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Lord Monson: My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that disabled people in wheelchairs cannot shoot rifles?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have no idea. I have no difficulty in accepting it, but I have great difficulty in accepting that that is in any way relevant to my argument. Disabled people are restricted from all sorts of activities. It is not the job of the law to make exceptions for them except as provided by law in order for them to lead decent lives and to have the opportunity to have jobs and to be protected from discrimination. It is not the purpose of law to ensure that, for example, disabled people should be able to hang glide or ski or do other things which would be physically difficult for them.
As I say, the Bill is not about guns; it is about a particular kind of gun. It leaves the vast majority of guns which are used for "sporting purposes" entirely untouched. Our disagreement with the Bill--I say "our disagreement" and by that I mean my noble friends who agree with me on this, because my noble friend Lord Stoddart is of course free to vote as he wishes and will undoubtedly do so--that is, those of us who think as Jack Straw, George Robertson, and I think, wish to put before your Lordships the case for a total ban on handguns. It is not that we think that this is a matter of fundamental principle. We applaud the Government for going as far as they have done towards a ban. We believe that the Bill, as drafted, will not only eliminate 160,000 guns, which the Government estimate, but will probably eliminate a good deal more, because the conditions which are laid down in Part II for licensed gun clubs are pretty severe, and they will eliminate many guns.
The Earl of Shrewsbury: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. How will his party eliminate illegally held guns in this country, which are a major problem? They are a far bigger problem than legally held handguns.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, those who break the law constitute a problem which goes beyond my party or that of the noble Earl. It is a problem for all society, and it applies to all crimes. None of us is saying that we have a unique, simple solution to that problem. What we are saying is that the availability of legal guns will not make it any easier to have illegal guns. If every gun seen in this country is an illegal gun, action is then that much more simple and straightforward and can be dealt with. We are not saying that by eliminating legal guns we shall automatically eliminate illegal guns. That would be a foolish claim.
I accept that the difference between us and the Government on a total ban is at the margin rather than one of fundamental principle. We believe that a total ban is sensible because the kind of loopholes which will emerge in the definition of guns which the Government wish to preserve will increase. The amount of regulation will be increasingly complex and the cost of enforcement will be that much greater. There is always the danger of slack security in gun clubs and that even with good security gun clubs will increasingly be terrorist targets if they hold a wider variety of handguns.
Having listened carefully to the argument about disabling guns and the disassembly of guns, we agree that disabling and disassembly are not suitable solutions. We are glad to see that the Government accept that point. Returning to the argument of the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, we are told that a ban on handguns will drive them underground. I have read the many letters which have been sent to me. They are intelligent, well written, well argued, moderate letters from those who support the sport of shooting handguns. It is an insult to believe that either the availability or the banning of handguns will drive them underground and that if such people were denied handguns they would be contributing to illegal guns--
Lord Burton: My Lords, has the noble Lord read Lord Cullen's report? He will find that Lord Cullen said that it may well drive weapons underground.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, yes, of course I have read Lord Cullen's report. I read it very carefully in closed conditions in the Home Office when it was first produced. Lord Cullen is entitled to his opinion that it may drive guns underground. I do not think so ill of the shooting fraternity to believe that it would turn to illegal weapons if it was denied the legal right to weapons.
The Earl of Shrewsbury: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me again. I am sorry to be difficult about the matter. The shooting fraternity has nothing to do with illegally held guns. It is quite straightforward that if guns are taken away from the legally held fraternity they will go underground. They are already underground and they are easily and freely available.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the guns which are to be taken away will not be sold in the open market or in the clubs and the streets. The guns which will be taken away under this legislation will be destroyed. There is no question of them becoming available. Again, the confusion between the guns and the shooters is causing difficulty. I must be doing something well if I am attracting this degree of interruption!
I turn to the more difficult issue of compensation. I do not need to say a great deal because I am sure that the Minister will be firm about the matter--at least, I hope that she will. We accept that there must be compensation for individual losses but we are quite convinced that the Government are right to restrict the
amount of public expenditure which will be involved in compensation for loss of business. After all, increasing regulation and legislation for the sake of public safety--whether it is in the environmental area, public health or, as in this case, physical public safety--always involves losses by those in the businesses which will be affected. However, it would be disastrous for social progress if compensation were granted to those who lose businesses which become out of date and impossible to sustain because of the increased concern for public safety or public health. Therefore, those of my noble friends who agree with me--and it will be the vast majority--will support the Government in any Division where the opponents of the Government seek to weaken the terms of the Bill; seek to increase public expenditure on compensation; or seek in any way to diminish the effectiveness of the Bill as it is now presented before your Lordships' House.Above all, we shall oppose anybody who would be foolish enough to try to deny the noble Earl, Lord Strafford, the right to withdraw his amendment and to seek to press for a Division this evening. I warn such people that a vote against the Second Reading now would make it possible to invoke the Parliament Act because the Act provides specifically that that may be done whether in the same Parliament or the next. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, that that would be true whether the Bill were defeated on Second Reading or on the Question whether the Bill do now pass, to which the noble Earl referred as a possible alternative. It would be quite extraordinarily foolish of anybody who is opposed to this Bill to seek to deny it a Second Reading or a sympathetic and careful hearing in Committee and, above all, to seek to deny it the right to pass and be returned to the Commons.
10.16 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, this has been a Second Reading in true characteristic style for this House. We have had a full and frank discussion of the Bill and its provisions. The horror and depth of feeling expressed about the tragedy at Dunblane has been the one unifying aspect of the Bill. As a mother who lost a son of school age, albeit in different circumstances, I can only say that I do understand the unrelenting ache in the hearts of the families and relatives of the children, Mrs. Mayor and their teacher.
However, the debate has raised many issues: some about means to ends; others that the Government should not have responded at all or in such haste; and some have accepted that the Bill before the House is a proper and considered response to address the issue of public safety.
I should like to turn to some of the points raised in the course of the debate. My noble friend Lord Kimball asked whether guidance on the criteria of pistol clubs, set out in Clause 16, would be available before the Committee stage. We are drawing up criteria for licensed pistol clubs in consultation with the police. We shall let the House see them as soon as possible. I cannot be precise about that but it is our intention to do so.
My noble friend Lord Kimball asked also about counter-signatories. The Firearms Consultative Committee recommendation on counter-signatories was implemented and police forces use flexibility in the interpretation of who can be a counter-signatory. We are implementing Lord Cullen's recommendations on referees.
My noble friend Lord Shrewsbury said in his emotional speech that recommendations of the FCC had been ignored. First, I am grateful to my noble friend for his wise counsel as chairman of the FCC--and, indeed, I congratulate him on his very recent reappointment to that post. I am sure that he will agree with me that a number of the committee's suggestions have been included in the Bill. Those include a number of sensible exemptions. But this is not the occasion for a wholesale implementation of past FCC recommendations. The Bill is already long and it is important that it concentrates on the key issues arising from the events in Dunblane.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, quoted from Lord Cullen's report in support of his view that the answer to Dunblane is stricter licensing controls. However, I must say to the noble and learned Lord that that was not Lord Cullen's view. Lord Cullen specifically concluded that stronger conditions were required on
- "the availability of self-loading pistols and revolvers of any calibre".
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Kimball for his broad support of the Government's approach. He referred to .22 pistols. I understand my noble friend's concerns to see the survival of small pistol clubs; but we must put public safety first. That means that club security must be strict and opportunities to remove guns from club premises highly restricted. It is inevitable that some clubs will have some difficulties, and some may close or even amalgamate with other clubs, as has been mentioned by one or two speakers in the course of this debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Howell, asked an interesting question concerning the Manchester Commonwealth Games. Four of the five pistol events at the Commonwealth Games use .22 guns and therefore British participation will be able to continue. In the fifth event, .32 centre-fire pistols are used. That gun will become illegal, as noble Lords know; but it will be open to a future Home Secretary to provide authority to British and Commonwealth shooters to use the gun at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002. Therefore the power to enable a Secretary of State to act in that way is safeguarded.
The noble Viscount, Lord Slim, referred to training for bodyguards. It has never been government policy to authorise firearm certificates for that kind of training. It is not a proper reason under existing guidance to the police for granting a certificate, and the Bill will not affect that one way or the other.
My noble friend Lady Carnegy asked a couple of questions. First, she referred to the possibility of using local defence establishments for providing secure club facilities. There would be no objection to pistol clubs
operating from local Ministry of Defence establishments, provided of course the clubs were situated adjacent to or within the Ministry of Defence establishments, and that they met the strict criteria that will be set. We do not want large numbers of guns to be transported to and fro on public roads. My noble friend Lady Carnegy also referred to tribunals. That point was also mentioned by other noble Lords. At paragraph 8.118 of his report Lord Cullen specifically rejected the proposal of the BSSC that the appeal function should be transferred to a specialist tribunal. We are exploring Lord Cullen's suggestion for narrowing the grounds of appeal to the courts in discussion with the police and other interested parties. If it can be made to work, we believe there is some merit in Lord Cullen's preferred approach.I believe that the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, said that the Home Office should have improved gun clubs after Hungerford. The criteria for gun clubs were reviewed and were tightened in 1990, and again in 1995, with extensive consultation with the British Shooting Sports Council, the Firearms Consultative Committee and the police. But clearly we need to revisit that yet again.
Reference was made to illegally held weapons. There has just been an interesting exchange of views about that. The proposals in the Bill which tighten up the requirements for certificate holders to notify the police when they buy, sell, transfer, deactivate or destroy a weapon should severely restrict the opportunities for legitimately held weapons to pass to the illegitimate user. However, no one pretends that the Bill is about controlling illegal weapons. As my noble friend has said, that is a matter for police enforcement, and it is a responsibility which the police take seriously.
My noble friend Lord Gisborough and, I believe, my noble friend Lord Balfour, said that people were still waiting for compensation after Hungerford. I am afraid my noble friends have been misinformed. Every person eligible for compensation after Hungerford was offered compensation long ago. However, there are two or three people who are not eligible because they still have use of their guns abroad. However, they believe themselves to be eligible and continue to submit claims.
My noble friend Lord Marlesford referred--as he has done a number of times in correspondence and in person to me--to the benefits of having a national database, and not merely those connected with controlling firearms. Lord Cullen noted with approval the steps that the police were already taking to exchange information about firearm certificate holders. That is to be welcomed and we know that it is improving all the time.
It has been suggested to me that, however sophisticated the database, it would not have helped in this particular instance. This was a man who had a bona fide licence and was a member of a gun club. Information that could have been available with hindsight probably was known about Mr. Hamilton.
My noble friend Lord Marlesford referred to Home Office incompetence in administering the licensing system. Perhaps I may defend my department on this occasion by saying to my noble friend that it is the
police and not the Home Office who administer the firearms licensing system and who grant or refuse licences.
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