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Mr. Frank Cook: Will the right hon. Gentleman call to mind the fact that the National Rifle Association was first formed and established at Wimbledon because we had sent shooters to South Africa, who had turned out to be so poor that they had to undertake tuition?
Mr. Beith: With his capacious knowledge of the subject, the hon. Gentleman further underlines the fact that we have moved on since the days of Flanders and Swann to an era where people think it right to train to proper standards for sports in which they are allowed to compete.
I recommended my right hon. and hon. Friends, who had a free vote, to support, if they could, the previous amendment, on the strongly, indeed passionately, held ground that we were doing a terrible disservice to disabled people not to make provision for them. My advice on this amendment is based much more on logic: it just does not seem reasonable that, having conceded that these events should be held in Britain, we have made no provision for our competitors to train in Britain.
On both the amendments, Ministers have argued that there is a total ban and that any modification we make will have the fatal effect of removing the totality of the ban. There is no total ban because exemptions are made for guns to be held for occupational purposes and because the Government have made, and said that they will make, exemptions, so that Olympic and Commonwealth competitions can be held in Britain. Therefore, we are not arguing about whether there is a total ban. All our debates are about what the exemptions should be.
I simply submit that it would be reasonable, given the House's determination not to allow any general availability of handguns, even in specially controlled and secure premises, to make some provision for British contestants to train in this country for sporting events,
some of which will be held here. That is a reasonable plea, which would not in any way change the character of the ban--which, for the reasons I have given, cannot be a total ban and need not be so in this respect.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall):
I support everything said by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). The amendment is reasonable and the House should support it. I opposed a total ban on guns because I felt that we should have given the Cullen report a great deal more thought. I also felt that it would do nothing to deal with the problem in my constituency--and, indeed, other constituencies--of the constant use of large numbers of illegally held weapons.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has visited my borough and spoken to many people in Lambeth. He has launched a one-month gun amnesty for Lambeth, which is currently under way. Clearly we must tackle the problem of illegal weapons, and my right hon. Friend is to be congratulated on his initiative--although, in fact, the amnesty was called for by the community, not by the police or the Government.
As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said, there is not a total ban; there are exceptions. Surely we should be able to make exceptions for our Olympic sports men and women--both able-bodied and disabled--so that they can practise their sport in safe surroundings, with all the very stringent conditions contained in the amendment, with the approval of specialist centres and the rules on the storage of weapons. Everything possible will be done to ensure that the weapons cannot be used illegally, so surely we are taking the Bill one step too far.
It could be made clear that the possession of weapons outside designated premises would not be allowed. We have all sorts of ways to enforce that. The British Olympic Association--a body not known for its radical thinking--would not support the amendment if it did not believe that it could make the system work.
People talk about shooters going abroad to practise, but we should not forget that there is still a part of the United Kingdom where target shooting will continue to be allowed--Northern Ireland, which is exempt from the Bill. Presumably many Northern Ireland people will now become part of the British Olympic target shooting team because it will be the only place where people can practise. In fact, therefore, people will not have to go abroad because they can go to Northern Ireland--which shows the anomalies in the Bill.
Mr. George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent, South):
They could go to the Channel islands as well.
Kate Hoey:
My hon. Friend is right.
I appeal to the Minister not to get hung up on this fetish about not allowing any exceptions. There is a perfectly legitimate exception that could be monitored and scrutinised, and which would give our Olympic sports men and women the opportunity to compete properly, rather than going into a competition with their hands tied behind their backs. I hope that the House will think about the issue and not just go along with what has seemed, from the beginning, to be a feeling that, if we did not support a total ban, we would be evil people. I do not think that I am an evil person. I have never supported a
total ban, and I certainly do not think that we shall feel proud of this measure if we allow it to get on the statute book.
Mr. Robathan:
The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) is not an evil person. She shows a great deal of logical thinking, and certainly more than some of her Front-Bench colleagues.
This is the final debate on the Bill, if everything goes according to Government plans, which is likely. Therefore, today we are witnessing the annihilation of pistol shooting as a sport. I regret that; indeed, I regret the whole history of the issue, including the previous Government's decision to go further than the Cullen recommendations. I especially regret what is happening now, because it is mean-minded and in the spirit of a nanny state.
The Bill is illogical. The Home Secretary's letter to the British Olympic Association, a copy of which I received this morning, said that competitors could go abroad to practise. His exacts words were:
Mr. Frank Cook:
This will be the last debate on the Bill. From here, it will go to the other place, and that will be the last that we see of it until it is placed firmly on the statute book. For that reason, I am most grateful that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, showed leniency in allowing the Minister to tell us about the number of weapons that had been handed in--something not strictly in accordance with the amendment under discussion.
It is a great pity that you were not asked to show the same leniency in our attempt to find out about the payment of compensation for weapons that have been handed in. I am getting a huge amount of correspondence from people who, having complied with the law, are sick and tired of waiting for the payment to which they feel entitled and which they were led to believe they would get. They are still led to believe that they will get it, but they do not know when.
Mr. Michael:
We have always said that it would be problematic to deal with the number of claims involved, and that the process would take some time. We said that we would deal with the claims as quickly as possible, but that it was impossible to set a deadline. The civil servants and police involved are making great efforts to expedite the process, and that will continue to be the case.
Mr. Cook:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that explanation. However, I feel compelled to remind him
Mr. Michael:
With respect to my hon. Friend, it was the will of the House during the previous Parliament that the process should apply to large-calibre handguns. The House willed a difficult job to be done. In my view, it has been done well by the police and others. Of course, many claims and assessments have to be dealt with, but we spelled that out when the Bill was before the House and when the order was laid earlier this year. It is something of a diversion to come back to us about a delay, when that delay has always been predicted because of the size of the job to be done.
Mr. Cook:
I simply repeat that any timetable for handing in should have taken account of the process of valuation and handing across any compensation. To my mind, those are simple considerations--but I am a simple person.
"Dispensation could be granted to any competitors"--
that is, in pistol shooting--
"to shoot in Britain at something like the Manchester Olympics, although British competitors would have to train elsewhere."
That is an extraordinary, twisted logic and, frankly, the right hon. Gentleman should regret that. This is an awful measure, which is being defended by awful logic.
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