HL Deb 22 July 1988 vol 499 cc1641-2

187 Clause 128, page 88, line 19, leave out 'subsection (4)' and insert 'subsections (4) and (4A)'.

188 Page 88, line 23, after second 'a', insert 'folding'.

189 Page 88, line 24, after 'a', insert 'folding'.

190 Page 88, leave out lines 25 to 27 and insert 'the cutting edge of its blade exceeds 3 inches.'.

191 Page 88, line 30, leave out from 'place' to end of line 32 and insert— '(4A) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (4) above, it shall be a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he had the article with him—'

192 Page 88, line 39, leave out 'highway and any other premises or'.

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 187 to 192. I shall speak also to Amendment No. 396.

Clause 128 was warmly welcomed by your Lordships when it was introduced in Committee. There were certain difficulties about the drafting which we attempted to resolve on Report. The amendments take the improvement a stage further.

For Amendment No. 192 we are indebted to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. I know that he cannot be here today, but I should like to acknowledge his contribution. He pointed out that the definition of a "public place" in Clause 128 might be too narrowly construed so as to exclude, for example, a bus or railway carriage. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that there is no possibility of such public places being excluded.

Amendments Nos. 188, 189 and 190 are the result of discussions with knife manufacturers in Sheffield. They thought that it would be helpful to put on the face of the Bill a clearer definition of the maximum permitted length of a pocketknife. More importantly, they pointed out that locking pocketknives are now widely sold and used because they are safer for some purposes than non-locking knives. There is less risk of the blade closing accidentally on the user's fingers. So we concluded that we should not exclude small pocketknives from the exemption just because they had locking blades. What we want to exclude is knives with sliding blades. The amendments achieve that by limiting the exemption to small pocketknives with folding blades.

Amendments Nos. 187 and 191 simply clarify the drafting of the statutory defences. Amendment No. 396 is a consequential amendment for Northern Ireland.

Moved, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 187 to 192.—(Earl Ferrers.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.