HL Deb 02 December 1976 vol 378 cc494-510

6.47 p.m.

Lord SWANSEA rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will reconsider the scale of fees contained in the Firearms (Variation of Fees) Order 1976 and the Firearms (Variation of Fees) (Scotland) Order 1976. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask Her Majesty's Government the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. Your Lordships may well wonder why I did not lodge a Prayer against these orders during the time allowed for praying; but as you will no doubt remember, such was the pressure of business in your Lordships' House during October that I was advised by the usual channels that there would not be any time available for a debate on such a Motion. I feel that your Lordships would hardly have welcomed any additional business at that time; and that is why I have left it until now to raise the question of these increased fees for firearm certificates and shot gun licences.

It is hard to say which has caused more annoyance in shooting circles: the actual content of these orders or the manner in which they were introduced and laid before Parliament. They were made on 26th August, in the middle of the Summer Recess. They were laid on 7th September, again during the Recess. They came into operation on 1st October, only four days after your Lordships' House returned from the Summer Recess and ten days before the other place returned from the Recess. The orders were rejected in Standing Committee in another place but were reinstated on the Floor of the House. There really has been no time for these orders to he debated before they came into effect.

I feel that Her Majesty's Government have not really played the game so far as these orders are concerned. How is it that they could have come into effect before the end of praying time? It seems to me almost to indicate a contempt for Parliament; that Parliament is being taken for granted, and that these orders have been allowed to come into effect before Parliament has had a chance to say anything about them. I have heard it argued that one reason for this was the beginning of the game-shooting season, but I do not think that that is a very valid argument because, unlike game licences, shot gun certificates and firearm certificates do not expire at a fixed time of the year.

These swingeing increases, many times the fees which have been charged up to now, can only be described as punitive. One cannot help asking why one section of the community should be penalised in this manner, because those to whom firearm certificates and shot gun certificates are issued, after due investigation, are by definition among the most law-abiding in the community, and it is very hard on them that they should be subjected not only to filling in forms, and protracted and often inefficient police procedures, but to paying through the nose for the privilege. The Government profess to support and encourage sport in all its forms, through the medium of the Sports Council and in other ways, but in this case I wonder whether their policy is not actively to discourage a large section of the community from following the recreation of their choice.

These new fees will hit a large section of the community very hard indeed, and I would remind your Lordships that shooting is one of the fastest growing participant sports in this country. The National Rifle Association, which controls full-bore shooting, has 700 affiliated clubs, 80 affiliated county and Services associations and about 2,600 members, and those numbers are growing all the time. The National Small-bore Rifle Association has 3,300 affiliated clubs and approximately 100,000 members. The Clay Pigeon Shooting Association has 500 affiliated clubs and about 5,700 members. The Wildfowlers' Association has some 40,000 members. So we are not just talking about that much maligned grouse shooting, but about a very much larger section of the community, one which is a very appreciable proportion of the population which takes part in sport. I think that the Government would be ill advised to turn a deaf ear to their protests.

Apart from the organised associations, there are many thousands of what one might call week-end shooters, those who go out wildfowling, pigeon shooting, rabbit shooting and so on, giving a service to the farming community. Also, one must not forget the farmer and the gamekeeper, to whom the gun is a tool of his trade. All these people will be extremely hard hit by these new fees.

There was an interesting Answer given to a Question in another place on 11th November, about the administrative costs in selected police areas on which these new fees were allegedly based. The cost of issuing a firearm certificate on first application varies from £51 in the Metropolitan Police area to £4.70 in the Avon-Somerset area. For a renewal of a firearm certificate the figures are £33.68 in the Metropolitan area and £3.67 in Lancashire. The cost of issuing a shot gun certificate is given as £12 in the Metropolitan area and £1.67 in the Avon-Somerset area. Renewal of a shot gun certificate costs £7 in the Metropolitan area and £1.63 in the Avon-Somerset area. There is such a wide disparity between these figures—one wonders why the Metropolitan Police should be top of the league table by a very considerable amount in relation to other forces—that it is hard to see how the Government arrived at an average figure at all. The only answer seems to have been to pick some figures out of the air, and it appears that that is just what they have done.

The renewal fees, in particular, are out of proportion to the fees for the issue of certificates. In the case of a firearm certificate, the fee for a grant is £12 while the fee for renewal is now £10. I cannot be expected to believe that, even assuming that it costs £12 to establish the bona fides of an applicant for a firearm certificate, it costs £10 only three years later to make sure that that person is still a law-abiding character. I find that very hard to believe. Similarly, the renewal fee of £4 for a shotgun certificate is very high in proportion to the fee of £5 for a grant. I hope that the Government will take another look at these figures, because they are simply not fair.

I wonder how the figures of police costs were arrived at. I cannot help feeling that in some police areas there must be a lot of police time wasted unnecessarily in calling on applicants at their houses. For instance, I heard the example of another noble Lord whose firearm certificate was due for renewal, and he told the police that they could come to see him on a certain date when he would have his firearm certificate ready for them. Nevertheless, two policemen turned up on another day before the appointed day, but he did not have his firearm certificate with him, so he told them to go away and come back on the day for which they had made the appointment. Subsequently, an inspector and a sergeant turned up, and one wonders why it was necessary to send high-ranking officers.

The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich)

My Lords, may I intervene? If the noble Lord would like to give me details of this case, I will gladly look into it.

Lord SWANSEA

My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Lord. But one wonders why it is necessary for more than one police officer to be sent on such an errand, if it is necessary to send one at all. The orders show signs of being drawn up hastily and in an ill-considered manner. As an example of that, I would draw your Lordships' attention to Section 32 in its original form. Subsection (1)(c) states that a fee for a variation shall not be charged if it is done at the same time as the renewal of the certificate. That provision was omitted from the order. I feel sure that it must have been omitted inadvertently because the point was picked up by the vigilant secretary of a shooting organisation who drew the attention of the Home Office to it. I gather that the Home Office has admitted that an error was made, and it has now been put right. But that is no more nor less than sheer carelessness. It makes me wonder whether the order as it stands is defective and whether it should be withdrawn and re-drafted. The Secretary of State has the power to vary the fees, which is what he has done in the case of this order, but I do not think he has any power to make amendments of substance in the body of the Act—which, by the omission of this provision in Section 32, is what this is.

I am afraid that so far I have been very critical of the Government's actions over this order. I hope that it is still within their power to do something to case the lot of the shooters. One way in which this could be done would be to extend the period of validity of firearm and shot gun certificates. It is clear that the present period of validity is entrenched in the Act, so it would require legislation to amend it. The Government have already said that they have plans for amending the Firearms Act in various respects. I should like to think that, if and when that happens, the Government will embody a provision in their new legislation to extend the period of validity of firearm and shot gun certificates from the present three years to five or six years. The new fees are a quite unreasonable imposition, taken over a three year period, but they might just be tolerable, or slightly more palatable to the shooting public, if they were spread over a longer period. After all, in this country more people are killed on the roads than by shooting, yet now we have driving licences which are valid for life.

I hope that the Government will think again about these orders and that they will not be afraid to change their minds. If they do, it will not be regarded as climbing down but rather as a victory of mature judgment over hasty and ill-considered first ideas. I hope very much that the Government will take heed of what is said this evening and will reconsider these fees. I hope also that when they introduce legislation to amend the Firearms Act they will extend the period of validity of these certificates. If the Government will listen to the voice of the shooters throughout the country and act on the voice of the people, they will not lose face. Rather they will be applauded for reaching a sensible decision with their second barrel.

7.4 p.m.

Lord COTTESLOE

My Lords, I am very glad that my noble friend Lord Swansea has raised this matter today. When, a few weeks ago, I asked a Question on the subject, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, gave me rather a dusty answer, to the effect that a decision had been made and that there was no question of discussion or of further consideration. However, I understand, and I hope I am right in understanding, that the Government have since let it be known that their attitude is in some ways a little less rigid.

On the general policy that the licence fees should pay for the control, that is, on the face of it, logical and reasonable. I was told by the noble Lord that it was the Government's policy, not only in this particular matter but right across the board. I think that those were the words that he used. All the same, I have some misgivings about the universal application of such a policy. For instance, I read that it is proposed to make the fees charged to safe and careful drivers of cars pay for the treatment in hospital of the victims of dangerous drivers. That may or may not be true, but it is seriously put forward. Surely such an arrangement could not be regarded as either equitable or even logical.

In a wider sphere, what about the charges made by the nationalised industries? There, I suppose, nobody would question in principle that the charges should cover the costs, but we all know perfectly well that in many cases they fail to do so, year after year, by many millions of pounds. Therefore, although in general the principle of fees covering costs seems reasonable, one has certain reservations, particularly if, in this case, the costs covered are calculated, as I have somewhere read, to include the cost of prosecutions for infringements of the regulations. I hope that the Minister may be able to assure us that they are not so calculated, that the law-abiding will not be required to pay, within this limited field, for the malefactors.

But accepting the principle, it leads to such swingeing increases that they will inevitably cause hardship to many thousands of law-abiding citizens who use shot guns or rifles for sport and recreation. When I raised this matter a few weeks ago, the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, suggested that shooting was a privilege of the rich who could well afford such fees. But that is not so, as I think the noble Lord was perfectly well aware, for many thousands of people, men and women, up and down the country—my noble friend Lord Swansea gave the figures—who use firearms for sport and recreation are of very limited means. I think not only of the hard-working farmers, smallholders and market gardeners who use firearms to keep at bay the birds and beasts which batten on their crops, but even more of the many thousands of members of small-bore rifle clubs up and down the country, using.22 calibre rifles on 25 yard ranges—modest and law-abiding people, for the most part, of strictly limited means.

No doubt the costs are carefully calculated, though an average of £30 or more for the expenses of the police in making their inquiries before granting a firearm certificate in the first instance does appear to be grossly excessive. Certainly a fee of £10 for the straightforward renewal of a licence already in existence is not at all reasonable. Indeed, it is considerably higher than the calculated cost, even in the Metropolitan area, which is top of the league.

I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that he will take a searching look at these expenses to see whether it is really essential that they should be incurred on such a scale, and that the very obvious way in which the fees could be halved, in effect, by doubling the period of validity of the licence will be seriously considered. I understand that legislation would be needed to extend the period and I note that a Bill for that purpose was introduced a few weeks ago by Mr. Marcus Kimball in another place. I am not quite sure whether that Bill lapsed with the end of the Session; I suppose it did, but if so I hope it will be reintroduced and I very much hope that the Minister may be able to tell us that, if so, time will be found to enable that short and, in my view, essentially non-controversial, measure to find its way on to the Statute Book. It would do much to alleviate what will, by many thousands of law-abiding citizens, otherwise be felt to be a deplorable hardship and an unnecessary deterrent to the pursuit of their chosen pastime.

7.11 p.m.

Lord SANDYS

My Lords, we have had a short and very interesting debate on a matter raised by my noble friend Lord Swansea and I am particularly glad to take part in another debate in which he has raised once again the issue of firearms, because I took part in the last debate, on 23rd October 1973, when he raised the broader issue of firearms control.

One of the important factors when we consider the cost of the certificates is that so short a time ago as 1968 when the Firearms Act reached the Statute Book, we were dealing with a single fee of five shillings for both a firearm certificate and a shot gun certificate. I think it is a measure of both the effects of inflation and certainly the costs of administration concerned in putting into effect the provisions of the Firearms Act, that we are now facing this remarkable rise in fees. I hope I shall not weary the House in recounting how these rose. Of course from 1968 the firearm certificate fee diverged from the shot gun fee, but if I take the higher of the two, from 1969 when it was still five shillings it rose in 1970 to £2.10, in 1971 to £3.10, in 1975 to £7 and now, in 1976, we are facing a £12 fee for a firearm certificate.

I believe that the arguments advanced by both my noble friends are convincing ones for seeking the Government's attention to this matter and redressing it in the ways they have both described. I believe that a further matter has given great concern, a matter to which my noble friend Lord Swansea referred; namely, the manner of the introduction of the order. However, I wish to dwell a little more on the philosophy behind the register. I draw comfort from the Green Paper which we discussed on 23rd October 1973 (Cmnd. 5297) which referred to the philosophy behind the register, and it said this at page 9 of that document: two kinds of measures are required for the prevention of crime: measures to reduce the opportunities open to the criminal as well as those which provide for his punishment. One essential aim of any serious attempt to contain the growth of violent crime should therefore be to eliminate avoidable opportunities to acquire firearms for criminal purposes". During that debate my noble friend Lord Gisborough raised an interesting point because he questioned the value of the register as such, and he said this: If the Home Office are wedded to this certificate and insist on keeping it I think they must prove that it is of some value." (Official Report, 32/10/73; col. 596.) I think from this side of the House we accept that a degree of control for the reasons advanced is necessary, and we hope the Home Office will be able to give an assurance that the register really is fulfilling a useful purpose.

I turn now to Schedule 2 of the order because I do not think this has been touched on by either of my noble friends. That concerns the situation of the registration of dealers. Since the 1968 Act, and certainly in previous Statutes, it has been an offence—and Section 3 of the 1968 Act makes it an offence—for a dealer to deal in both firearms and ammunition without registering. In 1968 we were dealing with a registration fee of £5 with a fee of £1 for renewal. Today, we are looking at a very different situation, both in the trade as such and also in the registration fee provided. Here we are now faced with the position which the Government have compelled dealers to face; namely, an initial registration fee of £25 and a renewal certificate fee of £20. In a large number of places where trade in ammunition rather than weapons is a source of support to sportsmen and clay pigeon clubs and other bodies, I believe that the hardware merchant will suffer. I believe that quite a large number of hardware merchants will find that the new fees for registration and renewal will be such that they will believe that on small margins of their trade it will scarcely be worth while continuing their business if the fees are to be sustained and increased, because if we look at the way in which fees have been increased over the past few years, what may we expect in 1977 and 1978?

I turn now to the position as it was in 1971, and we have had some difficulty in establishing the numbers of firearm certificates and shot gun certificates. The Green Paper to which I referred (Cmnd. 5297) acquainted us, on page 9, with the information that in that year, 1971, 190,000 firearm certificates were issued in England and Wales and 38,000 in Scotland. There were 715,000 shot gun certificates in England and Wales and 77,000 in Scotland. Granted that those figures are now five years out of date and may well have moved in either direction, it is rather difficult to calculate what the revenue is likely to be. Nevertheless, if one assumes that the renewal fee for a shot gun certificate is going to be £5 and for a firearm certificate is going to be increased, as the order sets out, to £12, we are faced with a situation in which the revenue is liable to acquire a total figure of £6,250,000 from these new imposts.

I have little doubt that my figures are incorrect, and I hope that the Home Office will be able to assure us that costs are only just being covered by fees—a point which my noble friend Lord Cottesloe referred to—because if I am right and there is a considerable surplus to the revenue account, a considerable surplus in fees paid, over and above costs, it will indeed be a justification for the argument put forward by my noble friend Lord Swansea that an inequitable position has been reached.

My Lords, I do not think that this punitive increase can be justified by the Government unless the costs are such that they varied to the high extent which the Question revealed in another place on 11th November. It gives a very wide band of police costs. I hope that in his reply, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will be able to give us a little more information in this regard. I am grateful to my noble friend for bringing forward this Unstarred Question, because I believe it is a matter which a large number of sportsmen in this country would seek to redress.

7.21 p.m.

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, I am glad that we have had an opportunity for a debate on these orders. Certainly the increases introduced by these orders are substantial, and it is perfectly natural that the people affected should ask why we found it necessary to introduce them, particularly in view of the fact that firearms fees were substantially increased as recently as July 1975.

The background to these increases is this. For many years, only a nominal fee was charged for licences and certificates issued in respect of activities which were controlled in the interests of public safety. As the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, has just said, until 1968 the fee for a firearm certificate was five shillings. Since then, the policy has been changed by successive Governments—I may say as a result of their general philosophy on this matter—but also as a result, no doubt, of Section 5 of the Public Expenditure and Receipts Act 1968, which provides for the fees charged under certain Acts to be raised by order, With a view to securing from the fees, charges or other payments…a net return corresponding more nearly with the cost of the matters for which they are payable…". That was the intention of Parliament in 1968, and it has been implemented since then.

My Lords, since then, as a result of this view, our policy has been that the fees for licences and certificates for controls such as those involved in the 1968 Act, but not only that—and I will come to one or two other examples in a moment—should be set at such a level as to cover the cost of certification and registration procedures, but not, I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, for the cost of prosecutions. I believe that that policy is right.

Where controls are required to regulate a certain kind of activity, people engaged in that activity should pay the economic cost of the issue of their licences or certificates to do so. If they do not, the deficit has to be added to the burdens already borne by taxpayers and ratepayers in general. The noble Lord, Lord Swansea, said that we should listen to the voice of the shooters, but on an occasion like this we should bear in mind the interests of the general body of taxpayers as well. As I indicated a moment or two ago, this policy does not apply only to firearms. It applies to the whole range of fees, from the licences issued for petrol filling stations to the registration of aliens. The firearms fees are not the only ones which have increased steeply over the past two years. The reason for this increase has been the level of inflation.

Perhaps I may give two examples with which the Home Office is concerned. The fee for an alien's registration certificate was raised in 1975 from 25p to £2.50, a fairly substantial rate of increase. The fee for a naturalisation certificate was increased from £30 to £40 in 1975, and to £70 in 1976. I hope noble Lords will not assume that we are searching round to persecute the shooters. This is a policy being implemented over a wide area.

Lord SWANSEA

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for allowing me to interrupt him. He mentioned things like the registration of aliens and so on. But are not such payments once-only payments, whereas what we are talking about this evening are periodic payments?

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

My Lords, I am talking about a policy which has been implemented by Governments of both Parties over a wide range of fees, some on a once-for-all basis, others of an annual character. The fact is that there is no conceivable reason why in this case there should be a public subsidy. If it were any other issue, the noble Lord would be one of the first people saying just that. The situation is that these fees are kept under review to ensure that they keep pace with rising costs.

At the end of last year, we carried out a review of the costs in a representative number of police force areas in Great Britain, of issuing, renewing and replacing firearm and shot gun certificates, and of registering firearm dealers. The noble Lord, Lord Swansea, said that we had picked our figures out of the air. I do not think that that is right in any way whatsoever. The review was a careful one. It covered the Metropolitan Police area, and eight other forces, including one in Scotland, chosen to give a reasonable picture of the costs in urban and rural areas, and in metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties. The sample was nearly 20 per cent. of all the police forces in Great Britain, and we have not the slightest reason for believing that the results would have been any different if we had called for a return from every force in the country. It would have cost a great deal more money, and there is no certainty that we would have reached a different result.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, raised the question of why costs are greater in metropolitan areas. The noble Lord is right; costs are higher in metropolitan areas than in any other area. The fact is that the crime situation is a great deal more serious in metropolitan areas, particularly in the Metropolitan Police area. It is the view of the Commissioner that he wishes to devote more resources to this matter because of the grave crime situation which appertains in London. With great respect to the noble Lord, there are few people in this country who would dissent from the judgment of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner on a matter of this kind. He is responsible for the safety of the citizens of London, and if that is his view, certainly it will be one supported by the Government.

The review that I have just mentioned showed that the fees fixed in 1975 fell a long way short of the costs of administering the certification and registration procedures. A good deal of stress has been laid on the fact that the increased fees will cost the shooters somewhere about £1 million a year, and indeed that figure is just about right, because the 1975 review showed that the anticipated revenue from firearms fees in 1975-76 was nearly £1 million less than the estimated costs of the certification and registration procedures. Indeed, even with the new scale of fees—and this deals with the point just raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sandys—we do not expect revenue to balance expenditure until 1977-78, and that will happen only if there has been no increase in costs during the intervening period.

We got into this difficulty because there was no increase in the firearms fees between 1970 and 1975. A review was carried out in 1972, but it was another three years before the fees were raised. By then, the 1972 figures were wholly out of date, given the rate of inflation in that period, and although an arbitrary percentage was added to those figures to cover rising costs during the previous three years, this came nowhere near meeting the additional costs which had resulted from the rapidly escalating rate of inflation during this period. Had the 1975 figures been set at a more realistic level, the sharp increases in costs introduced by the recent order would have been unnecessary.

However, that is by the way. To put the matter in its simplest terms, the 1975 survey showed that the firearm certification procedures were being operated at a heavy deficit after the revenue from fees had been deducted. This deficit could be recovered in only two ways; either by increasing the firearms fees or by increasing the income from rates and taxes. In that situation it was, in the Government's view, wholly right to increase the firearms fees.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandys, asked a question about the numbers. He mentioned the Green Paper of 1971 and the number of firearm certificates and shot gun certificates then. The most recent I have are for 1974. These show that in 1971, as the noble Lord said, the number of firearm certificates was running at 190,000 in England and Wales. This had slipped back marginally by 1974 to 185,865. So far as shot gun certificates were concerned there had been an increase; in 1971 the figures were 715,000, and in 1974 the figures were 766,952.

There are some who argue that there was in fact a third option open to the Government, and that was to reduce the cost of administering the certification procedures by cutting down the time spent by the police on this work. I intervened in the speech of the noble Lord, when he cited a particular example of a Member of your Lordships' House who had apparently been interviewed by a surprising number of police officers. If he will let me know the details of this case, I am sure the chief constable or chief officer concerned will look into it. But I do not believe that the police handle this matter with less than their customary efficiency; I have never seen any evidence to that effect. If any such suggestion is made, I will of course look into it.

On the argument itself, that we should cut down on the amount of work and therefore the cost of administering the whole procedure, I am afraid I must be quite blunt with the House; I just cannot accept this argument. Most of the costs of administering these procedures arise not from clerical and administrative work at headquarters but from the inquiries carried out by police officers on the ground to establish the suitability of the applicant and his security arrangements for ensuring safe custody of the firearms. It is the responsibility of chief officers of police to decide how much time and effort should be devoted to the operation of the firearms control, and clearly this will vary from one force to another. But the responsibility rests with the chief officer, and the Home Secretary has no power to intervene. Neither would he wish to do so. It is clearly desirable in the public interest that the firearms control should be operated effectively, and the suggestion that chief officers of police should be invited to devote less time to this work, in the present crime situation, is wholly misconceived.

The noble Lord, Lord Swansea, and the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, have suggested that the increased fees might be offset by increasing the validity of firearm and shot-gun certificates from the existing three years to either five or six. The situation is that there is at present no power, to do this, because Section 26 of the 1968 Firearms Act provides that certificates shall be valid for three years or such shorter period as may be prescribed. Moreover, I am not convinced that extending the period of validity would necessarily have the anticipated effect. At present the police carry out their inquiries into the suitability of the applicant and of his security arrangements at three year intervals, when the certificate comes up for renewal. If the period of validity were extended, the police might either carry out these checks less frequently, with a consequent reduction in the efficiency of the firearms control, or they might carry out additional checks during the validity of the certificates. If they opted for the second course, additional expenses would be incurred and this would have to be reflected in the scale of fees. We might, therefore, find that the extended validity of a firearm certificate was offset by an even higher fee. However, I accept that there might be some savings on the clerical and administrative work at headquarters, and this suggestion is certainly one on which we are prepared to keep an open mind; we will look at it carefully when the opportunity occurs to amend the 1968 Act.

The noble Lord, Lord Swansea, referred to the manner in which the orders were introduced. It is true that outside bodies such as the Long Room Committee, which represents of course, the interests of the various associations concerned with the sporting use or sale of firearms, were not consulted; he is quite right in saying that. There are many occasions where consultation is valuable, and views expressed by those closely concerned with the use or sale of firearms may have a significant effect on the Government's proposals. Certainly I am in favour of consultation on matters of concern to outside bodies in any case where there is scope for various courses of action. But consultation is useful only where there is more than one option, and the Government can consider the views expressed before deciding which of those courses of action to take. In this case we had, of course, no such option. Only one course was open to us; no matter what views had been expressed by the shooting associations we were bound by the Government's economic policy to increase the firearms fees to the level set in the 1976 orders.

In these circumstances it would have been a mockery to go through the motions of consulting outside bodies. The best we could do was to give outside bodies such as the Long Room Committee advance notice of the Government's intention to increase the fees, and this was done on 6th August, some two months before the new orders were to come into operation.

Lord SWANSEA

My Lords, that was in the middle of the holiday period when it was exceedingly difficult for any committee, the Long Room Committee or any other body, to call a meeting of its members.

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

My Lords, with great respect, I believe that two months is a fairly substantial period of time. I am not quite clear whether the noble Lord would have been happier had the Government brought in the orders a month earlier. Certainly the revenue would have been more substantial if we had brought the orders in earlier, but, as I understood it, his view was that it was a pity we had increased the scale of fees to the present level. Certainly we would be anxious to talk to the Long Room Committee on any matter, but there is no point in having fake consultations. Having been at the receiving end of some of these in the past, I must say I find it a particularly unattractive way of wasting one's time when one is told one is being consulted and one knows perfectly well that there is no consultation involved and one is simply being told that a decision has been arrived at.

Finally, I should make it clear that there is no truth in the suggestion that the Government increased the firearms fees with the object of reducing the number of firearms in private possession. We have no intention of depriving genuine shooters of the right to enjoy their sport. We accept that the great majority of shooters are law-abiding people who are fully prepared to co-operate with the police, and it is no part of our philosophy to subject them to unnecessary harassment or restriction. But not everyone who wishes to possess a firearm is a responsible shooter, and controls are necessary to ensure that these lethal weapons are not held by irresponsible or manifestly unsuitable people. The cost of administering the certification procedures must be paid for, and the fees must accordingly be set at an economic level. The Government do not intend to allow these fees to be subsidised by the taxpayer. I cannot, therefore, undertake to reconsider the scale of fees contained in these orders.

Lord SANDYS

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I say that there was one point raised by my noble friend Lord Swansea in regard to whether the order was substantially correctly drafted in so far as the question of variation of a firearm certificate was concerned. He referred to Section 32(1)(c), and the drafting of the order refers only in general terms under Section 32(1)(b) to variation. Can the noble Lord confirm that the variation of certificates is catered for within the order?

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

My Lords, I shall gladly go into that matter.