Orders of the Day — Atomic Energy Authority (Special Constables) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 26 February 1976.

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Photo of Mr Tony Benn Mr Tony Benn , Bristol South East 12:00, 26 February 1976

That is a very good question, which deserves a precise answer—which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will give when he replies to the debate. From my understanding of the matter my impression is that under the Firearms Act a man has authority to carry firearms, and that is the position in the interim arrangements. Whether the local police have the power to restrict the circumstances in which such a constable may carry a firearm I cannot tell, and I do not know whether the position varies according to the area. Under the new arrangements the constables would be covered by standing orders. I cannot tell whether that would include the provision to enable the weapons to be taken home. The intention is that they should be limited to the areas for which the defensive arrangements are necessary, namely, the sites in question and the transit. This could well give rise to some changes in existing practice.

Given that the firearms certificate arrangement under which constables may hold weapons as individuals is not a satisfactory way of handling the matter, we thought it right to legislate. That is why the Bill was introduced. It is a fairly clear and intelligible Bill. Its main purpose is contained in Clause 1, which is that all Atomic Energy Authority constables shall be deemed to be Crown servants—and that, in a sense, puts them back into the position they would have been in if they had not left the Ministry of Defence constabulary. All weapons that they purchase shall be deemed to be purchased for the public service, on the authority of the chief constable.

Clauses 2 and 3 complement the provision that I have described and try to relate it to the nature of the work for which weapons would be needed, in that they extend the circumstances in which the weapons can be used or carried to cover, wherever necessary, fissile maerials. The present police powers—these arise from the very different nature of normal police work—limit the carriage of arms by the police geographically and to the protection of certain types of property. In the case of the AEA constables, who are anyway already special constables under the Special Constables Act, the existing arrangements for the police would be suitable on the sites owned by the three bodies—that is, the Atomic Energy Authority, British Nuclear Fuels or Urenco—or within 15 miles of the sites, but they would not be valid outside the 15-mile limit. One of the major purposes of the Bill is to provide proper protection in transit. It therefore enables weapons to be carried in transit, wherever that transit may take them, and of course some of the lines of route concerned are long. They would cover property—that is to say, fissile material—owned or in the possession of the Crown or of companies, which would include BNFL and Urenco, or for the purposes of recovering stolen articles in these categories.