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7 pm
Sir Nicholas Lyell (North-East Bedfordshire): I intervene on two points of clarification. The Minister is talking about a straitjacket. As I understand the
amendment, the purpose behind it is to put in statutory form the Government's intention to make payment within 30 days. That is obviously 30 days of applying the statutory amount of compensation or the agreed amount of compensation if it comes within option C. I am not clear why the police having to make inquiries has much to do with what we are discussing. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide clarification.
Secondly, is it the intention that interest should arise if someone were left for some considerable time beyond 30 days without compensation? I understand that that lies behind the Government's general proposals for interest on non-payment of debts.
Mr. Michael:
I do not see that such a provision lies within the amendment, which would simply introduce a requirement.
We are not envisaging or planning for delays in making compensation payments. Pressure, however, will be put on the police and many others as a result of a temporary arrangement. How quickly we can finalise arrangements and have everyone handing in their guns depends partly on how expeditiously the proposed legislation is enacted and implemented. If the Bill passes through Parliament quickly, much will depend on whether we can back the arrangements for whatever weapons people have not handed in voluntarily to be handed in subsequently and quickly by an extension of the compensation scheme. I have in mind the employment of people and the arrangements that are already in hand.
We are talking of temporary arrangements to deal with specific circumstances. That makes the acceptance of the amendment inappropriate. The general principle is that we should seek to ensure that compensation is paid as quickly as possible and, if possible, within the period to which reference has been made. That might be thought of as aspirational, but it is something that we shall seek to do with the co-operation of everyone involved, if that is at all possible.
There are a couple of points to be made on a problem that is involved in implementing the compensation process. We are talking of 60,000 claimants, who will all submit claims within a short time. It would not be practicable to set a specific number of days within which individual claimants would receive payments. The sheer volume of claims to be made prevents that. Some claims will be processed before others and some claims might take longer than others.
There is, sensibly, no time requirement applying to payments under the compensation scheme for large-calibre handguns. There is nothing in logic, therefore, that requires that there should be one within the scheme for small-calibre pistols. That would be entirely inconsistent.
Mr. Boswell:
I raised earlier the issue of interest, and the matter was taken up by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire(Sir N. Lyell) with greater eloquence. Will the Minister consider, in cases where things go sadly wrong because
Mr. Michael:
I hope that there will not be gross incidents of delay, other than those where there might be specific complications on an option C valuation where there is a considerable amount of debate because values are not being accepted. We want to see all cases dealt with as expeditiously as possible. We shall seek to ensure that that happens, and I am sure that we shall receive the full co-operation of the police and all those who are involved in the Home Office. We shall try to ensure that everything goes as smoothly as possible.
We are dealing, however, with a challenging task. We are progressing rapidly because we believe that it is in the public interest for the guns concerned rapidly to be removed from general public ownership. The Association of Chief Police Officers and others have accepted our objective and supported us in trying to get the arrangements into place. I place on record my thanks to all those concerned, including individual chief constables, in seeking to implement the arrangements.
I return to a final point of simple logic: no time limit was placed on larger handguns. I accept, of course, that the Bill does not deal with them. That being so, it would be illogical to put a straitjacket on the way in which we deal with .22 handguns. I accept the aspiration that we deal quickly and efficiently with all claims--I undertake that we shall do all that we can to achieve that--but it would not be sensible or logical to accept the amendment.
Mr. Maclean:
This is a matter not of simple logic but of whether or not the Prime Minister's word is to be trusted. There have been some interesting revisions of Government policy this evening from a Minister of State in Her Majesty's Government. We assume that he is speaking with the authority of the Government. We have been told that the policy is not to have payment within 30 days, but to try, with all efforts, to pay as soon as is practicable or as soon as possible, leaving no stone unturned to pay Government debts as soon as they can be paid.
The Minister said repeatedly that we cannot have 30-day payments because that would impose a straitjacket on the Government. Does that mean, therefore, that the Prime Minister's statement on 16 September 1996 that a requirement would be introduced--it was not a straitjacket then, when the right hon. Gentleman was on the prawn cocktail circuit, wining and dining business men and pursuing their votes--by a Labour Government for the millennium was not a commitment that the Government would pay their bills within 30 days?
The previous Government did not insert such a requirement in the 1997 Act because we were content to rest with the provisions that we had introduced with the development of the British standard payment. We had decided to publish league tables of the Government's performance, and we were content to rest on that. At the same time, we took the then Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), at his word. He went round telling business men that a new Labour Government would introduce a requirement that Government bills would be paid within 30 days.
That is why we have tabled the amendment. We have been presented with our first chance to test the word of the new Government, and especially that of the Prime Minister. Can they be trusted on the issue of the Government paying their bills?
Sir Nicholas Lyell:
Would I be right in understanding my right hon. Friend to be saying that the word of the Prime Minister for a requirement seems, having regard to the words of the Minister of State, to have become a pious hope?
Mr. Maclean:
My right hon. and learned Friend is correct. It was not even a pious hope. It amounted to, "We shall do our best to pay if we can within 30 days." The requirement that the Prime Minister wanted is now regarded by the Minister of State as a straitjacket into which the Government do not wish to insert themselves. It is no wonder that the Prime Minister is concerned about froth on the top of beer glasses. It seems that his concern for the Government to pay their bills within 30 days was froth before the general election. It seems also that it can be blown away like froth from a beer glass.
The Opposition will force the amendment to a Division because it goes to the issue of whether the Prime Minister's words can be trusted or whether they can be overruled by a Minister of State, Home Office.
Mr. Michael:
What a surprise. The Opposition have found specious reasons to have another Division. It seems that they need to fill in the time. I have listened with admiration and astonishment to the developing capacity of the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) for invention. What a pious intervention from the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell).
I have made it clear that we are dealing with a temporary arrangement, which will be dealt with properly by the police and civil servants, under great pressure. The reason for that pressure is that there is pressure to get handguns off the streets and out of people's homes.
The right hon. Gentleman had to find some specious excuse for not having put in his Bill something that he now requires us to put in ours. His arguments were indeed specious. Of course people can trust the word of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. That is why he is Prime Minister, and the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border is where he deserves to be--on the Opposition Benches.
Question put, That the amendment be made:--
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