bill will have an impact on the proficiency of police firearms squads. At the moment, their official training is limited and their time on the range is limited, as are the number of rounds that they can fire and the style of shooting that they can adopt. When the police are in a stake-out, they cannot stand square as if they were on a range. Officers have supplemented their official training by joining gun clubs, at their own expense, and buying weapons. They have become more proficient, versatile and skilled and, therefore, much safer in their possession of weapons. That will stop and will be a severe setback for the squads.
The previous legislation has had the effects that I outlined. The Bill will compound the problem by banning .22s, which were not used in Dunblane. We shall repeat the same mistakes. In banning the weapons, we shall not ban the gun culture. We cannot legislate against the culture of guns, because that would mean the censorship and control of television, which encourages it. We do not try to ban the lad culture or the sex culture through legislation.
Legislation should not try to ban or eliminate the gun culture: it should try, in the most effective and cost-efficient way, to stop guns being available in public, carried in public and used in public. I return to the argument that has not been advanced by many hon. Members in today's debate, although it was made in November and by Lord Cullen. It is not an original argument. Lord Cullen suggested that the most effective way to deal with the problem was to require dismantling of guns. By the simple expedient of requiring part of the gun to be kept at the club and the other part to be taken home by the owner of the gun, we would stop complete guns being available in public.
That would be an effective, total ban, which would not require the paraphernalia of enforcement that the Bill will bring. It was Lord Cullen's preferred option. It is feasible, practical and would achieve our main purpose--to stop a repetition of Dunblane. It would not require enormous sums to be spent in compensation and it would mean that there was no point in criminals raiding gun clubs or the homes of gun owners, because one part would be kept at the club and one in the home and never the twain shall meet. That seems to me to be a more effective way to stop the theft of guns, the ramraiding of gun clubs or criminal or terrorist attacks on gun clubs.
Under a requirement to dismantle, if whole guns were found outside gun clubs, they would be, ipso facto, illegal. Such a provision would allow the sport to continue. I see little point in persecuting people. We are turning gun enthusiasts into an alienated, paranoid and persecuted minority. They are upset and almost hysterical about the way in which they have been treated. The Bill will not foster a culture of co-operation among gun owners. If we can allow the sport to continue, we should do so.
When the point about dismantling was put previously, it was met by the Government--I should say the then Government, because things improve all the time as life goes on--with many specious arguments. First, they said that not all guns could be dismantled. The answer to that is simple. If some cannot--I think that all can--they should be specifically banned. It is as easy as that.
"I do not consider that the banning of handguns for target shooting or the banning of shooting clubs would be justified. I cannot see that there is any argument that that banning would make the risk of another Dunblane occurring any the less."
Many of those involved are simply scoring political points and trying to appease public opinion.
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