New clause

HC Deb 18 February 1997 vol 290 cc821-5

Lords amendment: No. 71, after clause 32, to insert the following new clause—Register of holders of shot gun and firearm certificates— .—(1) There shall be established a central register of all persons who have applied for a firearm or shot gun certificate or to whom a firearm or shot gun certificate has been granted or whose certificate has been renewed.

(2) The register shall—

1. (a) record a suitable identifying number for each person to whom a certificate is issued; and
2. (b) be kept by means of a computer which provides access on—line to all police forces."

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Miss Widdecombe.]

Sir Jerry Wiggin

Perhaps I shall not be out of order if I refer briefly to the comments of the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman). I am sorry for interrupting him in the last few seconds of the previous debate.

I fully understand the hon. Gentleman's concern. The shooting fraternity will have taken notice of the incident that he has mentioned, and will want to take security measures to prevent such an event in future. I strongly suspect that, when the Home Office comes forward with stronger security provisions, there will be some double locking or double entry, or something of that sort, to secure armouries. Those armouries will be attractive places to go, full of complete weapons. We have already had that debate, and I shall be out of order if I go further on that. The shooting community will certainly take note of what the hon. Gentleman said.

The history of the computerisation and registering of firearms has been bedevilled by the fact that we have so many different police forces. As in so many other areas, this is not a unified operation. The British Shooting Sports Council asked more than five years ago for a civilian firearms board to supervise the issue and monitor the numbers of all shotguns, rifles and revolvers, so that there was a use to be had from such a register.

Until a short time ago, if a firearm was discovered late on a Friday evening by one police force, there was no way in which all the other police forces in the country could be asked whether it was on their register. Thirteen police forces use one sort of computer, six use another, and the others all deal with some separate system. In any event, the systems are not connected by telephone.

The system of registering firearms was not responsive to the needs of the police. That seemed pretty crazy to us, so we proposed an independent board. We believed that that would be cheaper and more efficient. We visualised it being staffed by ex-firearms officers or armourers, or people with an expert knowledge of shooting and shooters. A firearms officer would get to know all the shooting fraternity in the county and the dealers, and would be well in with the shooting world.

Prejudice broke in somewhere. After an amazing series of reports by various accountants, the Home Office finally came up with a figure of £10 million a year to run such a service. For about 1.1 million shotguns and, let us say, about 500,000 rifles and revolvers—I forget the exact total—that seemed rather a lot of money. Sadly, we have never seen some of the accountancy reports behind that decision.

A central register would go some way towards providing a practical response that the shooters are perfectly happy about. We have no worry about details of our weapons and their numbers being kept on a computer. We want the machinery to be useful. Nothing is more purposeless than bureaucracy with no pay-off.

I do not say that we welcome the precise terms of the new clause, but we are prepared to accept it. We can see some good coming out of it. When she starts to deal with the practicalities of the Bill, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will impress firmly on the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Chief Police Officers (Scotland) the necessity of the police forces talking to each other by computer. It is ludicrous that they are so far apart in this day and age.

Some of those measures will cost money that will have to come out of other budgets. The Home Office has dragged its feet on the issue. The shooting fraternity can rightly say that it has pressed the Home Office on the issue without success. It has needed a disaster of the sort that we have had before any action is taken. This is at least a step in the right direction.

Mr. Frank Cook

I shall speak on this amendment because of the Minister's response to my accusation of negligence during the debate on the limitation of time motion. She announced that there were proposals for a register later in the Bill. I was pleased to hear that—until I looked at the proposals.

Hon. Members will remember that, when describing the procedures for the Metropolitan police, I identified six agencies that are checked by a certificating officer before any certificate is issued: he checks with the domestic violence unit; he checks with the local intelligence officer; he checks section SO18 for adult cautions; he checks the police national computer for convictions; he checks with Infos, the intelligence pool; and he checks the general registry, which is a library of all surplus files of unfounded allegations that have no result.

That is fine for London. The certificating officer can expose a Jack the lad who has been anti-social and would appear unsuitable for the custodianship of a weapon, but if the same Jack the lad disappears to Sussex, there is no guarantee that the local constabulary will conduct the same inquiry.

The provision in Lords amendment No. 71 for a register of holders of shotgun and firearms certificates would therefore tell of those who have been successful and perhaps those who have applied and not got a certificate, but it will not give the full reasons. It will still be possible, not for someone to move out of London and get one elsewhere, but for someone who has been refused one elsewhere to move to London and get one.

While the move towards a register is a move to the good and I welcome it, I must point out to the Minister that it does not go far enough. Furthermore, it does not take care of the weapons. We need not only a register of holders of firearms, but a register of the weapons themselves. If there are to be legal and illegal weapons, we need to be able to distinguish one from the other. Patently, the provision for that sort of check does not exist under the amendment.

8.30 pm

Further to the comments of the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Sir J. Wiggin) about the need for an independent body, we need better provision within the police force for expert opinion. In far too many constabularies, the duties required under previous firearms legislation have been conducted by constables, who have been well intentioned and keen to be conscientious, but who were poorly trained. Frequently, they are moved around—it is said, for career development—from one area to another, so they do not acquire the expertise necessary for consideration of these matters. I hope that the Minister of State will accept my comments and observations in the spirit in which I have made them, and will try to be constructive in her response.

Mr. Dalyell

I am prompted by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Sir J. Wiggin) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) to say a word about communication.

If police forces had talked to one another—and, frankly, if Members of Parliament and local authorities had talked to one another—the tragedy of Dunblane might not have happened. In 1988, prompted by Mrs. Paula Morby, then of Linlithgow, I was brought face to face with the case of Thomas Hamilton. That lady complained bitterly that she was unhappy about her son being taken away to camp by a man she did not care for at all. Incidentally, all I am saying now was said to the Cullen inquiry and to the police.

To cut a long story short, Hamilton came to my surgery and subsequently to my house, and was extremely angry that I had brought the police into what he would call the destruction of his boys' club in Linlithgow. Eventually, when he moved out of Linlithgow, I did little more about it, other than talk to my then parliamentary colleague Alex Eadie, who then represented Midlothian.

There were two things that we did not know. The first was that Hamilton was moving around the country. Had I pooled knowledge with my hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith), who had had similar experiences, or with my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), it might all have been different, but it never occurred to us to swap information. I think that I speak for my colleagues in saying that none of us had the slightest notion that that man was involved with guns.

I have drawn the conclusion—hindsight is a wonderful thing, incidentally—that in future there must be communication. It is a double-edged sword, as there can be communication on great unfairnesses between individuals, but this is a matter of judgment, and I do not see how else it can be done. We are entitled to emphasise the importance of communication between police forces.

Miss Widdecombe

The amendment requires the establishment of a national register of firearm and shotgun certificate holders. I can give the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) some reassurance, although perhaps not as much as he would like, inasmuch as one of the categories that he was asking to be covered can be.

The system that we are discussing with the police is called Phoenix, and it will be able to hold details of people who have had firearms or shotgun certificates refused or revoked, so it will not merely be holders. I hope that that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman. I am afraid that it is as helpful as I can be, and I cannot include the other things he asked for at this juncture on that system.

Mr. Frank Cook

Only eight negligences.

Miss Widdecombe

I am glad to find that they are reduced by one. When the hon. Gentleman studies carefully what we have done, he might reduce the list by some more.

Before I deal with the substance of this debate, I should like to complete, if I may, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I think that I probably may—the comments that I was endeavouring to make before I was cruelly cut off last time.

What I was saying might have sounded negative to the hon. Member for Stockton, North, but only because it was the first half of the sentence, and I did not get to the second half. I was trying to point out that it would not automatically be known if a starter shooter was being investigated, but that the Secretary of State will not license clubs to have starter shooters unless he is satisfied that their security precautions are good, and, for example, that there is adequate one-to-one supervision.

It is not proposed that starter shooters should be able to go to a club and automatically reach out, take a gun and have unsupervised handling of it. I hope that that is some consolation to the hon. Gentleman. It would be difficult for the grounds that someone was being investigated to act as a criterion alone, because it would presuppose knowledge, which might not be there. Certainly, if a responsible officer of the club were being investigated, there would be a case for closing the club, so there are safeguards.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I suspect that you did not hear me, but I digressed a little.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris)

I heard the right hon. Lady very clearly and concisely. If she had gone further, it would have been brought to her attention.

Miss Widdecombe

I am grateful for your tolerance, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I return to the substance of the amendment, and the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Sir J. Wiggin) about the setting up of a central firearms control board to issue certificates. Lord Cullen did not favour the removal from the police of any of the functions concerned with the operation of the present system—that can be found in chapter 8, paragraph 5. We have accepted that recommendation, and agreed with that view.

There was certainly no suggestion that we rejected such a control board simply on the grounds of cost or any such consideration. It was also rejected because such a board would create duplication of effort—there would still be a need for continued police involvement even if a central board were set up.

On that basis, I think that we are right to agree with the Lords in their amendment. We do not see a reason for making a national database a statutory requirement, but we are committed to setting it up, and I therefore do not intend to oppose the amendment.

Lords amendment agreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 72 to 75 agreed to.