| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Humfrey Malins (Woking): Does my right hon. Friend recall the distinguished efforts of my predecessor,
Sir Cranley Onslow, on behalf of thousands of law-abiding shooters in Woking who think that last year's legislation was too hasty? Will he accept that thousands of people in the Woking and Bisley area believe that the legislation is hasty and punishes innocent sportsmen?
Mr. Maclean: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Sir Cranley Onslow was a noble defender of the right of innocent people to hold firearms in properly controlled, strict conditions. The Bill goes much further than that by seeking to ban firearms that are held at gun clubs under strict conditions.
Mr. Colvin: My right hon. and hon. Friends have paid tribute to Sir Cranley Onslow--and rightly so--for his efforts on behalf of gun owners and for his work as a distinguished member of the council of the National Rifle Association. Will my right hon. Friend pay tribute also to Sir Jerry Wiggin, who, in a similar role on the executive of the National Rifle Association and as head of the British Shooting Sports Council, did a great deal to make the House and the country more aware of the value of shooting?
Mr. Maclean: Of course I pay tribute to Sir Jerry Wiggin in exactly the same way. He has a long and distinguished record in defending those minority rights when properly and safely controlled.
To go forward with this draconian Bill without having clearly justified its need would be unfair and vindictive. It would kill off the Olympic sport of target pistol shooting in this country, ending for thousands of able-bodied and disabled law-abiding citizens alike a pastime that they may have enjoyed for many years. The British Paraplegic Shooting Association has said that the sport is as much a form of rehabilitation as it is a pastime for many disabled shooters. A total ban would mean that Britain would be no longer able to compete at Olympic or Commonwealth level at pistol target shooting events.
The controls under the 1997 Act are rigorous. When that measure was passing through the House, Labour Members argued that it was draconian. The controls that are available under it have not even been tried out. What is the rationale? What is the benefit that will be gained by such a draconian scheme other than a few snappy headlines and soundbites conjured up by the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson)?
We know that we are up against soundbite politics when even the new Minister for propaganda was out-soundbitten on this issue. Even when he was writing letters assuring constituents that
My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Mr. Colvin) has observed that Labour's evidence to the Cullen inquiry was entirely at odds with its present policy. A total ban on handguns would also be expensive. The Government have failed to come up with any real justification for the Bill and they have not said from where the money is to come, or which other commitments or projects are to
suffer if the money is to be found. The Minister must come clean on that point. Warm words and rhetorical smokescreens have been the Labour party's approach to accountancy in councils throughout the land, but it will soon discover that that is no way to manage the affairs and finances of a nation.
I press the Government again to explain how and where they will find the £30 million-plus to compensate .22 pistol shooters for their weapons and accessories. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe has already said, we opted against compensation for gun clubs during the passage of what became the 1997 Act. That was legitimate and in line with long-established principles and precedents. We reached that decision because gun clubs and their members could transfer and shoot with smaller calibre pistols. They were not put entirely out of business.
The effect of the Bill, however, will be to force the great majority of gun clubs to close. A total ban will deprive clubs of the right to use their property. They will no longer be able to operate or exist as a result of legislation.
The Government must say whether they will revisit the idea of compensating clubs that will face instant closure when the Bill is enacted. I shall quote the line that was taken by the Home Secretary during a debate on what became the 1997 Act. He said that
The Opposition do not oppose rigorous gun control. On the contrary, we bequeathed to the Government some of the toughest restrictions on the ownership and possession of hand guns that are to be found anywhere in the world. We took action throughout our period of office when we thought it necessary, after due consideration, to tighten firearms law.
I note with interest that the Government are considering banning imitation guns. It was the previous Administration who, in 1982, brought imitation firearms within the same tight licensing scheme that applied to other forms of dangerous weapons.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alun Michael):
The speech that we have just heard was a mixture of soundbite and poetry. The right hon. Member
If, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests, we wait until the 1997 Act has been in place for some time before considering whether to ban .22 handguns, confusion and uncertainty will prevail for the public and for shooters, and we shall in due course be faced with the second and higher cost of compensating shooters who have moved from higher-calibre handguns to .22 handguns. That will be a waste of public money. It is better for us to decide now, and to have certainty, in the interests of shooters and the public.
May I put the right hon. Gentleman right on the Labour party's evidence to the Cullen inquiry? I have it here. In paragraph 18, we stated clearly:
We have heard a number of maiden speeches tonight, and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that their quality has been extremely high--worryingly high, in some ways. My hon. Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) made a strong case for the needs of his constituency in a witty and effective speech. He brought to our attention the existence of the office of agent to the parliamentary rifle club: that sounds a curious animal, which will no doubt be sought out by a variety of people.
Having himself played a part in the campaigning work of the Gun Control Network, my hon. Friend paid tribute to his wife's work in chairing that group. I am happy to endorse his tribute. Campaigners since Dunblane have been characterised by restraint and common sense, rather than the hysteria that many of us expected might break out.
My hon. Friend was right to say that the basic question is, will the Bill work? I share his view that it will, that without the removal of .22 handguns the existing law is flawed and that there is every danger that it will not work in protecting the public.
One of the most powerful speeches came from the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock), a Liberal Democrat who spoke from experience as a shooter. He paid tribute to the honest way in which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had introduced the Bill, and had responded to so many interventions. In a similar way, I pay tribute to the honesty and clarity with which the hon. Gentleman spoke. He said that he supported the Bill
with heartache and sadness, and described how he had handed in his own handgun after thinking through the logic suggested by Dunblane and subsequent events. His words spoke volumes in demonstrating and representing the decency of the vast majority of shooters who will, in general, accept the law of the land--albeit with regret--when the Bill is enacted.
Some of what has been said about shooters going underground is nonsense. The hon. Gentleman spoke for the decency of people who have taken part in the sport of shooting over the years.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) is clearly a new Member of great talent and generosity, as his tribute to his predecessor showed. He said that he intended to vote against the Bill, but I hope that he will reconsider. It is not necessary to maintain a constituency-specific reputation for idiosyncrasy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Mr. Cawsey) arrived in the House with a distinguished record as a county councillor and, indeed, as chairman of Humberside police authority--a name which will now survive. His support for the Bill is invaluable.
It is a particular pleasure for me to welcome to the House my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela Smith) and to know that the confidence that we both showed in ending her employment as my research assistant on 1 May was well timed and completely justified. It was rather cheeky of her to get a majority of more than 13,000, but her cogent and effective speech demonstrated her powers of persuasion, and the two may not be totally unrelated.
The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) made a confident contribution. We hope that he will grow into a fitting successor to Members of Parliament who have previously represented that area such as Wilberforce and Cobden. I wish that I could accept his comparison between the prohibition era in the United States and today's Bill, but I think that he is wrong in that comparison. He said that madmen cannot be stopped from committing murder by getting rid of guns. No, but one can reduce their access to guns and the Bill will reduce their access to .22 pistols.
I congratulate the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), although I disagree with his description of the Bill as distasteful. I wonder whether he would apply that description to the 1997 Act introduced by the Conservative Government. [Interruption.] Some hon. Members clearly would, but those hon. Members who have been absent most of the evening are even more vigorous in shouting at members of their own Front Bench than in shouting at Ministers.
I also pay tribute to the thoughtful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer), who had a difficult job in the House tonight. I was chairman of the finance committee of Cardiff city council when it bid for the Commonwealth games, so I know the work involved and the disappointment of defeat, and I therefore share all the more in the joy that the games will be coming to Manchester. His speech demonstrated that the issue is much more complex than Conservative Members have suggested. I commend the quality of his speech and I respect his reasons for abstaining tonight. He made clear his acceptance of the commitment and undertakings given by my right hon. Friend with regard to the games.
My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) rightly paid tribute to his predecessor, who was courageous and passionate in pressing for a ban on handguns. My hon. Friend's reference to his brother's experience as a policeman facing the barrel of a .22 pistol was one of the many contributions to the debate which each in themselves could be conclusive. It was a telling point.
Some contributions were less convincing. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) thinks that practice as a barrister provides authoritative knowledge of low life, but he was unable to produce evidence and so became petulant.
My hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) and for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) suggested that we should allow part of a gun to be held at home and part at a club, as was referred to in Lord Cullen's recommendation. That point was considered fully during the debate on the 1997 Act and it was comprehensively dismissed. He also made the point that the loss of gun clubs would undermine police training because they would be unable to continue additional training in their own time.
The Association of Chief Police Officers and its equivalent body in Scotland were consulted in February on that point and neither suggested that loss of additional training in private time to top up police training in official time was likely to have the impact suggested. Training levels for police are not compromised by the Bill or by the 1997 Act. They are set by an ACPO joint standing committee on police use of firearms, taking advice from police firearms officers and experts in training.
The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell) made a rather odd speech in which he claimed that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had not argued that the measure is necessary and proportional to the need to protect the public. I found it odd because that is precisely what my right hon. Friend's speech was all about. It is a Government measure. We have shown leadership and clarity. We have put the safety of the public first. We challenged his Government to allow a free vote on the issue earlier this year and we have kept faith with that approach in government.
The hon. Member for Romsey (Mr. Colvin) seemed to be going through the motions in his contribution. He always looks distinguished but he made a weak and sometimes petty speech in which he tried to call in aid the European Court, which he clearly despises. Then he accused my right hon. Friend of being cynical, when he is simply being clear and honest with the House about the Bill's impact. The hon. Gentleman was against the 1997 Act, so it is hardly surprising that he opposes this Bill.
"people such as yourself will still be able to own hand guns, but they must be kept safely under lock and key at properly controlled centres",
the then shadow Home Secretary was reading the latest opinion poll and focus group findings, and Labour party policy changed overnight. That happened behind closed doors over mineral water in smoke-free rooms in Islington.
"where individuals or businesses lose their property or property rights as a result of legislation or decisions made under legislation . . . it is entirely proper that they should be compensated for that loss."--[Official Report, 18 February 1997; Vol. 290, c. 804.]
With the Bill receiving its Second Reading, all those clubs that cannot convert to any other form of shooting--for example, rifle shooting--because they were purpose built as pistol clubs will lose their property rights because they will not be able to continue pistol shooting. Therefore, the principles enunciated by all Governments, and which the present Government claim that they will adhere to, mean that the question of compensation must be revisited.
"In general, given the lethal nature of handguns, we see a strong case for banning them altogether."
It is as clear and simple as that. We did, of course, consider whether it was possible to protect the sport of shooting in the interests of those who had legitimately enjoyed it, but we concluded that that was not possible. That logic underlies the arguments that we have advanced over the past year, and the arguments that have led to our presenting the Bill.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |