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Standing Committee G
Tuesday 20 May 2003
(Afternoon)
[Mr. James Cran in the Chair]
Clause 43
Air weapons: age limits
Amendment moved [this day]: No. 124, in
clause 43, page 33, line 27, leave out paragraph (a).-[Mr. Paice.]
2.30 pm
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment No. 249, in
Amendment No. 250, in
Amendment No. 254, in
clause 43, page 33, line 30, at end insert-
'(3A) In section 23(2) add-
''(c) he is using the weapon on private premises or property with lawful authority but where a person has with him an air weapon on any premises or property in circumstances where he would be prohibited from having it with him but for this subsection it is an offence for him to use it for firing any missile beyond those premises or property.''.'.
Amendment No. 126, in
clause 43, page 33, leave out lines 31 to 34.
Amendment No. 127, in
clause 43, page 33, leave out lines 36 and 37.
Matthew Green (Ludlow): When we adjourned for lunch, I was on the point of concluding my speech with the thought that we must ensure that when tackling the problem of antisocial use of air weapons we do not prevent activities that in many parts of the country are regarded as legitimate. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to the suggestions that have been made, or that he will at least consider some alternatives.
Mr. John Randall (Uxbridge): I start by apologising to the Minister. In the debate on clause 42, I caused him high frustration by saying that I did not think that the clause would do anything. I say that because I have such great respect for him as an ex-Whip. I believe that ex-Whips in whatever form can provide great expertise to Committees. He has persuaded me of their merits.
As I listened to the contributions on clause 43 before lunch, I was tempted, because of the tragedy that was outlined, to think that there was some merit in upping the age limit. I confess that I am not entirely au fait with the ways of the countryside and how the farming community trains up its youngsters to shoot
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rats and so forth, but I am not entirely convinced that the provisions would do the right thing. I trust the Minister implicitly, but perhaps this would be a good moment for him to reconsider the matter. Perhaps the age limit is too high. I understand that there are compelling reasons in favour of change, but I think the Government should reconsider the question of private land.
As I said, I have no problem with the measures, but there is a question whether the responsible use of airguns on private land should be allowed. The trouble with this, as with all the proposed legislation, is that most of the people involved are completely law abiding and go about their pursuit perfectly reasonably, but the activities of a handful might mean that those lawful and pleasurable activities will be curtailed. There will be time to re-examine some of the issues-perhaps not in Committee, but there is always Report, Third Reading and the other place-so that we can see whether we are punishing a huge majority because of the misdeeds of a few.
The Chairman: Order. Before I call the Minister, may I make it clear that, alas, the consumption of coffee is not allowed in the Committee Room? I ask you, Caroline Flint, to take your coffee outside with you.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): First, let me say that, as an ex-Whip, the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) was one of the least frustrating contributors to the previous debate. I say that knowing that no one would dare to bear down on me in the present company.
I shall try to respond to the debate, but I cannot remember some of the points that were made this morning on the more general issues. The amendments are designed to retain the existing age limit on owning or possessing an air weapon, or to mitigate the effects on legitimate shooters of the increase in the age limit. The intention behind clause 43 is to tackle the misuse of air weapons by young people by ensuring that they do not have unsupervised access to such weapons.
There has been a steady rise in the misuse of air weapons in recent years. In 2001-02 there was a 21 per cent. increase in such offences. Such misuse can cause serious nuisance, crime and injury, and most instances of misuse involve young people. The Government are determined to curb that trend and we believe that raising the age limit from 14 to 17 is an important part of achieving that. I agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) and for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) that maturity is an issue.
Much of the nuisance occurs in rural as well as in urban communities. There is an annoying notion being peddled around that an MP's understanding the countryside is dependent on the constituency that he or she represents or on the party that he or she belongs to. I am the proud representative of the very urban constituency of Coventry, North-East, where I was born and raised. However, I have never considered myself a townie, and as a youngster I spent most of my time and recreation in the countryside. That notion ought to be knocked on the head.
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I thank the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) for the thought that he has given to the issue of raising the age limit and the attempt that he has made to reach a conclusion on how to mitigate some of the consequences of doing so. I am mindful that there are many legitimate uses for air weapons and many responsible young shooters. I am also aware of the concerns expressed by shooting organisations and other bodies such as the Countryside Alliance. As I said earlier, I consulted the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, whose representatives I thank for their careful and thoughtful input to attempts to draw the line in the right place and to determine how we could raise the age limit without harming activities, such as pest control, that we do not necessarily want to prevent but that can involve young people using air weapons on farms. We do not wish to interfere with such activities.
I know that when it first saw the Bill the British Association for Shooting and Conservation was slightly concerned about shooting on private land, because although we had discussed that issued with the association and other organisations, we had not accurately got down our thoughts when drafting the Bill. In dealing with the hon. Gentleman's amendments, I think that we have still not quite got there. It is a drafting problem. There was no intention to impinge on that area. In drafting the Bill we could either rule out the private land issue, or include it with a view to amending it at a later date, but let me make it clear that there was no attempt to row back on some of the intentions that we had right from the start.
We had some very constructive engagement with organisations that were concerned about the issue. To address those concerns, I have already agreed to look at the options for allowing some unsupervised shooting on private land, but we must be careful to ensure that any such shooting does not cause a nuisance to neighbours. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes said, that will be a particular issue where the private land is in an urban area with neighbours close by. Amendment Nos. 249 and 250 do not go far enough in addressing that point.
I am far more encouraged by amendment No. 254. I do not want to argue with the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire, because he is trying to achieve exactly what we want to achieve, but it is not clear why he included both ''private premises'' and ''property'' in the amendment. I think that he is just taking a belt-and-braces approach, but the legislation already defines premises as including any land, so there is no reason to go further, unless he was thinking about something else when he framed the amendment. I would need to look closely at the concept of lawful authority, which implies something wider than just the consent of the owner.
Furthermore, none of the amendments includes a lower age limit, so they would theoretically allow a five-year-old to shoot unsupervised, which I am sure is not the hon. Gentleman's objective.
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Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire): I am grateful for the way in which the Minister is addressing the amendments, and for his kind remarks about my efforts. He is right: I certainly did not intend a five-year-old to be able to walk round with an air weapon; that is a lacuna in my proposal. As for premises and property, I was simply taking a belt-and-braces approach, as he suggested.
I intervened to point out something that I should perhaps have said earlier. I tabled an amendment, which unfortunately has not been selected, to deal with the issue of the adult who provided the weapon. Under that amendment, which is to the next clause, anyone who gave or lent an air weapon to someone under 17 who misused it would have been liable for the offence along with the young person. That would go a long way towards meeting some of the concerns of Government Back Benchers. As I said, the amendment has not been selected, so we shall not debate it, but I hope that the Minister will bear it in mind as a possible way of finding the way forward that he talks about.
Mr. Ainsworth: I welcome what the hon. Gentleman is trying to do and I am sure that we can find a solution. I say to any members of the Committee who might be concerned about our trying to deal with this issue that we need to think about two points. One was raised by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green). If we wanted to take action in this respect, we would potentially be putting in place a measure that was unenforceable in many parts of the country and bringing the law into disrepute by so doing. Even if we wanted to go there, the point made by the hon. Gentleman is valid.
The second point concerns the interpretation of the terms ''private land'' and ''public land''. Public land is land to which the public has access by payment or otherwise, so a canal towpath, public rights of way and so on could be covered. We need not fear that we are necessarily creating a problem in that regard. There are issues about proximity to residences. I am not sure that we can deal with them in greater detail than amendment No. 254 and the comments that have just been made by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire deal with them. However, if we genuinely want to deal with misuse and not prevent what most people think is the appropriate use of weapons, we are close to reaching an accommodation that will do that.
I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment in the light of the comments that I have made and our continuing work to bring into being something that is close to amendment No. 254.
2.45 pm
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