Lords Sitting of 16 January 1997

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich.
Lord Calverley— Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

Gulf Veterans
The Countess of Mar The Countess of Mar asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have commissioned any clinical research on classic principles into the causes of illness in farmers and Gulf veterans which remains undiagnosed; and, if not, why not.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe): My Lords, there is a clinical aspect to the epidemiological study commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food into the possible long-term health effects of low-level exposure to organophosphorus sheep dips. On the best scientific and medical advice, my department has commissioned epidemiological studies, not clinical research, into the health problems of Gulf veterans and their families. If a particular pattern of symptoms emerges in the Gulf veteran group during the course of these epidemiological studies, the possibility of clinically-based research studies will be reviewed.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply. Does he accept that if the research is to be successful it should be concluded fairly quickly because that is what is wanted as these men are sick? Does he further accept that all the hypotheses should be explored—the vaccines, the pesticides, and the possibility of chemical warfare and the changing climate among other things? Does the Minister agree that the effects of these factors should be tested, presumably on animals first, and then against the symptoms that the Gulf veterans are showing? Is he further aware of recent research published in the Journal of American Medical Association yesterday, where three clinical studies were undertaken which irrefutably link organophosphate exposure with pyridostigmine bromide and the Gulf War illness? Will the noble Earl now consider that it is really worth doing clinical studies alongside the epidemiological studies in order to get this matter concluded quickly?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the firm advice of the Medical Research Council to the Ministry of Defence has been that it would be unscientific to conduct causal studies in advance of establishing, through the
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epidemiological research, whether or not there is a higher prevalence of specific symptoms in Gulf veterans which can be related to specific exposures in the Gulf. I believe that we must accept its advice on that matter. I stress that the doors are not closed on commissioning causal studies if the MRC feels that there is a scientifically valid case for doing so. As regards the second part of the noble Countess's question, I was aware of these reports and I shall be looking at them.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, can the noble Earl give an assurance that all general practitioners who have ex-servicemen and women among their patients are given the information that they should have for our soldiers, sailors and airmen who served in the Gulf?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I can give the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, an absolute assurance that if information is requested by general practitioners we shall give it on a medical confidentiality basis in so far as we are able. Where the information is lacking we shall supply what are our best assumptions about any medical treatment given to Gulf veterans.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the noble Earl will be aware that the Gulf War syndrome, whatever that may mean, is appearing among Czech, Slovak, Danish, American and British soldiers, but not, apparently, among French soldiers. On the assumption that the French are not "loose cannons", to use the current expression, why is that so?
Earl Howe: My Lords, we are in close touch with the French authorities. As the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, correctly said, they have not reported any undue incidence of ill health among their veterans. They do not recognise any medical syndrome connected with the Gulf War. The French authorities have advised that some soldiers returned from the Gulf with minor diseases endemic to the area, but they did not give their troops, as I understand it, any form of protective immunisation against either chemical or biological agents. Nerve agent pre-treatment sets were not taken by the French troops. The French authorities have also advised that their troops did not use organophosphate pesticides or insecticides during the Gulf War.
Lord Burnham: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend to confirm that the French contingent were the only body of troops in the Gulf to be veterans of that type of warfare and that the French alone were used to that type of terrain and were possibly, therefore, safer and more immune from any disease? At the same time, may I ask my noble friend whether he will permit me, and possibly other Members of your Lordships' House, to sympathise with him over the way in which he has been treated in the press today?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for his latter comments. The point that he posed in his first question is extremely interesting.

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I do not know the answer as to whether the French were unique in having had that kind of desert war experience. However, the point is worth investigating and I shall write to my noble friend with an answer.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the nature of his answers to the questions put to him this afternoon do not indicate the sense of urgency which is clearly required when dealing with such matters? Will he assure the House that he will not use the obvious desirability of making the widest possible inquiries (although they may take a considerable time) to affect in any way the obvious fact that we have to narrow down our inquiries to the specific points made by the noble Countess?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I am sorry that my remarks this afternoon have not conveyed the sense of urgency which the Government do, indeed, feel about these matters. When one is considering scientific research, it is important to leave the matter in the hands of the scientists and the medics. That is what we have done. I hope that the noble Lord will accept my assurance that we are determined to get to the bottom of the matter and that our minds are completely open on the whole question.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, is the Minister aware of a draft report from a committee of the European Parliament criticising the European Commission for drawing scientific advice from too narrow a base? How confident are the Government that their scientific advice is not similarly drawn from too narrow a base?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I do not believe that one could do any better than go to the Medical Research Council, which is what we have done, to commission the research that is about to begin. I have every confidence in its advice.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, may I ask the Minister to study closely the reports in the Journal of American Medical Association because they indicate that the standard handling of epidemiological results and standard neurological tests do not produce the answers that they found in their study? Will the Minister ask those members of the Medical Research Council who are responsible for this to consider the results of the Dallas reports carefully so that our soldiers may be given the same benefits as the American soldiers?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I shall certainly do that and write to the noble Countess. It is interesting to note that the Presidential Advisory Committee report, of which the noble Countess will be aware, which was published in the United States, endorsed the US Government's focus on epidemiological research. I believe that that is a clear vindication of the research programme we announced last December.

House of Lords: Maintenance of Equipment
3.17 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked the Chairman of Committees:
Whether he is satisfied with the standards of maintenance of the equipment of the House, and why the elevators fail so frequently.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Boston of Faversham): My Lords, I am satisfied that the standard of maintenance of the equipment in the House is very good and that ways to improve upon that still further are being sought constantly. The lifts on the parliamentary estate are maintained regularly by a contractor who has men here all the time the House is sitting; and there is a continuing programme to renew lift machinery as it reaches the end of its working life. Lift breakdowns are monitored, and the level of reliability is very high.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I am obliged to my noble friend for that Answer. But in the light of it can he explain why the lifts, and particularly the lift to the second floor office, continually suffer failures and breakdowns? Is my noble friend aware of the great inconvenience to a good many noble Lords which results from those failures?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I hope that I can give the noble Lord reassurance. There has been difficulty with the lift that he uses frequently, Lift No. 95. The machinery of that lift was entirely replaced during the last Summer Recess. I am told that, paradoxically—that is, paradoxically to one who, like me, is a layman in matters of engineering—when complex new machinery is installed, it often takes a little time for it to settle down. Here is the first piece of reassurance: that is the reason why the installers of the machinery give your Lordships' House a 12-month guarantee during that first period so that they can be on hand. But I am aware that there has been trouble with that lift, and I am very sorry about it. I can well understand the inconvenience and frustration that the noble Lord must have suffered. For example, between 16th and 24th October—which was a particularly awkward period because it included State Opening—there were four breakdowns. All went reasonably well until the middle of December. On the 12th of that month there was a further breakdown. Subject to anything that may have happened in the past few minutes, I am happy to say that since then all has been well, and I hope that that will remain the case.
Lord Boardman: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that if in future someone is stuck in that lift, as I was last year, he should not find both the emergency

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telephone disconnected and the alarm bell switched off on the grounds that they might otherwise create a disturbance outside the lift?
chairman of committees: My Lords, if had known about it I would have come to the aid of my noble friend. I will have the matter looked into. I hope that it will not recur.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, can the noble Lord assure the House that the annunciators have been checked, and will continue to be checked, given that the one in the Queen's Room came crashing down last month uncomfortably close to where I happened to be? Another foot or two and I should not have been asking this question.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, with the rest of your Lordships, I am very relieved that the noble Lord is able to ask his question. I will have the matter looked into. It is too late to do anything about that particular incident now, for obvious reasons. But the Parliamentary Works Department has been doing all it can to improve the general service through annunciators. Although inevitably there are difficulties from time to time, I believe that the Parliamentary Works Department, its director, Mr. Henry Webber, and his staff do an absolutely splendid job of work for us.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, considering the very slow movement of the lift which is labelled "Express", does my noble friend agree that it dates from the time when a motor car had to be preceded by someone carrying a red flag?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I am not sure what one would do with a red flag or light in a lift. My engineering perspicacity does not go as far as to be able to conjecture whether one would stand on top of it while it was moving upwards. However, that lift too is perhaps a matter that should be looked into.

EC Fisheries Agreements: Third Countries
3.23 p.m.
Lord Willoughby de Broke Lord Willoughby de Broke asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are satisfied that the £30 million spent on European Community third country fishing agreements, for the benefit of Britain's Spanish and Portuguese competitors, is a sensible use of British taxpayers' money.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, some European Community fisheries agreements with third countries benefit mainly Spain and Portugal. Others benefit other member states, including the United Kingdom. Our distant water fleet, for example, is dependent on EC fisheries agreements
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with Norway and other Atlantic countries. The Government are concerned to achieve value for money from the agreements as a whole.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply, but does he agree that to spend £30 million per annum—I believe the figure is about £90 million over four years—to sustain the Spanish fishing effort is a frightful waste of British taxpayers' money? If that amount of money is sloshing around in the coffers, would it not be better spent on sustaining the British Council or the World Service, which do some good for this country?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, although I confess to being a great fan of both the British Council and the World Service, I do not immediately see that to save money on the Spanish means that the Chancellor will allow us to spend it on them. My noble friend may wish to contemplate the effect of not spending that money on providing fishing opportunities to the Spanish. They will come to fish in our waters rather more than they do at the moment.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, in his initial reply the Minister referred to the fact that certain areas of the United Kingdom had benefited from the settlement. Can he indicate which areas of the United Kingdom have benefited from it? Was Ulster one of them? Is that one of the reasons why the Members of Parliament for the Province of Ulster appear to be so dedicated to supporting the Government?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, no. The main beneficiaries are our distant water fleets, which are based largely in the North East.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, does my noble friend recall that when these schemes were first devised soon after Spain and Portugal joined the Community (as it then was) they appeared to be a sensible way of enabling Spanish boats to fish at a distance from British shores and to be engaged in fisheries in African waters that were of little interest to British fishermen? They also served as a form of aid to developing countries. Do these considerations still apply?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I believe that my noble friend is quite right. This situation originated when the European Community took on pre-existing fishing agreements. That seemed to us at the time, and now looking back on it, to be a sensible thing to do. To some extent, they have allowed themselves to be drawn away from that rather sensible position into overpaying and chasing round the world to search for new opportunities with little regard to cost. But I believe that that has now been reined in by the European Commission.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that both Houses of Parliament were denied the opportunity to consider the 1997 provisions in this matter in their correct setting since the European Commission, in dereliction of its duty, failed to supply

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the British Parliament with the budget documents until it was too late for them to be considered prior to their submission to the European Parliament?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am always happy to be educated in these matters by the noble Lord.
Lord Reay: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that a report on this very subject is to be published shortly by the European Communities Committee of your Lordships' House and that one of the proposals it makes is that a greater share of the cost of these increasingly expensive agreements should be borne by the fishing interests which benefit from them or by the relevant member states on their behalf? As this is currently one of the options that the European Commission states it is considering, will Her Majesty's Government give every encouragement to the Commission to proceed down that path?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, we will. Until recently we have found ourselves in a minority of one in urging this kind of budget discipline on the Fisheries Commissioner. There have been a number of agreements, one of which is that with Mauritania, by which the European Commission has bought out existing commercial arrangements and reissued licences free to people who were previously prepared to pay for them. We believe that fishermen who benefit from these agreements, often substantially, should pay their proper share of the cost.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, does the noble Lord join with me in drawing to the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby, the Statement made by Mr. Baldry in another place last month that the British fishing industry had benefited from subsidies, mostly from the European Union but also from national sources, equal to £131 million in the past three years?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, the fishing industry throughout the European Community is heavily subsidised.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the first duty of any government is to control public expenditure? Further, does he agree that it is a bit silly for British taxpayers to pay about £30 million to the UK's competitors to the detriment of their own fishing industry?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I do not believe that these payments can in any way be described as being to the detriment of our fishing industry. The European Community has entered into a large number of agreements, many of which benefit the United Kingdom and many of which benefit the Spanish. The fact is that some of the money that we pay goes to the Spanish and some of the money that the Spanish pay comes to us. Looking at the current state of affairs on a global basis, we have a reasonable arrangement at reasonable cost for our own fishermen.
Lord Carter: My Lords, do the Government share the concern of many people outside the House as to the effect
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these agreements will have on the fishing industries in some of the poorest countries of the world? I am thinking of The Gambia, for example, which has had serious problems as a result of these agreements. Are the Government prepared to impress upon our European partners the need to take that into consideration?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, obviously that is an extremely important facet of those agreements. We must ensure that they do not amount to exploitation of third countries. Indeed, perhaps one of the helpful aspects of that is that Mrs. Bonino is the Fisheries Commissioner and the Overseas Aid Commissioner. I am sure that this is a matter which she bears closely in mind.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords—
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords—
The Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, we have some time. If the noble Lord, Lord Williams, is reasonably brief, as I am sure he will be, I am sure that your Lordships will allow my noble friend to come in.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that, contrary to the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Kempston, the first duty of any British Government is defence of the realm?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord is fishing for an answer which is wide of the Question.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, is not the problem here that we have foolishly given our fisheries over to the common resource of the Community, and that before we did so we had 85 per cent. of the value of fish in our waters and 80 per cent. of their volume? We now have 30 per cent. of the volume and 8 per cent. of their value. Has not that been a colossal financial disaster for this country?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, that is an old question which has been answered at great length previously. All I can say is that my answer is no. As to why, I do not believe that I have time to go into that unless I am given another hour and a half or so. I have failed to convince my noble friend in the past and I am sure that I have now.

Ballistic Missile Defence Systems
3.31 p.m.
Lord Kennet Lord Kennet asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the written paper given to the United States periodical Defense News and reported in the Guardian of 13th January constitutes an announcement of a decision on United Kingdom participation in ballistic missile defences and, if so, why this announcement was not first made to Parliament.
Earl Howe: My Lords, no decision has been taken by Her Majesty's Government on our participation in

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ballistic missile defence systems and no paper was given to Defense News. We are still assessing whether we have a national requirement for ballistic missile defence, taking into account risks posed by ballistic missiles from a national perspective and evaluating the options for responding to these risks.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful reply, which shows that we are dealing here with a leak and not with a decision which has been taken and withheld, even temporarily, from Parliament. Will the Minister confirm that these matters will be debated before the Government take a decision? Is not that a reasonable thing to ask? Perhaps I may explain that the system in question is a very small tip of a very large iceberg. Am I not right in saying that it is a programme favoured only by the US airforce, and is not even a tri-service proposal in the United States? Am I not right in saying that it consists of putting iodine lasers with a kill range of about 200 nautical miles on Boeing 747s, and then having those planes roam around the world, ready to zap anybody and anything, thus constituting a large new offensive capability?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the particular system mentioned in the article to which the noble Lord's Question refers is one of a number of systems that have been looked at during the course of the pre-feasibility study. We cannot make judgments about any BMD system until we have determined whether or not there is a national requirement. I cannot comment upon the view the United States takes of that particular system. As to the noble Lord's other question, we in the UK are nowhere near reaching a point where an announcement might be made on the way forward, but naturally we shall make an announcement to Parliament as and when there is something to announce.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is no reasonable hope or expectation of any effective ballistic missile defence, and it is precisely that question which has led many senior military figures in recent times to take the view, which I have been expressing for some long time, that it is time to get rid of the nuclear weapon?
Earl Howe: My Lords, as to the technical feasibility of any system, again, I have to say that we are not yet at that stage. We need to do a great deal of work before we reach that point. It is of course a pertinent consideration, but the main one is whether there is a gap that needs to be filled.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is the Minister aware that we are content to wait for the Government's review and the result which no doubt will be reported to Parliament in the course of time? We recognise that this is an important and indeed vital matter which involves a great number of technical and difficult problems which have to be studied in a very clear way.
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We are very happy to wait to see what the Government have to say and to make our judgment as and when the Government produce their own conclusions.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I find those remarks extremely helpful. I am grateful to the noble Lord. It is clear that we agree completely on this matter.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, has the Minister a moment to say anything about the possibility of a discussion in Parliament before the Government take their final decision?
Earl Howe: My Lords, as I have tried to indicate, it is still early days. Advice has not yet been submitted to Ministers, let alone have any decisions been taken. However, I am sure that the noble Lord, with his interest in these matters, will not be slow in tabling a Motion at an appropriate moment. Of course I am more than happy to correspond with him on this question at appropriate intervals.

Crime (Sentences) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Firearms (Amendment) Bill
3.36 p.m.
Lord Swansea Lord Swansea rose to move, (a) That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they do report Clause 6 of the Bill without amendment; and (b) That, when the Bill is reported from the Committee of the Whole House, it be recommitted to a Select Committee in respect of Clause 6.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should like to make it clear at the start that this is not a delaying tactic and still less a wrecking tactic. I have tabled the Motion because the point is complex. Referral of Clause 6 to a Select Committee would enable detailed study to take place with expert witnesses for and against the proposal for storage of pistols as laid down in the Bill.
The proposals in the Bill provide for expensive, secure storage, which will be far beyond the means of most clubs. Many clubs will be forced to close down. There is an alternative method which is described as disassembly; in other words, the removal of certain components from the pistol, which can be separately stored. That will take up far less room. Having been removed from the pistols, they are just lumps of metal. They would be useless for any purpose except to deter people. The pistol is therefore immobilised. That has the same effect as removing the distributor arm from the distributor of a motor vehicle.
The effect of the Motion is to refer to a Select Committee consideration of whether the disassembly of pistols should be used as a means of control. The Motion does not delay the rest of the Bill, and there is therefore no reason why the Government should oppose the move. As I said, I have no wish to delay the Bill's

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progress. I know that the Government are worried about the time factor—about the Bill running out of time and being lost. I should be happy to accept a government Motion to fix a timetable for the Select Committee to report—let us say, four weeks or whatever period of time might seem right to the Government.
By confining the reference to Clause 6, it will be possible to consider the issue of disassembly in isolation, making any consequential amendments on Report. There are two powerful reasons why the House should proceed in that manner.
First, the issue is not a trivial one. Under the terms of the Bill handguns have to be stored and used at licensed clubs. The issue is whether they should be stored whole, or whether they should be dismantled and only their key components stored. Lord Cullen, in his report, said the option,
"which is open to least objection on the grounds of practicality is the temporary dismantling of self-loading pistols and revolvers by the removal of major components".
The dismantlement option is quicker and easier to implement and it will save money both to clubs which have to pay for increased security and to the Treasury in terms of fair compensation.
More important, it will enhance public safety. The storage of whole guns will create identified arsenals of weapons which can be a natural attraction to terrorists and criminals. Central storage of key components only, with the scattered storage in homes of the rest of the guns, will avoid that danger.
The second reason is that without the Select Committee procedure the House will not be able to make an informed judgment on which option is to be preferred. Lord Cullen acknowledged that the decision should be made on sound technical advice. This advice has not been forthcoming. The Select Committee can call expert witnesses for and against the proposals who can be examined.
In the first place, the Government acted with undue haste. They received Lord Cullen's report on 14th October 1996. They obtained a single letter from the Forensic Science Service on 16th October 1996. Their rejection of the dismantlement option was available to Parliament in printed form on 12th November 1996. It is very clear from the timetable that it was impossible for there to have been adequate consideration of so serious an issue.
Secondly, the Government began by rejecting dismantlement on the ground that it was not practical. Their response to Lord Cullen's report said:
"While removal of key components is feasible for certain types of gun, it is not a practical proposition for others".
At Second Reading the Home Secretary said:
"The Government took advice from the Forensic Science Service on the practicability of disabling multi-shot guns. It concluded that the way forward was unworkable.".—[Offcial Report, Commons, 12/11/96; col. 175.]
Faced with overwhelming evidence that this was not so, the Government conceded that dismantlement was
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practicable. At Committee stage the Home Secretary said that,
"we accept that there are many varieties of handgun that can readily be dismantled, but there are others for which it is a much more difficult operation".—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/96; col. 784.]
In fact, about 95 per cent. of handguns can be easily dismantled. The Government therefore changed their ground to suggest that it is easy to obtain illicit spares, sidestepping the fact that it is easier to obtain illicit guns. So, at last, the Government abandoned any pretence of scientific clarity. At Third Reading the Home Secretary said:
"I accept at the outset that it is a matter of judgment and that it is not possible to prove conclusively that one argument is right and one argument is wrong".—[Official Report, Commons, 4/12/96; col. 1149.]
So there we are. It is a matter of judgment after all. But on what evidence are we to make the judgment? On the one hand we have the unanimous advice from experts outside the Home Office that dismantlement is practicable and safe. We have also the stated preference of Lord Cullen. On the other hand we have two letters from Mr. Warlow, of the Forensic Science Service, made available by the Home Office. The first of the letters, dated 16th October, has already been abandoned by the Government as an adequate explanation. The second, dated 18th November, contains Mr. Warlow's personal opinion quoted by Ministers:
"This procedure [dismantlement] would not provide a guaranteed measure of assurance against the possible misuse of a pistol by a determined and motivated individual".
There is no evidence in the letter to substantiate that opinion other than the self-evident point that no measure of any kind can be a guarantee against possible misuse.
The Bill has been rushed through the Commons with no opportunity to get to the bottom of the matter. The only correct procedure for the House is therefore to interrogate Mr. Warlow and the other experts and make its own conclusion on the basis of the evidence. That is what the Select Committee procedure will provide.
Moved, (a) That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they do report Clause 6 of the Bill without amendment; and (b) That, when the Bill is reported from the Committee of the Whole House, it be recommitted to a Select Committee in respect of Clause 6.—(Lord Swansea.)
3.45 p.m.
Lord Dean of Harptree: My Lords, I dislike certain aspects of the Bill, but, with respect to my noble friend, I dislike even more his proposition in the Motion. I say that for two main reasons. First, I believe that a Bill of this character is best dealt with in its entirety on the Floor of the House in a Committee of the Whole House. Secondly, the proposed procedure could put in jeopardy the whole Bill, in view of the very short time which may well be available between now and the dissolution of this Parliament. I suggest that if that happened we should be in a position which was contrary to the spirit of the Salisbury Convention, which is well established and is long standing.

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Whether we like it or not, the Bill was in the gracious Speech and it passed all its stages in another place with substantial majorities. To risk ditching it now would be very unwise. Indeed, I would go further and say that it would be sheer folly, in view of the policy of Her Majesty's Official Opposition, to interfere with the composition of this House. In saying that, I am not opposed to amending the Bill if your Lordships believe that to be appropriate. Indeed, we as a Chamber pride ourselves in revising Bills. We frequently amend Bills and send amendments to another place which it accepts as improvements. I very much hope that Her Majesty's Government will accept amendments dealing with certain aspects of the Bill which are causing most concern in particular to the law abiding shooting community.
My conclusion is amend the Bill, if your Lordships believe that to be appropriate, but do not risk ditching it through lack of time. That I say firmly now.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Dean of Harptree. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, might be persuaded to withdraw his Motion. He is inviting the House to defer its opinion to a Select Committee in respect of a matter on which the House, in terms of its total membership, is probably well qualified to make a judgment. In any event, he is promoting an amendment to the clause in respect of which he is trying to invite us to indulge in this procedure.
It is clear from the amendments that have been tabled that all sections of opinion in this House have varied views on the merits of the Bill. However, I hope that we shall get on with discussing those amendments and that that will be expedited if this Motion is withdrawn.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, before speaking to the Motion, I wish to declare an interest. I am a member of the Palace of Westminster Rifle Club, but I have no firearm or shotgun certificate of my own.
The purpose of the amendment is not to create delay. Indeed, I had hoped that we could have the report of the Select Committee in seven days on an emergency basis. However, I was told that that was completely impracticable but that perhaps two weeks might be possible. If the Select Committee determines that disassembly is satisfactory, small bore shooting might be viable, even full bore shooting could be all right, and that would save the country £150 million of public money.
The Government quote from papers from the Forensic Science Service, but they are only inter-office notes which appear to be an argument not for dismantling but rather for maintaining the status quo. What was the context of those papers?
Furthermore, those papers were not subject to peer review. They were certainly not considered advice to the Minister. They were definitely not sufficiently comprehensive to justify the expenditure of £150 million, which is £2.50 for every man, woman and child within the United Kingdom.
I repeat that this is not a Motion for time delay. I would not support any Motion made by the Leader of the House if it did not have upon it a severe time limit. We all understand that the Bill must be on the statute book well
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before Easter. The Government want that so that they can be seen to have done something about the tragedy at Dunblane. The Opposition say that they are pushing the legislation in order to improve public safety. I support the Motion and I hope that the noble Lord will take it to a Division.
Earl Peel: My Lords, I support the Motion and I declare an interest as president of the Gun Trade Association. As I said on Second Reading, all those involved with handgun shooting, whether through sport or business, feel very let down by the rushed nature of this Bill. Many feel that Lord Cullen's report should have been considered in much greater detail than it has been. As I said also on Second Reading, I have a great deal of sympathy for the Government's position. Although I have grave doubts about the Bill, I supported it then and I still do.
However, the question of dismantlement is very important indeed. The outcome of your Lordships' deliberations on this matter will mean a great deal to all those involved with handgun shooting. Clearly, should we decide that dismantlement is the correct course of action and that is accepted in another place, that would have considerable cost savings not just for clubs through the reduction in security costs but also for members through their membership fees and for the Government in relation to compensation.
I have no intention of going into the pros and cons of dismantlement as an effective method of security; but having read the evidence, as I am sure have other noble Lords, it seems clear that the question is far from answered and needs very careful scrutiny. It would appear that the Government are basing their objection to dismantlement on one man's evidence—that of Mr. Warlow.
I do not suggest for one moment that his evidence is not of the very highest quality; but whether we like it or not, the fact remains that several others are also regarded as experts who take a contrary view. I do not believe that, as yet, their evidence has been taken fully into account. Therefore, I believe that the Motion moved by my noble friend Lord Swansea to refer that issue to a Select Committee is the right course of action and would overcome that vital omission.
As I have said already, many people feel very badly let down by the rushed nature of this legislation and are looking to your Lordships to take a more balanced and rational approach. The issue of dismantlement is far too important not to be considered in great detail with the benefit of the advice of expert witnesses. The consequences of such a decision will be vital to many people.
The dismantlement argument is crucial and deserves special treatment. Furthermore, I hope that the Opposition parties, despite their general opposition to the ownership of all handguns, will acknowledge that if some guns are to remain in private hands—and if the Bill goes through as it stands at the moment, that will

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happen—the need for security remains paramount but that those needs must be considered along with the practical needs of those who enjoy their sport.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to make two procedural suggestions. They both lead in the direction of not agreeing to this Motion. The first is perhaps a small objection but I do not believe that the Motion achieves its purpose. It does not say that the Committee of the Whole House should not consider Clause 6. It says that the Bill should be reported to the House as amended but without Clause 6.
That does not make sense because it has not taken into account the consideration in Committee. What are we to do, if the Motion is agreed to, when we reach Clause 6? Is the Lord Chairman not to put the question that Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill and are amendments to Clause 6 not to be moved? The Motion does not deal with that.
The second point is that I agree entirely with the view expressed across the Floor of the House that it is much the most appropriate procedure for the Bill to be considered in Committee before it goes to a Select Committee. I say that not merely because of procedural reasons but because in that event, the Select Committee will not have the huge benefit of the expression of opinion in this House on that clause when it comes to consider it. I consider that that clinches the matter. I very much hope that the Motion will be withdrawn and that we can get on with consideration of the Bill in Committee in the usual fashion.
Lord Burnham:My Lords, personally, I am generally in agreement with my noble friend Lord Dean of Harptree; but is he right to say that the Bill was included in the gracious Speech? I read the gracious Speech with some care with that particular point in mind. I could be wrong but I could not find mention of it. If I am wrong, so be it. But if I am right, whether the Motion is desirable is a matter for your Lordships to determine, but it would not be a contravention of the Salisbury convention.
Lord Sewel: My Lords, opinion in Scotland is clear. There is a determined wish for control and greater control. The Motion that we are debating now, despite what may have been said, clearly has as its objective to put the Bill at risk.
Noble Lords: No, no.
Lord Sewel: Oh, yes it does. Those of us who are perhaps aware of the processes and procedures of this House know full well that this is a device, a mechanism, to imperil the legislation.
I ask your Lordships' House to reflect and reflect deeply on the way that support for this Motion would be interpreted in Scotland. The people of Scotland
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would rightly not forget and would wish to take the first opportunity to pass judgment on this House and its future.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, I believe that the House would be extremely unwise to agree to the Motion. It seems to me that the noble Lord who has just spoken is right. This will be interpreted as a delaying mechanism. I believe that I am right to say that this device has not been used since before the war. I cannot believe that in the past 60 years matters more complicated than the question of disabling a gun have not arisen for consideration and they have not needed to be referred to a Select Committee. I believe that this device was last used and acceded to by the House for the Coal Act 1937.
If your Lordships agree to the Motion, the matter would be referred to a Select Committee. No real time limits could be imposed. We do not know what evidence would be called. We all know that a general election is pending in the next few months. How on earth would the public and Members of the other place interpret the accession of your Lordships to this Motion? It would be widely seen as a means of either delaying or destroying this measure. Of all the matters that have come before Parliament in recent times, this surely is a matter for the elected Members eventually to decide. They have to face the constituents.
4 p.m.
Lord Cottesloe: My Lords, I should like to reassure previous speakers that, whatever impression may have been given, it is not the intention to delay or kill the Bill. I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, have made that clear. I can only reiterate what they said.
I shall try to be brief, but I should like to make a general statement. On the wall of our village church there is a fine stone memorial to my grandfather who died in 1956. It refers to his long life of dedicated public service and concludes as follows:
"Lord Cottesloe was chairman of the National Rifle Association the most distinguished Rifleman and the foremost Authority on Firearms of his generation. (Do what is right—come what may)".
My father died in 1994 and was in his time an equally, if not perhaps more distinguished rifleman than his father. As some noble Lords will know, he too led a life of distinguished public service and was awarded the GBE for services to the arts. So he, too, was hardly an ignorant or irresponsible philistine.
The purpose of that rather tedious' piece of family history is to try to counter the anti-gun lobby and its public perception that anyone who enjoys shooting with a pistol, a rifle or a shotgun (as I do myself) is an ignorant, heartless, irresponsible—I understand that I am not allowed to use the word "yob", although it is much used outside this House—person.
I suggest that all the shooting community must speak with one voice and support each other, whether we use pistols, rifles or shotguns. After Hungerford, the people who were hardest hit by the 1988 amendment Act were the holders of shotgun certificates, although the principal weapon used by Michael Ryan in his dreadful

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crime was a Kalashnikov self-loading rifle. Believe me, there is a very strong lobby, containing many otherwise sensible and well-informed people, which wishes to put an end to the legal ownership of any firearms by any private citizen in this country. Indeed, when I was on holiday in Wensleydale last summer, prayers were said in church to exactly that effect.
I shall not talk about points of detail, but perhaps I may mention one specific point. I have a long-standing, if somewhat tenuous, connection with the Wheel Chair Games which are held at Stoke Mandeville, not far from my home. I believe that pistol shooting is the only sport, with the possible exception of archery, in which able and disabled people and people of either sex can compete on absolutely equal terms. Unfortunately, it is not really a major spectator sport. Nevertheless, disabled people will be deprived of a sport—in many cases their only sport—by this Bill.
Can we plead, please, for less emotion and more objectivity? Nobody, but nobody, wants to see innocent little children slaughtered. But it is arguable, as I understand it, that if the speed limit in towns was reduced from 30 mph to 20 mph then the lives of 100 children would be saved each year. Of course, that cannot be proved beyond doubt and may be dismissed as speculative, but it is no more speculative than many of the arguments of the anti-gun lobby.
After Hillsborough there was really general agreement that the arrangements for the safety of spectators in sports stadiums needed radical revision—and this was done. An innocent, so to speak, victim of this legislation was the grandstand of the National Agricultural Centre at Stoneleigh in Warwickshire where the Royal Show is held each year, which was technically classified as a sports stadium. Although we had never had any trouble, and none was anticipated, the Royal Agricultural Society of England had to spend very large sums of money to comply. This seemed to be a case of an individual injustice in the interests of the common good. People who use guns are in general equally responsible and the recent hard weather wildfowl ban was generally accepted by sportsmen. But the current public vilification and wholesale legal victimisation of a responsible, law-abiding minority, albeit numbering many thousands, with the consequent destruction, inter alia, of livelihoods, leisure activities and heritage items is a gross infringement of civil liberty, in my view, and quite another matter.
I have to say that I believe this Bill to be ill-prepared and hastily drafted: as it stands it will be bad law. I support the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Swansea.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I hope that we will not hear any more belated Second Reading speeches like that in the House today. Of course the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, is not a breach of the procedure of the House; indeed, it would not have been allowed by the Clerks at the Table if it had been. But it is seriously an abuse of the spirit in which those procedures are conducted and it is seriously dangerous to the wish not only of the elected Chamber
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but also of a very large number of people in this country to see this legislation concluded before the general election.
It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the detailed arguments about disabling or not disabling guns made by the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, and others. If those arguments had had any validity, they should have been put on Second Reading and a procedural Motion should have been tabled to attempt to achieve some other procedure other than a Committee of the Whole House. As it was, the House decided without dissent that the Bill should be read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House, which is what has happened. Therefore, to attempt at this stage, when the gap between Second Reading and Committee has elapsed, to defer one part of the Bill to a special Select Committee procedure—though it may be technically correct—is profoundly wrong.
I took careful note of what the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, said. He said that the suggested procedure would not delay the rest of the Bill. However, we cannot delay one part of the Bill without delaying the rest of the legislation. If we were to accede to the Motion and delay even one part of the Bill—or, indeed, one clause or even one line of it—rather than dealing with it in Committee as is proper, the whole of the Bill would be delayed. It is clearly inconceivable that we should then reach a Report stage on 4th February (as is now planned) and, given the situation regarding the numbers in the House of Commons, it is highly likely that the Bill would then fail to obtain Royal Assent before a general election.
On this Bill, as noble Lords know, my noble friends have freedom of conscience and they can vote as they wish. But my own intention would be to urge them most strongly to vote against this procedural Motion and to vote for the Bill to proceed in its entirety into Committee. I give the House the following warning. If as a result of this debate the Motion is carried and the Bill is delayed in such a way that it does not achieve Royal Assent before the general election and it subsequently comes before Parliament with a Labour Government, not only will this legislation be put through with the greatest urgency but the argument for the exclusion of the hereditary peerage from Parliament will be strongly increased. This Motion should be voted down.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, it has been stated that the Bill is relevant to all those involved in handgun shooting; namely, 60,000 people in this country. But this Bill is much more relevant to the rest of the country, despite what we may think from the contents of the huge postbags that we have all received. I believe that the legislation is far too important to be delayed. The Bill is very important to the population and we cannot legislate solely for 60,000 people and ignore the very widespread fear of handguns which has not only been brought about by the Dunblane and Hungerford incidents but is also an inherent factor.
I should like to make just two points. First, the inevitable procrastination will show us to be "out of touch" to an even greater extent than is currently

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believed. Secondly, even if it is not the intention of the Motion to delay the Bill, that is exactly how it will be perceived.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I have no complaint at all about any of the speeches made in this short debate in support of the Motion of the noble Lord. Views are strongly felt in your Lordships' House. They are legitimately held. Sharply conflicting views were expressed on Second Reading and will be expressed again. I have no objection to this debate taking place, even if it were legitimate for me to have one. I regret very much any threats which appear to have been made about the consequences that might follow from any action the House might take.
I think we all recognise that this is a complex issue which deserves careful scrutiny. We can all be wise after the event. On reflection I, for one, believe that it might have been better to have had a Green Paper following Lord Cullen's report or, if it were possible, a pre-legislative committee to discuss many aspects of this complex question. However, that is a view I hold in retrospect. I do not blame anyone else for proceeding in the way that the Government chose to do in the light of public pressure at the time.
We now have a Bill before us. As noble Lords have said, it has passed through another place. We have a continuing duty of scrutiny but we certainly ought not to delay the Bill unreasonably. I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, to discover whether there were any aspects of Clause 6 which were so fundamentally unusual to justify his singling it out as a clause which might go to a Select Committee. I did not hear those arguments. I do not see why, if that clause were to go to a Select Committee, the whole Bill might not also be sent to a Select Committee, However, that time is past. We have a Bill and we have the opportunity to discuss it today, and on at least one other occasion in Committee. I strongly urge your Lordships to conclude this debate and to proceed with the formal scrutiny of the Bill.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I hope I may put it to the Government that it is very much in their own interests to accept this Motion, which is not, of course, a wrecking Motion. As my noble friend Lord Attlee pointed out, if it is accepted it need not delay the Bill by more than 14 days at most. If the proposed Select Committee were to find that the Home Office firearms expert was right about disassembly, and that almost every other firearms expert was wrong, the Government would have won a significant victory, and much of the opposition to Part I of the Bill would collapse. If, on the other hand, the Select Committee should find that almost all the other experts were right, and by extension that Lord Cullen was right, the Government need not lose face. They could legitimately maintain that they were right to err on the side of extreme caution when making their initial speedy decision but that now that there had been time to investigate the disassembly question thoroughly it had become evident that the proposed draconian restrictions
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were not after all necessary and that Lord Cullen's recommendations on disassembly could, after all, be adopted.
The prizes—assuming that the Select Committee were to find for Lord Cullen, so to speak—would be enormous all round. Tens of thousands of law abiding men and women would be able to continue practising their sport and their clubs would not go bankrupt in consequence of extremely expensive security precautions which would otherwise be necessary. Tens of thousands of natural Conservative supporters would return to the fold. Tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money could be better spent elsewhere and, above all, the general public would be much safer in that a dismantled gun has almost no value to a thief. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, replying to a supplementary question on the first Starred Question today, said, if I heard him right, that complicated scientific investigation should be left to scientists, or words to that effect. I believe it is sensible to follow that principle on the extremely important and complicated question of disassembly. I therefore urge your Lordships to support the Motion.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I did not intend to speak in this debate, but having listened to it I have become a little concerned about some of the things that have been said. We need to appreciate that, as the second Chamber is constituted at the moment, and as it operates at the moment, there is a distinction between ourselves and the other House. Two problems that exist in the other House can be overcome in this House. First, amendments to Bills in the other House are selected. Not all amendments that are tabled are debated. The other problem the other House has is that quite often Bills are committed to Select Committees of the other House and not all Members of the other place can contribute to those committees. One of the glories of this House is that all amendments are considered and, in general, Committee stages are conducted before the whole House and every Member of your Lordships' House can contribute.
Bearing in mind the topic of the Bill, we can recognise that we have a significant number of experts in this field. We can also recognise that a whole range of Members of your Lordships' House right across the Chamber can express themselves articulately on this matter. I argue that in the situation we are now in it will not help the House and the consideration of the Bill if this Motion were agreed to. I hope that Clause 6, along with the rest of the Bill, will be considered by a Committee of the whole House, as this House has established a strong reputation for providing something that is different from the other place.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I did not intend to speak on this Motion until I heard the uncharacteristically immoderate speech of my noble friend on the Front Bench. I shall not speak for long, but I believe that we have been extremely unkind to the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, who has tried to be helpful. He, like myself, understands—as does every other

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Member of this House—that the Government set up the Cullen inquiry which reported and recommended that disassembly was a possible way of dealing with this matter. The Government chose not to accept that report and indeed announced their intentions before the report had been published or properly assimilated. Therefore we have not had the opportunity we should have had to discuss properly in this House the course of action recommended in the report. In my view therefore there is a good reason why a less than normal procedure should be adopted to ensure that the experts give their views. After all, we in this House are not experts, nor can we act as an expert body when the House is in full Committee. There is a case for subjecting the matter to a quick examination—which was reported on by Lord Cullen—by experts, and for having a considered view, or perhaps more than one considered view, put before the House.
There is a great deal of feeling in the country on this matter. The Bill has come to this House after a guillotine procedure was introduced and enforced in the House of Commons. Therefore, as my noble friend has just said, it is right and proper that this House does its duty and ensures that the Bill is given proper consideration for as long as that takes.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, I have listened with great interest to all the points advanced during this debate. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Swansea for spending time discussing his concerns about Clause 6 with me and I wish to put on record that I accept that my noble friend has no wish to delay the Bill unduly nor to thwart the passing of the Bill. As my noble friend has said it is his intention that by remitting Clause 6 to a Select Committee the House would have a greater opportunity to consider the issue of disassembly. I have naturally given serious thought to this proposal and discussed it at length with colleagues and officials. Therefore I hope that the House will recognise that what I have to say represents a careful and considered response.
This is an unusual Motion. Indeed it was as long ago as the 1930s that such a Motion was last put to this House. Not only is this Motion unusual; it also has a number of awkward, and perhaps unforeseen, consequences. I mention just one example. If this Motion were passed, the House during this Committee stage could debate amendments to Clause 6 but not in fact make any amendments to the clause. That would indeed be unusual.
Whatever effect my noble friend wishes this Motion to have, I have to tell the House that it would place this Bill in real peril and I am sure that I do not have to remind the House that this would be a most serious matter. One has only to consider the time that has to be set aside to establish a committee and for it to complete its work. Time would be needed to give public notice of the committee's intention to take evidence and to give interested parties the time to prepare to make their submissions. My noble friend has suggested that this process could be completed within one month from today but it may well take longer than that for an effective Select Committee to be selected, appointed,
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and to complete its work. The whole House would then have to consider the report and resume the remaining stages of the Bill including the additional stage required after the Select Committee, namely recommittal of Clause 6. One does not need to dwell for long on the arithmetic of this particular equation to be clear that it delays the passage of this Bill through your Lordships' House. I am sure I do not need to remind the House that your Lordships' consideration must be followed by consideration in another place of Lords amendments. There is no doubt that this Motion would seriously jeopardise the completion of this Bill in this Parliament.
As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said in his statement in another place, the facts of the dreadful event at Dunblane committed with a gun that was legally bought and legally possessed,
"place an extremely onerous duty on the Government to consider what controls there should be on the ownership and possession of guns."—[Official Report, Commons, 16/10/96; col. 831.]
This Bill seeks to give the public the protection they require by removing all handguns from circulation but recognising the legitimate interests of sportsmen by allowing the use and storage of lower calibre handguns—subject to stringent security requirements—in gun clubs.
Concern about Clause 6 is the subject of the Motion before the House. But there is only one amendment down to Clause 6. And neither my noble friend nor any other noble Lord has given notice of an intention to debate the question that the clause stand part of the Bill. This House has given consideration to matters of much greater complexity, with comparable concern and sensitivity of subject in many Bills, but has not needed to resort to such a procedure. I am therefore rather puzzled as to why my noble friend intends to vary our normal procedures in this way in respect of a clause that has generated so little interest by way of amendment.
The House has every opportunity to consider the question of disassembly, together with every other issue, in the normal way. This Bill was debated at great length during Second Reading. Noble Lords have now had a number of weeks to consider it further and we are about to embark upon two days of Committee. I am sure that noble Lords on all sides of the House will agree with me that your Lordships' procedure for consideration in Committee of the whole House is one of the great strengths of your Lordships' procedures allowing as it does all noble Lords to play a part in revising and scrutinising legislation.
I should add that there has been no attempt to truncate or curtail the timetable for this Bill in this House and that all the time needed to discuss any amendment before the House is provided for. It is of course possible for the House to come back to any part of the Bill for further consideration during Report and again at Third Reading. I see no reason for departing from our normal procedures.
I do not intend at this time to discuss the relative merits or demerits of disassembly. I wish merely to point out to the House the consequences of accepting this Motion on Clause 6, and to invite your Lordships to accept that the usual procedures of this House are

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more than adequate for further consideration of this Bill; and that any departure from those procedures could have the most serious consequences for this Bill. I must therefore ask you to reject this Motion.
Lord Swansea: My Lords, I hope that I made it sufficiently clear at the start that my Motion was in no way a wrecking or delaying tactic. However, one or two noble Lords seem to have had doubts about that. The Motion has to do with the rights of minorities which in a democracy like ours are important. There are many thousands of shooters. A small proportion of the population see their sport in danger of being killed altogether.
As I said at Second Reading, this is a bad Bill. I am trying to improve it by making it more able to be lived with. The general feeling of your Lordships is contrary to my suggestion and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
On Question, Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
4.27 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Blatch.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Tordoff) in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Extension of s.5 of the Firearms Act 1968 to prohibit certain small firearms]:
[Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 not moved.]
Earl Attlee Earl Attlee moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 15, after ("weapon,") insert ("a single shot weapon,").
The noble Earl said: In moving Amendment No. 3, it may be for the convenience of the Committee if I spoke also to my Amendment No. 7 and, with the leave of the Committee, refer to Amendment No. 19.
The Minister's Amendment No. 19 is very useful to the agricultural community as it will allow the continued use of a shot pistol. I believe that they are similar to a garden gun. They will be used for dispatching vermin such as rats. Ordinary 12 or 20 bore shotguns have the disadvantage that they can damage farm buildings with their power and they are not so convenient for use in confined spaces. However, I wonder whether the Minister is aware of a technique that can be used to alter a shotgun cartridge including the .410 inches applicable to the shot pistol. If molten candlewax or some similar substance is poured into the shot it acquires the ballistic characteristics similar to that of a solid slug or bullet. Thus a shot pistol, merely by a simple technique, can be made nearly as powerful as a full-bore single shot pistol.
My amendment would permit the use of a single-shot full-bore target pistol. These are used only by very serious target shooters. They are not attractive to those who don the trappings of combat. These guns are also
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unattractive to criminals for two reasons: first, they have very sensitive trigger actions, which could cause a criminal inadvertently to fire his gun; secondly, as the gun would fire only a single shot, he could be vulnerable until he could reload. Most of them can be dismantled, a point that we shall debate later.
There is one further point to be made about criminal use of single-shot weapons. I, as do many others, have modest engineering facilities. I could easily make a smooth bore single-shot pistol by the end of this weekend. It could be made to fire a solid bullet or shot, and it could be devastatingly powerful. There is therefore no point whatsoever in imposing draconian restrictions on shot pistols or single-shot target pistols as it would penalise legitimate users while not impeding criminals at all.
I think I have briefly shown that the shot pistol could be very similar in terms of power. However, there is one extra difference. The shot pistol can be double-barrelled: two shots can be fired with a shot pistol, whereas only one can be fired with a target pistol.
I am grateful to the Minister for her amendment. I hope that she is able to accept mine. I beg to move.
4.30 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, if the noble Earl will forgive me, I shall refer only to Amendments Nos. 3 and 7. No Member of the House was warned that Amendment No. 19 was to be coupled with these amendments. Therefore I accept with some comfort the words of the noble Earl but will present Amendment No. 19 in its proper order.
The Bill will allow .22 rimfire or other small-calibre handguns to be kept in clubs licensed by the Home Office or Scottish Office, regardless of whether they are single-shot or multi-shot. However, handguns of higher calibre will be prohibited by the Bill.
The question posed by Amendments Nos. 3 and 7 is whether it would be right to make an exception to this prohibition in the case of higher calibre handguns which cannot fire more than one shot without being reloaded. The Government take the view that it would not.
Single-shot higher calibre handguns are uncommon. So an exemption would not benefit very many existing shooters. But by exempting them from the prohibition the Government might encourage their development and sale.
Single-shot higher calibre handguns are just as deadly as multi-shot ones and are as easily concealable. Many might well be models converted from original multi-shot designs. That would open up the possibility that some people might take the opportunity to convert them back to multi-shot, no doubt illicitly.
Lord Cullen concluded, on the basis of the expert technical evidence that he heard, that when a pistol has been converted from multi-shot to single-shot,
"there was no method which would prevent a pistol from being re-converted with relative ease".
That statement appears in paragraph 9.77 of his report. The Government agree with that assessment.

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What is proposed would significantly weaken the force of the prohibition and I urge the Committee to reject it.
Lord Monson: Can the Minister say how often single-shot larger calibre handguns have been used in crime over the past 25 years or so?
Baroness Blatch: No, and I do not even think that I can promise to write to the noble Lord. I do not think that that kind of detail is recorded.
Earl Attlee: I am grateful for the Minister's comments. I fully accept her comment regarding her Amendment No. 19.
She mentioned the danger of encouraging the development and sale of a particular type of weapon. I accept that argument. However, this particular gun is not dangerous in that sense. I quite accept the dangers of the shot pistol that she will debate later.
The Minister also mentioned the danger of conversion to multi-shot. That is a valid complaint in relation to my amendment. I shall read her words carefully and possibly redraft the amendment for a later stage so as to consider a weapon specially designed, originally constructed to be single-shot, which would therefore make it extremely difficult to convert to multi-shot use. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1. line 15, leave out ("a small-calibre pistol,").
The noble Lord said: This amendment represents the only major difference between ourselves—or rather between myself and those of my colleagues who agree with me—and the Government on this Bill. We have a free vote, and it is to be taken seriously. It is important that at every stage when there is a free vote—I am glad to see my noble friend Lord Stoddart back in his place—nobody should accuse us of trying to browbeat colleagues into a position that they do not wish to take up. I repeat, within the context of a free vote this amendment represents the only major issue on which we are in dispute with the Government.
I pay tribute to the way in which the Government and the Opposition throughout the period, not only since the drafting and progress of this Bill but since Dunblane, have worked together to secure greater gun control. The sight of Mr. Forsyth and Mr. Robertson in their first visit to Dunblane, followed by the sight of the Prime Minister and Mr. Blair, should be enough to convince all noble Lords that there is no party animosity between us on this issue.
There is, however, a difference of judgment in this case. The judgment we make is that the exclusion from the complete prohibition on handguns of .22 small-calibre pistols is a mistake. I do not say that it is a wicked plot or anything of that sort; I merely say that it is a mistake.
What are the Government's arguments for excluding .22s from the full rigour of the Bill? First, they say that these are used in Olympic sport and that to ban .22s would damage that part of Olympic sport.
All those who listened to the Second Reading debate will acknowledge that those who are opposed to gun control have expressed the opinion very forcibly that Olympic sport is already damaged by the provisions of the Bill as it stands. The exclusion now of small-calibre pistols from Olympic sport would not make a very great deal of difference.
I acknowledge and respect the views of those who wish to find some way of retaining the ability of this country to participate in Olympic sport. However, that has to be within the confines of public safety, as I am sure all sportsmen will acknowledge. I put it to those to whom this is a very important and respectable consideration that there is comparatively little difference between a complete ban and the 80 per cent. ban proposed by the Government in this respect.
The second argument put by the Home Secretary in another place was that, were there to be a complete ban on small-calibre pistols, somehow gun clubs would become more attractive targets for criminals. Again in a non-partisan spirit, I pay tribute to the way in which the Bill has been drafted to tighten up on the security arrangements of gun clubs. I believe that in so far as anything can be effective, those arrangements will be effective and therefore they will apply as much without .22s as they would if .22s were excluded from a ban.
After all, what is the difference between small calibre pistols and other handguns so far as concerns public safety? Small calibre pistols are the preferred weapon of the Special Air Service; they are the preferred weapon of Mossad, the Israeli Security Service, which is probably the most effective, and without fear of international incident I would say the most ruthless, security service in the world.
It was a .22 which killed Yitzhak Rabin; it was a .22 which killed Robert Kennedy; and it was .22s which killed at Hungerford and Dunblane. If a .22 can be used as Thomas Hamilton used it to fire 743 rounds to kill 17 people, seriously injure 15 people and then to kill himself in a matter of minutes, can there be any doubt that from the point of view of public safety there is no significant difference between a small calibre pistol and any other kind of handgun?
I realise that the Committee will be referring back to Lord Cullen's report on a number of occasions in the course of this debate. But we must remind ourselves that Lord Cullen said that no system of certification or regulation could be foolproof. That must apply, surely, as much to .22s as to any other form of handgun.
This is a loophole in the Bill that the Government have provided. It is not necessary. There is no consistency in the Government's approach to this particular part of the Bill. The Bill would not only provide a safer environment but would also be easier to

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administer from the point of view of certification and regulation if this amendment were carried. I commend it to the Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Gisborough: I oppose this amendment. It is important that the pistol should be available for Olympic sport, and I understand that the Manchester Olympics in 2002 were agreed virtually on condition that there would be firing pistols available. The British would not be able to partake fully. As it is, the British will not be able to partake in most events, but at least they will be able to partake in the events involving .22s.
One has to remember throughout the whole debate is that of all the massacres that have taken place, the pistol came into it only once. There was Monkseaton with a shotgun; there was Sullivan with a fire extinguisher used as a flame gun; and there are still things like explosions, chain saws and poison, and many other ways of massacring. Pistols represent just one single method that has been used. There is no justification for singling out pistols, when the only safe way of dealing with this is to leave everybody with a wooden spoon and nothing else, because that is about the only thing that is safe.
Lord Monson: I wonder why the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, has so little faith in his fellow countrymen and countrywomen. Almost every other civilised country in the world has more liberal gun laws than the Government propose, and far, far more liberal gun laws than the Opposition propose, and yet their inhabitants seem perfectly happy and safe, and indeed they are statistically safe. I see no sign of British tourists avoiding those countries where, in the majority of them, guns are more freely available. I believe that this amendment is quite unnecessary and goes much too far.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: I do not wish to rehearse the arguments for the amendment which stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and myself because I believe that they are very largely familiar to the Committee. We discussed them at Second Reading, when your Lordships appreciated that there were really four options.
One option was to concentrate on the regulation of the ownership and use of weapons and on that alone, which is the view which has already been expressed in the House today and no doubt will be expressed again. The second was the option of Lord Cullen, for which there is some support. The third option was the one adopted by the Government. The fourth option was the banning of all weapons because of a lack of distinction, pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, between .22 and heavier weapons.
I recognise the legitimacy of views on all sides of the House for all four of these options, and I do not take the view that those who opt for the better regulation of ownership and use are not themselves deeply concerned about the terrible tragedy of Dunblane. However, what we have to do is apply our minds to the possibility of legislation, and the legislation most likely—we cannot say more than that—to avoid a tragedy of this kind occurring again.
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The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, referred to there being no significant difference in the capacity of a .22 and any heavier weapons to kill. Of course, that is the central question. When we were discussing on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, Clause 6 earlier this afternoon, I reflected on the fact that Clause 6 is in the Bill as prepared by the Government and put before another place because it recognises—Ministers do recognise—that there are dangers inherent in the ownership and use of .22 weapons. Clause 6 therefore is a compromise between a ban of such weapons and leaving them outside the purview of the Bill. The point has already been conceded by Ministers that .22 weapons are dangerous and they could indeed be responsible for a repeat of the terrible offence of Dunblane. In those circumstances, we have to ask ourselves, among other things, whether the Bill as drafted is more likely to be effective in its administration than a Bill which contains a ban on all handguns of whatever kind.
I have to say to the Minister and to the Committee that I believe that if we carry the Bill as at present drafted there will be very serious problems of definition and of administration in applying Clause 6, allowing the use and ownership of handguns but restricting where they are held and not in fact banning them altogether. I have said this once and I say it again: we cannot be sure that whatever measures we take or do not take in this Bill will avoid another Dunblane. However, what we can do—and this is what this Bill is all about—is minimise the risk to human life through the ownership of handguns of every kind. If we learn the lessons of Dunblane and we are bold enough we may save others from the same fate. Nobody has a natural right to own or to use a handgun, but we all have a natural right to life.
In those circumstances, among others, I believe that a total ban on handguns, as embodied in the amendment put before the Committee at this time, is the right course to follow.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: I have a very small point I wish to raise. I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, and I was under the impression that in the course of the argument he was advancing he suggested that Thomas Hamilton had used a .22 weapon and that indeed he shot himself with such a weapon. Is that what he did suggest? I believe that he said that.
In paragraph 3.37 of the Cullen report it is made clear that the weapons he had with him were two 9 mm Browning self-loading pistols and two .357 Smith & Wesson revolvers. It would appear from the earlier paragraphs, such as paragraph 3.5, that he used the 9 mm pistols to kill the children. In paragraph 3.8 of the report it says quite clearly:
"He then released the pistol and drew a revolver. He placed the muzzle of the revolver in his mouth, pointing upwards and pulled the trigger. His death followed quickly".

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I mention this because I may be wrong, in which case I apologise, but I believe that the noble Lord was using something which was not totally accurate to support his case.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for correcting me. Clearly, from what he read, I was wrong. I did say what he thought I said and I was wrong. I withdraw the statement.
Lord Addington: Perhaps I may say very briefly that the fact about .22s is that when they hit something they displace less tissue. But with a smaller capacity handgun and shells with a magazine, there is the option of putting in another bullet. That effectively is what we are dealing with here. It may be slightly more difficult with a .22 but it is still possible to kill. That is the issue behind this matter.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: Of course, all handguns—all weapons—are dangerous. But we should remind ourselves that the danger arises when they are wrongly used by a human being. We should not lose sight of that fact. In every case, as in Hungerford and Dunblane, we find that the individual concerned was a madman. We must always keep that in mind.
If I thought that this amendment would guarantee that there would never be another Dunblane or Hungerford, I would vote for it. But, of course, there can be no such guarantee. I have to say that if this amendment is agreed, Thomas Hamilton will have won. He will have revenged himself upon the people of Dunblane. In addition he will have had a great bonus: he will have revenged himself upon perfectly innocent shooting people—people who care to shoot for a sport. He will have had his revenge on them as well because they will be wiped from the face of the earth in exactly the same way as he wiped from the face of the earth 14 young lives and one adult. Is that what we want? Should we say that because of the actions of that one madman we should take away the rights that many decent, respectable people who are not criminals have enjoyed? Do we believe that we should take away those rights completely? I believe not.
My noble friend spoke about systems of control. I must remind the Committee that if the existing controls had been properly carried out, Thomas Hamilton would not have had the weapons with which he killed those people. It was not a failure of the present control system. It happened not because there were .22 pistols available, but because Thomas Hamilton was allowed to have those guns when he should not have been allowed to have them. The policeman in charge of the investigation of his position had recommended that he should not have them, but he was overruled by the deputy chief constable.
When we talk about taking away people's rights, we must take into account the facts of the situation. I have looked at the evidence and can see no real correlation between the ownership of guns and the homicides carried out. For example, I was struck by the fact that in Switzerland and Norway, where gun ownership is high, the incidence of homicide by guns is very low.
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But in Holland, where the incidence of gun ownership is low, the incidence of homicide by guns is quite high. We must be extremely careful about what we should do.
I want to make two other points. First, what will be the additional cost of this particular measure? I do not wish to put cost against lives, but we should have some estimate of the cost of destroying a further tranche of weapons. We are entitled to have that information before we finally vote. It may be large or small—I do not know.
I come to my final point. If this amendment is agreed to, what will be the next step? Rifles and shotguns are just as lethal, if not more so, than a .22 pistol. With heavy calibre shot, one can cause mayhem with a double barrelled shotgun. So where do we go from here, if we are to ban the .22 and leave untouched even more lethal weapons?
I ask the Committee to consider this matter very seriously. We have all the sympathy in the world for the people of Dunblane and the little children who were murdered. Nevertheless, in this Chamber we have to consider the realities and the fairness of the matter. We must not impose upon ordinary, decent, law-abiding people a system which is completely wrong and has nothing to do with the matter.
Lord Renton: Before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether he would just confirm that when he refers to "cost" what he means is the additional compensation which would have to be paid and which would run into millions of pounds?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I can confirm that that is precisely what I meant.
Earl Attlee: The noble Lord who moved this amendment is quite right. The .22 pistol is a powerful and deadly weapon in the wrong hands. It is capable of rapid fire and in skilled hands it is reasonably accurate at close range.
However, the noble Lord does not seem to understand one simple concept; namely, that if someone is minded to commit an outrage against society, he can do it at will and he will use the most effective weapon or means available to him. So if he does not have a legal full bore pistol or a .22 pistol or shotgun, he can go to the Continent, particularly toward the East, and buy an illegal one. If he does not want to use guns, there are other options, which are too ghastly even to mention. That is why the noble Lord's amendment in particular and the Bill in general leave a little to be desired.
If we do not adopt dismantling, small calibre shooting may be unviable. For that reason I prefer to delay my decision until a later stage. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hooson: The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said that the Bill cannot provide a guarantee that there will not be another Dunblane or another incident such as we have been concerned about and he is absolutely right. But Lord Cullen, the judge who investigated that matter,

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had most if not all the arguments put before the Chamber today put before him and adumbrated at much greater length than they have been today.
Members from all sides of the Chamber have referred to Lord Cullen's report. It is just as well if I quote two of its findings. It said that one cannot guarantee that a gun does not fall into improper hands. When Lord Cullen was considering the assessment of risk, he said about licensing—I quote his exact words from paragraph 9.57 on page 119:
"I have already indicated that there are significant limitations in the extent to which the certification system can be relied upon to exclude persons who are unsuitable".
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, virtually implied that the police were to blame that Hamilton got through the net. But Lord Cullen, who had heard all the evidence, concluded that whatever precautions were taken, one could not depend on certification for prevention.
Having heard all the evidence and the arguments regarding the calibre of guns, their use in sport, and so forth, Lord Cullen came to this conclusion at page 120, paragraph 9.61:
"In the light of the evidence I see no good reason for making an exception in the case of any particular calibre of multi-shot handguns".
We have been told from all sides of the Chamber today that we should pay specific attention to the findings of Lord Cullen who, in my view, produced an excellent and carefully considered report. I see no reason why one should not accept his opinion on these two matters.
5 p.m.
Lord Braybrooke: I support the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, because, in my view, he put the situation in a nutshell. This is vexatious legislation. Many Members of your Lordships' Committee and my fellow Lord Lieutenants have received large numbers of letters. In my case not one of them was in favour of the legislation. Many people have written against it and I received one letter this morning which said that no amount of legal circumnavigation around the sizes of barrels and so forth will alter the situation one whit.
The means of stopping the killings is to control illegally-held handguns. My informant told me that 2,000 such guns are imported every week and that there are around 2 million in circulation in the country. This legislation banning specific forms of gun, sadly, will not affect the situation one iota. I have full sympathy with Dunblane. I had a daughter who was killed on the roads in 1980 while riding her horse. It is terribly distressing. But we do not then assume that cars or horses are to blame. It is not guns that are to blame; it is the people who use them.
Earl Peel: The noble Lord, Lord Hooson, raised an interesting point. I believe I am right in saying that Lord Cullen did not distinguish between the two types of handgun. But surely the most important point is that Lord Cullen did not recommend the banning of handguns and it is therefore the Government who have made the decision to distinguish between the two types.
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I should like to make again a point I made at Second Reading and one about which I feel strongly. I am convinced that if 1 million or 1.5 million people in this country participated in handgun shooting, we would not be discussing at Committee stage today the banning of any form of handgun; we would be discussing means of increasing the security and control of those guns within private hands.
We must accept that point. It is one made by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. A number of people in this country—it may be a small minority—have enjoyed their sport for many years. We must bear their position in mind while deliberating these matters. An additional point in relation to illegal guns is that there are around 2 million illegal handguns drifting around this country at the moment. The police should be making a determined effort to contain them.
Security is a point that is well covered in the Bill. Another essential point is the question of the issuing of licences. It is a point we shall be discussing later in Committee and is a point we must look at most carefully. Clearly the present system has not worked and we must improve it where we can. To say that the banning of handguns will have the desired effect suggested by both noble Lords, I fear is not the case. As the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said, if we believed it would be effective, more of us would be supportive of the objectives; that simply will not happen. I say again that we must have consideration for and bear in mind those people who have enjoyed their sport and behaved impeccably over the years.
Lord Hooson: Before the noble Earl sits down, perhaps I can make a point. He mentioned Lord Cullen. Lord Cullen's recommendation 24 states that the availability of guns should be restricted in one of two ways; either dismantling,
"or, if such a system is not adopted, by the banning of the possession of such handguns".
Earl Peel: Dismantling is something we will be coming onto at a later stage.
Lord Hooson: My point was in relation to the banning of such guns.
Earl Peel: I accept that.
Lord Marlesford: Further to the point the noble Lord has just made. In paragraph 9.113 Lord Cullen says clearly,
"I do not consider that the banning of handguns for target shooting or the banning of shooting clubs would be justified".
That is relevant to the point being made. It is a spurious distinction. My noble friend said that Lord Cullen did not distinguish between different calibres of guns. He did not; but equally he did not recommend that any be banned for the purpose I quoted.
Earl Russell: I am familiar with the argument that guns do not kill people; people do. As far as it goes that argument is perfectly true. On the other hand, it must be

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conceded that people can kill people much more easily than they can with most other methods; they can also do it a great deal quicker.
I should like to tell the Committee about one incident that was reported in the Evening Standard, I believe in November 1994, which did a great deal more to persuade me of the virtues of the case for gun control than anything that happened at Dunblane. It does not concern a madman; it concerns a respectable American householder. He and his wife went out to dinner to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. They left their daughter, aged 14, at home. During the evening she became somewhat bored and when her parents came back, around midnight—very happy and perhaps just a little merry—the daughter retired into a cupboard and leapt out at them exclaiming "Boo!". The householder, hearing an interruption, believed he was being ambushed by a burglar. He drew his gun out of his pocket and shot. Before he knew what had happened, his daughter was dead. If he had used any other weapon—even a knife or a glass bottle—he would, before the fatal moment, have realised what he was doing. That to me in a nutshell is the case for gun control.
I heard what the noble Earl, Lord Peel, said about people who, for many years, have enjoyed their sport. What he says is true. I am happy to concede that the overwhelming majority of them are innocent, decent, law abiding citizens who have been enjoying what has always been a lawful and innocent recreation. But it does not follow that we should not legislate against their interests if we believe, as I do, that by reducing a culture in which it is acceptable to have guns, we may save a considerable number of lives.
There is precedent for that line of argument. In 1626, in another place, a Member dealing with expiring laws continuance pointed out that a whole profession had been wiped out by the Reformation—the profession of running what he described a little discourteously as "holy water shops"; what are now called in North London, "Catholic repositories". Clearly, that was economic ruin to a group of innocent people. But it seems to me to be reasonable that the country could not decide on its religion on the grounds of the economic interest of this one particular group. Where these people have a very strong claim to be heard and where we on these Benches have heard them very strongly, is on the issue of compensation and on that we intend to press very strongly indeed.
Essentially, the case of those who are now arguing for guns is that they are doing something which is culturally acceptable and so, hitherto, they have been. But cultures change. It used to be culturally acceptable for every gentleman to carry a sword. It used to be acceptable to come into this House wearing a sword. The House decided that that was unacceptable in 1621 in the face of great protest. I believe that there are very few of us now who believe that that decision was mistaken. There are very few of us now who would go back to a world where every gentleman wears a sword. The cultural
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change that we are now considering is of equivalent magnitude. With regret for those who will suffer from it, I nevertheless hope that it will go forward.
Earl Attlee: It is always a pleasure to listen to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, but does he agree that the tragic story from the United States which he has just related is a particularly good argument in favour of dismantling?
Earl Russell: I understand that dismantling is to he discussed at considerable length later on. The questions here are about feasibility, security and practicality. On those questions I am willing to listen to argument and I look forward to doing so.
Lord Torphichen: There is a point that worries me about the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, about the gentleman who unfortunately shot his daughter. In the story that he related, the man was not carrying a sporting pistol. I am sure that he was not using the gun for sporting purposes but for personal protection. Has it not occurred to the noble Earl that there would still be many thousands of guns—
Earl Russell: I beg the noble Lord's pardon, but I am unable to hear what he is saying.
Lord Torphichen: Is the noble Earl aware that if this Bill is passed in the form the noble Earl wishes, there will still be many guns in use in this country for the same purpose as that mistaken citizen was carrying his gun? This law does not ban all handguns.
Earl Russell: I am well aware that this law does not ban all handguns. If it comes into force I believe that it will be the most stringent gun control law in the West, which I would welcome. I am also aware that there will still be guns which are possessed illegally. However, from the police point of view it is a great advantage to be able to prove the offence of illegal possession. Just as with the law against offensive weapons, we would now use it against anyone who went about the West End wearing a sword. The cases seem to me to be analogous.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I am very interested in what the noble Earl has said about the carrying of swords. Until 1920 people could carry pistols legally if they wished to do so. But is it not the fact that fencing—in other words, sword play—still goes on in sports clubs and other venues quite legally and that in fact it is an Olympic sport? That is all that the shooting fraternity want to do.
Earl Russell: I am well aware of the point that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, makes. We have a question here about security. I fenced when I was a young man. The foil is a pretty supple instrument. I do not see it as being particularly suitable for use by a gang of bandits or robbers. In a world where there is a security risk arising from a great many people with terrorist inclinations, I do not believe that there is a real

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prospect of raiding stores for foils used for fencing. However, there appears to be such a risk with guns, so I do not believe that the cases are on all fours.
Lord Milverton: I shall be unable to support this amendment. I am not one who does pistol shooting or anything like that, but I have great sympathy for those who do. We ought to show them that we have some feeling that they have integrity and honour in their sport. I have not been persuaded by the argument here or by any reading that I have done, about the need to have this complete ban for which the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is asking. Therefore, I shall not support the amendment.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Burton: Perhaps I may go back to the amendment for just a moment. I am at a loss to understand why the Opposition are so keen on this amendment because, surely, if this legislation comes into operation there will be very few clubs left, if any. I have heard a policeman say that all the clubs would be shut down. If that happens there will be no legal .22 pistols.
Lord Stallard: I must be one among many in the Committee at the moment who is considering how to vote or how one should consider the whole issue. Our natural instinct is to do everything that we can to prevent any further incidents or even the use of firearms. Once or twice I have been bemused by references to Lord Cullen's report because we did not debate it. I believe that there has been a great error in the programme since Dunblane in that we have not debated that report. If we had done so we would not be in the position that we are in now where people are picking from the report the parts which suit them and quoting them for and against the arguments.
Perhaps I may give an example. The noble Lord, Lord Hooson, mentioned Lord Cullen's report. But he could also have mentioned paragraph 6.64, which concluded that the chief constable of Central Scotland Police should have revoked Hamilton's firearm certificate and he went on to say that had he done so, it was unlikely that Hamilton would have carried out the massacre. That appears in paragraph 6.69, which could have been mentioned as well. In mixing up the Cullen Report with this Bill we can get into a situation where we are vying with each other as to which paragraph we consult.
I have never had a more professional lobby than I have had on this gun Bill. I have received a number of letters about it which were well thought out and professional. I started by saying to myself that I was opposed to all guns and that was an end to it, but having read all these letters and having replied to them, and having had some replies to my replies, I am a wee bit worried now that I may be going over the top a bit and that I should be looking further into Lord Cullen's report. I would have liked to have had a debate on that report to justify it.
He is quite rightly saying that had the acting chief constable listened to the people in his own police service then Hamilton would never have had a licence. Through
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my correspondence quite a number of people have linked the acting chief constable and Hamilton with another organisation who may well have influenced the decision of the acting chief constable. The fact that he left is an aspect of the matter which has not been discussed and it means we have missed out through not discussing the Cullen Report. If we had done so, we would have discussed the actions of the acting chief constable. Therefore we are in a wee bit of trouble in constantly referring to specific and chosen passages in a report that we have not discussed.
Lord Hooson: Does the noble Lord appreciate that when he refers to paragraph 6.64 of the Cullen Report he is referring to what Lord Cullen found while considering the evidence? But I have been quoting Lord Cullen's conclusions and recommendations. Having made all his findings about the Chief Constable and the others, he has come to certain conclusions and made certain recommendations to the Government. Those are the important matters that the learned judge has concluded after hearing all the evidence.
Lord Stallard: That is exactly what I said. The noble Lord, Lord Hooson, said that I should have looked at paragraph 6.64. I say to him that he should go a further five paragraphs and look at paragraph 6.69 where Lord Cullen said that if the matters he mentioned in paragraph 6.64 had been listened to, it was unlikely that Hamilton would have carried out the massacre. Why was that not repeated? The danger of not discussing the Cullen Report is fast becoming obvious in this debate.
Lord Clifford of Chudleigh: I believe that this amendment aims to diminish the number of crimes in which firearms are used. Since 1988 the number of applications for firearms certificates has reduced by 25 per cent., but the number of crimes in which firearms are used has risen.
Lord Vinson: The point that I wish to make is fairly small and has already been broadly raised. If the amendment were passed, it would effectively put an end to the existence of gun clubs in this country. We need to remind ourselves that in past years many of those gun clubs were encouraged and developed in order to create a cadre of people who understood weaponry for the defence of the realm. Although, thank God, after 50 years of peace, that may no longer be necessary, that was what lay behind the foundation of many of those clubs which are full of some of the finest and nicest citizens in this country.
We should also bear in mind the lesson that I was taught at school: that the democracy in which we live is not only for the enforcement of majority will but also for the protection of minority rights.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: I rise to support the amendment and, in doing so, to call for a total ban on the legal private ownership of handguns on the British mainland. I did not move my amendments relating to such a ban in Scotland earlier because I am in greater

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support of this amendment. My "Scotland-only" amendments might be a valid fallback position if this amendment is not accepted.
I believe that there has been a significant cultural change in Scotland and probably in England and Wales also with regard to the legal private ownership of handguns. I believe that that was latent until 13th March last year, but that it has become vested since then. I freely admit that on 12th March last year only a few committed people spoke about the abolition of the private ownership of handguns. Clearly, the terrible events at Dunblane Primary School have brought about a desire to remove or excise handguns from Scottish and British culture and community. I assert that the silent majority—certainly in Scotland—favours a total ban. I wish that I had the referendum figures to prove it.
The Dunblane Snowdrop petition was widely supported by several hundred thousand people and I hope that noble Lords will weigh that against the many letters that we have received from pistol shooters. I have 55 such letters on my desk at present. The Dunblane Snowdrop petition expressed a revulsion against handgun ownership and the associated gun culture, together with the desire for a handgun-free society. I conclude by expressing my belief that a future Scottish Parliament will enact a total ban on handguns.
Baroness Blotch: As has been clear all the way through the passage of this Bill, both here and in another place, there are a very wide range of views on the fundamental question of where the line should be drawn on the banning of handguns.
As I said during the Second Reading of this Bill, the dreadful tragedy of Dunblane placed on the Government an inescapable duty to consider what controls there should be on the ownership and possession of handguns. We have undertaken that duty and introduced a Bill which we believe will protect the public but still allow some legitimate use of pistols. I believe that a complete ban is unnecessary and inappropriate.
It is important to recognise that target shooting has had a long history in this country and although we propose to ban high calibre handguns, we believe there is a way for target shooting to continue safely in this country, albeit with lower calibre pistols.
The shooting of .22 pistols has had an honourable place in Olympic competition since 1896. Tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens of this country enjoy this activity perfectly legitimately. I am reminded at this point of what the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, said earlier when he spoke to the Motion and of his reference to disabled people who enjoy shooting as a sport. But by allowing this sport to continue, we intend that it should be able to continue only under the strictest possible conditions and shooters will not be able to keep their pistols at home. Pistols will have to be kept under stringent conditions in licensed pistol clubs. The clubs will have to meet rigorous security standards and satisfy the police that they are run properly and are secure. Shooters will not be allowed to shoot with a .22 pistol until they have obtained a firearm certificate from the police.
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No pistol would be allowed to be removed from the club except for certain very limited circumstances which are set out in the Bill. When they are removed the owner will have to get a special permit from the police and, when in transit outside the club, pistols would have to be transported by a third party whom the police had approved. I believe the pistol club system can work safely and securely.
I also think that if handguns were banned altogether there is a real danger of driving target shooting underground. That would not help to protect the public. I believe that that is a very real possibility and consider that it is much better that target shooting should be allowed to continue under very strict control.
The Bill which we have introduced will reduce the number of handguns in this country by up to 80 per cent. and remove them from people's homes altogether. It will give Britain some of the toughest gun controls in the world. I believe it will give the public the protection they need and deserve, while still allowing some limited target shooting to continue.
I welcome the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, about the co-operative working between Members of this House and another place and between the parties on this issue. I have every confidence that that will continue until the passing of this Bill into legislation. I was also pleased that the noble Lord withdrew his comments about the use of .22 pistols at Dunblane. Not only were .22s not used at Dunblane; they were not used at Hungerford. The self-loading 9 mm. pistols used at both Dunblane and Hungerford were concealable yet they were able to produce high fire.
Again, I stand corrected if I am wrong, but I have been reminded that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, referred to Hamilton firing 743 rounds. Hamilton had 743 rounds but fired 106 rounds-105 at the children and the young teacher and one at himself. I make no point about that other than to put the matter right for the purpose of the record.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, asked particularly about cost. My understanding is that it would cost between £180 million and £190 million to include the other 20 per cent. of guns, given that the 80 per cent. costs £150 million.
I turn now to the exchange between the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, and my noble friend Lord Peel about Lord Cullen's conclusions. It is perhaps worth quoting rather more fully from paragraph 9.113 than did my noble friend Lord Marlesford. The paragraph states:
"If for any reason that course is not to be followed"—
that refers to the issue of disassembly. Those of us who have read the report know that Lord Cullen had some reservations about the practicability of disassembly. Lord Cullen continued:
"I see no alternative to considering the more draconian alternative of a ban on multi-shot handguns. However, in such circumstances I would suggest that the ban should be directed to the possession of such handguns by individual owners rather than the possession of handguns by shooting clubs, since it is through possession by individuals that the risk, in so far as there is a risk, of homicide or serious injury arises. Thus I do not consider that the banning of

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handguns for target shooting or the banning of shooting clubs would be justified. I have no particular recommendation as to the legislative means by which effect would be given to such a ban".
There is very little difference between what Lord Cullen recommended and the conclusion reached by the Government. However, unlike Lord Cullen, we believe that possession of handguns is very important to shooters. The way in which a shooter uses a weapon for target shooting is very personal and relates to the shooter's handling of that gun, the shape of the gun and the moulding of the handle to that shooter. We have come to a compromise under which the shooter owns the gun but it is held securely in the premises of a gun club. That was the conclusion reached by Lord Cullen.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: I apologise for interrupting my noble friend, but my noble friend says that there is very little difference. Surely there is a big difference. Lord Cullen proposes in the paragraph that has been quoted that handguns should be held only in clubs and not by individuals, but he does not propose that calibres above .22 should be banned. That is a significant difference. I suspect that had the Government followed that recommendation there would have been much less objection from the shooting lobby. I still do not fully understand why the Government did not follow the logic of Lord Cullen in that paragraph which my noble friend has read so articulately.
Baroness Blatch: At the beginning of my response to this amendment I said that the question was where the line should be drawn in the sand. The debate today is about where that line should be drawn. The Government have come to a particular conclusion and they will defend it in the course of this debate. The amendment before the Committee is much more akin to a total ban on handguns, and for that reason I hope that noble Lords will reject it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The difference between my noble friends and me and the Government, as I hoped I made clear at the beginning, is relatively small. I accept that the direct effect of the Bill as drafted is to remove 80 per cent. of legal handguns not only from circulation but from existence. I also accept that the very tight restrictions on gun clubs mean that a considerable proportion—no one knows quite how many—of the remaining 20 per cent. will disappear. That may be an advantage to the Government. They will disappear because there may be nowhere where they can be kept legally and no compensation will be payable. I am always conscious of that slightly cynical point.
However, the debate in the main has not been about that but has returned to the more atavistic dislike by many noble Lords of the Government's proposal. That is a pity. I would have hoped that the Committee could have restricted itself to my narrower point of disagreement with the Government. Having listened to some of the contributions to the debate, I rather suspect that my noble friend Lord Stoddart, had he been around
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in 1621, would have been opposed to the rule of order that disallowed the carrying of swords in this chamber. To put it as neutrally as I can, he is a traditionalist.
Be that as it may, the difference between myself and the Minister is relatively small. It is, however, significant in the sense that the effectiveness and public understanding of the law will be very much greater if there is a total ban on handguns. If every time we see a handgun we know that it must be illegal because the law does not allow a handgun to be carried or used in this country, that recognition must be of assistance to the police in carrying out their duties. I appreciate that the carrying of handguns in the street will not be allowed, and never has been allowed. But if no one is trained to use handguns or has the experience of shooting at targets with handguns, the possibility of an individual using small calibre pistols to kill people will be ever so marginally reduced.
I refer to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Stoddart of Swindon. There is no guarantee that legislation can prevent a Dunblane or a Hungerford. No one denies that the legislation proposed by the Government is very stringent, but it could be that much better if the amendment were carried. I put the Question to the Committee.
5.35 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 4) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 81; Not-Contents, 215.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Addington, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Hollick, L.

Banbury of Southam, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hooson, L.

Berkeley, L.

Hughes, L.

Blackstone, B.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Callaghan of Cardiff, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Calverley, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Carlisle, E.

Judd, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Kennet, L.

Carter, L.

Kilbracken. L.

Castle of Blackbum, B.

Kirkwood, L.

Clancarty, E.

Layton, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Lester of Heme Hill, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Lockwood, B.

David, B.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Donoughue, L.

McNally, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Mar and Kellie, E. [Teller.]

Dubs, L.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Eatwell, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Falkender, B.

Mishcon, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Morris of Castle Moms, L.

Gallacher, L.

Newall, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.[Teller.]

Peston, L.

Halsbury, E.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Hamwee, B.

Rea, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Richard, L.

Haskel, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

311

Russell, E.

Tordoff, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Serota, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Simon, V.

Whitty, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Williams of Crosby, B.

Symons of Vemharn Dean, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

Thomson of Monitieth, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Winston, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Digby, L.

Addison, V.

Dilhome, V.

Ailsa, M.

Dixon-Smith. L.

Aldenham, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Alderdice, L.

Donaldson of Lymington, L.

Aldington, L.

Donegall, M.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Downshirc, M.

Anelay of St. Johns, B.

Eden of Winton, L.

Annaly, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Elles, B.

Attlee, E.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Balfour, E.

Elton, L.

Belhaven and Stenton. L.

Eme, E.

Belstead, L.

Erroll, E.

Blaker, L.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Blatch, B.

Falkland, V.

Blyth, L.

Feldman, L.

Bowness, L.

Feners, E.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Feversham, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Brain, L.

Gainsborough, E.

Braille of Wheatley, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Braybrooke, L.

Gibson, L.

Brightman, L.

Gisborough, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Goschen, V.

Bumham, L.

Habgood, L.

Burton, L.

Haddington, E.

Byford. B.

Haig, E.

Cadman, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Harlech, L.

Camarvon, E.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Camegy of Lour, B.

Harris of Peckham, L.

Camock, L.

Hayhoe, L.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Hemphill, L.

Charteris of Amisfield, L.

Henley, L.

Chesham, L. [Teller.]

Hertford, M.

Clanwilliam, E.

Hogg, B.

Clark of Kempston, L.

Holdemess, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

HomPatrick, L.

Clinton, L.

Home, E.

Cobbold, L.

Hothfield, L.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Howe, E.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Howie of Tryon, L.

Coleridge, L.

Hylton, L.

Colwyn, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Congleton, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Cottesloe, L.

Inglewood, L.

Courtown, E.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Cowley, E.

Kimball, L.

Cox, B.

Kintore, E.

Craig of Radley, L.

Kitchener, E.

Cranborne, V. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Knutsford, V.

Crawshaw, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Cross, V.

Lawrence, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Lindsay, E.

Dacre of Glanton, L.

Liverpool, E.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Long, V.

Daventry, V.

Lucas, L.

Davidson, V.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

De Saumarez, L.

Luke, L.

Denbigh, E.

Lyell, L.

Denham, L.

Lytton, E.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

312

McConnell, L.

Rochester, L.

Mackay of Ardbrecicnish, L.

Rotherwick, L.

Mackay of Clashfem, L. [Lord Chancellor.]

St. Davids, V.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Mackay of Drumadoon, L.

Sandwich, E.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Selborne, E.

Marlesford, L.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Marsh, L.

Shrewsbury, E.

Massereene and Fen-ard, V.

Skelmersdale, L.

Merrivale, L.

Spens, L.

Mersey, V.

Stallard, L.

Methuen, L.

Stockton, E.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Milverton, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Minto, E.

Strathclyde, L. [Teller.]

Monk Bretton, L.

Sudeley, L.

Monson, L.

Suffield, L.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Swansea, L.

Monteagle of Brandon, L.

Swinfen, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Taverne, L.

Mountevans, L.

Tebbit, L.

Munster, E.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Murton of Lindisfame, L.

Thurlow, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Tollemache, L.

Nelson, E.

Torphichen, L.

Nelson of Stafford, L.

Trefgame, L.

Noel-Buxton, L.

Trumpington, B.

Norfolk, D.

Tryon, L.

Norrie, L.

Tugendhat, L.

Northesk, E.

Ullswater, V.

Norton, L.

Vemon, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Vinson, L.

Oliver of Aylmerton, L.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Waterford, M.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Weatherill, L.

Peel, E.

Westmorland, E.

Pilkington of Oxenford, L.

Wharton, B.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Wigram, L.

Prior, L.

Wilberforce, L.

Rathcavan, L.

Wilcox, B.

Rathcreedan, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Reay, L.

Wynford, L.

Redesdale, L.

Yarborough, E.

Renton, L.

Zouche of Haryngworth, L

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.46 p.m.
[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]
The Earl of Balfour The Earl of Balfour moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert (", for the words "24 inches" there shall be substituted the words "60.96 centimetres" and for the words "40 inches" there shall be substituted the words "101.6 centimetres".").
The noble Earl said: When the 1968 and 1988 Acts were passed we were still using imperial measure. Amendments Nos. 6, 83 and 92 are designed merely to incorporate into the legislation the exact measurements in centimetres. It is important that these measurements should be exact because it is illegal under the legislation as it stands for any barrel of any gun to be reduced to less than 24 inches.
With this group of amendments is Amendment No. 8 in the name of my noble friend the Minister. I should like to take the opportunity to ask her whether she is

313
aware of any air pistols with barrels bigger than .22. If they are only compressed air, they would be weak. I beg to move.
Lord Burton: I wonder whether I might make one comment to my noble friend. I am not sure that it is right to suggest that the barrel lengths should be 60.96 centimetres or 101.6 centimetres. If one has that definition of the various weapons in the Bill it will ban various weapons which it is not intended to prohibit.
Some Members of the Committee may well have started to shoot with a folding 410. Those would be prohibited. Certain larger calibre rifles such as the double-barrelled weapons used for boar shooting or bear shooting on the Continent would be banned. A number of people in this country may well have those in their houses. Of course I do not expect a reply from the Government today, but it is yet another point which has reared its ugly head, which many Members of the Committee may feel should be looked at again.
Lord Monson: I declare an interest as a patron of the British Weights and Measures Association. I oppose the amendment. The noble Earl, Lord Balfour, may remember that, graciously, our lords and masters in Brussels allow us to use the mile as well as the pint, that airline pilots the world over measure the height of their aircraft in feet and not in metres and that we talk about 12, 16, 20 and 28 bore guns. Therefore, there is no reason why we should use metrication for the purposes of the Bill and I oppose the amendment.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: I am confused about a matter relating to measurements and perhaps the Minister can help me. The .22 pistols are to be allowed but the. 32 pistols are to be banned. However, .32 pistols have a great deal less power than .22 pistols. If necessary, I have documents from Birmingham proof house which illustrate that.
Baroness Blatch: I intend to address the amendments before the Committee and I hope that we shall not get into an argument about metrication versus imperial measures. Nor do I wish to return to the debate about the difference between .32 and .22 firearms, except that the Cullen Report refers to the distinction in terms of firepower.
Perhaps I may first address my noble friend's three amendments which deal with the vexed question of metrication and imperial measurement in the firearms legislation. I believe that the three amendments are unnecessary. The effect of the Units of Measurement Regulations 1995 is that references to imperial measures in legislation prior to 1995 shall be construed as though the indication of quantity in imperial were expressed in metric terms. I believe that it would be far simpler to convert these firearms references in the course of a consolidation of all the firearms legislation rather than in a Bill of this kind. The Government will consider the need for such consolidations after this Bill. Therefore, I urge the Committee to reject the amendments.
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My Amendment No. 8 ensures that currently certificatable air weapons which fire pellets of 5.5 millimetre (.22 inch) or smaller can be treated in the same way as other small calibre pistols and be kept and used in licensed pistol clubs. These air weapons, although required to be held on a firearms certificate, are lower in power than .22 rimfire pistols and we believe that it is appropriate for them to be treated the same as small calibre pistols. Those air pistols which fire pellets of a higher diameter will become prohibited.
I therefore hope that my noble friend will withdraw his amendment and await consolidation. I invite the Committee to accept the Government's Amendment No. 8.
The Earl of Balfour: I am happy with my noble friend's explanation but I am intrigued that page 1 of the Bill refers to 30 centimetres and 60 centimetres instead of to 12 inches and 24 inches. That is the only matter than I am surprised about because we are muddling up the two measures.
Baroness Blatch: I am no expert but I understand that legislation made after 1995 must refer to metric measurements. There is a great deal of legislation on the statute book and there is a case for consolidation. That will be considered after the passing of this Bill.
The Earl of Balfour: I am grateful for that answer. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment and I shall not move the other amendments.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 7 not moved.]
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 2, line 15, at end insert ("; or

(b) an air pistol to which section 1 of this Act applies and which is designed to fire .22 or smaller diameter ammunition.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Swansea Lord Swansea moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 2, line 15, at end insert ("; or

(b) a pistol chambered for use with a centre fire cartridge which is not more than one inch in length inclusive of the missile and which uses a missile not more than .32 inches in diameter.").

The noble Lord said: The Bill prohibits all calibres of pistol above .22. However, there is an important calibre which is used in international competitions, not in the Olympics but in the Commonwealth Games and other international events. It is the .32 wadcutter, which is a centre-fire cartridge fired from a semi-automatic pistol. The wadcutter bullet is square ended and punches a clean-cut hole in the paper target. That cartridge is fairly low powered being fractionally more than that of the .22 rimfire. The cartridge is generally loaded by the owner to a low velocity in order to produce the minimum recoil. The energy is just sufficient to operate the mechanism of the pistol. It is a very popular calibre and is used in international competitions.
If the cartridge is loaded with a round-ended bullet, that would project beyond the mouth of the case. However, the wadcutter bullet is seated so that the whole bullet is within the case and does not project beyond the end. A round-nosed bullet would project beyond the end and would exceed the dimensional limits laid down in the amendment. Furthermore, it would not function effectively in a semi-automatic target pistol for which it is designed. I beg to move.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: While I am reluctantly prepared to accept that .22 pistols are primarily for target shooting purposes, does the noble Lord agree that as regards larger calibre weapons their stopping power rather than their accuracy is the attraction?
Lord Gisborough: I understand that the .32 Smith and Wesson long target wadcutter cannot, without blowing up, be given the power to produce the same effect as a .32 Harrison and Richard magnum, which is a different weapon altogether. The Smith and Wesson can not be upgraded. I understand that the muzzle velocity energy is 115 pounds FP—whatever that is—whereas the .22 is 105 pounds and 140 pounds. The velocity is 710 pounds, which is less than any of them. There is a distinction between the wadcutter and the magnum, but the wadcutter pistol cannot be made to fire the larger charge without blowing up, and therefore it is quite safe.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: The Winchester .22 magnum rimfire has a muzzle energy of 194 foot pounds and the .32 wadcutter has a muzzle energy of 130 pounds. The noble Lord mentioned stopping power, so that the actual penetrative power of the wadcutter is considerably less than the .22, which will be legal.
6 p.m.
Lord Kimball: Will my noble friend the Minister consider holding out some hope to the shooting community? I suspect that one of the problems of the amendment is that it deals with a centre-fire bullet. My suggestion would mean adapting all pistols, but perhaps it may be possible for it to be a rimfire cartridge rather than a centre-fire cartridge. In that way, we may hold out some hope to the pistol shooting community. A rimfire version of the .32 wadcutter would and might be acceptable because that is the calibre that is needed for most international competitions. When you come to measure the bullet hole by tenths of a centimetre, you realise how important it is to have a really accurate hole. I hope that the noble Baroness may be able to give us some hope on that front.
Lord Monson: There are three important points about this amendment to which I have put my name. First, the muzzle velocity and range of a .32 pistol chambered in that way is no greater than that of the average .22 pistol. Other Members of the Committee have mentioned that and I believe that that answers the concerns raised legitimately by the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie. It is as dangerous as a .22, but no more so.
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The second point is that the Government's own expert advisers confirm that there have been no recorded crimes of any sort committed with this weapon for at least 25 years and probably longer, although records do not stretch back any further. That is a very important point.
Thirdly, acceptance of the amendment would permit United Kingdom competitors in that discipline to take part in the Commonwealth and similar games. The idea that uniquely in the Commonwealth and Europe, British competitors cannot be trusted with those pistols is insulting in the extreme as well as being contrary to logic and common sense. I hope that the Committee will accept the amendment.
Lord Torpichen: If this amendment is not accepted, will my noble friend give an assurance that if people in this country are not allowed to use that particular type of pistol, it will not be possible for anybody from overseas to come to this country and compete with a pistol in any future games or be allowed simply to bring the weapons into the country because he believes that it is legal?
Lord Brain: I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, about the possibility of having rimfire cartridges. Is not one of the advantages of a centrefire cartridge that it can be reloaded by the individual whereas a rimfire cartridge must be specially prepared and then, if it is to be loaded by the individual, which I believe is very much the point of some of the pistol shooting experts, it is already primed? You do not load it when it is in an inert state.
I support the amendment. I realise there are difficulties. The Minister may be able to give us sufficient assurance to enable the amendment to be withdrawn and the matter to be reconsidered at the next stage.
Baroness Blatch: Amendments Nos. 9 and 78 in the name of my noble friend Lord Swansea and supported by my noble friend Lord Kimball and the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and other noble Lords, would exempt .32 calibre centre-fire handguns from the general prohibition on handguns. The Government have given great consideration to the distinction between the lower .22 rimfire calibre and higher calibre handguns.
Under the Government's proposals, British competitors will still be able to compete in all the Olympic shooting events and four out of the five Commonwealth shooting events. As the Home Secretary said in another place, the holder of his office of the day would have the power to grant special permission for the .32 event to take place at the Commonwealth Games, if the games authorities decide to include that event.
I understand that there are serious target shooting competitions outside of the Commonwealth Games which use this higher calibre of weapon. I also understand that when they are used for competition shooting they shoot low powered ammunition for the purpose of accuracy. However, the guns remain capable of using much more powerful ammunition without

317
modification. It is a fact that handguns chambered for .32 rounds, such as pocket pistols, are frequently used in crime.
By contrast, as the table in paragraph 9.49 of Lord Cullen's report shows, a .22 rimfire calibre round is some four to six times less powerful than a high calibre round. And the power is limited by the nature of the ammunition it uses.
I am afraid that the noble Lord has borne out my noble friend Lord Kimball's prediction at Second Reading of this Bill when he said:
"I do not think that the arguments will prove very convincing about centre-fire ammunition".—[Official Report, 16/12/96; col. 1316.1
The Government remain of the view that there is no good reason to exempt anything other than pistols chambered for .22 or smaller rimfire cartridges.
Perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Kimball that I always consider very carefully what has been said in Committee between now and the next stage of the Bill. Without prejudice to the outcome, I shall re-read what my noble friend said and respond either before Report stage or on the Floor of the House at the next stage.
As I understand it, the amendment would allow pistols of between .22 and .32, small .32 inch revolvers and other similarly calibred weapons which regularly feature in crime, as I have already said. I hope that Members of the Committee will not support the amendment.
Lord Torpichen: It sounds as though at the next Olympic Games in this country, if that ever happens, or Commonwealth Games, there could be two people travelling on a train from the Channel Tunnel to wherever the games are held. One is a resident of this country who thinks he is perfectly entitled legally to carry his gun to the competition but has unfortunately slipped up as regards the paperwork in a very small way and therefore could be turfed off the train and put into gaol. Alongside him is a foreigner with a piece of paper, which may or may not be authentic, for his use of the gun and reason for carrying it and presumably it will be a foreign piece of paper which will not be verifiable by the police in this country. However, the piece of paper held by the home countryman will be verifiable.
Baroness Blatch: I regret that I cannot give my noble friend an answer in relation to the person from another country coming to this country, but I shall write to him about that.
However, it would not be a minor slip if somebody was carrying his own gun in this country, having been given special permission to compete in the Olympic Games by the then Secretary of State of the day. It would be quite an important slip if he were carrying his own gun because the movement of a gun from one place to another must be done by a special permit and by an authorised person, and that person must be a third person, not the person who actually owns the gun.
Lord Monson: The Government's adviser, Mr. Warlow, has stated that the striking energy of the bullet
318
fired from the specific type of .32 pistol as provided in the amendment is comparable with the striking energy of a middle of the road .22 rimfire loading.
Is it also not the case that a pistol chambered in that way can be used only with relatively low velocity ammunition and cannot be adapted for use with higher powered .32 cartridges?
Lord Torpichen: At the risk of pushing my luck, perhaps I may ask that if special permits are given to foreigners to bring guns into this country which citizens of this country would not normally be given, that the foreigners who wish to carry those guns must, by some means or other, obtain exactly the same permission or certificate as a resident of this country.
Baroness Blatch: I remind my noble friend that I said that I should have to delay answering about the particular criteria which would apply to someone from another country coming to this country for the purpose of competitive shooting. However, I said that it would not be possible, without breaching the criteria, for the owner of a gun, having received special permission to compete in a .32 event in this country, to be carrying his gun, regardless of the authority that he has, because he should not be carrying that gun himself. It should be moved from one part of the country to another by a third person who is authorised by means of receiving a permit to do so.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: I believe it was mentioned that people were wondering whether it was possible to reload a .32 to make it more powerful. I should just like to quote a few words from the Birmingham Gun Barrel Proof House which was asked such a question:
"It was found not to be possible with either round nose or wadcutter bullets, to produce muzzle energies which exceeded the .22" LR rim fire in the .32" … long centre-fire with loadings that did not exceed the highest mean service pressure for that cartridge".
Those words come from the actual proof house.
Baroness Blatch: I did not respond to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and I apologise for that omission. However, perhaps I may take the noble Lord's point and that just made by my noble friend and couple them with the other promises that I made. I promised to take such matters away because they are technical issues upon which I need to take expert advice. I shall either address those points by letter in the course of the next few days or, if not, I shall certainly refer to them during the next stage of this Committee.
Lord Brain: I should like to ask the Minister a rather similar question before she sits down. When a pistol is proved there are specific limitations put on its proved strengths and on the sort of cartridge that can be fired from it. This could be put on the certificate authorising the use of the weapon so that specific ammunition, and only specific ammunition, could be purchased or used for that weapon.

319
I get a message from the wording of the amendment which refers to,
"not more than .32 inches in diameter".
That could be amended to read,
"weapons up to .22 and .32 only",
with certain specific conditions. It is not necessary for the Minister to respond at this stage and say that she will consider the matter. I accept what she has already said in that respect.
Baroness Blatch: I have but one further point to make. One of the things that we have to consider as a Government is the scope for circumvention. Of course, one can write almost anything on a certificate as a limitation on the use of a weapon. But if it is easily convertible and if, illicitly, other ammunition can be used, my understanding is that one of the risks to consider is the scope for circumvention. If the scope is relatively easy, that would be one of the reasons why we should not go down that road. But again I should like to couple the noble Lord's points with others that have been made and return later to such matters.
Lord Swansea: I believe that we have had our money's worth with this amendment. I am very grateful to all Members of the Committee who have spoken. I shall not press this amendment but will return to it at a later stage. In the meantime, I hope that my noble friend the Minister will consult all the authorities that she can because I should like her to know that the point I made about the power of the cartridge is a perfectly valid one. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 2 and 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Races at athletic meetings]:
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
Earl Attlee: In opposing the question that Clause 4 stand part of the Bill, it may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak also to Amendment No. 10 which is tabled in my name. On Second Reading I drew the attention of noble Lords to the so-called "starting pistols" used at athletic meetings. In due course I received a letter from the Minister designed to reassure me. It did not. We need to remember that we are here today as the result of a tragedy which occurred at a school, yet the Minister intends to allow what she calls starting pistols to be used at athletics meetings. Obviously such meetings involve young people.
We are not talking about blank firing pistols, as no licence is needed for them, or for the ammunition, provided that the diameter of the ammunition does not exceed 1 inch. What we are talking about are items such as fully serviceable Webley .455s which will fire live rounds. The dangers are obvious. No matter how careful and responsible the officials are, the guns could be stolen by skilful criminals. The officials, and indeed competitors, could become vulnerable to attack.
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As I pointed out on Second Reading, you can kill someone with a blank if the muzzle is pressed against the head. That could easily happen with horseplay among youngsters. I accept that that has not happened yet, but it could happen and it is unnecessary. The Minister will tell us, in the way that she does so well, why it is necessary. She will explain that a large flash, a loud bang and plenty of smoke are necessary so that the back-up timekeepers can see when the race starts. But it is the blank ammunition that does that and I have no problem in that respect. You can get all those effects by using a proper blank firing gun which cannot fire a projectile and, therefore, is outside the scope of the Firearms Act.
I believe that I can anticipate the Minister's response to my amendment, but what about that of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh? My amendment would strengthen the Bill and remove handguns from close proximity to youngsters when they have no choice in the matter. Presumably the noble Lord's aim with this Bill is to improve the safety of the public. If that is so, the noble Lord will support me and urge me to pursue the matter at a later stage.
6.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has opposed that Clause 4 should stand part of the Bill. If Clause 4 were not part of the Bill this would prohibit the use of handguns for starting races at athletics meetings.
The noble Earl raised the matter on 16th December during the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill; but, unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to respond at the time and, as he has already said, I wrote to him on the subject and placed a copy of that letter in the Library for the notice of other noble Lords.
However, it may be helpful if I explain to the Committee, for the sake of the record, the Government's reasoning for allowing this exemption from the general prohibition on handguns. Clause 4 provides that a person does not need the Secretary of State's authority under Section 5(1)(aba) of the Firearms Act 1968, as inserted by Clause 1 of the Bill, to possess, purchase, acquire, sell or transfer a firearm that is held on a firearm certificate with a condition that it is only to be used for starting races at athletics meetings. The clause also provides that a person such as a race official other than a certificate holder may possess a firearm at an athletics meeting in order to start races.
Most starting pistols—the ones used at most schools sports days—do not have an open barrel and are simply designed to make a bang. They are not classed as firearms and the legislation would not affect them anyway.
We understand from the British Athletics Federation that major athletics events require starting guns which are classed as firearms. For technical reasons, BAF starters require a gun which can produce a very loud bang and a highly visible flash from the muzzle end of the gun. Special blank ammunition is used for this purpose. The visible flash is required to notify the manual timekeepers who are required to act as a back-up in case the electronic systems fail. Such accurate

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timekeeping is only essential for races where international, national or regional records will be set and such records are only recognised when a BAF starter is present. We understand that a .22 pistol would not be suitable for that task. It would not produce either a bright enough flash or a loud enough bang.
A firearm certificate for a starting gun will not allow possession of bulleted ammunition. Race starters, of course, only require blank rounds, as the noble Earl said.
In these particular cases, we believe it right that the chief officer of police should have the discretion to grant Section 1 certificates to these people. The chief officer will be able to assess each case on its merits. We consider that it would be unnecessarily bureaucratic to require these people to obtain the Secretary of State's separate authority. Starting pistols are generally blank-firing handguns and their construction determines whether or not they are subject to firearm certificate control.
The Forensic Science Service conducts examinations of production models of blank-firers to determine how easily they can be converted. Those which are so designed or adapted that they could readily be converted to firing live ammunition with ordinary tools—for example, by drilling out any obstruction in the barrel—must be held on a firearm certificate. Most starting pistols of the type encountered at school sports days, as I have said, are not readily convertible. Neither the proposed nor existing legislation bites on these.
Some athletics race starters use conventional revolvers of the type which the Government intend to ban. Long before Dunblane we had been in correspondence with the British Athletics Federation about the continued use of those guns. The BAF has made a plausible case, we believe, for the retention by some of its starters.
Any concern that such an exemption would be open to abuse is countered by the fact that firearm certificates for these handguns will not allow the possession of bulleted ammunition. In addition, the only individuals who will be able to make a case for retaining a handgun will be those approved by the BAF as starters. The BAF has indicated that it has only around 300 starters in the United Kingdom, and that not all of these require firearms. I hope that reply is slightly more reassuring, but I am not sure that I have added a great deal to the letter that I wrote to the noble Earl before the Committee stage.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The noble Earl challenged me in his opening speech to respond to him on the grounds that this measure represents a strengthening of the Bill. Of course he is quite right, but I thought it better to wait for the Minister's reply before responding directly to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. I must confess that I was unconvinced by what the Minister said. With modern technology it cannot be beyond the wits of those who design electronic instruments to produce something which produces a loud bang and makes a vivid flash without being in the form of a pistol of some kind. That seems to me to be
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very old fashioned in technological terms. I was not convinced that the noble Earl had an adequate answer to the case that he made. I would rather see as few exceptions as possible. I doubt whether the noble Earl will press this matter to a vote, but I confirm to him that what he says sounds reasonable.
Lord Hooson: Can the noble Baroness tell us whether the requirement of a firearm for starting national races is an international requirement? If it is an international requirement, it seems to me we should go along with it. However, if it is simply a British requirement, surely it could be modified.
Baroness Blatch: I do not know the definitive answer to that question, but my understanding is that the British Athletics Federation operates to national and international standards. I need to take advice on whether there is a comparable standard for the starting pistol, and report back to the noble Lord.
Lord Torphichen: If I am to understand that Thomas Hamilton was already involved with boys' clubs, and could have gained the weapons he needed by becoming interested in athletics and becoming a starter, please let us have this measure.
Earl Attlee: I appreciate that my provision would cause inconvenience as regards sport. However, the general principle of the Bill will cause much inconvenience to people who compete in shooting matches at international level. Is the Minister aware that in the aftermath of the Dunblane disaster the Amateur Swimming Association decided that blank firing pistols were inappropriate and that it would stop using them? If the Minister is aware of that, what conclusions does she draw from that decision? Can she confirm my assertion that firing a revolver using blank ammunition can kill someone?
Baroness Blatch: I do not believe that firing blanks would kill someone, but I am no expert on the matter and therefore I do not know. However, a good case was put to us by the British Athletics Federation. It needs to maintain a high standard of accuracy, and it has convinced us that this clause is needed. It has also convinced us that it has rigorous standards as regards accepting people to become starters. I would say to my noble friend that if Thomas Hamilton had become a starter, if he had used a gun with bulleted ammunition he would still have been in breach of the law. We have accepted the federation's case. We believe this is a highly controlled activity and that the British Athletics Federation has made a good case. We have decided to support the federation. However, I shall read what has been said in this debate, and we shall no doubt continue to debate the matter until we reach the end of the Bill.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: This sounds like the case of early cars or early steam engines being designed to look like horses as that was a more familiar sight to

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people. The form of a pistol has nothing to do with making a loud noise or making a flash. That is quite illogical.
Earl Attlee: I am grateful for the Minister's comments on this measure. I may return at a later stage with a more tightly worded provision, perhaps referring to applicants having to be BAF starters.
Baroness Blatch: For the record, I should say that I have said the measure is confined absolutely to BAF starters. That was the whole point of the exemption.
Clause 4 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 10 not moved.]
Earl Attlee Earl Attlee moved Amendment No. 11:
After Clause 4, insert the following new clause
EQUIPMENT FOR SHIPS AND AIRCRAFT
(" . The authority of the Secretary of State is not required by virtue of subsection (1)(aba) of section 5 of the 1968 Act for a person to have a firearm or ammunition in his possession if he is otherwise entitled to do so under section 13 of the 1968 Act.").
The noble Earl said: This amendment covers a small but important point. We are a trading nation and ships come from all over the world to our ports to trade and use our facilities. The master, in order to defend his ship from attack by pirates on the high seas, will often have a small armoury. Under Section 13 of the 1968 Act, that is no problem. However, a police permit is required if the guns are to leave the ship for maintenance, repair or transfer. Handguns will be involved in this and they would be caught by the Bill. If my amendment were accepted, the status quo would be maintained. Clause 13 of the 1968 Act is perhaps a little loosely drafted. However, I cannot envisage people rushing out to buy a merchant ship in order to keep their handguns. I beg to move.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: I take this opportunity to mention a point which is just within the scope of the amendment. The rubric of the amendment refers to,
"Equipment for ships and aircraft".
I refer in this connection to small boats and canoes. At present there are available some desirable mini flare guns which can be used to attract rescue when one is in distress. At the moment canoeists and dingy sailors are debarred from using such useful distress signals. Certainly those in the canoeing fraternity believe that one requires a firearm licence to own such a device. I believe that is a breach of common sense, albeit perhaps not a breach of the law. Perhaps the Minister can help me on that point. I accept that as the matter is wide of the amendment the Minister may choose to write to me.
Baroness Blatch: The Bill does nothing to prevent the use of signalling apparatus on ships or at aerodromes. As for the use of high calibre guns on ships, the Government have consulted with the shipping industry and there were no calls to exempt persons on board ships from the general ban. Even if we had been faced with such calls, we could not envisage that such a blanket exemption for those
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people who are affected by Section 13 of the 1968 Act could be in the best interests of public safety. Therefore I do not wish to accept this amendment.
Earl Attlee: I thank the Minister for her reply. I shall have to study it and consider the matter more closely. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.30 p.m.
Clause 5 [Trophies of war]:
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Murton of Lindisfarne): I call Amendment No. 12. If the amendment is carried I shall be unable to call Amendments Nos. 13 and 15 owing to pre-emption.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 2, line 43, leave out from ("which") to ("before") and insert ("was acquired as a trophy of war").
The noble Baroness said: As the Committee will know, this amendment is grouped with Amendments Nos. 13 to 16 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and my noble friend Lord Gisborough. My ministerial colleague the right honourable Ann Widdecombe undertook to table a government amendment on this point at Committee stage of the Bill in another place on 19th November 1996, reported at col. 866.
Clause 5 as currently drafted does not allow for handguns being passed as valuable sentimental mementoes to a widow or other heir of someone who acquired a trophy of war before 1946. This amendment would make it possible for the trophy to remain in the family. The heir, like his parent or ancestor, will have to hold a valid firearm certificate. Therefore I invite the Committee to accept this amendment.
As noble Lords will see, the other amendments put forward on this clause would achieve broadly the same effect as the government amendment. My noble friend Lord Gisborough may be pleased to see that the government amendment will allow spouses and other family members to inherit, not simply close blood relatives as my noble friend proposes. Therefore I hope that my noble friend will accept that the government amendment is preferable. I invite the House to accept it.
Lord Gisborough: I am grateful to the Minister for activating what was promised as an amendment. I shall not wish to move my amendment.
Lord Monson: I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness. Her amendment achieves in a much simpler form what I set out to do. I welcome her amendment.
Lord Renton: There seems to be a mistake on the Marshalled List. Page 2 does not have a line 43. Presumably the amendment refers to line 33 or 35.
Baroness Blatch: There are 45 lines on page 2.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 13 to 17 not moved.]
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 18:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—
FIREARMS OF HISTORIC INTEREST
(" .—(1) The authority of the Secretary of State is not required by virtue of subsection (1)(aba) of section 5 of the 1968 Act for a person to have in his possession, or to purchase or acquire, or to sell or transfer a firearm which—

(a) was manufactured before 1st January 1919; and

(b) is of a description specified under subsection (2) below,

if he is authorised by a firearm certificate to have the firearm in his possession, or to purchase or acquire it, subject to a condition that he does so only for the purpose of its being kept or exhibited as part of a collection.
(2) The Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument specify a description of firearm for the purposes of subsection (1) above if it appears to him that—

(a) firearms of that description were manufactured before 1st January 1919; and

(b) ammunition for firearms of that type is not readily available.

(3) The authority of the Secretary of State is not required by virtue of subsection (1)(aba) of section 5 of the 1968 Act for a person to have in his possession, or to purchase or acquire, or to sell or transfer a firearm which—

(a) is of particular rarity, aesthetic quality or technical interest, or

(b) is of historical importance,

if he is authorised by a firearm certificate to have the firearm in his possession subject to a condition requiring it to be kept and used only at a place designated for the purposes of this subsection by the Secretary of State.
(4) This section has effect without prejudice to section 58(2) of the 1968 Act (antique firearms).").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment has already been spoken to. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 19:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—
SHOT PISTOLS USED FOR SHOOTING VERMIN
(" .—(1) The authority of the Secretary of State is not required by virtue of subsection (1)(aba) of section 5 of the 1968 Act for a person to have in his possession, or to purchase or acquire, or to sell or transfer, a shot pistol if he is authorised by a firearm certificate to have in his possession. or to purchase or acquire, a shot pistol subject to a condition that it is only for use in connection with the shooting of vermin.
(2) For the purposes of this section, "shot pistol" means a smooth-bored gun which is chambered for .410 cartridges or 9111111 rim fire cartridges.").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment would exempt shot pistols from the general prohibition on handguns in certain limited circumstances. It has been tabled in response to a commitment given by the right honourable Ann Widdecombe in another place on 19th November 1996 reported at cols. 871–872. A shot pistol is a smooth bore pistol which is chambered for .410 cartridges and specifically designed for vermin control inside barns and outbuildings. The relatively low power of the small shot cartridges minimises the damage to the fabric of the building.
There are times when a shot pistol is the most humane and effective way of destroying vermin. If a good reason can be produced for possession of such a weapon then
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we believe that it should be left to the discretion of the chief officer of police to grant a specially conditioned firearm certificate for that purpose, rather than requiring someone to obtain the Secretary of State's authority.
Of course, anyone applying for a certificate for this purpose will be subject to the new more stringent regime for firearm certificates which is introduced by the Bill, such as having to provide two referees.
Again perhaps I may take this opportunity to thank my noble friend Lord Attlee for his comments on the amendment earlier in the afternoon.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Earl Peel Earl Peel moved Amendment No. 20:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—
LIMITED EXEMPTION FOR DEALERS
(" The authority of the Secretary of State is not required by virtue of section 5 of the 1968 Act for a registered firearms dealer to have in his possession, purchase, acquire, sell or transfer a firearm or ammunition which is prohibited by section 1 or section 25 of this Act for the purpose of selling or transferring that firearm or ammunition to a person who may by the provisions of this Act lawfully possess, purchase or acquire it.").
The noble Earl said: This is a small but, we hope, important amendment. It attempts to achieve a simpler process for those individuals referred to as special exemptions under the Bill to acquire the necessary weapons for their various activities. There is a real possibility that dealers faced with the requirement to apply for a Section 5 licence may decide not to bother because of the additional bureaucracy combined with the fact that they may be unlikely to sell many of those weapons due to a low demand. There may be large areas of the country—I think in particular of rural areas—where, for example, vets need special weapons to destroy animals where necessary. They would have great difficulty in finding a dealer to supply them with the various weapons that they need.
Bearing in mind that anyone termed as a special exemption under the Bill would have to apply for a licence, I do not think that this provision would be regarded as a breach of security. I very much hope that my noble friend can accept the amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: I am afraid that I may disappoint my noble friend. I believe that the amendment would create a huge loophole in the general requirement for dealers to have the Secretary of State's authority to deal in prohibited weapons.
We are not prepared to make any concessions for dealers who deal in prohibited handguns. Dealers who wish to sell prohibited weapons of any sort must apply for the Home Secretary's authority to do so under Section 5(1) of the Firearms Act 1968.
I appreciate that it may cause some inconvenience for people who will have to find a dealer with Section 5 authority. But we are not aware that the current requirements cause particular problems. For example, vets are able to get hold of tranquillising weapons.

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However, we accept that the position is a little different for dealers who sell expanding ammunition, the ban on which will be extended by the Bill. The current Firearms Acts already allow dealers to sell expanding pistol ammunition to those who are authorised to possess it on a specially conditioned firearm certificate. The Bill does not change that. However, we have received representations from dealers who need to use expanding ammunition because they manufacture, test or repair firearms which use expanding ammunition. We are therefore prepared to allow firearms dealers who need to use expanding ammunition for this purpose to have it without the Secretary of State's authority and, again, I promise to bring forward an amendment to this effect on Report.
Earl Peel: I am grateful to my noble friend for what she is doing as regards expanding ammunition. It was causing a great deal of concern. I understand the position that she takes. I believe that there is a real likelihood that difficulties will be caused. I understand the Government's position. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 [Having small-calibre pistol outside premises of licensed pistol club]:
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Lord Pearson of Rannoch moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 3, line 18, at end insert ("or

(d) the slide assembly or cylinder has been removed and stored according to the conditions specified in subsection (2A) below.

(2A) Except as permitted by virtue of any provision of this Act, a small-calibre pistol shall be held under the following conditions—

(a) the slide assembly or cylinder shall be held on the premises of a licensed pistol club, and

(b) the remainder of the weapon shall be stored at different premises which shall be specified on the certificate granted for that pistol.").

The noble Lord said: My name is on the Marshalled List and I wish to move Amendment No. 21. This amendment is the so-called disabling or disassembling amendment. It proposes that permitted handguns should be dismantled with only the slide assembly or cylinder being stored at licensed premises. The remainder of the weapon could be kept at home. This would obviously make first-class security at gun clubs very much cheaper, allowing most of them, perhaps all of them, to survive. So the Treasury, or the taxpayer, would save a lot of money that it would otherwise have to pay in compensation. Security would in fact be improved because there would be no arsenals of complete weapons all over the country with their attendant security risk however much is done to protect them.
Since Clause 6 is now not to be considered by a Committee of this House, I trust that your Lordships will forgive me if I deal with the desirability of disassembly in some detail.
The Bill prohibits handguns except those provided for in Clause 1(2) and Clauses 2 to 5. One of the categories included in Clause 1(2) and defined in Clause 1(8) is called a small-calibre pistol. This gun is a sort of half-way house. It is not prohibited, but it is subject to extra controls of a draconian kind. In particular, Clause 6 makes it an offence to possess it outside the licensed premises of a licensed club. It cannot be stored at home or carried from club to club; it will be the only permitted gun not allowed to be kept at home. The purpose of the amendment is to change that offence so that the owner may possess the gun outside the licensed premises provided that its key component is stored there. That is what we mean by "dismantlement". The key component, the slide assembly or cylinder, will be kept at the club and the remainder of the gun at home. That was the option preferred by Lord Cullen.
It should be made clear that this amendment makes no commitment on the desirability or otherwise of permitting only .22 rimfire pistols. There are those who remain opposed to this limitation, believing that there is no justification for the ban on higher calibres. But this amendment does not contribute to that debate. The amendment says that whatever calibre the House decides, whether .22 or higher, dismantlement is the best way of control. There is no reason, therefore, why noble Lords who wish to ban pistols above .22 should oppose this proposal.
Let us look at the Cullen Report and the Government's response to it so far. Lord Cullen states, at paragraph 9.106:
"[The option] which is open to the least objection on the ground of practicability is the temporary dismantling of self-loading pistols and revolvers by the removal of major components".
The recommendation has a number of obvious advantages. It is quicker and easier to implement. It will save expenditure by clubs on increased security and prevent many from closing down. It saves the Treasury money by way of proper compensation. It will diminish the risk of terrorist and criminal attacks on arsenals of weapons. So it is safer than what is proposed in the Bill. The recommendation continues to fulfil the central purpose of the Bill: to separate the owner from his pistol or revolver, except within a club, as a safeguard against another terrible tragedy such as Dunblane.
It is worth remembering the present law on component parts. Buying spares without authority is already illegal. The two parts to which Lord Cullen referred, the slide assembly or cylinder, are already controlled by law. They are pressure bearing component parts of the gun which it is impossible to buy or possess without entering it on your firearms certificate. Any additional slide assembly or cylinder requires the consent of the chief officer of police because it requires him to grant a variation of the original certificate. From the point of view of the present law, there is no difference between buying another gun and buying a replacement slide assembly or cylinder.
I submit that the Government have so far failed to show the impracticality of that suggestion. They began indeed by suggesting that dismantlement was impracticable. Their response to Lord Cullen's report said (at paragraph 24, page 5, on 16th October):
"While removal of key components is feasible for certain types of gun, it is not a practical proposition for others",
At Second Reading in another place, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said:
"The Government took advice from the Forensic Science Service on the practicability of disabling multi-shot handguns. It concluded that that way forward was unworkable".—[Official Report, Commons, 12/11/96; col. (001-009).]
The evidence on which the Government's statement relied consisted of a letter from a Mr. Warlow of the Forensic Science Service. This letter has become somewhat notorious, and is generally referred to as Mr. Warlow's first letter. It was dated 16th October and was made available to the other place on the 18th. Mr. Warlow wrote a second letter, dated 18th November, to which I shall refer later. That is now known as Mr. Warlow's second letter. Both letters are now in the Library of this House.
Mr. Warlow's first letter included the following statements: first,
"The majority of self-loading pistols are designed so as to allow them to be stripped down to their major components without the use of tools";
second,
"In the case of most self-loading pistols the slide can be removed relatively easily";
and, third,
"In the case of the most common design of revolver it would be a most unusual operation to remove the cylinder",
with the small risk that,
"the retaining screw in a sideplate could be easily lost".
Mr. Warlow wrote that the handicaps to disassembly were: first,
"With some fine tuned target weapons care is necessary to avoid damaging their accuracy";
second,
"Some people are better at dismantling and re-assembling than others";
third,
"The removal of the revolver cylinder can lead to the loss of the small screw or to a scratching of the polished sideplate if the right screwdriver is not used".
So in what the Government said earlier, as I quoted, they were not being exactly fair to Mr. Warlow. His first letter does not bear the interpretation they sought to put on it. Nowhere does he say that dismantling is impracticable—a nuisance perhaps; hitherto unusual because unnecessary; at worst, the loss of a 10p screw or a scratch on the polish. Everyone outside the Home Office knows that it is simply not true that this is an impracticable proposal, since, in the words of Mr. Warlow:
"self-loading pistols are designed so as to allow them to be stripped down without the need for tools".
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Faced with this overwhelming evidence, the Government conceded that dismantlement was practicable. At Committee stage in the other place, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said:
"we accept that there are many varieties of handgun that can readily be dismantled, but there are others for which it is a much more difficult operation".—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/96; col. 784.]
About 95 per cent. of handguns can be easily dismantled. The vast majority of centre fire multi-shot pistols can be dismantled. Under this amendment, those guns which cannot be dismantled cannot be retained. But they are a tiny number compared with the many thousands that can be dismantled. I understand that all new models already meet the criterion of dismantlement; and if any manufacturers in future were tempted to market a gun which did not disassemble as required by law, they would not make many legal sales.
Faced with the collapse of their argument on practicality, the Government have retreated to new ground. They raised the non-existent spectre of illicit spares being kept at home. Thus my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said in the other place on 18th December:
"it would not be difficult for a gun owner to keep an illicit spare at home. That would enable him to reactivate the gun at any time. It is perfectly true that, in doing so, he would be breaking the law, but he would be unlikely to be discovered until it was too late".—[Col. 784.]
It seems to be common ground that the number of illegal guns in this country exceeds the number of legal guns, perhaps greatly so. But that does not prevent the Government from maintaining a system of legal gun ownership. That, of course, is quite right.
There are any number of ways in which the new law, like the old, can be broken. A gun may, for example, be stolen from a club, taken away surreptitiously, bought illegally or stolen from some other source. The identical questions arise for a component part as arise for the whole gun. In fact, in so far as a part is a less attractive target for theft than a whole gun, the risk of illegality is less for the part than it is for the whole.
So the statement of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary was simply incorrect if he meant that it is somehow easier to break the law with a part than with a whole gun. It is not true because the legal control on the part is as strong as the control on the whole. A legal spare part cannot be obtained without police permission. Getting the system off to a secure start will rely on exactly the same information; that is, the current certificates, whether we are dealing with dismantled guns or whole guns. All components, as well as all whole guns, which do not conform to the Bill's requirements will have to be surrendered. Illegal components are more difficult to obtain than illegal guns and are probably more expensive. There is also the problem that an illegal spare part may not fit a gun even if it is of the same model.
Finally, it is very difficult to see why anyone willing and able to buy an illegal gun should bother to buy an illegal part.
Faced with those facts, the last refuge of the Government has been to quote a sentence from the second letter of Mr. Warlow, dated 18th November 1996. The obvious inadequacy of Mr. Warlow's first letter was exposed in the debate in the other place on 18th November. The Government had to describe it as:
"a summary of careful consideration by the service. [But] That letter … was not meant to be a definitive answer to every point raised".—[Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee E, 20/11/96: col. 7.]
On 18th November, the same day as the debate on the Floor of the other place, Mr. Warlow wrote his second letter to the Home Office. His letter was described by the Government as:
"as much advice as we are able to release".
Again, that comes from the same standing committee as I have just quoted. I believe that we can therefore regard it as the Government's definitive evidence, unless my noble friend on the Front Bench has anything startlingly new to put before us this evening.
Against Mr. Warlow's opinions, there is a letter which I have also put in your Lordship's Library from a Mr. Colin Greenwood of the Firearms Research and Advisory Service. It is a comprehensive demolition job of both of Mr. Warlow's letters. As far as I can see, Mr. Greenwood is every bit as qualified as Mr. Warlow.
Be that as it may, in his second letter of 18th November Mr. Warlow said,
"This procedure, (i.e. dismantlement) would not provide a guaranteed measure of assurance against the possible misuse of a pistol by a determined and motivated individual".
That is the phrase quoted by my noble friend on the Front Bench at our Second Reading, but the letter provides no supporting evidence for it. My noble friend did not answer the point I put to her at Second Reading that a determined and motivated individual will find it far easier and cheaper to acquire a whole weapon illegally than a spare part. I would invite her to see if she can answer that point this evening.
All Mr. Warlow's objections are met once it is recognised that at the commencement of the Act all pistols will be subject to assessment by the police. A complete inventory of pistols and component parts exists today on firearms certificates. All pistols not conforming to the Act will have to be surrendered and removed from the certificate. Exactly the same applies to component parts. Thereafter, all that is required is for the police to notify the club of any changes in a member's certificate.
There are at least seven other statements in Mr. Warlow's second letter which can easily be shown to be irrelevant or plainly wrong, but at this late hour I will not weary the Committee with them. I may, I suppose, be forced to debate them if my noble friend prays them in her aid when she comes to reply. I have to say that I hope she will not do so.
I very much hope that what I have said will convince the Committee that this amendment would produce a safer, cheaper, more reasonable solution than is proposed in the Bill. It would allow many thousands of
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people to continue with their sport; it would do nothing to frustrate the purpose of the Bill. I very much hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench can therefore accept it.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: I wish to make two points. First, I would prefer that the slide assembly be taken home and the rest of the weapon be retained at the club. Secondly, I believe that this is unduly onerous on club officials who will have to supervise these operations at the end of every single session.
Lord Burton: Perhaps I may support my noble friend on this amendment. On this question of disassembly which, after all, is a highly technical one, I feel that it is a pity that it did not go to a Select Committee so that experts could have been questioned on it. However, that has not happened, so once again I draw your attention to Lord Cullen's conclusions. He gave great thought to the matter and there are several pages on it. I do not think this passage has been quoted yet from his report, although there have been many others. On page 129, paragraph 9.106 he stated:
"I am satisfied that of all the measures which stop short of a ban the one which is open to the least objection on the ground of practicability is the temporary dismantling of self-loading pistols and revolvers by the removal of major components. It has the merit that it does not require clubs to accommodate the handguns, with the various accommodation and security problems which I have already mentioned".
In the course of the evidence given to Lord Cullen, ACPO Scotland—the top Scottish policemen—disagreed with ACPO England and Wales on this point.
Mr. Warlow has said one thing, but other eminent experts, both mentioned by my noble friend, and also Colonel Meade, who is the top expert on this kind of thing, all categorically disagree with Mr. Warlow. This is a technical matter for technical experts, but one outstanding objection for keeping weapons in an arsenal is security. However strong the store may be, nothing would be really impregnable, and the stores would be most tempting targets for any wrongdoer. As the secretary, keyholder or whoever it may be who has methods of getting in left the building, there could well be very little problem in robbing him or her. There are any number of illegal weapons in this country and, as my noble friend said, it would be very much easier to get an illegal weapon rather than an illegal part.
Last week a Welshman drove from Wales to Liverpool, collected a pistol, drove back to Wales and shot himself. He had no difficulty in getting a weapon. This morning I made the point when I went to get my hair cut of asking the barber if he knew where I could get a pistol and he told me of two places, no problem. I tried the taxi driver. He asked what I wanted it for, but he thought that he could probably find one. There is no difficulty in getting an illegal weapon. Indeed, the police know where many of these illegal weapons can be bought. My noble friend Lord Peel said earlier on that he thought there were 2 million illegal weapons.
Who would be the club officials who hold the keys? I cannot envisage any club existing on that basis alone, because no one in their right mind would be the person

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responsible. His family could be threatened, apart from the enormous risk that he would take himself. I am certain that the answer is to have disassembly so that one does not put all the weapons in the one place.
Lord Monson: This is an extremely important amendment. It might well be described as the Lord Cullen amendment. Earlier this afternoon the noble Earl, Lord Russell, raised the perennial question of whether guns kill or people kill. Actually, neither guns nor people kill in a literal sense. It is the bullet propelled from the cartridge case which actually does the killing. Without loaded cartridges, without ammunition, a gun is no more than a rather clumsy and inefficient blunt instrument, much less lethal than a cricket bat, to say nothing of a baseball bat.
Ideally, guns and ammunition should be kept totally separate, except when the former is being used for target practice. However, there are a number of disadvantages to that. The alternative is dismantlement or disassembly—however one wishes to put it—which is almost totally foolproof.
I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I briefly repeat what I said approximately three hours ago about the advantages of disassembly. The prizes would be enormous for everybody concerned. There would be no losers. Tens of thousands of respectable, law-abiding men and women would be able to continue with the sport. Tens of thousands of the Government's natural supporters would no longer be alienated. The taxpayer would save tens of millions of pounds and, above all, the public would be much safer because as the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has said, disassembled guns provide no attraction to thieves. There are many burglaries and thefts of guns throughout the world even from the best guarded places. When guns are disassembled, I repeat, they have very little value. So, far from weakening the safeguards for the public, acceptance of this amendment would strengthen the safeguards for the public. I urge the Committee to accept the amendment.
7 p.m.
Lord Clifford of Chudleigh: totally agree with this amendment. The discussion will be a repeat to a degree of what has been said with regard to the Forensic Science Service evidence given to the Cullen Report, which the Committee has heard read out. Much of the evidence given to Lord Cullen has been described by a gentleman who works at Fulton's in Bisley as "absolute rubbish" and an embarrassment to anybody who knows anything about firearms.
If anybody in the Chamber has a shotgun—I am sure many Members of the Committee have one—or small arms, he will understand that one has to dismantle guns regularly for cleaning purposes, whenever they are used. So it becomes very easy to take the pieces apart and put them together again, contrary to what is said in the report.
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The noble Earl, Lord Marand Kellie, was absolutely right. Instead of the barrel staying at the firearms club, it is the frame which should be there. What use are several different barrels, if the frame is absent? Absolutely no use at all.
Let me return to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. We give our children pistols and rifles which we can obtain from shops and which look very realistic; and no matter what firearm we may have, it is the bullet which is the most important part. We have debated items to do with shooting being allocated to separate places. It is vitally important that we have ammunition and storage places. Having been in the Armed Forces for quite some time, I know about the armoury and where ammunition is stored. When ammunition is drawn out, it is signed out, and any excess unfired ammunition is signed back in. One knew very well that before leaving the range one had to confirm that one had no live rounds or empty cases in one's possession. Exactly the same should apply to all firearms clubs. Every single empty case should be collected and destroyed. That will be a disappointment to those people who can fill their own empty cases but it reduces the risk of exactly the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. The risk is that the bullet can be fired out of a weapon. If we eliminate that risk, the chances of any further damage are vastly reduced. I support the amendment.
Lord Zouche of Haryngworth: I should like to support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Pearson. The problem for many of the shooting clubs is that there are no current facilities for adequate safe storage of handguns. There are literally thousands of clubs, small clubs particularly, which are not in a financial position to find the funds to upgrade their storage facilities.
Unless this amendment is agreed to, many of those clubs will have to close down. I do not believe that that is what my noble friend the Minister wishes. If clubs are forced to close down, the compensation payable by the Government could escalate. Therefore, by accepting the principle of disassembly, tens of millions of pounds could be saved in compensation payments.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: We debated the amendment to Clause 6 moved by the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, before we entered on Committee stage. I had rather expected that the noble Baroness and the Government would have accepted that amendment. It would have given them the opportunity to get off this particular hook.
As we have seen this afternoon in this debate so far, there is disagreement. We were told during the earlier debate that in Committee we could sort out such disagreements. We were told that we did not need experts to tell us what to do and that this Chamber could do it very well. But in fact it seems that there is some conflict between the experts. That is why I supported the amendment earlier. I thought that perhaps a little delay in a Select Committee would make it possible to resolve those problems.

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In his excellent address when moving the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, raised many matters indeed. It seems to me that the objections to dismantlement raised by the Government—by the Home Secretary—could be described as trivial. There is no question but that the suggested system of dismantlement could work to very good effect. But what are we told? We are told that the Government are concerned about illicit spares. But, as has already been explained, the fact is that those spares would indeed be illicit and would have to have been illicitly obtained. Therefore, there would be two people breaking the law. I am not at all sure that gunsmiths would want to do that.
The other area, of course, is the handmaking of spares. But that is an extremely expensive matter which very few shooters would be able to afford, if indeed any shooters would wish to do it anyway. So far as I can see or know, the shooting fraternity is one of the most law-abiding sections of the community. It consists of policemen, retired policemen, army officers, retired army officers and professional people such as solicitors and accountants, for example, as well as ordinary factory workers. Indeed, one of the most poignant letters I have received came from an AEEU shop steward who was very much concerned that his sport was to be destroyed, not only by the Government but by Her Majesty's Opposition. There are many such people who are very concerned that their sport will be destroyed in that way. They are not the kind of people who are likely to disobey the law. Indeed, they are the most likely people to obey the law. In any event, the penalties could be set so high as to be a very strong deterrent.
It seems to me that this is a way forward which would satisfy the recommendations of the Dunblane inquiry. I believe that it would satisfy most people up and down the country. It would be very much fairer to the shooting fraternity, which, after all, has a point. They are innocent people. They have enjoyed this sport over a very long period of time.
Let me warn the Committee that we are not just talking about 57,000 people. There are probably another million people who enjoy shooting of one kind or another. They are watching what is going on and may be afraid that they will be the next in line. So, for their sake, for the sake of the sport, for the sake of fairness to 57,000 shooters who will be involved in this matter, I urge the Government very seriously to consider accepting this amendment; or, if they will not accept the amendment, to consider it very carefully and take it away to see whether something can be done with it that can satisfy everybody.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I make only a short intervention. I find myself in some difficulty because I consider the whole conceptual basis of the Bill to be flawed. I do not agree with it. I take the view that these guns are freely available and any lunatic can obtain one. The Bill is a bad Bill.
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Having said that, on the merits of what has been said by Members of the Committee I suppose it is honourable, notwithstanding my views, to support the amendment as the best that can be done in these sad circumstances.
Lord Marlesford: I do not intend to become involved in the technical aspects of the amendment; I am not an expert. I listened carefully to my noble friend Lord Pearson and found his arguments to be convincing. Also, I read the correspondence dealing with these matters that many of us received.
I support the amendment on a different aspect of the Bill. It is my deep regret that the Government, in not following Cullen, have committed themselves to public spending of, we are told, at least £150 million in compensation. That is public spending the details of which I suspect they had not worked out at the time they took the line that they took of rejecting Cullen. It is expenditure which could rise considerably because we are aware that many in this Chamber—I have some sympathy with them—will be introducing amendments to increase the terms of compensation.
I hope my noble friend, when she tells us why the amendment is to be rejected, will tell us how much money would be saved if it were accepted. The opportunity cost of these enormous sums cannot be justified by the marginal, if any, increase in risk that may result from accepting the amendment. It is therefore on a purely pragmatic, financial basis that I urge the Committee to accept it.
I almost wonder whether Mr. Gordon Brown, who I know has hopes of having some responsibility for the public finances of this country himself in a few weeks, would not, if he were here in spirit, be hoping to use those millions of pounds for a better purpose than is proposed under the Bill as drafted.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Ernest Bevin, when told that Herbert Morrison was his worst enemy, said, "Not while I am alive, he ain't". I can assure the noble Lord that while I am here, Gordon Brown is here is spirit.
Lord Brain: I disagree with two points made earlier in the debate. But I wholeheartedly support the amendment. If the main part of the pistol is stored in an individual's home, that individual is then able to keep the other parts, if he wishes, in two separate clubs. I believe that side by side pistol shooting is one of the aspects of competitive sport and he can therefore shoot against two different groups of people.
If the amendment should be adopted in any form at a later stage, I hope the fact that storing the weapons in one specific way will not necessarily inhibit their use at more than one club when, if they were stored in a different way, that would be prohibited.
Lord Swansea: I support the amendment. The principle involved—the principle of dispersal—is one I fully advocate—I practice it myself with rifles. I do not shoot pistols, but I own a number of rifles. They

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are stored with their bolts removed and the bolts kept elsewhere. It is a sensible idea which many people follow and I recommend it.
The amendment states that,
"the slide assembly or cylinder shall be held on the premises of a licensed pistol club, and … the remainder of the weapon shall be stored at different premises which shall be specified on the certificate granted for that pistol".
One could easily do that the other way around and have the slide assembly or cylinder remain in the possession of the owner and the remainder of the weapon stored in a safe place on some club premises.
The proposal to impel pistols to be stored assembled in a central store is ludicrous. The cost to a club would be enormous and it would not be able to afford it. It may well have to close down. The amendment provides an infinitely preferable way and, as I said, one that I practise myself. I hope that the Government will accept it one way or the other.
If one removes the slide or cylinder from a pistol, one is left with two lumps of metal which are useless individually. The only way one could hurt somebody with them is to throw them at them. On their own, disassembled, they are harmless and I therefore support the amendment.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: First, the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, referred to the full discussion of this issue being heard on the Floor of the House. In this very debate there are experts in the Chamber and some of us who are not experts but who have taken expert advice before coming to this stage of the Bill and, indeed, I continue to take expert advice. We will all go away and read what has been said today and will continue to do that throughout the course of the Bill. It will not be the first time that experts have disagreed about a single subject. Taking the debate off the Floor of the House and inviting a variety of experts to come in and debate it will not necessarily guarantee that they will come to different conclusions.
My noble friend Lord Marlesford referred to costs. I do not have a precise answer for him because we have not produced a costing of the option put forward to me by my noble friend except to say that, unless we were to reduce the security of the gun clubs considerably—in other words, make them easy targets to walk into and obtain disassembled barrels or sliding parts of a gun or to obtain the deactivated gun—we would invalidate the purpose of the amendment. If the gun clubs were sufficiently secure to carry parts of the gun, there would have to be set up a considerable bureaucracy to police on a daily basis the management of parts of guns being outside the club and other parts being inside the club and the people with multi-membership of clubs. That would be at considerable cost. However, I take the point being made by my noble friend. He believes that there would be considerable savings; I do not.
We do not deny that many pistols can be disassembled by removing some essential component such as the slide or cylinder. However, as Lord Cullen said himself at paragraph 9.86 of his report:
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"in the case particularly of many high precision .22 pistols the removal of the slide was not recommended unless the gun malfunctioned and required disassembly for cleaning. Repeated disassembly involved disruption of carefully tuned components and would very quickly impair the accuracy for which they were designed. Such pistols were not developed for military service and the ease of dismantling played little if any part as a consideration in their design."
Under the Government's proposals it would be the high precision .22 pistols which were stored at clubs.
However, it was not primarily for that reason that we rejected the option of storing component parts of pistols at clubs. The main reason for rejecting this option was that we do not believe that any form of disassembly would provide a guaranteed measure of assurance against the possible misuse of the pistol by a determined and motivated individual.
As the Committee will be aware, we have received advice from the Forensic Science Service on the subject of disassembly and copies of two letters of advice have been placed in the Library of the House. I have noted what a number of noble Lords have said about that advice, but I would like to quote again from the second of those letters for the benefit of those Members of the Committee who have not had the opportunity to read it. It says:
"Some individuals will possess more than one set of barrel and slide components for their pistol, or will possess components which will allow the calibre of the weapon to be converted by the simple substitution of components. Unless the [pistol] club employs a qualified armourer to confirm the bona fide of items at the time of transfer for storage who is also fully aware of the extent of ownership of such accessories by their membership, a person could still possess a complete weapon at home even after complying with the regulations.
A pistol owner intent upon misusing his pistol for a criminal act could obtain major components which would pass general inspection standards prior to secure club storage. The purchase of an officially deactivated firearm of the same make and model as that held on his certificate could be done without the need for police authorisation and would provide outwardly convincing components to be substituted at the time of purchase.
The frames of some pistols are specifically fabricated so that the owner can purchase a comprehensive range of barrels of different lengths and cartridge chamberings, which can be simply substituted and fitted at the will of the user. This again could lead to the situation where a person would be in the possession of a complete fireann after appearing to comply with club regulations".
The Government believe therefore that disassembly does not provide an adequate safeguard for the public. It is interesting to note that in his speech at Second Reading my noble friend Lord Kimball, while being initially attracted to the idea of disassembly, no longer supported it. I refer to the Official Report of 16th December at col. 1317.
Allowing this amendment for .22 pistols, my noble friend has suggested, is bound to lead to calls for disassembly for high calibre guns as well. Because of the arguments set out I believe that that would be an unacceptable escalation towards what I regard as an even more dangerous position for the public. For these reasons, we are unable to accept the amendment.
I repeat what I have said throughout the course of this debate. I shall continue reading the pages of Hansard and what has been said throughout this debate. I shall continue

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to take advice and talk with colleagues, officials and experts on these matters. I hope that that will be a continuing process until the Bill passes into statute.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: I am grateful to all Members of the Committee who have spoken, all of whom, except for the very brief and somewhat perplexing contribution of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, and possibly that of the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, supported this amendment. The noble Earl said that he feared that this amendment might produce an unduly onerous situation for club officials. He would have preferred to see a part of the pistol kept at the club and the weapon kept at home. No doubt that is something that one could consider. But I put it to the noble Earl that the inconvenience of enforcing the kind of security arrangements which the clubs are facing when forced to look after a whole arsenal of arms would be very much more onerous than the situation which this amendment provides. There would also be the inconvenience of having to close the clubs down because they simply could not afford the security arrangements which appear to be required.
I believe that I was encouraged to hear my noble friend Lady Blatch say that she would go away and read what has been said. I need to press her a little further on that. Will she go away and read what has been said with a view, possibly before Report stage—which I believe is to be on 4th February—to meeting me and others in the meantime to move some way towards accepting this very sensible amendment? For instance, will she have the Warlow versus Greenwood correspondence referred to the Firearms Consultative Committee in the meantime, which I understand is the independent advisory body to the Home Secretary?
If my noble friend cannot move some way in the direction that I have mentioned, in view of the unanimous support which I have received from Members of the Committee, for which I am extremely grateful, I can only say to her that this amendment is far cheaper, far safer and allows thousands of people to go on shooting. Will she reply to the points that I have made?
Baroness Blatch: I have to say to my noble friend that I cannot go as far as he wishes. I will do all that I have promised between this and the next stage of the Bill. I will meet anyone who wishes to discuss matters with me, as I have always done on Bills. I shall do all this without prejudice to the next stage of the Bill. That is all I can promise.
Noble Lords: That is fair enough.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: A number of noble Lords have said "That's fair" and I very much hope that it is. I shall certainly return to this matter at Report stage. In the meantime, I am most grateful to noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
The Earl of Courtown: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving this Motion, may I suggest that the Committee meets again at twenty-five minutes past eight o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Ex-servicemen's Welfare
7.25 p.m.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider the case for establishing a special unit within the Ministry of Defence, with a designated Minister, responsible for the care and welfare of ex-servicemen and women and their dependants.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, noble Lords taking part in the debate may wonder why I, with my trade union background, and certainly a non-service one, feel so strongly that I have put this Question down on the Order Paper this evening. I declare an interest. Until a few years ago I knew very little about the Armed Forces. But I was appointed to the Armed Forces Pay Review Body, a position that I held with some pride and increasing interest for just over two years. I experienced an increasing respect for the service personnel that I came to meet in my work as a member of that body.
There was a debate in this Chamber on the issue in May 1994 initiated by the noble Earl, Lord Haig. Noble Lords who spoke in that debate have put their names down again this evening. I am indebted to them and to the new speakers in this debate.
This is an issue whose time has come. It is the right time for the Government to review their position and to accept this proposal which has now been discussed quite widely, not just in this Chamber, for some time. It is not a party political issue but one which unites noble Lords across the parties. It is also one which united Members of another place, some 280 of them, in signing an early-day Motion.
I regret that the Government have continually stonewalled the claim for a single unit, a focal point within the Ministry of Defence, with a Minister responsible for our ex-service personnel and their families. I do not know why they have stonewalled. I can only believe that they have some belief in the view that they put forward that the present procedures are quite sufficient. I reject that view, if indeed the Government hold it. I do not believe that the right way to treat our ex-service personnel is to give them the run-around around Whitehall on the problems that they face.
Having a central focal point would be in the Government's interests also. Indeed, it is not a unique or new idea. There are single focal points in Whitehall for other area of public policy and, by and large, they work. For nearly 18 years the Royal British Legion and

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other bodies representing veterans and service personnel have tried to press home the need for a single focal point. Other countries have similar departments. There is a special government department in the United States. However, I stress that that is not what we are pressing for. Particular factors in the United States relating to healthcare and its funding have called for other arrangements. But Canada, Australia and New Zealand have such departments, and veterans in France, Holland and Germany enjoy a better co-ordination of services than happens in this country, with special sections or subsections in their defence ministries.
The Government here, however, have repeatedly fobbed off veterans with regard to this proposal. They have sometimes implied that to establish such a unit would be to confer a special privilege. I totally and utterly reject that argument. Special privilege indeed! But yes, we do have a special responsibility. The nation has such a special responsibility and it is up to the Government to take the nation's responsibility on board and ensure the future of those within our community who, at the core of their service, knowingly put their lives at risk. As part of their commitment to this country, our ex-service personnel were knowingly prepared to pay the ultimate price that anyone could pay.
Survivors of the Second World War and the Korean War spent years away from their families. Many of them spent many years in hospital and, when their service commitment was over, were often unable to return to a full and active life as a result of the damage that had been done to their health. How many families and how many lives have been torn apart in that way? The Government, however, have consistently argued that a single focal point is not necessary. Our argument is not based on emotion. Our case is supported by arguments of efficiency and because we have a duty and a responsibility as a nation to treat our ex-service personnel honourably. That responsibility must be honoured.
Some say that we are talking about a diminishing group of people. I question that and ask whether the issues have gone away. Looking back over the past three or four years, I would say that the issues have become more complex. Who could have imagined the long-term fall-out of the Gulf War in terms of the health problems which, it is contended, have been caused to our service personnel who took part in it? That issue was long denied by the Government, including in this House, leading to a government apology being issued both in this House and in another place—but too late, in my view. In fact, the apology was dragged out of the Government line by line by Members of both another place and this House. Notable among them has been the noble Countess, Lady Mar, for her unstinting work. For how long did the Government assert that there was no such thing as what had become known as "Gulf War syndrome"?
What about the veterans of Northern Ireland? I have been there as part of my work on the pay review body. I have spoken to those veterans and to their families, who feel isolated from the mainstream of British life. I am talking about an area that is close to these shores
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and yet one can think of few more inhospitable places in which to do one's duty, with the possibility of a bullet or a bomb around the next corner to end one's life. That is not emotive; it is a fact.
Another argument that is used against establishing a special unit is that it would create bureaucracy. I do not accept that. In fact, I suggest that such a unit would help government by bringing together those involved.
I suggest that events since our last debate on this subject have undermined the confidence which many ex-service personnel, their families and organisations have long had in the ability of the centre, Whitehall, to look after their affairs. The pensions issue is but one such example—the allegations in the media derived from the so-called Red Book and the Budget. There are reported to be planned savings of £15 million in pension payments to ex-service personnel. I do not know whether that is a fact. I know what I have read, however, and I know what our ex-service personnel feel about it. They no longer have confidence that the Government will meet their responsibilities in this area.
We have read that ex-service personnel will no longer be issued with reminders to claim their benefits. We have read allegations that those who appeal will no longer be referred to the Royal British Legion. That is perhaps because the legion has been so successful in helping people to claim benefits. I hope that in his reply the Minister will categorically deny that there will be any reduction in pensions funding and that he will deny those two allegations. I hope that he will say that people will continue to be referred to the Royal British Legion and that they will continue to receive the reminders that they have received in previous years.
As I have said, I am grateful to noble Lords who are to participate in this debate. Perhaps I may say in conclusion that we all know—this has often been demonstrated—that the Government do not always know best. This is one such occasion. In refusing to establish a single focal point, I suggest that they are standing on an island by themselves. The case is supported by Members of this House, by a record number of Members of another place and by representatives and organisations of ex-service personnel—all of whom base their support on their practical knowledge and experience and as a result of having spoken to the many thousands of ex-service personnel who all feel strongly that the best way to deal with their case is to establish a single focal point, with a Minister to oversee the issues affecting them. That does not mean that the issues will not be discussed across Whitehall. Of course that will happen, as is the case with other special units such as those for the regions or issues affecting women.
Ex-service personnel need a single focal point to which they and their representatives can go. I think that establishing such a unit is a small price to pay for the fact that, while in the services, those personnel faced a reduction in the democratic rights that we all take for granted. I am proud to have tabled this Unstarred Question.
7.36 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for raising and for introducing so clearly a subject of concern to many of us. My name was the first and only one on the list of speakers—along with that of the noble Baroness—four weeks ago, but this week the wide interest in the matter was demonstrated by the addition of so many other Members' names that we are all limited to three minutes each.
I spoke in the debate two-and-a-half years ago and have studied carefully the reply given then by my noble friend Lord Cranborne. Today in a brief speech I must limit myself to one point together with a strong recommendation.
I must declare interests. I am a war pensioner having been severely wounded 52 years ago and have been involved since in disability organisations which include many ex-service people. I also succeeded the late Lord Lovat in his position in the Normandy Veterans' Association.
Much misunderstanding arises from the description "war pensions". A large proportion are compensation payments for injuries during service with no connection with a war. In a Written Answer to me, the Government recently stated:
"The War Pensions Agency does not maintain a statistical breakdown of awards due to war and other service".—[Official Report, 13/1/97; col.WA 3.]
So, I can only guess the proportion. From my own knowledge and experience I suggest that it is now about half the total number being paid. The media and the public do not know that. I have tested them by asking many in recent weeks, and in reply they assume that all war pensioners were damaged by the enemy in a war. Misleading impressions have thus been given to the detriment of various categories of ex-service people. The term "war pension" is inaccurate and misleading in its present use. My recommendation is that it should be changed to "armed forces disability pension" with a similar change to what is now called the "War Pensions Agency".
The term is also emotive, as it was on 5th December last in the episode started by the Guardian. That morning I received telephone calls from national newspapers seeking my comments; one asking me to contribute an article. In the event, I was able to brief them and so cool down uninformed reactions. Some of them thanked me for my briefing on the following Monday and for my explanations which had saved them from a wild goose chase. The Guardian was good enough to publish a letter from me only five days after its original report. Some of the letters that I then received from the public were from people who were in receipt of war pensions. They had served for short periods in peace time only and in Britain. They thanked me for pointing out in my letter that their pensions had rightly been awarded as compensation for injuries. They had suffered impaired hearing from firing their weapons on practice ranges. This damage was caused by our own friendly cordite propellant, not by high explosive or enemy action.
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In 1942, half-way through World War II, as a battery commander I insisted that the relevant soldiers who manned my field guns wore ear plugs. After the war I was told that I was among the first, if the not the first, to do so. Later it became compulsory. That kind of ear injury is different from the serious damage that can be inflicted by high explosives. The blast from enemy shells bursting very close by sometimes broke or perforated ear drums. The effect was serious because it could also expose the brain to damage.
Viscount Long: My Lords, I must tell my noble friend that he has been speaking for over four minutes. I am sorry but I must interrupt him.
7.43 p.m.
Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, the Green Paper entitled Government Direct describes a vision of a one-stop shop for the delivery of government services. Can we press the Government tonight through that open door for a one-stop shop for veterans? Current policy which deals with veterans on the same basis as other members of the community fails to acknowledge the debt we owe to those who have taken up arms to fight and, if necessary, to sacrifice their lives. Government and the nation should never cease to treat servicemen and women in later life in a special and privileged way. We rely on volunteers to man the Armed Forces.
Recruiting and early retirement figures indicate that the forces no longer attract the same degree of support that they once did. This is a worrying and damaging trend. If it is allowed to develop further, there may come a day when the only way to find people to man the services will be to return to a form of compulsory service. We have a worrying example of this trend in the defence medical services. There was a time when the services took great pride in the commitment and calibre of their medical services. They may not have been as stretched in peace time as their equivalents in the NHS, but they were always there in emergency and war, giving marvellous care and attention to those who were wounded or traumatised in battle. In peace time they helped veterans and their families. What the services once had but have no longer was a form of private medicare which was responsive and directed to services' needs. The NHS with its wider community responsibility cannot match that. Servicemen, and the medical services themselves, recognise this departure from a standard and a lowering of clinical services. Other examples of less than special consideration for veterans and their dependants abound. For example, post-1973 war widows do not retain their Armed Forces family pensions for life if they remarry.
On its own, each step that further integrates servicemen and women, and their longer term interests as veterans, within the wider community may seem insignificant. But, like a straw on the camel's back, there comes a point when the collective impact is so clear and detrimental that it can be recognised by all. Then it is too late. We need a constant stream of able-bodied and committed volunteers. If we no longer give them and their forebears special recognition, they will not come

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forward. Those in mid-career will not stay. We now see this in the medical services. They are in danger of losing their minimum critical mass as a regular service.
I hope that the Government will take heed of these warning signs. A willingness to treat veterans in a special way would be a welcome change to a worrying policy. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and others who are unable to contribute to this limited debate, feel as I do. I thank the noble Baroness for raising this issue.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Dean on her fine speech. I am delighted to follow the noble and gallant Lord's speech. It has all been said by my noble friend Lady Dean and the Royal British Legion in its splendid briefing, which no doubt the Minister has read. I should like to make two short points. First, I believe that account must be taken of the changing nature of war. We are all aware of the injuries to soldiers in past wars that are exacerbated by age. We are now becoming aware of the injuries sustained in the recent Gulf War. Goodness knows what lies ahead given the changes in the method of war. We do not know what other kinds of injuries our forces will suffer in future. What we do know is that knowledge, expertise and understanding are required. Without that, we will not be able to deal with either the old injuries or the new ones.
Secondly, whenever in the past I have campaigned against the Ministry of Defence I have found it to be ambivalent. Sometimes it is wonderfully co-operative; at other times it is rigidly dogmatic. On too many occasions it opposes progress. On Tuesday we shall be discussing in this House at Question time the issue of war pensions and deafness. In reply to my request to the Minister a few weeks ago for a veterans' association the Minister said "No thank you". He said that it would create bureaucracy. That argument is bogus. I am sure that it will be raised this evening, as my noble friend Lady Dean has anticipated. In this debate, we do not seek bureaucracy but the very opposite. Bureaucracy arises when people do not understand and are not aware of the facts. If the institution that we ask for is set up it will be the opposite of bureaucracy.
I hope that the Minister will be able to accept this small and constructive suggestion. I remind him that the "bureaucracy" argument was used when it was suggested that there be a Minister for disabled people. It was then a false argument and it is an equally false argument today. I hope that the Minister will be able to accept our suggestion.
7.48 p.m.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I declare an interest as President of the Earl Haig branch of the Royal British Legion and also as an ex-serviceman and recipient of a disability payment for noise-induced deafness. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for raising this question. I also compliment my noble friend the Minister upon his personal sympathetic and conscientious interest in the whole subject of the welfare of ex-servicemen and women.
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I believe that a strong case can be made for setting up an ex-service affairs unit. It need be composed of only a small number of civil servants and can be situated in an existing department of the Government's choosing. As a focal point it would co-ordinate government policy and be a point of reference for ex-service people and organisations which represent them in relation to the more than 20 government departments and agencies and local authorities with whom they now have to deal. That will prevent them from being given what is often a very lengthy run-around.
As I understand it, the Legion seeks a partnership with Whitehall. This would entail access to an informed Minister with overall responsibility for ex-service matters. I believe that this would encourage an exchange of views and information on matters of concern to both sides. I also believe that it would be helpful to the Government in formulating measures and legislation. It would reassure the ex-service community, which, after all, forms about a quarter of the population, that its interests are being heeded. And, what is most important, it is likely that real savings in administrative costs could be made and a better service provided. In the light of that, I very much hope that my noble friend and his department will look at this matter again.
7.50 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing this Unstarred Question. I declare an interest as a serving officer in the Territorial Army, although the matters in question do not affect me.
When talking to regular soldiers, one common concern is aired frequently; that is, what happens if they are killed, seriously injured or medically discharged as a result of an injury sustained during operations or training? It is important to remember that an awful lot of very nasty injuries are sustained during training as opposed to on operations. I became aware some time ago of an incident in which a serviceman and a civilian were both injured in the same preventable accident. The civilian was promptly compensated but the serviceman was not. Thankfully, recent changes have alleviated that problem.
I have never been involved in a military operation, but I have worked as a civilian aid worker in an operational zone. One is prepared to take risks but one wants to be confident that one will be looked after if one comes to grief. The noble and gallant Lord referred to the defence medical services, with which there is a bit of a problem. Confidence in assistance is vital if morale is to be maintained, whether one was wearing a green suit or a white one.
The duty of the MoD, however, is to defend the UK's interests. I am not convinced that it should be responsible for these welfare matters. What is important is that our ex-service personnel are looked after properly. Sadly, I expect that we shall never be completely satisfied with the provision of support, whatever the colour of the Government.
7.53 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I wish, first, to thank the Minister and the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne. On the many occasions when I have had to raise issues concerning the Royal British Legion, they have always given of their best and helped me and the Legion enormously. I felt it only right to put that on the record.
The Royal British Legion is concerned for the welfare of ex-servicemen and women and their families. We are considering the possibility of creating an ex-service unit to care for these people. That new department would be located within the MoD or the DSS. If created, it could take over all the work carried out by other ministries which deal with ex-servicemen and women and their families.
A unit to co-operate with and advise all departments is a sensible idea. We believe that ex-servicemen who have given of their best to their country should receive the best from it. Appeals for help from the wartime generation are growing and will do so for some years to come. It is difficult for people to understand the difficulties of people who lost their entire homes. They were blown to bits. When I was working on bomb disposal in the East End of London it was not only frightening to have to be there, the most terrifying thing was watching the women defending their children under their skirts while the bombs were falling. The nation does not intend to forget the East End cockneys and their equivalents in other parts of the country. I will not. I shall always mention them whenever I have the chance.
Ex-servicemen and women make up about one-third of today's voting population. I ask the House and the Minister to bear in mind that their wants and needs will increase as they grow older. The wounds they sustained when they were fighting for their country when they were 21 or 30 and which then were not too serious are altogether different when they are 60 or 70, when the wound starts to play them up. Our ex-servicemen and women gave of their best for the land they loved. Let us give our best to them through our Parliament.
7.55 p.m.
Lord Freyberg: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for initiating this debate tonight. The Royal British Legion has drawn attention to the serious difficulties some ex-servicemen and their dependants experience in dealing with the various ministries in charge of their welfare.
There seem to be three core problems. The first arises because the Ministry of Defence is quite naturally more concerned with the urgency of the Armed Forces' current activities and the importance of shaping the military's future. Veteran affairs relate to the past, so quite understandably—and not because the MoD wishes it so—ex-servicemen's issues are inclined to be given a lower priority.
The second problem is the diversity of government departments involved in the affairs of ex-servicemen. At present there are 17, ranging from the MoD itself to local authorities. For example, in relation to their war-disabled pensions, an ex-soldier or war widow will
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have to deal with, first, the War Pensions Agency; secondly, the Ministry of Defence; and, thirdly, the Department of Social Security. This can become confusing, especially for older people; there is no obvious focus of attention.
The third problem is the over-secretive and over-protective nature of the Ministry of Defence (and therefore the Government). The MoD has been extremely unresponsive to a number of unresolved and distressing issues, such as Gulf War syndrome, which it is only now addressing, and only because it has been forced to by publicity and weight of evidence. This is not how serious problems should be addressed.
What is needed is an independent body that can not only consider the merits of ex-servicemen's problems but have the authority, and ideally, the resources to deal with them. A Minister who was nominally responsible for the welfare of ex-servicemen, would just be a "front" man, a post box to whom everyone went, with no power to do anything except listen, because he would have no authority for policy, and he would have no money. Indeed, he would act to the disadvantage of service and veterans' organisations by acting as a buffer and holding these organisations away from the Minister or person responsible. Moreover, if the unit called for by the Royal British Legion were part of the Ministry of Defence, it would be briefed by exactly the same civil servants as now brief the ministry, and the same stereotyped approach and over-defensive arguments would continue.
What might better serve veterans' interests is an ombudsman: an independent regulator, someone who understands and has a degree of expertise in service affairs. Everyone would recognise the function of such a new focus, as we are all now familiar with this type of body, through such examples as the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Oftel and Ofgas.
The advantage of this scheme is that it would be independent of the Ministry of Defence and central government, and it would be approachable. It would also be free of a cumbersome bureaucracy, and therefore of excessive cost. It would look at the fairness and justice of a particular issue in the context of military practice, and then, importantly, call for appropriate action.
7.58 p.m.
Earl Haig: My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness for enabling us to debate this important question. In 1994 I asked a somewhat similar question. Hers is more modest in that she seeks a unit within the MoD rather than a sub-department. A co-ordinating point is proposed with a Minister responsible for co-ordination, not for handling cases which would only add to bureaucracy. A Minister would be able to guide cases in the right direction.
The aim would be to improve communications and enable ex-service personnel to know where to go. There is a need to provide sympathetic guidance to help people through the right channels. That need for co-ordination has emerged because few Ministers and few civil servants have ever worn uniform. In some cases there is

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an unawareness and even a lack of sympathy on the part of officials called upon to deal with the problems of ex-service personnel.
After the first war my father was keen to appoint men who had suffered or been wounded to fill administrative appointments relating to pensions and the welfare of survivors of that war. According to The Times of 2nd July, 1919, in his evidence to the Select Committee on Pensions he asked that the medical boards be reconstructed so that an officer could be appointed to each board as an assessor. He asked for greater generosity on the part of the state. He asked for the appointment of a single authority to co-ordinate the work of Ministers. He asked for improvement in the machinery that has been set up and is now working laboriously but too slowly, and in many cases unsympathetically.
Since that time a complex and efficient system linking government departments with ex-service organisations has evolved. Any alterations to that system should be made only provided that they do not endanger the present system of co-operation between the Government and voluntary organisations. There have been misunderstandings by the Government about difficulties suffered by ex-service people. It is for us to improve the liaison so that difficulties are overcome rather than undermine the structure. I agree with the Government that it would wrong to change the system by channelling too many problems directly to one Minister.
There is a need for improvement and to that end it is important to support the idea of a special unit in order to bridge the communication gap for ex-service people, used to the warmth of service life, returning home after years spent outside Civvy Street. They are men and women who are suffering withdrawal symptoms which are made more painful when they face housing or other difficulties. I know ex-servicemen who are wandering the streets unable to find the help which is available if only they knew where to find it. I support the plan and I hope that the Government accept it.
8.1 p.m.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, there should be no greater respect in life than that accorded to those who served this nation and fell in time of war fighting for the just cause of freedom. This respect must be extended to their spouses.
This evening has touched on differing matters relating to the Royal British Legion. I hope that I might be forgiven for saying a few words about the War Widows' Pilgrimages Programme. In 1984 the Legion was asked by the Government whether it would administer the scheme with Ministry of Defence funding. The programme serves those who lost their spouses during the two world wars or subsequent campaigns by enabling visits to graves abroad, once, at a cost of one-eighth of the market rate. Even then, should that amount not be possible to fund the Royal British Legion will assist further.
The first group left the United Kingdom in 1985. Since then more than 3,000 have visited the graves of their loved ones in more than 43 countries.
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Arrangements have been made also for visits to places where tourists are strongly discouraged or denied access; for example, to South Burma or Kohima in North East India. Furthermore, it has to be said that three widows have visited graves from the Great War, those visits taking place some 70 years after their bereavement. The majority will confirm that the visit represented the single most important event of their lives. Indeed, firm bonds of friendship have been forged out of these unique visits. One issue is abundantly clear; they are all grateful for the opportunity and the grant in aid.
I shall turn to my concerns. The level of funding has varied and recently reached its lowest level at approximately £90,000 a year from a peak of £220,000. In December 1995, the Prime Minister in addressing a pilgrims' reunion spoke of the courage of relatives, especially widows, and announced a fourth and final extension of the programme to March 1999. It is with regret that there is no extra money to fund the period 1997–99 so the MoD merely reduced the current level by 50 per cent. to pay for future expenditure.
It is nigh on impossible for the devoted and compassionate team in the War Graves Pilgrimage department to remain within budget. Any overspend is borne by the legion with the effect that fewer widows will have the chance to visit final resting places. I understand that additional funding has been considered. Is the Minister able to offer positive news in that regard? To what degree has allowance been made for those whose names are on the list to travel but have not been called? What if 1999 arrives and they have not travelled? Equally relevant are those who have not travelled to Libya due to circumstances beyond their control. What is to happen to them? If the Minister is unable to respond, will he undertake to give the matter his attention?
8.4 p.m.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, I apologise to the House and to the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for speaking in the gap. Although in the Whips Office on Monday I put my name down to speak, for some unaccountable reason it was left out.
I should like to thank the noble Baroness for initiating the debate and for what she said. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, who have so kindly spoken on behalf of the war widows.
The War Widows' Association of Great Britain, and all its splendid ladies whom I am so proud to represent, does have difficulty in some cases under the present system. This is nothing to do with the extremely warm and friendly relationship which we enjoy with both my noble friends Lord Howe of the MoD and Lord Mackay of the DSS and their helpful and friendly staffs. It is just that we do not always know to whom we should apply. Pre-1973 war widows apply to the DSS; post-1973 war widows apply to the DSS and the MoD. It can be most confusing for those ladies.

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The War Widows' Association has also from time to time found itself in a similar maze, wondering to which lucky Minister it should apply. The amendment brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, on the forces family pension under the Armed Forces pension scheme, though not alas moved, is an issue about which we have been arguing with Ministers from various departments for some years. We believe that because the pension is attributable it should be paid for life, regardless of future marital status. We now know that it comes from the Ministry of Defence. We also know that the Bett Report fully supported what we have been arguing for years. The Bett Report came out two years ago. We are still waiting and hoping for implementation of this issue.
On the question of a separate ministry for ex-servicemen's problems, there are as I see it two very important points. The first is the importance to the nation, and the supreme importance to all our ex-servicemen and women, of their wives, of their widows, of their children. We all owe them much. The second is that there can be confusion with the multiplicity of Ministers. It would be nice to have someone somewhere where the buck stopped.
8.7 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I welcome the debate and modest proposal which I hope that the Government will be able to accept. We are not asking for extra Ministers, thank goodness, but for a reorganisation of responsibilities which will ensure that there is a unit which deals specifically with issues relating to ex-servicemen.
We know that in recent years in the Ministry of Defence there have been problems in dealing with ex-servicemen and with serving soldiers and airmen. The question of Gulf War syndrome has clearly shown all the problems of over-secrecy and a resistance to accepting that there are problems which date from an involvement in military service. Perhaps I may speak briefly about the second of the two problems with which we are dealing.
Previous speakers have concentrated mainly on those who served in the last war. I believe that important issues relate to those who are moving in and out of peacetime services, often for short periods, necessarily as volunteers and some as reserves who are called up. Many reserves have been called up to help in Bosnia, and I see many of them when they return to education. The peacetime services will need such people. Recruitment is not as good as it should be and a servicemen's unit must consider encouraging young people to give short service and then to carry on as reserves, which we shall continue to need. They will risk their occupations and their health in the number of limited military occupations which are likely to occur.
If we are to maintain such military capacity on a necessarily highly flexible basis we shall need to be able to guarantee to people who move in and out of the services and who are exposed to risks in training and in operations that they will be well looked after in the period after service. Therefore, on behalf of my
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party, and personally, I support the argument for an ex-servicemen's unit, and the Government will do so too.
8.10 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House will be most grateful to my noble friend Lady Dean for raising this question at this particular time. It is important and I have no doubt that the noble Earl has studied all the papers that have been produced by the Royal British Legion to that effect.
I do not wish to go into the matter of war pensions which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, raised. That is an issue which I prefer to leave. Nevertheless, it is true that ex-servicemen and women have to deal with 17 different departments, as the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, pointed out. That does not seem to us to be really quite right.
I am not convinced by the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, about an ombudsman but I am convinced by the Royal British Legion's campaign and we are committed to establishing a unit with the Ministry of Defence under the responsibility of a single Minister to co-ordinate matters relating to veteran affairs. I am simply announcing something that my honourable friend in another place announced on 7th November last.
There has been inadequate consultation between the MoD and voluntary organisations on matters affecting ex-servicemen and women and we should like to see that all concentrated into one unit within the MoD, responsible to a single Minister, in order to co-ordinate all matters relating to veteran affairs.
I have now spent two minutes explaining what is my party's policy. I have only another 30 seconds but I hope very much that, before the Government change, they will adopt the suggestion advanced by my noble friend Lady Dean.
8.13 p.m.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I begin by commending the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for bringing this important issue to the attention of the House. It has provided me with the opportunity to explain the Government's position.
I am aware that provision of welfare and practical support to the ex-service community as a whole has received a justifiable high profile in recent years. The Royal British Legion, in common with ex-servicemen's organisations, such as the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and Families Association, the Confederation of British Service and Ex-Service Organisations, the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association, the Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society and others, have carried out sterling work on behalf of their members, many of whom are now elderly. The Royal British Legion has been successful in gaining widespread support from many influential people, including a number in your Lordships' House and in the other place.
Before I respond to some of the points raised by noble Lords, perhaps I may emphasise to the House that the Government continue to place great value on both past

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and present service given to the United Kingdom by members of our Armed Forces. The fact that our country has been untouched by major conflict for over half a century is a direct result of the efforts of those who have served as members of the forces, whether as regulars or as national servicemen.
They are owed an immense debt of gratitude by the society they protected during their time in the forces. It would be wrong to suggest that their efforts have been forgotten. The commemorative events which took place in 1994 to mark the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings, and those which took place in 1995 in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War were visible demonstrations of the appreciation of the whole nation, albeit that they centred on the events of the Second World War.
Those commemorative events were, by their nature, transitory affairs. In contrast, the welfare of the ex-Service community, and of their dependants, is a permanent concern of the Government.
In recognising the country's considerable debt to all ex-servicemen and women, the Government acknowledge their particular needs. I believe this is demonstrated by the administrative arrangements which the Government already have in place. The Government take the welfare of the veterans' community most seriously.
The various existing arrangements available to war pensioners and those leaving the Armed Forces are both comprehensive and adequate. It may be helpful if I outline some of the major elements of what is already available.
First, there is the War Pensions Agency. The special needs of the war disabled and war widows are catered for through the war pensions scheme, the War Pensions Agency and its dedicated welfare service. Through a network of offices around the UK, the welfare service provides disabled war pensioners, war widows, their dependants and carers with personal confidential advice, help and support. Whatever the problem facing the client, the welfare service will try to help that person cope better and ensure that they are receiving all monies to which they are entitled in terms of pension, allowances and other benefits and the necessary help from other statutory or voluntary bodies. Staff work closely with ex-service organisations such as the Royal British Legion and SSAFA. I should explain that the War Pensions Agency is an agency of the Department of Social Security, and not of the Ministry of Defence.
My department fully supports the work of the War Pensions Agency to provide an even better service for all those who have need of it. I am aware that to this end, in 1995 the agency undertook a major restructuring exercise. There are now dedicated teams dealing with nearly all aspects of cases from the initial claim to the implementation of a pensions appeal tribunal decision. This means that there is no longer a need for case files to be passed from one group to another for different actions to be taken. The agency has also moved into purpose built accommodation and has introduced a new computer system. Those steps will enable the agency to
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provide a better service, which is more integrated and easier for war pensioners to use—a concern raised by a number of noble Lords this evening.
Information about war disablement pensions and war widows pensions, and the procedure by which these can be claimed, is contained in documents issued under standard procedures to all service personnel on discharge from the Armed Forces. The service records of those invalided out of the Armed Forces are forwarded to the War Pensions Agency so that entitlement to a war pension can be considered automatically.
It is important to remember that all war disablement and war widow's pensions payable under the very preferential war pension scheme are completely tax free. All pensions and allowances are paid at preferential rates in comparison with their social security counterparts. A severely disabled single ex-Serviceman could be entitled to a total war disablement pension of almost £380 a week. A 70 year-old war widow is currently entitled to over £148 a week. Provisions under the war pension scheme compare more than favourably with those of other countries. Per capita expenditure under the UK scheme is greater than that of Germany.
The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, referred to the War Widows' Pilgrimage grant-in-aid scheme. As I believe he mentioned, that scheme has been extended to 31st March 1999, and I can tell him that the Ministry of Defence is actively considering a request from the Royal British Legion to increase funding over the next two years.
My noble friend Lady Strange referred to the Bett Review and its proposals for widows' pensions. The Government are considering the recommendations made by Sir Michael Bett for a new Armed Forces scheme. All his recommendations are being given careful consideration and detailed evaluation before any conclusions are reached about them. My noble friend will know better than most how complicated an exercise that is but we hope that we shall reach a conclusion before too long.
Another aspect of our continuing concern for those in receipt of War Pensions, is that they are entitled to priority treatment under the National Health Service for pensioned disablement, subject only to the exigencies of emergency cases or others demanding greater clinical priority. Where beds are available, admission to a service hospital or facility can be arranged. I should stress that those are advantages not available to any other group of pensioners. From time to time, this matter has been brought to the attention of my noble friend Lord Mackay. He has therefore arranged for the NHS to issue periodic reminders to the medical profession to ensure priority treatment is available.
As noble Lords will know from our debate on the subject last month, extensive support is given to those leaving the Armed Forces to help them make a smooth transition to civilian life, and support continues to be available after they are discharged. The Services Employment Network maintains a "SkillBank", which provides a comprehensive job-matching service and a weekly jobs bulletin. After leaving the Armed Forces,

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eligible personnel may remain on the SkillBank register for up to 12 months. A full range of Employment Service training and job finding provision is also available to them, and some qualifying requirements are waived for ex-servicemen and women.
Finding accommodation is also an area of concern for those leaving the services as my noble friend Lord Haig pointed out. In making the break from service life back to the civilian world, they need support and advice. For that reason we have taken a number of initiatives to encourage home ownership within the services and to help with the needs of those leaving. Advice and information on the complex range of housing options open to service leavers is provided by the Joint Service Housing Advice Office. Its role is to act as a focal point for a huge range of housing information to all service personnel, in particular those about to return to civilian life and to ex-service personnel who are still in service family accommodation.
In those brief remarks I have tried to describe some of the ways in which the Government care for the needs of the ex-service community. My department and that of my noble friend Lord Mackay have, however, been aware of proposals made by the Royal British Legion for an ex-service affairs unit, for some little time. Indeed, in September 1994 the Prime Minister wrote personally to the national chairman of the Royal British Legion explaining the Government's position. Shortly afterwards, in November that year, Ministers from the MoD and the DSS met legion representatives to discuss proposals which envisaged a separate department or sub-department assuming direct responsibility for all welfare provided to ex-servicemen and women by the public sector, including healthcare and social security. We came to the view then that this would be unnecessarily bureaucratic, as well as socially divisive.
I am aware that in other countries veterans departments exist. Such special provision tends, however, to centre on medical programmes for veterans and is intended to ensure that veterans have access to facilities which would not otherwise be available. That is particularly the case in Australia and in the United States where there is no National Health Service as we would recognise it. In the United Kingdom ex-service personnel and their dependants have access to the full range of healthcare and social security facilities available to the population at large.
Despite what many British veterans believe, as I have already indicated, provision in the United Kingdom for war disablement pensioners and war widows compares favourably with that in other countries. Often it is much better—UK expenditure per capita exceeds that of Germany, France and Italy. We continue therefore firmly to believe that welfare provision for the ex-service community should continue to be integrated with that of the rest of the nation.
Similarly, the establishment of a special unit to deal with inquiries from individual ex-servicemen and women, and their dependants, would merely add a new and unnecessary tier of bureaucracy to the current arrangement whereby individual departments handle inquiries within their areas of responsibility. The War
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Pensions Agency already has a special unit to assist war pensioners with any welfare matter, including directing them to any statutory or voluntary body which may be of assistance in working towards a lasting and constructive solution.
It is our understanding now that the Royal British Legion does not see the proposed ex-service affairs unit being established to deal directly with the specific problems of particular individuals, but rather that it would be available to its representatives, and to those of similar organisations, as a co-ordinating point on behalf of appropriate ministries, enabling them to raise and discuss problems.
I stress that to a large extent this already happens. Ministers do consult ex-service organisations on a range of issues. My noble friend Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish is the Minister responsible for war pensions and meets regularly with organisations which represent the interests of former servicemen and women who raise a wide range of issues with him in addition to the war pensions scheme. The views of ex-service organisations are always given the fullest consideration.
The latest proposals of the Royal British Legion are, however, of a different kind from earlier ones. I am happy to tell the House that, as a result, the Government are considering the matter further. Naturally we will consult the Royal British Legion, and other service organisations, as part of that process.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, can he say whether he is able to respond to the three specific points that I made in my contribution relating to pensions? I asked, first, whether it was the intention to cut back on £15 million in pension payments, as has been reported. Secondly, I asked whether it was the intention not to send reminders for claims. Thirdly, I asked whether it was the intention no longer to refer pensions matters directly to the Royal British Legion so that it could represent individuals. If the Minister is not in a position to answer those questions tonight, I would welcome a later response in writing.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I did of course note her points. However, because of the time, I do not feel that I can answer them this evening. Nevertheless, I shall write to the noble Baroness with the answers to those questions.

Firearms (Amendment) Bill
House again in Committee.
Clause 7 [Firearm certificates to be subject to special conditions]:
[Amendments Nos. 22 and 23 not moved.]
Lord Swansea Lord Swansea moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 3, line 45, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Lord said: This amendment is a very simple one because the Bill as framed states that a breach of the conditions relating to pistols should be

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treated as having been committed in "an aggravated form"; in other words, the penalty is doubled. Compared with penalties for breaches of other regulations, that seems most unfair and quite out of proportion. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: the Government have made it an aggravated offence to break any of the mandatory conditions of a firearm certificate issued for a small calibre pistol for target shooting only. That increases the level of penalties which may be applied by the courts for this offence. The amendment would reduce the level of penalty available.
If a person were found guilty of breaking any of the mandatory conditions set out, we propose that the maximum sentence on conviction or indictment should be seven years and a fine. If the amendment were passed, the maximum sentence would be six months' imprisonment on summary conviction.
It is one of the primary objectives of the Bill that all handguns should be banned from private possession. Higher calibre handguns will be banned altogether and small calibre pistols will only be able to be kept under the strictest conditions at a licensed pistol club. As the Government have made clear, the measures announced and contained in the Bill are the minimum conditions which will allow pistol target shooting to continue in Britain. To underline the seriousness with which we view the need to keep pistols out of the public domain, we believe that an aggravated offence for breach of the conditions of a firearm certificate for a small calibre pistol is appropriate. It is important that severe penalties are available to the courts for those who breach the conditions. Of course, it will be for the courts to decide in each individual case what level of penalty should be imposed. I should remind Members of the Committee that they are, of course, maximum penalties and, therefore, a sentence could be anything within that range.
However, the level of penalties which the Government are providing for those offences show that we regard breach of the statutory controls as a serious matter. I would, therefore, urge Members of the Committee to support that approach and I ask my noble friend not to press his amendment.
Lord Swansea: That is more or less the answer that I expected. Nevertheless, it seems very unfair to have a double penalty in such circumstances. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.30 p.m.
The Earl of Balfour: I have a question on this matter. I understand that the issuing of firearm certificates is decided by the local chief constable. That is fair enough, but what happens if a person's club is in a different police area to the one he lives in? In which place should his certificate be held?
Baroness Blatch: That is an interesting question. I am trying to think of someone who lives on the border
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of a county area, and who may belong to a club in one area but live in another. My understanding is that the relevant criterion is where the person lives. However, the certificate is sent to the owner of the gun and not to the club. My understanding is that the relevant authority is the authority where the owner of the weapon lives.
Earl Attlee: I believe the Minister is right on that. I have an amendment that addresses a similar concern which we shall debate at a later stage in the Committee.
The Earl of Balfour: I am most grateful for those comments.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 [Permits to have small-calibre pistols outside licensed pistol clubs]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 4, line 10, leave out ("apply") and insert ("make an application in the prescribed form").Page 4, line 10, leave out ("apply") and insert ("make an application in the prescribed form").
The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 25, which stands in my name, is grouped with Amendments Nos. 26, 27, 28, 29 and 87, which stand in the names of noble Lords too numerous to mention. I shall first discuss Amendment No. 25.
This amendment will ensure that an application for a permit to remove a small calibre pistol from a licensed pistol club is made in a prescribed form. The information which the police will require before granting a permit will be the same in each case. It is therefore sensible to have the permit in a standard form which will be prescribed by the firearms rules.
If the Committee will allow me, I hope I may venture an initial comment on the other amendments in the group in advance of noble Lords speaking to them, as I think that may save time. There seems to be no objection to that and therefore I shall continue.
We considered carefully whether a pistol outside a club on permit should be transmitted by its owner or by a third party. We concluded that unless there were wholly exceptional circumstances, transport should be by a third party. In most cases, therefore, pistol and owner will be quite separate when in public. One of the primary objectives of the Bill is that handguns and pistols are banned from the public domain. This is something which underpins the whole Bill. I do not believe we can make any exceptions to this requirement, even for members of the national squad.
I have some sympathy with Amendment No. 28 put forward by my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch. It is our intention that the Government should consult with the governing bodies concerned. However, I believe it is proper that the final decision on such matters in the interests of public safety should lie with the Secretary of State, and that he should not be bound by the advice of other parties.
Amendment No. 29 would introduce a right of appeal against a refusal by the chief officer to grant a permit. The criteria surrounding the granting of permits under Clause 8 are clear. If a case is made which falls within the proper purposes in subsection (3), then, providing the chief officer of police is satisfied, he would issue a

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permit. At the same time, the chief officer must retain the discretion to refuse to grant the permit. Unlike the grant or refusal of the certificate itself, the refusal to grant a permit will not deprive the firearm certificate holder of his ability to shoot a small calibre pistol in the club at which he is licensed to keep it.
It is also worth pointing out that such an appeal would probably not be heard before the occasion for which a permit has been requested. This would make it of little practical use. If concerns about the chief officer's decision were sufficiently serious, the possibility of judicial review would still exist. I have no reason to believe that chief officers will exercise their discretion in anything other than a sensible manner.
For those reasons I invite the Committee to reject the amendments. However, I am conscious that I have spoken to those amendments ahead of those who are proposing them. I beg to move.
Lord Howell: Amendment No. 27 lies within the grouping we are discussing. I had hoped that the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, might have spoken on this first, but in order that we do not allow the matter to go by default I shall take up the cudgels. My name is added to the amendment. I take up the cudgels because there has been a total paucity of debate on the effect of these measures on the sport of shooting, on our Olympic Games participation and on our Commonwealth Games participation. The Minister for Sport has not said one word on any of these vital matters. I compliment the noble Baroness on being the only person who replied to an interjection of mine on Second Reading. I am grateful to her for the courteous manner in which she replied. However, I think even she would agree that she was not on that occasion attempting to involve herself in the major principle of whether shooting as a legitimate sporting activity in the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games should concern this Chamber.
I must declare an interest, in that I am the president of the 49th Rifle Club, which I helped to establish in my former constituency in some disused swimming baths. It has been a splendid club. It is situated in a basement in the middle of Birmingham. The police make extensive use of it for the lawful purpose of shooting practice. There has not been the slightest bit of trouble and the club has produced for the country some shooters of great distinction.
I hope I may have the tolerance of the Committee for a few minutes. If I may say so, I do not see why I should not, in view of the speeches everyone else has made. I wish to recall two vibrant memories in the field of shooting. The first concerns the noble Lord, Lord Swansea. I was present at the Commonwealth Games of, I believe, 1966, which were held in Jamaica, when the noble Lord won a gold medal for Wales. I can still picture him now on the rostrum as the band tried to play the Welsh National anthem. Having played Land of Hope and Glory, God Save the Queen and other anthems, the noble Lord stood erect and motionless and refused to move from the rostrum, in spite of all the attempts of the Jamaicans to remove him, until Land of my Fathers was played. That is a wonderful memory
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for me. I can still picture him in my mind. Therefore I understand the passionate belief in his sport held by the noble Lord.
The second memory is of the first Olympic gold medal that I ever saw someone from Great Britain win. That was in the Mexican Olympics. I went to watch the shooting event with Sir Walter Winterbottom as the shooters had complained that no government Minister ever took any notice of them. That was the Olympics of 1968. A referee from Staffordshire named Bob Braithwaite invited us to watch the clay pigeon shooting. The competitors shot at 25 clay pigeons at a time. We reached the event after the first round of 25 clay pigeons had been shot at. The competitor had missed three of them. We still thought that was pretty good. The competitor said, "I am so glad that you have come. Now that my sport is recognised by the Government, I shall not miss any more". He hit the next 175 and won a gold medal. So my experiences in the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games lead me to believe that the sport is being short changed.
The Government have to make a hideous decision. We all recognise that. My criticisms apply equally to views expressed by my noble friends on this Front Bench. I have not voted against any provision that the Government or my noble friends have put forward. I have abstained because I understand their motives. Thanks to the fact that we have annunciators in our offices, I was able to hear my noble friend speaking about the sport. I know that he recognises the position that I take, as I recognise the position that others take. However, we should be in no doubt that these are matters of great importance.
The Commonwealth Games venue has been awarded to Manchester. We nearly lost it. The Government and the Sports Council made some concessions to seek to retrieve the situation, but they now are in a ludicrous and illogical situation. In this country .32 shooting will be totally unlawful. But for the purpose of the Commonwealth Games the Home Secretary indicated in Hansard of 18th November 1996 at col. 745 that he will make an exception to allow that event to be held. The Manchester Commonwealth Games would not take place unless he made that exception.
However, the extraordinary situation now is that no British marksman can practise for those games. Fifty countries will take part in the shooting events at the Manchester Commonwealth Games. Britons allowed to take part are in very difficult circumstances as regards the .22 sport and in impossible circumstances with regard to .32s. Because it is unlawful for them to exercise their skills in training and practice, they are being allowed to take part in an event for which the Government say they cannot practise. Can there be a more ludicrous proposition to put before the nation? But that is where we are now.
As regards the Olympic Games—we on this side of the Chamber support the Government; we want to attract the Olympic Games here—there are more nations taking part with even more shooters; and we shall have to go through this ludicrous pantomime once more. It will make us the laughing stock of the world.

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I wish to ask the Minister to consider this one point. Can those shooters coming from the nations involved in the Commonwealth and Olympic Games be said to be more responsible than British shooters? Alternatively, can British shooters be said to be more irresponsible than other shooters? It is not a proposition that can be sustained for five minutes. But that is what the Government put before us.
In Amendment No. 27 the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, seeks a way out by providing that we should have regard to the squad system. If people are selected for a squad, the Home Secretary should make exceptional arrangements. That does not get us over the problem of how people qualify for a squad. Nevertheless, it is a half-way house. I shall not put this matter to a vote tonight, but I was much encouraged by what the noble Baroness said earlier. She said that she would consider carefully everything that has been said and see whether she could meet the point. The Government should not set out to try to destroy a perfectly legitimate and noble sport which has served this country well for many years. That is the effect of the situation at present.
I hope that the noble Baroness will give us the same undertaking. I believe that she will because I know that she tries genuinely to meet the will of the Chamber. I hope that she will consider the problems of British sport, will take further advice and will consider in consultation whether it is possible to protect British dignity and common sense. In that spirit I rest the case that I put before the Committee.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Burton: Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord a question. He said that his club was in Birmingham. I believe that I had a letter from one of the members saying that he was frightened that the club was likely to close. Does the noble Lord believe that it will close?
He said that policemen used to practise at that club. Where will they practise in future?
Lord Howell: I am advised that the club will be in great danger. They will try to keep it open because that is the sort of people they are. But there is the danger that it will close.
As regards the police, unless they take on board all the costs of running the club—the police gain a good deal from it at present because the club effectively arranges the finance for it in conjunction with the city council, which leases the premises—they will have to practise elsewhere. I do not know where because there is no similar range that I can suggest.
Lord Monson: I fully share the indignation of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, over the position of our competitors in the Commonwealth Games and allied matters. I shall speak to Amendment No. 26. However, first, I wish to apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, for not having been present to move Amendments Nos. 22 and 23. I was under the impression that we would be granted an hour's rest from
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our labours. In fact we were given 57 minutes and I missed the deadline. The Committee rose at 7.28, or something like that.
To incorporate into the Bill subsection (2) of Clause 8 as it stands will be disastrous for competitive pistol shooting. Subsection (2) decrees that a permit will not be given to the owner of a gun other than in exceptional circumstances. That means that every shooter who in the normal course of the sport wishes to shoot in another club or range for competition purposes must have a third party to take the gun for him. That third party must have a permit from the police. As I understand it, the kind of third party envisaged is Securicor or even Group 4, an organisation not always noted for optimum efficiency.
This modest amendment removes that obligation on the part of the police but still allows them to impose whatever conditions they think appropriate for the safe carrying of a pistol. Indeed, they will have an obligation so to do. Since the police will have that discretion, it is unnecessary and damaging to restrict the grant of a permit to a law-abiding owner. The amendment allows for the permit to be given to the owner, to the secretary of the club or to the organiser of the competition, who can transport the guns to the competition on behalf of the participants. If the Government are serious about wishing the sport of .22 shooting to continue—there have been forecasts today that it may not be able to continue if disassembly is not allowed—they have to take account of the practicalities. The amendment provides one way in which that could be done.
Earl Attlee: The noble Baroness's amendment is perfectly acceptable. I do not intend to delay the Committee long at this late hour. However, within this group my amendment addresses a simple point concerning the right of appeal against a decision by the chief officer of police. The right of appeal under Section 44 of the 1968 Act appears in many places in legislation. Police policy with regard to the administration of firearms law is not consistent across the country, as we well know. Perhaps more importantly, the intention of the Government to allow competitive .22 shooting could be thwarted by local police policy. If there is a right of appeal, it may not need to be used very often but it would be in place as a deterrent against arbitrary action. The point does not very much matter, as the system for competitions and the like is so impractical that in fact the situation will not occur.
I wish to make a brief point about transport by third parties. The people transporting weapons to a range will be extremely vulnerable to attack by criminals: when a TNT or Securicor vehicle turns up at a range it will be obvious what it is carrying.
The noble Lord's point about Group 4 security seems a little unfair. As I understand it, the Prison Service used to lose more prisoners than Group 4.
Finally, I turn to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, regarding qualification for the national squad. I believe that this point applies generally in relation to whether someone needs, or does not need, to have his or her own firearm. It is a matter of the skill

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that the shooter can demonstrate. If it can be shown that he or she can achieve a certain grouping and get into the national squad, that person can be qualified. That can quite easily be measured: can the shooter get six rounds in a 50 millimetre circle at a certain range?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I support the remarks made in relation to these amendments. I welcome the intervention of my noble friend Lord Howell. He quite rightly said that we have not previously discussed the sporting aspect. Perhaps many of us were waiting for him to enter the debate. I mean that very sincerely. My noble friend has great expertise and experience in these matters. If he tells me that the sport of shooting is in danger, then I know that that is his belief. I also believe that he must be correct because of his background, his contacts and his expertise. If, as he believes, the restrictions being put in place under the Bill will impair the opportunity of sportsmen to practise and to move their weapons to places where they can practise and compete, it is a very serious matter—particularly since, as I understand it, the British do extremely well in this sport.
We talked quite a lot about expertise earlier in the debate. I sincerely hope that the noble Baroness will take very seriously the points that my noble friend made. He knows the sport; indeed, he knows sport generally. I believe that what he says is absolutely right and to the point. I hope that the Minister will accede to his suggestion in order that our sport of shooting can continue, at least to some degree, unimpaired.
Baroness Blatch: I am absolutely delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has spoken in the debate. I should like to think that he has recognised that one of the tensions being addressed in the course of today's deliberations has to do with the Government's recognition that we want to do something to preserve the right of sportsmen to practise their art of shooting. We have not gone as far as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, would like; we have gone much too far according to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh; and we have certainly not gone as far as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, would like. That is the stuff of the debate. Shooting is an honourable sport. It has been going for a hundred years and it is our intention that it should continue. I do not deny that it will be something of a challenge to envisage how it will continue when the Bill passes into law. The challenge is to make sure that the clubs survive, and in a way that allows our sportsmen and women to continue to take part in the sport.
The Commonwealth Games pistol competition to which the noble Lord, Lord Howell, referred comprises four .22 rimfire events and one higher calibre centre fire event. It is for the city hosting the games to decide precisely which of those events shall be included in the competition. The Government are prepared to discuss with Manchester which disciplines it wishes to include. It would, if necessary, be possible to give special authority to participants in the centre fire competition if that was Manchester's wish, and if it were capable of guaranteeing that the guns would be handled with the necessary security measures in place. I can go no further than that on the detail since discussions are continuing. However,
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I give the noble Lord, Lord Howell, an absolute assurance of the same promises I made earlier in the day. I will continue to read all that is said; I will continue to discuss the Bill in my department and with experts; and I will continue, without prejudice to the outcome, to be as open-minded as I possibly can while all these matters are being discussed.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: Before my noble friend proceeds, when she comes to consider these matters will she be so good as to consider the question of practice, and how the British Olympic team will be able to practise in clubs up and down the country, which will have been closed if she continues to refuse what was my Amendment No. 21? You cannot simply turn up in Manchester and beat the world.
Baroness Blatch: That is precisely what I just said. That is the challenge. It is for clubs to find a way of existing under the new arrangements in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, was kind enough to say that the decision has not been at all easy. The lines in the sand have been drawn in different places by different people. But the Government have the present responsibility to respond to the situation. We have chosen where to draw the line. However, I gave an indication that we want to be flexible, and we will continue to discuss matters with Manchester.
Perhaps I may finish my point on a third party carrier. It could be an accredited member of a pistol club; it could be an individual whom the police would be content to trust with the safe carriage of a pistol being moved from one place to another. It is customary practice for that to be contracted out if a number of pistols are being moved. The only example that springs to mind is where one club is competing against another and therefore a number of weapons need to be moved. The police allocating the permit would need to be convinced of good reason for pistols to be moved from A to B in the first instance, and then of the suitability and fitness for the purpose of the third person who would be permitted to do the carrying of the weapons from A to B.
Lord Howell: I am very much obliged to the Minister for confirming that she will examine all that has been said. I express my appreciation. Perhaps I may make one small point in relation to her remark about consulting Manchester. It is not a matter for Manchester. Manchester had to give undertakings to the British Commonwealth Games Association. The association had to give undertakings to the Commonwealth Games Federation before the vote that shooting would be included. So everybody is committed. Whatever Manchester may want to do at the behest of the Government or anybody else, we are committed to holding all those events in Manchester. A question therefore arises regarding the conditions that British shooters need in order to take part and to practise. I hope the Minister will bear the matter in mind. I thank her very much indeed for the generous spirit in which she responded to this amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 26 not moved.]
Lord Swansea Lord Swansea moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 4, line 19, at end insert—
("( ) A person who is certified by the recognised governing body of the sport to be a person who has been invited to be a member of the group from which national competitors at international competitions will be selected may be granted a permit under subsection (1) to which subsection (2) shall not apply; and such permit shall be granted for one year and be renewable while membership of the group continues to be certified.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is extremely important. It deals with competitors or potential competitors in international competitions—for example, in the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, and so on. The Committee has seen the wording of the amendment. The effect is to permit the chief officer of police to grant a year's permit to people chosen to be members of the national squad (and who live in his area) in order to represent the country in international competition. The permit would only be granted while they were members of the squad. The effect of the permit is to give the shooter the right to possess his or her gun at home and outside the confines of a specific licensed pistol club.
For international competitions of this kind, daily access to a pistol is essential. A competitor has to be able to get at it every day for tuning and maintenance, for dry firing and for live firing when needed. That may require access for anything up to five or six days a week. It is essential for the competitor to keep himself and his pistol in top trim building up to a competition.
These men and women represent their country with great personal commitment. A refusal to accept this amendment would mean that Parliament is prepared to accept that sacrifice and enjoy the national benefit of them winning international competitions, but is not prepared to trust this small number of highly motivated competitors, who are identified at the end of a long process, not to commit an outrage such as Dunblane. This would not only be implausible, it would also be insulting. These people work very hard to represent their country. They have to keep themselves in top trim.
The Government's commitment to sport was attested to by its White Paper Raising the Game, which announced the creation of a new British Academy of Sport. Complementing that, Virginia Bottomley, the Secretary of State for National Heritage, announced on 14th November last that £50 million of National Lottery funds are to be made available to fund individual sportsmen and women. The Government are providing the facilities and the finance needed by competitors at an elite level in order to allow them to become champions. The least they can do in this case is to make it as easy as possible for our top competitors in target shooting—a sport which was invented in this country and which the British have dominated in international competition for many years.
For Britain to secure a place at the Olympic Games in Sydney it must succeed in the preceding national games. To compete in Sydney, a British shooter must gain one of only 20 quota places. Not every country is allowed to compete, however good their competitors. The quota places are allocated on the basis of the results
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in the six World Cup UIT Championships, European and World Championships and the Commonwealth Games.
Like every other sport, the medal winners develop through a network of competition and coaching. This begins at club level. Competitions for the national squad are held throughout the country and from the national squad only those who reach further levels of excellence are chosen to compete overseas.
The margin between a medal and no medal is no less fine than in any other sport, requiring years of exacting, disciplined training and equipment equal to that of any competitor of rival nations. Serious competitors need to practise four hours' dry firing, six hours' live firing and at least six hours' physical and mental training per week. All UK squad shooters work full time and train in their spare time. The present restrictions on taking guns out of clubs make it impossible for effective training at international level. We should be in no doubt that if the Committee permits the Bill to go forward unamended we shall be destroying British participation in Olympic and other international shooting. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: We covered much of this amendment in the main debate on the group of amendments, so I hope the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not come back in any great detail on the points that he made. I would invite him to read Hansard. Perhaps we may discuss some of these points at the next stage of the Bill.
I wish to pick up two points. My noble friend introduced the notion of the lottery, and lottery money being made available. In principle the lottery money is available. The lottery has a sports section, and shooting is not exempt or excluded from an application to the lottery. In fact, I said that at Second Reading, but it is worth putting it on record again.
Secondly, just to remind my noble friend, all the sports events in the Olympic Games will be supported (because shooting clubs will be allowed to continue) and four out of the five events in the Commonwealth Games, as I have mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, with particular attention to two matters that we are discussing today, one of which is the higher calibre event and the other is the practising for that event and the pool from which the future talent will come for the squads. I would ask my noble friend to read what has been said in Hansard, because much of this was covered in the earlier debate.
Lord Swansea: I can hardly describe my noble friend's reply as encouraging. In any event, I do not propose to press this amendment, but I hope that my noble friend will take it away and give it deep consideration. I may return to it at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Lord Pearson of Rannoch moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 5, line 24, after ("order") insert ("on the advice of a recognised governing body of the sport").
The noble Lord said: I regret to say that I feel that this amendment should be taken outside the grouping. I was telephoned this morning by the most charming sounding young lady from the office of my noble friend on the Front Bench to see whether I agreed with this amendment being grouped with the rest of the amendments. At the time I thought that I might, but when we come to it, I am afraid I cannot.
The Bill provides that the chief of police may issue a permit to take guns away from the club where they are licensed to be stored so that they may be used in a recognised target shooting competition. Subsection (9) then gives the Secretary of State power to designate such competitions as he thinks fit as recognised target shooting competitions. But these competitions have been organised and developed for some 150 years without the dread interference of the state.
I submit that it is really not appropriate that the Home Secretary should now distinguish between competitions he approves of and those he does not. If people apply to attend tin-pot competitions of no standing, the police will not grant permits. There is, therefore, no need at all for this subsection and that should be the preferred option. Indeed, one could say the same for the whole of this wretched Bill.
But this amendment does not go that far. It requires the Home Secretary to take the advice of the shooting organisations which know about these competitions before designating or not designating any competition. This is, therefore, another entirely reasonable little amendment which will do much to help the sport without damaging the very doubtful aims of this flawed and unnecessary Bill. So I hope that my noble friend can accept it. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: I am in some embarrassment at this point. I responded quite specifically to Amendment No. 28 before my noble friend re-entered the Chamber after his supper. But he might be warmed by what I had to say in his absence; namely, that I had a lot of sympathy with the amendment and with what he said.
It is our intention that the Government should consult with governing bodies concerned. It is important that the Secretary of State makes a decision. By all means he should be advised and listen to that advice, but at the end of the day he should not in fact be bound by that advice. But we are entirely happy with the idea that he will take it into account in coming to a decision.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: I am warmed by what my noble friend said from the Front Bench. I apologise if I was two minutes late for the start of proceedings after the dinner break but by my calculation they started three minutes early.
All I can say to my noble friend is that I very much hope that she will be able to consider what was Amendment No. 21 tonight in the same spirit with which she has received this amendment. Obviously,
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I shall read in Hansard what she said and if it goes far enough I shall not bring back the amendment at Report stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Swansea Lord Swansea moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 5, line 26, at end insert—
("( ) A person aggrieved by the refusal of a chief officer of police to grant a permit under this section or by any condition imposed on such a permit may, in accordance with section 44 of the 1968 Act, appeal against such refusal or condition.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment provides for a right of appeal against the decision by a chief officer of police not to grant a permit. It is against the principle of natural justice. It is something that should be put right. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: Again, I invite my noble friend to read the account in Hansard. This is another amendment to which I referred when discussing this group of amendments. I hope that he will read Hansard and if perhaps he remains concerned will come back at a later stage of the Bill.
Lord Swansea: I am grateful to my noble friend for that answer. I shall certainly study her comments in Hansard. I may come back to this matter at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Surrender of prohibited small firearms and ammunition]:
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 5, line 31, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 31 and 32. This is rather a different issue from that debated in the past few hours. It is a practical concern and I hope that it can be dealt with reasonably speedily.
The concern has been expressed by those who are worried about the international gun trade and in particular about the possibility that the enforced disposal/illegality of handguns in this country could lead to increased exports of handguns, particularly to countries where they might be misused. I am not quite sure what misuse of a handgun is for these purposes, but so be it.
Amendment No. 30 provides that the Secretary of State "shall" make arrangements:
"to secure the orderly surrender … of firearms or ammunition".
I am sure that that is the intention of the Government and I hope the Minister will be able to confirm that.
Amendment No. 31 provides that in addition to securing the orderly surrender of firearms or ammunition, the Secretary of State shall make arrangements:
"for the secure disposal of such firearms and ammunition".

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Again, I am sure that that is the intention of the Secretary of State and the Government and I hope it will be confirmed in an answer.
Amendment No. 32 adds to Clause 10 the provision that there shall be no export licences granted after this Bill receives Royal Assent. The Minister will be aware that there has already been concern that the number of applications for licences has been increasing since the Bill was published and could continue to increase unless action is taken—I do not ask for retrospective action—to ensure that there is no increase in exports of handguns.
I am aware of course under existing procedures—this was confirmed by a Minister in another place in a Written Answer—that all of those exports require licences. But at the same time there is a provision for, for example, dealer to dealer licences which can continue for as long as three years. There is therefore a risk that instead of being securely disposed of, exports of handguns may take place which, while possibly reducing the crime rate in this country, may increase crime rates or civil disturbance in other countries.
The question was raised briefly in Committee in another place. However, I would be grateful for assurances from the Government that they are aware of the problem and will do everything in their power to deal with it. I beg to move.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Monson: I cannot support Amendment No. 32. In introducing the amendment the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said that he did not know what "misuse" was. He was quite right to be dubious. Indeed, what misuse could there be?
Other countries do not have hang-ups about handguns—or pistols, as I prefer to call them. Other countries do not have the same strict controls for the most part, and therefore why should not guns be exported if they are no longer to be allowed here? Target shooting weapons are not suitable for crime on the whole because they have too long a barrel or are too heavy. They are not generally the sort of weapons in which criminals are interested. I would have thought it was desirable that, instead of being bought by the Government at large expense to the taxpayer, they should be exported whenever possible.
My Amendment No. 41, which I had understood would be grouped with Amendment No. 30 and to which we shall no doubt come on Tuesday, provides for that situation. I therefore oppose Amendment No. 32.
Earl Attlee: Both Members of the Committee are wrong. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is wrong to try to stop us from saving as much money as possible by restricting the export of weapons that we no longer
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require and my noble friend Lord Monson is also wrong. Most of the handguns about which we are talking are not target pistols; they are ordinary revolvers—.38 Smith and Wessons—which are perfectly saleable overseas.
The Earl of Balfour: I am afraid that I must go back a little in history to when we were taking the 1988 Bill through this House. At that time a firearms dealer lived very close to me. He showed me some of the amazing catalogues of firearms sales that took place—many of them in Birmingham—around four or five times a year at which people seemed to sell machine guns and all sorts of other weapons which under any previous firearms legislation none of us would have been allowed to hold. I have no reason to believe that those sales do not still go on.
Many of the sales were between firearms dealers of different countries. I feel that where the necessary export licence exists, the sales should be permitted to continue. It is big business in this country. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, seeks to restrict private sales. But I have the impression that the inclusion of the words,
"No export licence shall be granted",
will be detrimental to the big firearms dealers who deal in all kinds of weapons. I feel that firearms dealers with export licences already should be allowed to continue in the future.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I can respond to my noble friend Lord Balfour first. The specific weapons he mentioned are not the subject of the amendments addressed by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. The concern of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh—if I may be permitted to put words into his mouth—relates to those people who will be disenfranchised of the ownership of the guns and who choose not to surrender them to the state in this country but wish to sell them abroad. My noble friend refers to rather larger and more dangerous weapons.
If my noble friend looks at Section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968, he will see that anybody trading in the weapons about which he is talking requires a Section 5 certificate. There is no question of inhibiting exports abroad if it is a bona fide dealer with a Section 5 certificate. But there would have to be an export licence for the approval of any transaction abroad.
I come back to the particular amendments in the Marshalled List. There have been firearms amnesties in the past when firearms have been prohibited and they have been required to be surrendered. But the Government fully take the point that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is making that the compulsory surrender of handguns which is envisaged by the Bill is on a different scale from previous exercises of this kind which have been conducted. I can assure the noble Lord,

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Lord McIntosh, that we are very much aware of all the possible difficulties and that we are actively working on the detail of what will happen with the police.
It is not the Government's intention that guns and ammunition which are surrendered will be sold or exported. In previous amnesties and surrender exercises, such as the one we organised last year, the guns involved have invariably been melted down, except for a few of particular interest which were taken into museum collections or, very occasionally, retained for police armouries. Ammunition was disposed of safely and that is what will happen this time, too.
We recognise that some of those who currently possess higher calibre handguns may want to sell them to someone in another country where such handguns will remain lawful rather than surrendering their weapons to the police and receiving compensation under the scheme, which will be made under Clause 11. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is absolutely right. There will be a great variety of these weapons. Many of them will fall into the category mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and others will fall into the category mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee.
Those who want to export their firearms will need to obtain an export licence from the Department of Trade and Industry. So we envisage that the practice will continue, but under licence. Obtaining such a licence takes a little time for obvious reasons because the application must be checked for accuracy and omissions. Checks may be made, if necessary, to determine that the intended recipient of the firearm in another country has whatever authorities are required in that country to receive and to possess the firearm. Checks may also have to be made to make sure that there is no other reason why it would not be in the public interest for the firearm to be exported to the intended destination.
Clause 10 of the Bill enables the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland to make the arrangements that they think fit to ensure that the handing in is conducted properly. There is no need to amend the Bill as envisaged by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, to require them to do so or to require them to ensure that guns and ammunition which are surrendered for compensation are disposed of safely and are not exported.
These amendments have allowed us to put on record important aspects of a practical nature of receiving this quantity of ammunition and disposing of it safely and securely and also in making absolutely clear that there will be no objection in principle to weapons being sold abroad as long as they are subject to export licence.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am most grateful for that response. In particular I am grateful for the assurances given as regards Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 that the Secretary of State will take the action which is permissive in Clause 10 and which I was proposing should be mandatory. I am grateful for the assurance
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about Amendment No. 31—my first reference was to Amendment No. 30 and I correct that—that there will be proper arrangements for secure disposal.
As regards the third amendment, Amendment No. 32, I suppose that, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, I should learn not to be untypically tactful. When I said that I did not understand what was meant by "misuse", to be honest what I really meant was that I do not understand what is meant by "lawful use". It seems to me that very few handguns which are to be exported will be used for sporting purposes. Most will be used to kill people, which is what they were designed for. I do not in any way retract from what I said about the undesirability of our gun control legislation contributing to the international gun trade.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: May I ask the noble Lord whether he sees any similarity between what he has just said about the guns which are to be exported being used to kill people and the vast number of illegally held guns in this country and the purpose for which they are held?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: If, by passing laws, we could control the holding of, or trading in, illegal guns, we should be a remarkable legislature. We clearly are not. We have to do what we can within the confines and the possibilities of the law to restrict opportunities for crimes using guns. That is what the Government are doing in this Bill with the support of some of us. Nobody is claiming that we are going to remove the problem of illegal guns, but we are saying—
Earl Attlee: Has the noble Lord considered another problem on which the Minister may be able to help us? If a UK citizen is able to obtain a permit from the authorities in France or Germany, where the regulations are much weaker than ours, will that person be able to own a handgun on the Continent? How will this Bill affect the ability of someone to take their currently legally held weapon from here and then to join a gun club or to take the necessary action to have a permit in France?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I do not think that that point is covered by the amendment. However, as one who has a house in France, perhaps I should say that it has never occurred to me that, if I had any weapons, I would take them over to France because of their weaker controls. That is not least because I assume that I would be stopped by airport security or by some other security at the port of exit. I hope that at least there would be some means of stopping me moving weapons around by air or by ship or train, which is what I actually use.
The issue of the export arms trade is qualified by the fact that I recognise that, although the Minister did not say so, one consideration in the granting of an export licence is the conditions in the country to which it is proposed that

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the gun should go. If it were proposed to send guns to, for example, Rwanda or Burundi rather than to France, there might be considerable objections to an export licence being granted. On that basis, I certainly do not want to pursue Amendment No. 32 to a vote.
The Minister said that it has been valuable to have such matters discussed. I agree that this has been a valuable discussion and I have found it helpful to have the assurances that the Minister has given. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 30.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 not moved.]
Clause 10 agreed to.
House resumed.

Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
House adjourned at twenty-nine minutes past nine o'clock.