New clause

Part of Firearms (Amendment) Bill – in the House of Commons at 7:15 pm on 18 February 1997.

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Photo of Michael Howard Michael Howard The Secretary of State for the Home Department 7:15, 18 February 1997

With the leave of the House, I should like to respond to some of the points that have been made in the debate.

I of course understand the strong feelings to which the measures have given rise and the indignation of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), but I believe that the Government have come to the right decision on the question of the circumstances in which compensation should be payable. We have to look at these matters with a view to their wider implications, as I sought to explain to my hon. Friend in response to his intervention.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) asked a number of specific questions to which I shall attempt to reply in the time available. He asked about the transitional arrangements for the handing in of guns. Those are at present under discussion between the Government, the Association of Chief Police Officers and ACPO in Scotland. I very much hope that the matter will be able to be dealt with in precisely the spirit that my right hon. Friend suggested that it should be.

We expect to be able to publish the security criteria for clubs as a consultation document with the British Shooting Sports Council, the firearms consultative committee and others—I hope reasonably soon. We hope to bring forward for parliamentary approval a compensation scheme before Easter. The timing of the surrender and compensation arrangements, about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries specifically asked me, will depend on securing that approval.

The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) asked about the total cost of compensation to be provided under the Bill. That is of course dealt with in the explanatory and financial memorandum, which sets out that the total cost of compensation is estimated to be in the region of £150 million.