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4.45 pm
Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells) rose--
Sir Jerry Wiggin (Weston-super-Mare) rose--
Mr. Howard: I will give way first to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory).
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that a shooter keeping illicit spares would be breaching the conditions of the firearms certificate? If someone is prepared to do that, they may easily do the same for an entire pistol. I am not entirely clear that my right hon. and learned Friend's objection to the disassembly option on those grounds is in fact valid.
Mr. Howard: I understand my right hon. Friend's point, which is serious and substantial. He is right that those who would be engaging in the kind of conduct that I am describing would be in breach of the law. I see the force of the argument that those who are prepared to break the law can obtain access to illegal guns. At the end of the day, my right hon. Friend--and no doubt some other of my hon. Friends--and I may simply have to disagree on the matter. The proposal would place a temptation before those who would be tempted to take advantage of what would rapidly become a loophole in the law. As I shall go on to explain, the difficulties of policing the proposed arrangement would be extreme. I believe that on those grounds we must reject my right hon. Friend's argument, although I see its force, and adhere to the proposals that the Government originally made.
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire): Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Howard: I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman allowed me to make some more progress and finish the point.
Furthermore, under a scheme of the kind contemplated under the amendments, it would be the responsibility of the club to ensure that the detached component parts were lodged safely and securely and that they were always handed in when the member left the club after shooting. The club would also have to check each time that what was handed in was the component part that was supposed to be handed in and not a duplicate of some kind.
Right hon. and hon. Members will recognise that the items that we are talking about are relatively small and easily concealable pieces of metal. Clubs would of course be under a legal responsibility, set out in the terms of their licences, to ensure that booking in and out was done properly. A club that did not meet that very important responsibility would be at risk of losing its licence. If a club were not meeting the necessary standards in that respect, it would however be difficult in practice for the police to detect it. In practice, it would be a matter of what happened at the club day after day and not just on the days when a police officer was there and able to see what was going on.
Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North):
I am seriously trying very hard to follow the logic and make it stand up to scrutiny. The Home Secretary objects to keeping a component at home and the barrel or the chassis of the
Mr. Howard:
I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, as I did with my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells, who put the same point. Some people may not want to procure an illegal gun, but may be tempted by the possibility of having an illegally held part.
Mr. John Carlisle (Luton, North):
How many?
Mr. Howard:
My hon. Friend asks how many. The difficulty with that argument is that takes only one to engage in such activity, to procure a gun and to use it in the way in which it was used at Dunblane.
Mr. Carlisle:
I confess that I can hardly believe what I am hearing from my right hon. and learned Friend. We have surely gone past the argument about legislating on the basis of whether people may be tempted to take a gun in one form or another. Either my right hon. and learned Friend believes in this legislation or he does not. I suspect that the force of argument from the Conservative Benches is beginning to get to him. Will he be tempted to think again about disassembly, and possibly to accept the Lords amendment?
Mr. Howard:
I am sorry to have to disabuse my hon. Friend. I do not follow his argument that we should not legislate on the basis of temptations that may be put in people's way. We legislate on the basis of the view that we take of human behaviour: that is what all legislation is about. My hon. Friend and I may disagree about the precise aspect of human behaviour with which we are dealing, but such a judgment is the basis on which all legislation is passed in the House.
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan):
The Home Secretary is right to detect an attempt to weaken his legislation. I am bound to say that, if he had decided to ban all handguns, he would not be in this difficulty. If it was the other way round, and disassembly involved the bulk of the gun being in the club and the component being outside the club, would that strengthen instead of weaken the legislation? I realise that that is not in the amendment, but has he considered that point?
Mr. Howard:
I have considered that point, and I dealt with it a few moments ago when it was put to me by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells. When the hon. Gentleman got to his feet, I expected him to say that the legislation did not go far enough, and that we should have a total ban, and he duly fulfilled my expectation.
The difficulty is that however well the club carries out its responsibilities, there will be scope for an owner who has a mind to do so illicitly to take out the pistol slide, a revolver cylinder or some other small component. He may attempt to substitute it with something else, and he could do that in a variety of ways. There is no point endlessly speculating about how that could be done, but one possibility--it is only one possibility--has already been mentioned in a discussion of this issue. It could be substituted with the same component taken from a deactivated version of the same gun. The differences in
appearance between a working and a deactivated component part are not necessarily large. Indeed, it is said to be one of the advantages of a deactivated gun, to those who like to possess them, that they look as much as possible like the real thing.
An owner determined upon mischief could disguise the deactivated component so that it looked on superficial inspection like the real one. It would not have to work like the real component, just look like it.
Dame Jill Knight (Birmingham, Edgbaston):
I must place on record the fact that I hardly ever disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend, but I simply cannot follow the force of his argument that we cannot proceed with legislation if some people may contravene it. That is what he is saying. We all know that it is possible for people to get hold of guns even if they have no right to have them. That will happen whatever my right hon. and learned Friend does in the Bill. I cannot follow the argument that, because some people may break the law, what my right hon. and hon. Friends have said is not reasonable. Whatever happens, some people will break the law.
Mr. Howard:
I suspect that it pains me to disagree with my hon. Friend even more than it may pain her. Her point is not valid, because we have to make judgments about the effect of the laws that we pass on the behaviour of those with whom we are attempting to deal. If it is a consequence of one law rather than another that temptation is likely to be increased, and therefore likely to be succumbed to, and that that is likely to lead to more guns coming into the hands of people who might abuse them, we must take that into account. It is a matter of judgment, and my hon. Friend may legitimately arrive at a different judgment and disagree with me. It is a valid consideration, and it should be taken into account in framing the precise terms of the legislation.
Mr. Michael Stern (Bristol, North-West):
The force of my right hon. and learned Friend's argument is that it is more important to remove temptation from people who he and the Minister of State have said on many occasions are the least likely people to succumb to that temptation. A large group of people will be tempted: my right hon. and learned Friend has already admitted that such people regard the legislation as totally irrelevant. They will use illegal guns. Why is he aiming at the small group of people who are the least likely to succumb to temptation?
Mr. Howard:
I hope that my hon. Friend is not suggesting that we are ignoring the enormous problems that undoubtedly exist as a consequence of the use of illegal guns. We recognise the dimension of that serious problem, and the police do their utmost to deal with it every working day of the year. The fact that they are not totally successful, for reasons which we all understand, does not relieve the House of the responsibility of dealing with another aspect of the problem, which is the
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