Orders of the Day — Firearms (Amendment) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 8:15 pm on 12 November 1996.

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Photo of Mr Rupert Allason Mr Rupert Allason , Torbay 8:15, 12 November 1996

After the appalling tragedy of Hungerford, the House was determined to rush to legislate. I regret having supported that legislation at the behest of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd), who was then the Home Secretary. I did support it, however, and it banned a type of weapon. That was what I believed that I was legislating for. The reality was that that legislation placed an enormous and expensive burden on entirely legitimate shotgun certificate holders.

This is another occasion on which the House is being invited to rush through ill-prepared legislation. The fact that the money resolution was withdrawn this afternoon, shows the lack of proper preparation and consultation. This is not a choice between the right to life and the right to sport; it is a measure that penalises and stigmatises a wholly law-abiding section of the community.

I must now turn to the horrendous tragedy of Dunblane. My criticism of the present law is the built-in bias in favour of the applicant, to which hon. Members have referred, and the weight against revocation on appeal to the court. That crucial issue is key to the administration of a proper and effective control regime, which is what all responsible shooters desire.

The description given by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) of the police procedures examined by Lord Cullen is comprehensively contradicted by the report. I must remind the House of precisely what Lord Cullen said. Thomas Hamilton was regarded as a scheming, devious and deceitful person who was not to be trusted. It is true that Hamilton first acquired a firearms certificate in 1977, but he had deliberately and consistently deceived the police since then, as is clear from paragraph 6.30 of the report. As for ammunition, Lord Cullen considered it "strange" that Hamilton was ever allowed to buy large quantities of bullets or, indeed, additional weapons of the same calibre. Lord Cullen said that that does not inspire me with confidence".

If anyone believes that the Cullen report absolves the police, let him take another look. The report is a damning indictment. In paragraph 6.42, the author refers to the Holden memorandum, saying that it should have been placed in the firearms file … but this was not done. Detective Sergeant Hughes said that Hamilton was an unsavoury character and unstable personality", that he had an extremely unhealthy interest in young boys", and that he was an unsuitable person to possess a firearm certificate". Paragraph 6.45 of the report states: Detective Constable Taylor believed that Thomas Hamilton had been guilty of criminal conduct", but that did not give him any concern about his fitness to hold a firearm certificate. Paragraph 6.47, relating to the 1995 renewal signed by the deputy chief constable, states that the latter, in his evidence to Lord Cullen, said that he spent "only a few moments" on the renewal: Only the certificate was before him. He said he did not apply his mind to the question of whether Hamilton was a fit and proper person". No wonder he resigned!

Consider the criticism in paragraph 6.62 of the way in which the deputy chief constable gave evidence, which differed over two days, on whether Hamilton was fit to hold a firearms certificate.

The entire system administered by Scottish Central police was flawed. Lord Cullen talks of a glaring deficiency in the operation of the force's information system"— that is found in paragraph 6.72. In paragraph 6.73, Lord Cullen refers to the criminal intelligence check that should have been conducted in February 1992 on the renewal—it was never executed. In paragraph 6.78, he cites a disturbing picture of the operation of the decision-making process. The senior officer who had the responsibility of determining the outcome of Thomas Hamilton's application had nothing put before him but the new firearms certificate to be signed. In the absence of any indication to the contrary he assumed that it was appropriate for him to sign. The left hand clearly did not know what the right hand was doing.

The whole report is a damning indictment of the way in which the police exercise their powers under current legislation. I recognise that there was confusion about how the law operated in Scotland. I recognise, too, that there was great anxiety about the benefit of the doubt always being given to the applicant. The solution is to reverse the balance, leaving it in favour of any police objection.

In paragraph 7.17, Lord Cullen concluded: I do not recommend that such a wholesale prohibition should be considered. I tend to agree.

I welcome the Home Secretary's concession this afternoon to extending compensation to auxiliary equipment. Over the weekend, I met more of my constituents who are firearms certificate holders. They certainly do not conform to the image portrayed in the smears that have been aimed at the gun lobby. Those people have held certificates for 20 or 30 years and have been obliged to show responsible police officers that they are indeed fit and proper persons.

What am I to say to one of my constituents who has £3,000 worth of reloading equipment for making the ammunition for his weapons? There is also a gun dealer in my constituency, operating from home, who has invested thousands of pounds in security precautions for his house. Will he be compensated? Absolutely not.

The only equitable approach, if we are to legislate on this issue, is to make certain that everyone adversely affected, including the clubs, is compensated in full. No such proposals are in the Bill, nor are they in prospect. In my judgment, therefore, the Bill is unjust; furthermore, it is un-Conservative. Accordingly, I commend the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Sir J. Wiggin) to the House.