Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Solicitor General (Also Assists Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs), (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Huntingdon, Conservative)

We note that our amendment suggested by the trading standards authorities was not selected by the Chairman—for good reasons, I am sure. The amendment was a response to concern about the way in which clause 32 would amend the Firearms Act 1968. The defence set out in subsections (3) and (4) of the proposed new section 24A is flawed and out of   date. The existing language has been shown to be unenforceable in practice. It is therefore preferable that the Government should adopt the standard approach to those defences, as set out in section 146 of the Licensing Act 2003.

The amendment would also have provided for exemption of children used in test purchasing by trading standards. We believed that that was a sensible inclusion to prevent the clause from having unintended victims, as well as to ensure that the relevant laws could be tested and enforced properly.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

The clause is an important part of the package of measures in the Bill to tackle the misuse of imitation firearms. Clause 30 will ban the manufacture, importation and sale of realistic imitation firearms, but there will be exemptions. Those will be tightly drawn to prevent misuse, but as an added precaution the exempt items cannot be purchased by young people.

There is a risk that some imitations that do not fall within the realistic appearance test under clause 30 will still be purchased and misused by young people. The clause will prevent that by making it an offence to sell an imitation firearm to a person under 18, or for a person under 18 to purchase one. The age limit of 18 is consistent with that proposed for air weapons and knives.

We accept that the measure will apply to some children’s toys that will not be sufficiently realistic to be banned altogether, but which nevertheless have the appearance of firearms. In other words, the definition of an imitation firearm in section 57 of the Firearms Act 1968 will continue to apply, in addition to the more specific definition of a realistic imitation firearm in clause 30(8). In those cases it is right that a parent or other adult should make the purchase.

We recognise that it will sometimes be difficult for retailers to tell a purchaser’s age. In such cases we would expect retailers to request proof of age, but that is not always foolproof. That is why we have included a defence for a retailer, of showing that he had reasonable grounds for believing that a purchaser was 18 or over. That is in line with current provisions on the sale of air weapons. We believe that restricting young people’s access to imitation firearms in that way will further reduce misuse.