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Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 9:
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 10 [Having small-calibre pistol outside premises of licensed pistol club]:
Baroness Blatch moved Amendments Nos. 10 to 12:
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 11 [Firearm certificates to be subject to special conditions]:
Baroness Blatch moved Amendments Nos. 13 to 16:
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 12 [Permits to have small-calibre pistols outside licensed pistol clubs]:
Lord Harmsworth moved Amendment No. 17:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, with the leave of the House I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 18, 20, 21, 23 and 26. These amendments, of which Amendment No. 26 is the substantive one, allow serving members of police and military shooting clubs to continue to practise with large calibre weapons, consisting mainly of the types used in service, while off duty. Their weapons must be stored only in police and military armouries.
On Report, I gave notice that I might resubmit the amendments to your Lordships, having had a chance to consider the reply last week of my noble friend the Minister. I had also hoped that the amendments of my noble friend Lord Pearson might help me in my cause, but I regret that his disassembly amendment, to which your Lordships agreed, does not help me much.
Off duty police and military serving officers are caught by the Bill. I firmly believe that that is very much against the public interest. The next Dunblane, as I said on Report, may be a very different kind of Dunblane from the last one, where police and military marksmanship may be utterly crucial to the outcome. In armed robbery, where innocent bystanders are involved; in hostage taking, where, heaven forbid, children might be involved; or in terrorist acts, skills with weapons may be utterly crucial. As I said on Report, one can never get enough practice.
Under the Bill, police and military personnel will be restricted to the use of .22s when shooting off duty, just like any other member of the public. I simply do not accept my noble friend's statement that there is no necessity for service training to be supplemented by practice during off duty hours. I cited the case of a firearms officer in the Dorset police force who is able to augment the amount of time spent in service training on pistols, which amounts to once every two or three months, by a factor of five or six. I believe that that is not untypical. I have since had a letter from another expert, who suggests that a typical firearms officer who
This is likely to be the last opportunity to turn back from taking an irreversible and deleterious step. I do not feel that we should put ourselves in the position of failing to do the very best to allow those officers' marksmanship to be as perfect as it can be.
A former Inspector General, Doctrine and Training, Sir Peter Duffell, is in no doubt about the matter. His remarks apply equally to military and police personnel. I have no hesitation in reminding your Lordships of what the general said:
The Government say that the training is adequate. That, to my mind, is a rather Mandy Rice-Davis type of response. Both the MoD and the Home Office would have to say that and it must surely be technically true. But there is a world of difference between a basic acceptable standard and a training regime which can be improved upon by constant practice should the serving member of the police or military club wish to do better. That is the best position. Any amount of service training will be bettered by any amount of supplementary private practice. I would have thought that that was self-evident.
A desperate gunman, or gunmen, may have taken a hostage or hostages; they may be nervous and trigger-happy. Firearms officers will have only one chance to get it right. They must pick their moment. Surely their every nerve should be strained towards doing the right thing, to getting the timing right. The accurate use of the firearm must not be a matter for concern at that point. Its accurate use must be second nature: taken for granted. The police or military must be able to handle their weapons in the way that a very experienced driver handles his car, not one who has just passed his driving test. Off duty practice is a public safeguard.
To move on to storage: a central feature of the Cullen report was ownership and storage of handguns. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, has drawn attention to what one might term the "gloat factor" in the wretched Thomas Hamilton affair. In my amendments no such opportunity for gloating ownership exists for legally held full-bore weapons. My amendments place their secure storage beyond reasonable doubt. They cannot be stored at home; they must be stored exclusively in military or police armouries. What could be safer than that? I understand that some police shooting club or military club weapons are already so stored, even if not on a permanent basis. The requirement to store large calibre weapons in such tight security will often result in no change from current practice. Armoury storage is a central pillar of the amendments I seek.
If your Lordships agree these amendments it would be in the knowledge that the members of these clubs will have been very closely vetted; that they are continually monitored by their immediate supervisors. Your Lordships would also be preserving a very valuable source of recruitment. Sir Peter Duffell was in no doubt about this when he said:
As I said on Report, I am not going to claim that the large calibre of the weapon is a sine que non so far as recruitment is concerned, but there must be an association.
The police too are in no doubt about the recruitment aspect. A former chief inspector and chief instructor of firearms, John Warner, states, and I precis:
My amendments also cover compensation. Compensation under the amendments may be had at any time. At Report stage my noble friend the Minister suggested that it might be a problem compensating serving personnel who, in due course, surrender their large calibre handguns, either owing to a decision to discontinue or owing to ineligibility to continue to possess them through, for instance, retirement from active service. I hope I have not misinterpreted my noble friend's meaning but she said:
That is so but I do not see the difficulty. They would simply receive compensation as if they had surrendered the weapons immediately under the Bill. The Secretary of State has great flexibility in Clause 15. Inflation could take its toll. That is a price I am sure any serving member would agree to pay. The longer the guns are kept the less the compensation, if the Secretary of State so determines. The burden on the taxpayer would be almost negligible, particularly given the small number of shooters involved in the first place.
My amendments are very narrow in their application. They are self-contained. They leave the Bill largely untouched. The serving police and military shooters who are affected by the amendments constitute a small number. I do not think they would amount to more than five or 10 per cent. of the total 60,000 shooters there are estimated to be in the sporting world. Their weapons are securely stored in
Earl Attlee: My Lords, as the noble Lord said, he has brought this issue to us before, at Report stage. I think he does identify an important point, but not in the way that he has explained it. The important point is that the police and the military authorities will now have to devote far more time to training their personnel to the required standards. In other words, they will not be able to rely upon the efforts of individuals to do their own training.
However, I have not detected any pressure from outside in support of this amendment, even though I have looked for it--gently, I accept. Would this amendment apply to TA soldiers and special constables? Of course if it does, that would then provide a loophole which, if I were so disposed as a TA officer, I could possibly exploit. I wonder if the noble Lord has thought of that particular point?
Page 4, line 9, after ("ammunition") insert ("to use").
Page 4, line 38, at end insert ("or a visitor's firearm permit").
Page 4, line 39, after ("by") insert ("virtue of").
Page 4, line 43, after ("certificate") insert ("or visitor's firearm permit").
Page 5, line 34, after ("for") insert ("the grant or renewal of").
Page 5, line 37, after ("applicant") insert ("or, as the case may be, renewed").
Page 6, line 6, leave out from ("to") to end of line 7 and insert ("a condition requiring the pistol to be kept at a licensed pistol club.").
Page 6, line 9, at end insert--
("(5) A holder of a visitor's firearm permit who commits an offence under section 17(10)(b) of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 (in this Act referred to as "the 1988 Act") by failing to comply with any condition mentioned in subsection (1) or (3) above is punishable--
(a) on conviction on indictment, with imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years or a fine (or both); and
(b) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both)").
Page 6, line 10, after ("pistol") insert ("or for a pistol of a specified calibre under section (Police and military shooting clubs: specified exemptions)(1)").
"Precision is all important--whether it be in making sure that the enemy is hit with the first shot (in modern warfare you seldom get a second chance) or in ensuring that innocent bystanders are not hit".
"I feel I should also stress the benefit the Armed Services derive from recruitment as a direct or indirect result of the activities of rifle and pistol clubs".
"Police who have received only in-house training are initially surprised and embarrassed by the standards displayed by civilian shooters. In consequence many Policemen become motivated to improve and during my period with the Police I encouraged officers to take up shooting as a sport. In Police Firearms Training, shooting is just one of the skills to be acquired, but from them all, shooting skills (or lack of them) continues to be a worry for many policemen. It troubles them that other demands within the service do not permit more time/training to ensure higher standards. It is here that civilian clubs can, and do, offer additional opportunities to improve skills and confidence to those Policemen who become members. Clubs do not claim to give 'Police Training', more simply the regular opportunity to handle and use a firearm. Once a policeman feels more confident and at ease with his firearm, he is able to give more attention to strategy and tactics, etc., and this must contribute to safety and security".
"That would be a financial obligation on the public purse that would remain in perpetuity".--[Official Report, 4/2/97; col.1576.]
4.15 p.m.
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