Antique Firearms (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Grand Committee

I again apologise to the Committee for having to take up more of its time to correct this omission. The 2021 regulations have been checked by officials and external stakeholders for any further omissions or errors. As a result, the amendment regulations will also make a number of minor and typographical corrections to the descriptions of other cartridges specified in the 2021 regulations. Although none of these corrections represents any significant flaw, it is worth making them now to ensure that the 2021 regulations are accurate. I commend these regulations to the Committee.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for explaining the reasons behind this amendment, which follows rather rapidly on the original document. I declare an interest as an owner of a 200 year-old gun, which is a muzzleloader, but I think it was excused in the earlier legislation.

The Minister mentioned various classes of gun that would be excepted. I guess that her list was the existing one, because I cannot see that this amendment includes any new classes; it merely corrects the spelling of “ammunition”. Was this corrected along with the external advice of people who own these guns? I would be grateful to hear from her.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when the Government recognise their mistake, cock-up, call it what you like, and put their hand up quickly, one should applaud, because that way we end up with fewer mistakes down the road, so I thank the Government for addressing this.

I remember doing the other regulations. There was a long and complicated list, as the noble Baroness said. One point I tried to make at that time but could not was why World War I guns of exactly the calibre as World War II guns were not included in the list, but that has gone.

Exactly what criteria are being used to determine what makes a firearm antique? There have been comments about black powder. It is technically possible to reproduce everything, so what are the criteria for how difficult it has to be? Hearing them again might help to clarify why we are doing this, so that anybody who is listening in—I am sure there is rapt attention outside—will know exactly why we are categorising certain weapons as antique.

Antique Firearms Regulations 2020

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Grand Committee

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s introduction. I was anxious to find out what policy the Government were pursuing. I have been through the 1968 Act, which is probably one of the most amended Acts we could see.

From what my noble friend the Minister has told us, it appears that we are following the Law Commission’s recommendation in defining more closely what constitutes an antique rifle. There certainly has been a problem with uncertainty over what exactly was covered in the previous legislation.

Section 58 seems to lay down weapons that are not subject to the firearms legislation and to which licensing does not apply. Does that suggest that any gun manufactured before 1939 could be argued to qualify for not requiring a firearms certificate? I am sure that there are guns in estate gun-rooms from well before that time. I declare my interest, in that I have used quite a few guns from before 1939—some of which the police have persuaded me to hand in and a couple of which I retain.

I understand that any breach-loading gun desired to be kept as an antique in Scotland has to be disabled and the breach sliced open before it can be kept as unlisted. Have the unscrupulous people that my noble friend the Minister mentioned been able to restore such guns so that they can sell them illegally to individuals?

What will be the situation once the measures are in place? I have some ammunition that features in the schedule. My noble friend the Minister gave some information on the criteria used to draw up the list of ammunition, but it would be useful to know whether it is merely a question of what is no longer commercially manufactured.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Lords Chamber

The discretion that the police have now fetters them, because they are not really able to use it, as I have outlined. We have a situation whereby people with a history of violence can obtain a licence even though the police want to refuse but do not really have the powers to do so. I hope that the Minister can accept my offer of further discussions in the spirit in which it was made. I beg to move.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

I do not envy my noble friend the Minister having to deal with this issue. The points that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, have brought up are very much ingrained in the minds of anybody who comes from my part of the world, in Scotland. It was the very same thing with a certain Mr Hamilton, who had been found guilty of sexually assaulting children and then went on to carry out the Dunblane massacre of primary school children. The net effect of that was the passing of the Act banning handguns, which does not address the issue of whether the police will bring charges when they see the seriousness of a situation, or understand that there is a risk in issuing a licence to someone who might appeal and cost them a lot of money. Of course, the banning of handguns has been counterproductive because nowadays, if you go around anywhere in the UK, the only people who have handguns are criminals, who know very well that, if they go into any situation, they will not be in danger of meeting someone with a handgun.

[The Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, I have an interest to declare as the holder of a firearms licence. I understand very well what the noble Baroness was saying in introducing her amendment, but we must be clear about what is already happening. The amendment refers to the necessity of performing background checks, but I believe they already are being performed. I speak with some experience of dealing with firearms officers in different parts of the country, which I hasten to admit is by no means necessarily a representative sample. None the less, these checks are being dealt with with a good deal of thoroughness. They have access to the police national computer, and the National Firearms Licensing Management System, the domestic violence unit and others are all sources of information. In addition to that, every applicant for a firearms licence must have a sponsor, who has to make a positive statement that they know of no reason, under a whole list of criteria, why that person should not hold a licence.

Furthermore, there is another element: the applicant must have permission from a landowner on whose land they are going to shoot, or be associated with a club where they are shooting and have the countersignature of the person who is the secretary of the club. So there are a considerable number of safeguards here. However, I am bound to admit that in the Atherton case, as in the Dunblane case and the Hungerford case that went before it, licences were given by the police for weapons, which, in the more historic cases, it was totally inappropriate for any private citizen to have possession of. The result of that was that these awful offences occurred.

With regard to the substantiated evidence of violence, there is already a duty on a police officer not to grant a licence to anyone who is a danger to public safety or the police, or to those of intemperate habits. As I say, there are safeguards. I double-checked with the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, which very kindly responded to my inquiry for this afternoon. I am not a member of BASC, but it provides the secretarial back-up for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Shooting and Conservation, at whose meetings I am an occasional visitor. With regard to public safety, the chief officer must follow guidance issued by the Secretary of State. Guidance, of course, means just what it says; each case has to be considered to a degree on its merits. I do not really see how it can be any other way. As I see it, firearms officers in the various police forces are taking their responsibilities extremely seriously.

On the question of full cost recovery, which the noble Baroness has raised before, the difficulty with any cost is that it is potentially a blank cheque of some sort. It takes no cognisance of the police efficiency with which the matter is dealt, nor of wider public safety issues that may lie outside and beyond the specific application. The costs incurred could be very high if the system is not effective. The question then arises—I do not have an answer to this—of how much society should pay for the protection that licences afford, as opposed to costs being recovered from the individual. There are many different walks of life where similar situations apply, such as whether the cost of a driving licence or the grant of a passport covers the full cost of the scrutiny. There are certain things that are done in the name of society and for its protection when it is not considered appropriate to recover the full costs. I made the point in previous dealings on a similar amendment at an earlier stage, and I think that it is probably fair to say, that the present level of the firearms licence fee looks quite low. However, that is a different matter; it is a matter for making an order as to what the fees are, which is rather separate from the question of amending the legislation and the framework for how things are dealt with.

There are issues about the fact that, notwithstanding all the guidance that is in place, licences for firearms have been granted to people who were patently unfit to receive them. I do not know any way to ensure infallibly that that can never happen in future. It may be impossible to devise a means for the number of people in the country who could be affected by these things, whether they are people with firearms licences who are resident, on a visitor’s permit or whatever. It will be extremely difficult to legislate out all possibility of that sort of thing, although one must always be vigilant—and, of course, they are terrible things that we should strive to prevent happening. However, I am not sure that the amendment would advance things materially as the noble Baroness suggests.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I am very happy to include the noble Lord in the list, unless he tells me otherwise. However, the point is valid. The checks are being done now but the police are clear that there are cases where they have felt obliged to issue a licence although the evidence has told them that they should not. On the issue of subsidy—

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, I am not quite clear about whether the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, is not trying to tackle two problems in her amendment—the question of the police’s powers to refuse licences, and fees. Is she trying to do too many things? We might not agree on all these things.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

Perhaps I am trying to do too much in one amendment. I have included the fees issue in the amendment—and I am surprised that the Minister defended the £18 million with which the public are subsidising firearms licences—because there will be an extra cost for the additional checks that the police may need to undertake in these cases.

As I said to the Minister, I was happy to come back and specifically discuss with him a way that we could ensure that people with a history of violence are unable to get a firearms licence. He has rejected that offer. In the interests of public safety, there is no alternative but to press the amendment and test the will of the House.