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Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for correcting me. Clearly, from what he read, I was wrong. I did say what he thought I said and I was wrong. I withdraw the statement.

Lord Addington: Perhaps I may say very briefly that the fact about .22s is that when they hit something they displace less tissue. But with a smaller capacity handgun and shells with a magazine, there is the option of putting in another bullet. That effectively is what we are dealing with here. It may be slightly more difficult with a .22 but it is still possible to kill. That is the issue behind this matter.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: Of course, all handguns--all weapons--are dangerous. But we should remind ourselves that the danger arises when they are wrongly used by a human being. We should not lose sight of that fact. In every case, as in Hungerford and Dunblane, we find that the individual concerned was a madman. We must always keep that in mind.

If I thought that this amendment would guarantee that there would never be another Dunblane or Hungerford, I would vote for it. But, of course, there can be no such guarantee. I have to say that if this amendment is agreed, Thomas Hamilton will have won. He will have revenged himself upon the people of Dunblane. In addition he will have had a great bonus: he will have revenged himself upon perfectly innocent shooting people--people who care to shoot for a sport. He will have had his revenge on them as well because they will be wiped from the face of the earth in exactly the same way as he wiped from the face of the earth 14 young lives and one adult. Is that what we want? Should we say that because of the actions of that one madman we should take away the rights that many decent, respectable people who are not criminals have enjoyed? Do we believe that we should take away those rights completely? I believe not.

My noble friend spoke about systems of control. I must remind the Committee that if the existing controls had been properly carried out, Thomas Hamilton would not have had the weapons with which he killed those people. It was not a failure of the present control system. It happened not because there were .22 pistols available, but because Thomas Hamilton was allowed to have those guns when he should not have been allowed to have them. The policeman in charge of the investigation of his position had recommended that he should not have them, but he was overruled by the deputy chief constable.

When we talk about taking away people's rights, we must take into account the facts of the situation. I have looked at the evidence and can see no real correlation between the ownership of guns and the homicides carried out. For example, I was struck by the fact that in Switzerland and Norway, where gun ownership is high, the incidence of homicide by guns is very low.

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But in Holland, where the incidence of gun ownership is low, the incidence of homicide by guns is quite high. We must be extremely careful about what we should do.

I want to make two other points. First, what will be the additional cost of this particular measure? I do not wish to put cost against lives, but we should have some estimate of the cost of destroying a further tranche of weapons. We are entitled to have that information before we finally vote. It may be large or small--I do not know.

I come to my final point. If this amendment is agreed to, what will be the next step? Rifles and shotguns are just as lethal, if not more so, than a .22 pistol. With heavy calibre shot, one can cause mayhem with a double barrelled shotgun. So where do we go from here, if we are to ban the .22 and leave untouched even more lethal weapons?

I ask the Committee to consider this matter very seriously. We have all the sympathy in the world for the people of Dunblane and the little children who were murdered. Nevertheless, in this Chamber we have to consider the realities and the fairness of the matter. We must not impose upon ordinary, decent, law-abiding people a system which is completely wrong and has nothing to do with the matter.

Lord Renton: Before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether he would just confirm that when he refers to "cost" what he means is the additional compensation which would have to be paid and which would run into millions of pounds?

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I can confirm that that is precisely what I meant.

Earl Attlee: The noble Lord who moved this amendment is quite right. The .22 pistol is a powerful and deadly weapon in the wrong hands. It is capable of rapid fire and in skilled hands it is reasonably accurate at close range.

However, the noble Lord does not seem to understand one simple concept; namely, that if someone is minded to commit an outrage against society, he can do it at will and he will use the most effective weapon or means available to him. So if he does not have a legal full bore pistol or a .22 pistol or shotgun, he can go to the Continent, particularly toward the East, and buy an illegal one. If he does not want to use guns, there are other options, which are too ghastly even to mention. That is why the noble Lord's amendment in particular and the Bill in general leave a little to be desired.

If we do not adopt dismantling, small calibre shooting may be unviable. For that reason I prefer to delay my decision until a later stage. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

Lord Hooson: The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said that the Bill cannot provide a guarantee that there will not be another Dunblane or another incident such as we have been concerned about and he is absolutely right. But Lord Cullen, the judge who investigated that matter,

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had most if not all the arguments put before the Chamber today put before him and adumbrated at much greater length than they have been today.

Members from all sides of the Chamber have referred to Lord Cullen's report. It is just as well if I quote two of its findings. It said that one cannot guarantee that a gun does not fall into improper hands. When Lord Cullen was considering the assessment of risk, he said about licensing--I quote his exact words from paragraph 9.57 on page 119:

"I have already indicated that there are significant limitations in the extent to which the certification system can be relied upon to exclude persons who are unsuitable".

The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, virtually implied that the police were to blame that Hamilton got through the net. But Lord Cullen, who had heard all the evidence, concluded that whatever precautions were taken, one could not depend on certification for prevention.

Having heard all the evidence and the arguments regarding the calibre of guns, their use in sport, and so forth, Lord Cullen came to this conclusion at page 120, paragraph 9.61:

"In the light of the evidence I see no good reason for making an exception in the case of any particular calibre of multi-shot handguns".

We have been told from all sides of the Chamber today that we should pay specific attention to the findings of Lord Cullen who, in my view, produced an excellent and carefully considered report. I see no reason why one should not accept his opinion on these two matters.

5 p.m.

Lord Braybrooke: I support the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, because, in my view, he put the situation in a nutshell. This is vexatious legislation. Many Members of your Lordships' Committee and my fellow Lord Lieutenants have received large numbers of letters. In my case not one of them was in favour of the legislation. Many people have written against it and I received one letter this morning which said that no amount of legal circumnavigation around the sizes of barrels and so forth will alter the situation one whit.

The means of stopping the killings is to control illegally-held handguns. My informant told me that 2,000 such guns are imported every week and that there are around 2 million in circulation in the country. This legislation banning specific forms of gun, sadly, will not affect the situation one iota. I have full sympathy with Dunblane. I had a daughter who was killed on the roads in 1980 while riding her horse. It is terribly distressing. But we do not then assume that cars or horses are to blame. It is not guns that are to blame; it is the people who use them.

Earl Peel: The noble Lord, Lord Hooson, raised an interesting point. I believe I am right in saying that Lord Cullen did not distinguish between the two types of handgun. But surely the most important point is that Lord Cullen did not recommend the banning of handguns and it is therefore the Government who have made the decision to distinguish between the two types.

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I should like to make again a point I made at Second Reading and one about which I feel strongly. I am convinced that if 1 million or 1.5 million people in this country participated in handgun shooting, we would not be discussing at Committee stage today the banning of any form of handgun; we would be discussing means of increasing the security and control of those guns within private hands.

We must accept that point. It is one made by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. A number of people in this country--it may be a small minority--have enjoyed their sport for many years. We must bear their position in mind while deliberating these matters. An additional point in relation to illegal guns is that there are around 2 million illegal handguns drifting around this country at the moment. The police should be making a determined effort to contain them.

Security is a point that is well covered in the Bill. Another essential point is the question of the issuing of licences. It is a point we shall be discussing later in Committee and is a point we must look at most carefully. Clearly the present system has not worked and we must improve it where we can. To say that the banning of handguns will have the desired effect suggested by both noble Lords, I fear is not the case. As the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said, if we believed it would be effective, more of us would be supportive of the objectives; that simply will not happen. I say again that we must have consideration for and bear in mind those people who have enjoyed their sport and behaved impeccably over the years.

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