Examination of witnesses (Questions 480
- 487)
TUESDAY 11 JANUARY 2000
MR CHARLES
CLARKE and MR
GRAHAM WIDDECOMBE
480. And that is the essential difference we
are talking about, is it not?
(Mr Clarke) Yes.
481. The Scottish police force have concerns
about the use of carbines and muzzle-loaded weapons. I do not
know what they are. Apparently the Home Office is dismissing their
concerns about proliferation of those weapons. Do you accept that
there are different circumstances and sensitivities surrounding
the issue of controls of firearms in Scotland, for instance, regarding
those weapons?
(Mr Clarke) I am not aware of that being said by the
Scottish Executive, but I will listen to that. It is not a devolved
matter, as you know. Certainly, we should look carefully at what
the Scottish Executive has to say about its concerns in relation
to these or other categories of weapons, but I am not aware of
any specific dismissal by us of the Scottish Executive position.
I would say generally that I gather there is not a track record
of criminal use of these weapons in Scotland or elsewhere. I am
not sure I would accept there is a qualitatively different position
of sensitivity in Scotland to elsewhere in the UK. I am sure people
living around Hungerford would feel equal concerns to those living
around Dunblane. I am not sure there is a qualitatively different
position, but the answer is yes, we will certainly take seriously
the representations of the Scottish Executive.
482. How does the Government seek to ensure
that firearms licensing is enforced in England, Wales and Scotland
in the same way?
(Mr Clarke) The real issue here is the different law
enforcement structures which are different in England and Wales
to Northern Ireland and to Scotland, and the different legal regime
which applies. The process that I have described about Her Majesty's
Inspectorate looking at the situation, the ACPO guidance and so
on does not apply in quite the same way in Scotland because of
the different legal framework, but it is the case that the chief
police officers in Scotland are on the FCC and they are also represented
on the ACPO Committees dealing with this, so there is a consistent
level of dialogue between the police forces in Scotland and in
England and Wales on this issue.
483. Having said that, there may be different
approaches.
(Mr Clarke) Indeed. One of the issues which I think
is difficult for us to deal with in relation to all of this is
that, of course, even within the 43 police forces in England there
are different approaches and I talked in my answer to the Chairman
earlier on about why we are trying to develop a better approach
on this and we wish to have a reasonably consistent approach in
Scotland as well, but of course the legal situation is different
in Scotland.
484. Firearms legislation in Northern Ireland
diverges quite considerably from the legislation in Great Britain.
Will the reform of firearms legislation in Northern Ireland have
any effect on firearms legislation in Great Britain and is there
any prospect of these two different regimes converging?
(Mr Clarke) We have maintained contact with the Northern
Ireland Office throughout their review of firearms controls and
have sought to offer our experience to them as well as to draw
on their experience. It is obvious that Northern Ireland has always
had different and generally stricter controls on firearms for
all the obvious reasons and we respect that. The process of whether
there could be convergence and how it would move forward and how
that would relate to firearms legislation in the Republic of Ireland
is a matter that will need to evolve over time and of course the
issues around it fail into insignificance in comparison with the
very major issue of arms availability across the north, which
is obviously a subject of large scale discussion. We maintain
contact with them. We discuss it with them. I gather the law in
Northern Ireland is not the same as the law in Scotland. We simply
remain in dialogue about the situation.
485. And an even bigger issue is obviously Europe.
I understand there is an on-going review of the European Weapons
Directive. Does that have any implications for the present controls
in Great Britain?
(Mr Clarke) It may do. The European Union Weapons
Directive has generally sought to set a minimum standard for controls
on firearms in Europe and to help citizens of the Member States
move more freely between states with their firearms, which is
a non-trivial point and which the shooting organisations mentioned
generally. I know there are some members of the Committee who
think that freedom of movement within Europe is a difficult thing
to address. There are serious issues there. Our controls on firearms
are stricter than those of most EU countries and there is no question
of us weakening our controls or making harmful changes as a result
of the EU situation. The Directive does allow Member States to
set their own level of control on firearms but with a common understanding
of other systems of control. We are working closely with the European
secretariat on its review of the Directive along with other interested
parties in the UK. The difficulty for us in all of this is we
are keen to ensure that unnecessary bureaucracy between the European
states is reduced. I thought other colleagues on the Committee
would agree with that. However, we do not want to see any diminution
of our rigid system of controls and I think that we would prefer
to see stricter controls in other EU countries and to go down
that line. There is the standard trade-off in European Union issues
about how we deal with that relationship.
486. In evidence given to us on a previous occasion
our controls were described as a gold standard in the world.
(Mr Clarke) Yes, indeed.
487. Is it not the case that the EU has more
to learn from our controls than maybe we have to learn from the
European Union?
(Mr Clarke) I believe that is absolutely the case.
I believe there is every case for saying we want to extend our
system more widely rather than to see things move in another direction.
Mr Singh: Thank you, Minister.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr Clarke. You must come
and see us again because we have finished with five minutes in
hand. You have been refreshingly helpful, you and Mr Widdecombe,
and given us a great deal to ponder. Thank you very much indeed.
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