Clause 26 - Age limits for purchase etc. of air weapons
Violent Crime Reduction Bill
10:30 am
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East, Scottish National Party)
Amendment No. 2 would restrict the provisions of current airgun legislation to England and Wales and open the way for alternatives to be introduced in the Scottish Parliament. Amendment No. 3 would create a licensing scheme in the Scottish Parliament, similar to that proposed by the Government last week, insofar as it would license the vendors rather than the purchasers. The intention is that the licensing scheme introduced in the Scottish Parliament would allow more checking of purchasers by making it one of the conditions necessary for obtaining a vendor's licence. It would therefore affect the check on those owning air weapons, as we heard last week.
New clause 1 is effectively a reverse Sewel motion. For the constitutionally minded, authority would remain at Westminster, but responsibility for this provision would transfer to the Scottish Parliament at this time. New clause 2 would devolve responsibility for air weapons for all time.
The amendments and new clauses are not constitutional meanderings. They would implement the correct air weapon licensing scheme in Scotland. England has a profound problem with firearm crime, and the Government are right to address it. We heard from the hon. Members for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and for Brent, South (Ms Butler) last week that handgun culture is growing in their constituencies and in many other parts of England. I shall come to that in due course.
Let us consider the differences in gun crime between Scotland and England. The last year for which we have information is 2003–04. In England, there were 68 firearm murders, 1,195 attempted murders and more than 10,000 firearm offences. If my memory serves me correctly, the police say that about 8,900 of those offences involved real firearms. In Scotland, there was one murder, four attempted murders and fewer than 200 firearm crimes, and real firearms were identified in 194 cases.