Firearms Control

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

Those points were aired at the Select Committee. I know the BMA has taken a certain view, and it has decided on giving this particular advice to their GPs. However, I will have a little more to say about GPs and the people who go to see them more regularly.

The view was also presented to the Select Committee that the medical records of firearm certificate holders should be tagged. That would enable a GP who becomes concerned about a person’s health to notify the authorities. The Select Committee rejected that approach. The Information Commissioner’s Office raised concerns about the effect of tagged medical records, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation believes that this would create a further burden on GPs, and GPs were concerned about the issue of liability.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree with the following comments by Dr John Canning, who is a general practitioner in Middlesbrough and the chairman of the British Medical Association’s professional fees committee? He said:

“As a GP, I can give no judgment to someone’s fitness to hold a weapon, particularly forecasting the future. What I can do is provide factual evidence about the past. It is impossible, and I have spoken to other colleagues in specialities such as psychiatry who say equally that it is impossible to predict the future.”

[Diana Johnson]

Clearly, the decision about whether a certificate should be issued rests finally with the police. The information that GPs can provide should be factual and based on what they know.

Some 93% of shooters are male, the majority being over the age of 40. That group does not go to their GP as often as they perhaps should, so the opportunity to identify problems may be limited; it has been made clear that Derrick Bird had little contact with his GP. In addition, the Independent Police Complaints Commission has identified only six individuals a year where involvement with a medical practitioner might have had an effect in notifying the authorities that there was a problem. So this issue has to be kept under review in the weeks and months to come.

The law relating to young people and firearms control is complicated and, at times, confusing. Members of the public who read the report will raise an eyebrow when they see that 26 10-year-olds currently hold shotgun licences. The report by ACPO did not examine the age at which a certificate can be issued to a young person, as that was not relevant to the events in Cumbria; nor did this give ACPO any particular concern when considering the wider issues. However, the report referred to inconsistencies that could be addressed on some issues—for example, the definition of an “occupier” in relation to the supervision of a young person. The Committee commented on the need for a review of the minimum age limits on the use of firearms and the eligibility for firearms certificates, with the aim of reducing the inconsistency and complexity associated with the use of firearms by children.

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[Chris Williamson]

My own view is that I would ban guns, and there would not be shooting ranges because people would not have guns. However, at the end of the day, politics is the art of the possible. If we could have the properly controlled circumstances that my right hon. Friend has mentioned but, within that context, prevent people from having private storage of firearms in their own homes, that would deal with his point and also prevent the potential for the sorts of terrible massacres we have seen in some parts of the country.

[Mr Offord]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he wants images of weapons to be banned, for example in rap music, which we heard about earlier, and in American TV and big screen movies? That is where young people—particularly those in the urban environment that he is focusing on—see the images and glamorisation of such crimes and tragic deaths.

[Chris Williamson]

I agree that the violent images that we see on our screens and the references to weapons in rap music do not help. However, I do not think that that sufficiently explains why young people use guns to the extent that they do these days. That is why it is so important that we give the necessary resources not just to the police, but to youth organisations that turn young people away from firearms and make them realise the consequences of using firearms. There are consequences not only for the victims of firearms incidents, but for the lives of those who use them. The life of the young man who killed the teenager in my constituency, and that of his family, has been destroyed as a result of that incident.

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[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I look forward to his speech, which I hope will elaborate on that point.

I welcome the general thrust of the Home Affairs Committee’s report, which states:

“We do not believe that a total outright ban on ownership and use of section 1 firearms and shotguns would be a proportionate response to the risks posed by these weapons.”

I fully agree with that, and we should bear it in mind that only one in every 330 crimes involves a gun. If we exclude air weapons, firearms offences decreased by 17% in 2008-09, the last year for which figures are available.

I have huge concerns about the data that are available. The hon. Member for Derby North rattled off a series of horrible events, but he did not once say whether the weapons involved were illegal. In the key facts section on page 3 of the Committee’s report, there is a long list of facts and figures about crimes, but again there is no indication of whether the guns used were illegal or legal. It would be a lot easier for us to debate the matter in detail and with understanding if we had that information.

[Mr Offord]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the shooting in Finchley that the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) mentioned was actually a gangland hit? I do not believe that the person involved held the firearm legally, but even if they did, that crime did not just occur because firearms are legal.

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. As I said in an intervention, the Home Office does not collect or produce such data. The situation is tougher because the perpetrator of the crime does not conveniently leave their weapon at the scene, but nevertheless, statistics that differentiate the use of illegal and legal weapons would be helpful, as the hon. Member for Derby North said.

I am concerned about the data. There were 14,250 recorded offences, but we do not know how many involved the use of illegal guns. There is some breakdown analysis, because some categories of weapons are illegal, such as handguns—there were 4,275 incidents involving handguns and all those are illegal. Imitation weapons are not totally illegal, because they are used on TV sets and so forth, but they can be altered. We do not know how many are illegal. Those data would be helpful when we debate the Government’s recommendations.

Paragraph 14 on page 10 of the report states:

“There is a lack of data in the public domain showing the extent to which legally-owned firearms are used in gun crime”.

I hope the Minister can qualify that in his summation. Can such statistics be made public? In its evidence to the Committee, the Home Office states that

“the evidence suggests that the vast majority of crimes involving firearms are carried out with illegally-held guns”.

Parliament has a duty not to throw the net of legislation across the entire gun community in the hope of pulling up some illegal weapons.

Hon. Members have pointed out the contribution that legal shooting activities make in our country. More than 1 million people participate in one form of shooting or another—whether for game, clay pigeon or targets. That makes a huge impact on the economy. The industry is worth more than £1 billion and involves the equivalent of 70,000 full-time jobs.

A recent Cambridge study showed that two thirds of the shooting community is also involved with the management and conservation of our countryside. The industry is therefore not simply about using guns and weapons, but about a relationship with the areas in which shooting takes place. Around £250 million a year is spent by those involved with gun communities. That goes towards the habitat and wildlife management of those areas.

The importance of exposure to weapons at an early age was mentioned. I hope that we agree on that now. Such exposure takes the mystery and glamour out of the weapon. That is recognised by the Government, because Sport England invests heavily to try to take out that mystery, so that people are not encouraged to get hold of an illegal weapon just to be part of a gang.

There is too much legislation, going back to the Firearms Act 1968. Firearms are also an aspect of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 and of subsequent violent crime legislation. When there is a big terrorist explosion in the UK, there is a desire for the Government to be seen to do something and for them to look strong on the day, but I am pleased that we have taken a slower approach towards firearms legislation.

It would be useful for the Minister and the Committee to qualify the role of general practitioners. I agree that a relationship between the police and GPs should be developed when the police are deciding whether to award a licence, but should a certificate be granted before or after a GP assessment? The Association of Chief Police Officers report states that we should go further and suggests some form of tagging, but that would be a step too far.

The report suggests tighter restrictions and better guidance in the granting of firearms and shotgun licences to individuals who have engaged in criminal activity already. Does the Minister believe that those serving suspended sentences should qualify for a firearms or weapons certificate?

There is also the need to consider previous unconvicted behaviour. This is when the police are allowed to consider evidence and information on their database that do not form part of a criminal conviction. This gets a bit blurred, however, so I think that the Minister needs to be clear on whether such evidence or intelligence can be taken into consideration. Furthermore, the idea of consulting domestic partners and ex-spouses is moving us into another blurred area. If the person is an ex-spouse, it suggests that things have not gone too merrily. Would an ex-spouse really want to help his or her former partner? Again we are getting into a blurred area that could be prone to abuse.

I was interested to read what has been learned from practices in America, where they have a two-year licence instead of a five-year approach. Fingerprints have to be submitted, and there must be an hour of firearms training along with further registration every three years. Is the Minister aware of what America and other countries are doing, and could we learn anything from them?

One of my biggest concerns, however, is about the blending of licences issued under section 1 of the Firearms Act 1968 and shotgun licences. This is not a sensible move. The present system of shotgun licensing is more effective and efficient because it focuses on the person, not the firearm, whereas with section 1 firearm licences, a lot of time is wasted on the minutiae of the firearm type, calibre and whether the person should hold one. I shall give some examples of where section 1 licences might not work: a vermin controller would have to go through a huge amount of red tape, at great cost to himself and the police, just to swap a .22 inch rifle for another; or a deerstalker changing his weapon of choice from a .308 inch rifle to a .270 inch rifle would have to go through the entire process from the start. That would apply to any change from one calibre to another. It does not make sense. However, one section of the 1968 Act requires that good reasons be given and conditions set, and I believe that that should remain in place.

My next concern is about paragraph 84 of the report, which deals with current police guidance on firearms legislation. The guidance is out of date. Lord Cullen’s report on Dunblane suggested that better training must be put in place for our police, but there is still no standard training on firearms certification in the UK. That must definitely change. This also relates to the point about the Olympics that I mentioned in an intervention. This is an example—I look to the hon. Member for Derby North—of legislation being hammered through this place at a rate of knots that did not serve this country well. Yes, a handgun was used in that horrible massacre, but there are ways to prevent handguns from being used by the general population. For example, they could be held and stored in armouries and taken out only by professionals. That would mean that people could still use them. It would also mean that our Olympic team could train in the UK. That would be a sensible approach to the use of handguns on which the Minister knows that I have been lobbying hard.

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[Mr Ellwood]

That is exactly how this debate should proceed. I am saying that on this issue, about which I have endeavoured to learn a lot, it makes sense to allow handguns to be used in the UK, if they are kept under lock and key and if appropriate measures are put in place, such as a requirement that the safe be opened by three key owners. That would make sense. If the hon. Gentleman would like to roll that out further, he could put forward that proposal. The point that I am making, however, is that because of the legislation handguns were made illegal, yet there is now more handgun crime and it is the one area that is growing.

[Mr Offord]

In addition to the number of handguns held illegally, is my hon. Friend aware that between 1997 and 2006—since the legislation was introduced—the number of offences increased?

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend makes my point, which is why it is important to debate such matters thoroughly before we jump to a conclusion that we believe will satisfy the nation’s appetite and anger. That is our role; it is what Parliament must do. This place operates badly when we rush through legislation, a point reflected in the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and other examples.

My final observation on the detail is about the proposals on the clarification of the age. There is no point in going into that further, but just to elaborate, no one under the age of 14 can own any form of weapon. They may be able to have a piece of paper saying that they have a certificate, but they cannot use a weapon unsupervised. That is a sensible way forward.

My penultimate point—a point made in an earlier intervention—is about the Press Complaints Commission. There is no need for me to dwell on this, but hon. Members will be aware that my family have endured our own tragedy, with the loss of my brother in a terrorist attack. When it happened we were deluged by the media, which is exactly what happened in Dunblane, in Cumbria, and so forth. The media pile in with such an intense and relentless level of intrusion that it really becomes an invasion, and this at a time when people feel at their most vulnerable. I spoke to those at the Press Complaints Commission, which has a process to deal with the problem. Unfortunately, they are not the people whom those affected would naturally want to phone up when such things happen. However, it is important to send out the message that when such events take place, the media have a responsibility to act responsibly—and not as they do at the moment, which is very invasively indeed—and to give people the space to manage their grief.

To conclude, firearms are part of the dangerous and complex world that we live in. However, we ignore at our peril the growth of gun crime on our streets. We cannot wish away the problem by legislating against those who use guns responsibly. It is the duty of the Government and Parliament to ensure that we carefully monitor what is happening on our streets, in our society and in our communities. It is also important to have that balance of legislation, so that we support those who want to use guns and weapons legally, and deny those who want to use them illegally. I very much welcome this debate, and I am delighted to have had the opportunity to speak in it. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s concluding remarks and to our being able to debate the legislation when it comes through in, I understand, the spring.