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Lords Amendment No. 7: In page 5 line 4, after "but" insert:
(a) if it appears to the chief officer of police that a person required to be registered as a firearms dealer carries on a trade or business in the course of which he manufactures, tests or repairs component parts or accessories for shot guns, but does not manufacture, test or repair complete shot guns, and that it is impossible to assemble a shot gun from the parts likely to come into that person's possession in the course of that trade or business, the chief officer of police may, if he thinks fit, by notice in writing given to that person exempt his transactions in those parts and accessories, so long as the notice is in force, from all or any of
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the provisions of subsections (1) and (2) of the said section 12 and of the said Schedule 2; and
(b)
§ Mr. George ThomasI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This is a more important Amendment, and one by which the Government have sought to meet the wishes of the Opposition.
The matter was much discussed in Committee upstairs when the Bill was before this House. It was discussed in great detail in another place, and my noble Friend undertook to seek to introduce an Amendment which would protect outworkers. The Amendment is intended to go as far as possible in meeting the representations from the Gun Trade Association that outworkers should be excluded from the requirement to keep records of transactions.
I met representatives of the Association, who came to the Home Office, and I know that the hon. Gentleman opposite, also, met the representatives of the trade. They have been very helpful to us. The outworkers are a small company of craftsmen, mainly in the Birmingham area, and the Amendment gives the police the power to exempt certain people from registration.
§ 5.45 a.m.
§ Mr. SharplesWe on this side are grateful to the Under-Secretary for having accepted the Amendment. We put down an Amendment on this side during the Report stage of the Bill, as a result of representations that we had received from the Gun Trade Association. Only about 150 craftsmen are affected by the Amendment, and they are a diminishing number of people upon whom a great deal of the highly skilled work in the gun trade depends.
This was the first of the major points that we were asked to put to the Home Secretary by the Gun Trade Association, and we are grateful to him for eventually having found a way of meeting our point.
§ Question put and agreed to.
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Lords Amendment No. 8: In page 5, line 39, leave out subsection (5) and insert.
(5) The exemption in section 24(1) of the principal Act for registered firearms dealers
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shall cease to have effect; but that subsection shall not prevent any such dealer from shortening the barrel of a smooth-bore gun for the sole purpose of replacing a defective part of the barrel so as to produce a barrel of not less than twenty-four inches in length".
§ Mr. George ThomasI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
The Amendment is designed to give effect to an undertaking that I gave on Report in this House to find a way of meeting the representations, again of the Gun Trade Association and of the hon. Gentleman opposite, that firearms dealers should continue to be allowed to repair shot gun barrels by the sleeving method. The Amendment has been drafted to meet that point.
§ Mr. SharplesOnce again, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for accepting the Amendment, which meets a point that we put down as a result of representations from the Gun Trade Association on Report. I am almost certain that the Amendment, as now worded, goes the whole way towards meeting the representations which we received on the point. I am most grateful.
§ Question put and agreed to.