HC Deb 03 November 1983 vol 47 cc989-90
12. Mr. Marlow

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce mandatory additional sentences for offences including the use of firearms or other weapons.

Mr. Brittan

I consider it unnecessary to make additional sentences mandatory, since criminals carrying firearms can already expect to receive a sentence of imprisonment consecutive to that imposed for the substantive offence. As I have recently indicated, those who murder with firearms in the course of crime can expect to serve a minimum of 20 years. I shall also be bringing forward legislation at a suitable opportunity to increase to life imprisonment the maximum penalty for carrying firearms in furtherance of crime.

Mr. Marlow

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that his recent statements and commitments on this subject have been massively reassuring to the nation, which is now convinced that not only do we have inflation under control, and not only is the economy on the mend, but that the Government are at long last gripping the problem of law and order and violence on our streets?

Mr. Brittan

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that the gravity of firearms offences, as well as the culpability of offenders, varies considerably? For example, it might be an unloaded firearm, a sawn-off shotgun or an air pistol and it might be used by a sophisticated hardened criminal or by a teenager who has been intimidated and forced into the offence. In those circumstances, is it not sensible to allow the courts the discretion to fit the sentence to the circumstances of the offence and the offender?

Mr. Brittan

I agree.

Mr. Kaufman

Will the Secretary of State include among offences involving the use of firearms the shooting down in cold blood of women exercising their rights to demonstrate and thereby using the freedoms that this Government say they exist to defend?

Mr. Brittan

I take this opportunity to welcome the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and his colleagues to the Opposition Front Bench and wish them a long and happy time there.

I am unaware of any such event happening as that to which he referred. It is one thing to assert the right to demonstrate peacefully, even in support of a cause with which one does not agree, but it is quite another to arrogate to oneself the right to interpose physically and in so doing seek to prevent the exercise of a policy that has received the approval of the country and this House.

Mr. Kaufman

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his kind welcome and I hope that I shall have the same kind of relationship with him as I had with his right hon. Friend who is now the Secretary of State for Defence when he was Secretary of State for the Environment.

May I take it from his answer that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is saying that if a policy is carried by Parliament and people oppose it by civil disobedience, civil disobedience is to be regarded as a capital offence?

Mr. Brittan

The right hon. Gentleman does not for one moment believe that what I said bears that implication.

Mr. Simon Hughes

Given that the Home Secretary is obviously concerned about the issue of firearms, will he institute a thorough review of the use by the police of firearms, particularly after the Waldorf affair, including all the guidelines and instructions that were issued in that incident and all similar incidents in the past, and produce a report to the House?

Mr. Brittan

I am expecting a report on that incident. I shall consider, in relation to that report, whether any changes are required in the guidance that was issued. The hon. Gentleman will recall that fresh guidance was issued when the incident occurred, long before the proceedings were completed. I shall review that and look at such questions as the training of officers who might be expected to bear firearms.