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Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, as the House will have noted, we went out on a high note, which was defeat, but if that has added to the good humour of the Minister on which we have come to rely, then it has its positive virtues.
We are delighted to join with the Minister in sending the Bill on its way to the Commons. It is a good Bill. It has been improved at the edges by amendments from all round the House and clarified by the Minister's unfailing assiduous attention to the questions put to him on amendments at other points in the Bill. It means, as the Minister said, that rightly and belatedly payments to victims for compensation for their injury, pain, distress and additional costs will now be ring-fenced from the recovery of benefits. Justice will be done, and that is highly desirable.
Like others, I wish to thank in particular my own noble friends, the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, for his wit and style and effectiveness, my noble friend Baroness Turner for her expertise, on which we all rely. I should also like to thank our advisers, in particular Mr. Dismore, from the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, and the TUC. As the Minister has said, we wish this Bill all speed in the Commons.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I really must reassure the Minister and make my apologies to the Secretary of State for careless use of language. It was not the Secretary of State I was comparing to Cambyses, the King of Persia, it was his clause. I am free to reproach a clause within the limits of free speech in Parliament as much as I like.
I agree of course with all the praise of this Bill that has been uttered. I wish it well. I hope it passes speedily through another place and reaches the statute book before other events intervene. It does put right what I thought was a very bad mistake that was made on the very first Bill on which I ever spoke from the Front Bench. I said then that I thought this could not last. I am delighted to have been proved right.
I should like to join in the thanks to all the others who have been involved in the Bill, to the noble Viscount, Lord Chelmsford, and to the noble Earl, Lord Clanwilliam, who have brought a great deal of interest to our deliberations and given us a much more all-round discussion than we could have had otherwise. I thank the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy. We first spoke on the same side in a debate 42 years ago, I believe. We are still doing it, I am glad to say and I expect us to keep it up, for the time being anyway. I extend thanks to the
noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham. She and I have been through many battles together. This is one more. We have done a few good things in this, although, as always, we can tell stories about the fish that got away.I should like to thank our advisers from the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, Andrew Dismore and Rachel Oliver, who have been extremely helpful, thorough and patient and able to explain very technical matters in very clear language. But most of all I should like to thank the Minister for his exemplary patience, endurance, and wit and for his ability to come back on anything. He is known to certain people on his own Back Benches, so good is his defence, after the memorable Australian stonewaller, "Slasher Mackay". I was talking recently to my dentist. I discovered that he used to play grade cricket in Sydney. He used to bowl at Slasher Mackay. I asked him what was the way to get Slasher Mackay out. My dentist replied, after some thought, "hand grenades!".
I have no remedy so drastic available to me so the Minister survives yet another Division. If I have sharpened his wits, he has sharpened mine. I have thought of yet more ways of placing spin, but always his bat seems to be there. I shall keep at it. I have enjoyed our exchanges and I look forward to the next one.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
Firearms (Amendment) Bill
8.41 p.m.
Lord Marlesford had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 66:
Before Clause 34, insert the following new clause--
(" .--(1) There shall be established a central register of all persons to whom a shot gun or firearm certificate has been issued.
(2) The register shall--
(a) record the National Insurance number of the person to whom the certificate is issued; and
(b) provide access on-line to all police forces and other agencies with access to the National Police Computer including, for those persons convicted of an offence for which a custodial sentence has been imposed, the prison authorities.
(3) The Secretary of State may direct that those persons who apply for a shot gun or firearm certificate before they are eligible to be issued with a National Insurance number shall be issued with such a number for the purposes of subsection (2).").
The noble Lord said: I shall not move the amendment but I wish to give notice that I shall retable it at Report.
Clause 34 [Power of search with warrant]:
Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 67:
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 68. Yesterday this House voted overwhelmingly for civil
I ask the Committee to consider how draconian and sweeping the powers given by Clause 34 are. It gives a constable or a civilian officer the right to enter someone's house at any time--at four o'clock in the morning, if they choose--if necessary by force, and to search the premises and every person found there--the householder, his wife, his sons, his daughters, his aged parents, and anyone who happens to be staying at the time--and to seize not only firearms, which most Members of the Committee would consider reasonable enough, but imitation firearms, any firearm certificate or even shotgun certificate, and any other document authorising the possession, purchase, acquisition, manufacture, sale or transfer of any firearms or ammunition. Such draconian powers can no doubt be justified where the danger is immediate, but not, I submit, where the danger is long-term. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: There is a difference between what is proposed in the Bill and the civil liberties we debated yesterday. There we were concerned with the fact that the police had power to authorise themselves to engage in intrusive surveillance of people's homes. Here, it is, as with most search warrants, a warrant signed by a justice of the peace or the equivalent in Scotland. I am not saying that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is wrong, but it is not quite the same kind of issue about civil liberties.
Lord Mackay of Drumadoon: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, for his contribution, which has made the first point I seek to make. It is not that the police, at their own hand, can act. They require a duly applied for and granted warrant, as both Clause 46(1) and (2) make clear.
The noble Lord's amendments would seek to restrict such warrants to a situation where there is reason to suspect an immediate danger. I believe that this would be too limited a provision. There may be occasions where, by obtaining a warrant and removing firearms, the police are able to prevent an incident from occurring. If the police had to demonstrate to the justice of the peace or the sheriff that the danger is immediate they might be unable to do so and thus be unable to prevent a tragedy occurring. It is very difficult to define what is an immediate as opposed to a non immediate danger. It is a question of semantics, of which the Committee would do well to steer clear. The individual's interests will be perfectly well safeguarded. The police will have to give sufficient information on oath to the justice of the peace or sheriff to convince him that a warrant is justified. With that explanation, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw Amendment No. 67.
Lord Monson: First, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is entirely correct. The wrong that I am seeking to right is not at all in the same league as the wrong that was righted yesterday. I never pretended that it was. Nevertheless, I still submit that it is unjustifiable to give the police or civilian officers the power to raid people's
I acknowledge the Minister's contention that there are grey areas here. I suppose that if the law is applied with a light hand, so to speak, and the kind of situation I have described where people are raided in the small hours of the morning happens only where it is genuinely justified, one could perhaps accept the Bill as it is. On the assumption--I hope my optimism is justified--that the law will not be applied in a heavy-handed manner, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie moved Amendment No. 69:
Page 17, line 42, leave out ("a") and insert ("an immediate").
After Clause 34, insert the following new clause--
(" . The chief officer of police for the area in which the holder of a firearm certificate resides may authorise random spot checks to take place as to the satisfaction of the conditions of storage contained in the certificate.").
The noble Earl said: This amendment has the merits of ensuring that licensed weapons of all types are kept in the secure storage cabinets that the owners have to provide. This secure storage is an integral part of the weapon licensing system. The acceptance of the amendment would render all firearms holders liable to impromptu visits by the police for the inspection of their weapon storage arrangements. These spot checks would not require warrants as they would be no more than unannounced visits, with the normal courtesies observed.
The amendment was suggested to me on the grounds that some weapon owners, especially in the countryside, keep their weapons to hand and in their living quarters and not in the approved cabinets. The risk of accident thereby increases. The current arrangements for visiting by appointment clearly lead only to a guarantee that the weapons are being stored properly for the duration of the planned visit. The acceptance of this amendment will create a climate in which weapon owners and their storage arrangements were liable to inspection at any time thereby improving the prospects for domestic and public safety. I beg to move.
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