Clause 24 - Using someone to mind a weapon
Violent Crime Reduction Bill
3:00 pm
Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)
I do not think that I have anything to add to what I have said, and I ask for the amendment to be withdrawn. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington made an eloquent case.
The only point that I will make is in reply to the hon. Member for East Antrim. The weapons will be illegal, but the mischief that we want to address is people seeking to evade going to prison for five years for possessing a weapon by saying, “I am not in possession of a weapon, so I cannot be prosecuted and I will not go to jail.” That is exactly what the provisions are designed to act against. From what I have heard, that has broad support across the Committee, and so I ask hon. Members to withdraw the amendment so that we can get prosecutions, so that people cannot wriggle out of their responsibilities and so that we can continue the fight against gun crime, which is proving quite successful.
As I said, the latest crime statistics today show that the shotgun offences are down and the use of handguns is down; the use of imitations is up, but fatalities are also low. That is a matter of great encouragement, but we need to do more to ensure that people are not evading the law by saying that they have put the goods into other peoples’ hands, are not responsible and cannot be sentenced appropriately.