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6.45 pm
Mr. Ian Cawsey (Brigg and Goole): It is an honour to make my maiden speech, especially in this important debate. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) on doing likewise. He made an extremely valuable contribution to the debate.
I represent the new constituency of Brigg and Goole. I can genuinely say that it is new, because when the boundary commissioners decided that Humberside should change from nine constituencies to 10, the nine sitting hon. Members all seemed to work out for themselves the boundaries that they wanted and Brigg and Goole was what was left at the end of that process.
I have three predecessors--two of whom are still hon. Members--who represented parts of what we now call Brigg and Goole. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis), who was present until quite recently, did so for 10 years. Indeed, I believe that this week--perhaps even today--is his 10th anniversary of entering the House. In those 10 years, he has had by any standards an upwardly mobile career, even though it was as a Conservative Member. I am sure that he hopes that that will continue.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), who has just entered the Chamber, represented the Brigg and Goole area when it used to be known as Glanford and Scunthorpe. He has already been mentioned by the shadow Home Secretary, who referred to an article that he had written in the Shooting Times. I used to work in my hon. Friend's office and was worried for a second about whether I had had anything to do with the article. When the shadow Home Secretary said where the article was published, I knew: "Not me, guv."
The third person who used to represent what we now call Brigg and Goole is the former Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes, Michael Brown. Most of his constituency went into that of Cleethorpes; my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) paid a warm tribute to him in her maiden speech last week. I certainly want to be associated with all those comments.
I fought Michael Brown in the 1992 general election. I found him an extremely able opponent and a principled politician. My respect for him grew enormously during that campaign. Following that, in my days as leader of the local authority in North Lincolnshire, I found him an extremely helpful local Member of Parliament in arranging visits to Ministers and the like. He certainly always did what he thought was in the best interests of the people of Brigg and Cleethorpes, and whatever he chooses to do with life outside Parliament, I for one wish him well. I am sure that other hon. Members would wish to associate themselves with that remark.
My constituency stretches from Goole at its most northern tip all the way down to where Lincolnshire borders with Nottinghamshire. Goole and the surrounding
villages are now in the East Riding of Yorkshire, thanks to the previous Government's local government reorganisation. Of course, that has done nothing to satisfy the locals, who argue passionately that they are really from the West Riding of Yorkshire. As that was not in line with the Government's proposition, they did not get that change. The rest of the constituency lies in north Lincolnshire, leaving me the unenviable task of trying to achieve what the people say Humberside county never achieved: getting the people of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to live together in one entity.
The port town of Goole and its people are extremely proud. Despite being the largest conurbation by some measure in my constituency, it has a friendly community spirit. I have enjoyed immensely the work that I have done there since I was first selected as candidate for the area. The people have been through difficult times in the recession, but I am glad to say that the town has been like a phoenix rising from the ashes. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that my first official engagement as the Member of Parliament was to open the new steel terminal that has been built by Associated British Ports at the port in Goole. I trust that that is a hopeful sign of things to come.
As I have the ear of the House, I should like to plead for a bypass, which Goole lacks. The old port, known as Old Goole, is landlocked when all the bridges are open, which is a great inconvenience to the local people. A bypass has been built for all but that part of my constituency. Although the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions is not present, I hope that I can get a copy of Hansard to him, so that he understands that need. I am sure that he already does.
South of Goole is the Isle of Axholme, which mainly consists of flat farming country. In fact, it is reclaimed land and I pay tribute to the many internal drainage boards, whose excellent work ensures that the area remains first-class agricultural land.
All hon. Members claim that they represent a beautiful part of the world, but I truly do represent such an area. It includes the town of Epworth, which is perhaps most famous for being the home of John and Charles Wesley. It was the birthplace of the Methodist faith. The Wesley steps are still in the town centre and the Methodist faith remains extremely strong and important in the area. I am a Methodist and although I do not think that that is why I was elected, I do not think that it hurt either.
East from the Isle of Axholme, one crosses the River Trent to the villages and towns that are north of Scunthorpe and lead up to the Humber. As one might expect, there are many wharves around the Humber, including Flixborough, which, tragically, is probably best known to many hon. Members as the place where the largest peacetime explosion occurred, when the nitro-chemical works blew up on 1 June 1974. That killed 28 local people and injured 36. It is some indication of the strength of that explosion that it destroyed or severely damaged nearly 2,000 houses and 167 local shops. Even today in the village one can see the driveways to houses that were literally blown away by the blast. It remains a sobering reminder of the need for vigilant health and safety work in modern industry.
The Member of Parliament at the time of the explosion was the former Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe, John Ellis. Some hon. Members may recall that he served a Bristol constituency in the 1960s and Brigg and Scunthorpe in the 1970s, when he was a Whip in the previous Labour Government. Ironically, he is now my neighbour, which is how I got all those figures about Flixborough.
My constituency takes in many picturesque northern Lincolnshire villages before it finally finishes at Brigg, which is a lovely market town. It is home to a large part of North Lincolnshire council. It was particularly famous last year when Brigg Town football club won the FA vase when it beat Clitheroe 3-0 at Wembley. Those of us who were there will never forget that occasion. It is a beautiful part of the world, which I am privileged to serve.
I particularly wanted to contribute to the debate because I believe in banning handguns. That is not a recent view. In my former life, I was the chairman of Humberside police authority for several years and that experience made me believe that such legislation is necessary. I have had the great honour to visit other countries to look at their police forces and I have also hosted visits from overseas officers. They all say that the one item of our legislation that they would like to introduce, and which we should cherish and strengthen, is the control of handguns. Anyone who has visited America, and I am sure many hon. Members have done so, will understand why police officers believe that.
As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said, this is an all-or-nothing matter. The previous 1997 Act was illogical because it banned some but not all handguns. I have spoken to members of my local police force--I am sure that other hon. Members have spoken to their respective forces--and they support their national associations. They would welcome the proposed ban. The shadow Home Secretary said that he was not sure whether the Association of Chief Police Officers was in favour of the ban, but I am sure that even he would accept that if the Police Federation and the Superintendents Association support it, that must account for between 98 and 99 per cent. of all police officers. One should note that the one rank left is that least likely to be out on patrol.
It is simpler for the police to enforce the law if they know that all handguns are illegal. That avoids arguments about the legal status of one calibre weapon as opposed to another. If the law is to be effective, it must be enforceable.
Some firearms will remain legal--for example, shotguns and rifles--but we could learn about improving the safety of those weapons by studying what has happened in Australia. Following the mass shootings at Port Arthur in Tasmania, the authorities have tightened the gun registration procedures. Apart from banning many firearms, the Australian authorities have introduced several levels of registration. The most powerful weapons may be licensed only after rigorous examination of their use and in exceptional circumstances. In fact, they can be kept only for employment purposes. Those different levels of registration cover air rifles and airguns, but they are exempt from registration in this country.
I have spoken to members of the Australian police and I know that they believe that the new ban has made a great improvement to public safety. Hon. Members might
also be interested to know that the Australians, too, have had to decide how compensation should be paid. In the absence of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I can tell the House that that was achieved through a one-off tax. It was widely supported by the public, who wanted to see such weapons taken off the streets.
Firearms benefit from technological changes. Anyone who has any knowledge of firearms manufacture will know that, following the 1997 Act, manufacturers studied how to manufacture handguns that effectively were still the same as those that the previous Government wanted to ban. They worked on new products that were designed to be one thing but to look like another. Never underestimate the ingenuity of those manufacturers.
The Firearms Consultative Committee was set up under the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, which was passed after the Hungerford disaster. That committee is in urgent need of reform. It could act as an effective monitor, but not given its current membership. The law states that the membership should be
The committee has produced seven reports, which I have read. We have heard a lot today about how seriously shooting clubs and pistol associations take the matter of handgun control and legislation relating to it. If so, I am bound to say that that represents a bit of conversion. After all, in 1993, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the National Pistol Association made a submission to the committee in favour of relaxing handgun legislation. One should remember that the legislation in question was not the Bill that we are discussing now nor the 1997 Act, but the 1988 Act. They argued in favour of relaxing handgun legislation to encourage tourism. They stated:
"drawn from those who appear to the Home Secretary to have knowledge and experience of either the possession, use (in particular for sport or competition) or keeping of, or transaction in firearms; or weapon technology; or the administration or enforcement of the provisions of the Firearms Act."
That is a wonderful bit of Sir Humphrey Appleby. It has led to an unbalanced committee. Although it has undertaken some good work, for which I pay it tribute, it is more interested in protecting shooters' rights rather than in protecting the public. In the past, local authorities had just two members on the committee, but the former Home Secretary had them replaced by those from the shooting fraternity. One man, Councillor John Mellor, was a victim of that decision. I pay tribute to him for the work that he did on that committee, to communicate to it the public's concern about firearms. That is not a political point, because Councillor Mellor is a Conservative member of Wolverhampton council. If my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary decides to retain that committee, I hope that the reinstatement of Councillor Mellor and others might be considered.
"hunting handguns are widely used by shooters in North America and a less restrictive approach might encourage more of them to cross the Atlantic for shooting holidays."
I do not believe that that is a sensible approach to the use of handguns and I am yet to be convinced that those organisations have the public interest at heart.
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