Former Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration: Reports

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the release on 29 February of 13 reports produced by the former Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, and their findings in particular with regard to the conduct of staff responsible for unaccompanied refugee children in Kent.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, last Thursday we published 13 reports that were outside the normal eight-week commitment to review and respond. We also published the Government’s responses. We take the ICIBI reports seriously and do not wait until their publication to act on their recommendations. We have already implemented several of those recommendations. As regards the incident at the hotel, there was an immediate investigation and the support worker in question was removed.

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[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the reports are damning, documenting the disappearance of 467 asylum- seeking children and Home Office employees asking lonely unaccompanied children to play a cruel guessing game as to which of them will receive foster care; and revealing systemic failures at the border and in the asylum decision-making process. It beggars belief that David Neal was not sacked for revealing these truths, or that his 13 reports were not released en bloc to minimise security. Who ultimately is responsible for the culture of defensiveness in the Home Office, which Neal suggested had allowed these failures over time to go unchecked? If the Minister disputes this characterisation, can he inform your Lordships’ House in what respect the comprehensive evidence provided in the reports that support his assertion is mistaken?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am afraid I do dispute that characterisation. David Neal had his appointment terminated after he broke the terms of his contract and lost the confidence of the Home Secretary, because he released sensitive and misleading information from unpublished reports, well within the time commitment for publication. The Home Office had therefore not had time to fact-check and redact inappropriate material. I will give an example of the fact-checking required in some cases: the asylum casework report contained 67 factual inaccuracies, the vast majority of which were indeed accepted by the ICIBI. It is important to mention that a new inspector will be appointed following a full and proper process.

As regards the situation in the hotel, as I said, on both occasions of the inspection, the ICIBI found that children accommodated temporarily at the hotels reported that they felt happy and safe and spoke well of the staff caring for them. But, once we learned about the incident from the chief inspector, there was an immediate investigation and the support worker in question was removed and did not return.

Angiolini Inquiry Report

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to raise the issue of proper accountability, because there appear to be few real consequences for police officers who grossly breach police discipline. For example, there is no legislation to prevent members of police staff retiring or resigning while they are under investigation for gross misconduct. I am told that, because of Operation Onyx which, as the Minister will know, was commissioned following the appalling case of David Carrick, 51 Met officers were referred for dismissal and would have been dismissed but for the fact that they resigned and retired on full pension.

If I understood the Minister correctly, there was a statutory duty on Couzens’ colleagues to report the behaviour which earned him the nickname “The Rapist”. Were such reports made? Are people being investigated and possibly prosecuted for not doing so? They should be. If the Government can legislate every year for public order, as they do, why can they not legislate for public discipline? Why, for example, is the police disciplinary rulebook not in statute and therefore enforceable, with breaches of it a criminal offence? This would not impinge on operational independence at all. Why do we not go down this route?

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my name would have been on the amendment of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, but I was not quite agile enough to get in as number four. The treaty provides at Article 13 that

“Rwanda shall have regard to information provided about a Relocated Individual relating to any special needs that may arise as a result of their being a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking, and shall take all necessary steps to ensure that these needs are accommodated”.


If the Home Office rushes through its processes, as it will under the legislation of 2022 and 2023, I doubt that the individual needs will be adequately identified. It is hard enough to do even under the pre-2022 procedures.

Of course, what Rwanda is told is necessary and what it actually can provide are not necessarily the same thing, as has been covered pretty fully today. Its record is not exemplary. Just last year, the 2023 US Trafficking in Persons Report of 2023 told us that Rwanda

“did not refer any victims to services”.

That there were none is, to me, literally incredible.

The report also refers to widespread cultural prejudice, as we have just heard, along with a lack of capacity and resources that inhibits effective procedures, and so on. Referring to the words of the treaty as if that made them actually happen seems simply an extension of the argument of “The legislation says that Rwanda is safe and it therefore is”. What assessment have the Government made of the risks of Rwanda being safe in this respect? What assessment have they made of its capacity to provide services? Do they accept that Rwanda is able carefully to assess each individual’s risk of being re-trafficked? The risk in this country is enough—my goodness, what must it be there? Indeed, what assessment have they made of how those people sent to Rwanda by Israel disappeared? Common sense gives me a likely answer.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 44 in this group, which is in my name and supported by the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Stirrup and Lord Houghton of Richmond, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. Before turning further to Amendment 44, I say that I support the amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, and the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I have had the benefit of hearing about these amendments in Committee and today in your Lordships’ House. I do not plan to say anything further on this, but I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government’s attitude to those who have been trafficked or other victims of modern slavery should be that they were in control of their own decision-making and to categorise them as such, when manifestly they were not. I also support Amendments 31 and 32 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, which I am sure she will speak to immediately after I sit down, and Amendment 25 in the name of my noble friend Lord Dubs.

As the explanatory statement in relation to Amendment 44 makes clear, the new clause proposed by this amendment would exempt from removal to Rwanda people who are in a very special case: those who put themselves in harm’s way in support of His Majesty’s Armed Forces or through working with or for the UK Government overseas. It extends this exemption to their partners and dependants. In Committee on 14 February, responding to a debate on this amendment, the Minister said:

“Of course, we greatly value the contribution of those who have supported us and our Armed Forces overseas, and we have accepted our moral obligation. … Anyone eligible for the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and Afghan citizens resettlement scheme should apply to come to the UK legally under those routes. As regards the specific case of British Council personnel, they are qualified under the third pathway of the ACRS and places are offered to them”.—[Official Report, 14/2/24; cols. 287-88.]


I know and admire the Minister, and he is correct, but his restatement of the eligibility framework and criteria for these schemes does not engage, never mind undermine, the necessity for this exemption. It is clear that we have a moral duty to those who have served at our behest and in our interests. However, despite serving shoulder to shoulder with British troops, most of the Triples were not evacuated in August 2021, and many have subsequently been rejected under the ARAP scheme. We know now that they were rejected because of misunderstandings on the part of decision-makers of the terms of ARAP and, often, the nature of the service of the applicants, despite the existence of compelling evidence to the contrary, and there is now credible evidence suggesting that the UK Special Forces department blocked eligible applicants from being accepted. The group was refused wrongly by the bureaucracy or blocked for self-serving, venal reasons by the country’s Special Forces, whose Government and Ministers have a moral obligation to promise them, and still promises them, sanctuary.

It comes to this: many applied for the status that would allow them a legal route to resettlement in the UK. They were refused in error. Then, fearing what materialised as their comrades were murdered or tortured by the Taliban, they faced the choice of staying in Afghanistan and facing certain death or getting here somehow. They chose to get here somehow. They were in extremis and had no alternative. There was no legal route open to them because of our failures. In Committee, I shared accounts of the experience of five Afghans who were driven to this extreme and acted accordingly. I do not intend to repeat them but they are freely available in open source media, and I am sure many others will become apparent over time.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Is that correct? It sounds very moot to me, legally. I said that Rwanda must

“have regard to information provided about a Relocated Individual relating to any special needs that may arise as a result of their being a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking, and … take all necessary steps to ensure that these needs are accommodated”.

That sounds very much the same to me.

All relocated individuals, including potential and confirmed victims of modern slavery, will receive appropriate protection and assistance according to their needs, including referral to specialist services, as appropriate, to protect their welfare. So it is simply not correct to assert that the Government do not care.

Finally, if, despite those safeguards, an individual considers that Rwanda would not be safe for them, Clause 4 means that decision-makers may consider a claim on such grounds, other than in relation to alleged onward refoulement, if such a claim is based on compelling evidence relating specifically to the person’s individual particular circumstances, rather than on the ground that Rwanda is not a safe country in general.

I turn to Amendment 44, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, and spoken to by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. Although this amendment is well intentioned, it gives rise to the possibility that criminal gangs operating in northern France and across Europe will exploit this carve-out as a marketing model to encourage small boat illegal entry to the UK. The terms “agents, allies and employees” will likely result in people who have arrived illegally falsely claiming to be former agents and allies as a tactic to delay their removal, completely undermining this policy’s priority to stop the boats and promptly remove them, either to their home country or to a safe third country such as Rwanda.

The Government deeply value the support of those who have stood by us and our Armed Forces overseas. As a result, there are established legal routes for them to come to the UK. For example, those who enlist and serve in His Majesty’s Armed Forces are exempt from immigration control until they are discharged from regular service. After this time, non-UK HM Armed Forces personnel can apply for settlement under the Immigration Rules on discharge when their exemption from immigration control ends.

There are also provisions for family members of HM Armed Forces personnel to come to the UK legally. Anyone eligible for the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme should apply to come to the UK legally under those routes.

I take what the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, say very seriously, and His Majesty’s Government regret that so many cases need to be reassessed. The MoD is taking the necessary steps to ensure that all future decisions are made in accordance with the enhanced guidance being produced for the review to which the noble Lord, Lord Browne, referred. This was recently announced by the Defence Secretary and while many former members of Afghan specialist units, including the Triples, have been found eligible under ARAP and safely relocated to the UK with their families, a recent review of processes around eligibility decisions demonstrated instances of inconsistent application of ARAP criteria in certain cases. In light of that, the MoD is taking the necessary steps to ensure that the ARAP criteria are applied consistently through reassessments of all eligibility decisions made on ineligible applications with credible claims of links to Afghan specialist units on a case-by-case basis.

This review will move as quickly as possible, but we recognise that ARAP applications from this cohort present a unique set of challenges in assessing their eligibility. These units reported directly into the Government of Afghanistan, which means that HMG do not hold employment records or comprehensive information in the same way we do for many other applicants. It is essential that the MoD ensures this is done right and provides the opportunity for applicants to provide further information—which I note can sometimes take time—from these individuals.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

Will the Minister answer the question I asked in February when this review was announced: will anyone who is eligible for ARAP but was told they were ineligible—and acted in a way in which a small number of them did in extremis to protect themselves from possible death—be disqualified from being allowed to become eligible on review? Will they be excluded from the requirement of the Illegal Migration Act and this Bill if it becomes law that they must be deported to Rwanda?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I understand it, they will be deported to Rwanda.

In conclusion, the Government of Rwanda have systems in place to safeguard relocated individuals with a range of vulnerabilities. The Bill already includes adequate safeguards which allow decision-makers to consider certain claims that Rwanda is unsafe for an individual due to their particular—

Metropolitan Police Reform

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend is right to point out that we launched a review. That review was concluded and the results were published in September. Noble Lords will be aware of the contents of the review. As regards introducing the powers that Sir Mark clearly needs and has asked for, some of that will require primary legislation; it will form part of the Criminal Justice Bill, which is due to reach Committee stage in the Commons and be debated in January. Some of it will require secondary legislation. We expect that the first tranche of changes will see amendments to the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020, which should be implemented around April; the second tranche, which covers wider misconduct, vetting and performance measures, is expected to be introduced around June.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, resignations are now overtaking retirement as the biggest reason for officers leaving the Met. This year, every month but May has seen more resignations, and the equivalent of 100 full-time officers leaving. Given the importance of institutional memory to policing, what assessment have the Government made of the reasons for this ongoing exodus? Consequent on that assessment, what discussions has the new Home Secretary had with the Mayor of London and the Met’s commissioner about the challenges inherent in retaining Met personnel?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the first thing to say is that officer strength at the moment is 34,899—at least it was in March 2023—which is up from 33,367 in March 2010; that is the highest number of officers the Metropolitan Police Service has had to date. As regards the conversations of the Home Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister have met with the commissioner in the past two weeks. We fully support HMICFRS in identifying areas of poor performance and have seen the commissioner act swiftly to set out his planned improvements, which are necessary, through the plan that I just mentioned, A New Met for London. The Home Office is also a member of the HMICFRS police performance oversight group. We monitor progress and ensure that the Metropolitan Police gets the support it needs from across the policing sector to improve as quickly as possible.

Illegal Immigration

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the UNHCR was not disregarded by the Court of Appeal; that was really the subject of the Supreme Court’s decision. It very much took the court at its word. As I already said, the Government have made a lot of effort to pre-empt the Supreme Court’s decision by doing some of the things that were suggested by the Court of Appeal. Having said all that, we of course maintain close co-operation with all our international partners whether they be states, NGOs or whatever.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, on 15 November, last Wednesday, the Home Secretary told Parliament in the other place that the Government have

“for the last few months”—[Official Report, Commons, 15/11/23; col. 649.]

been working in Rwanda, building capacity—of decision-makers, I presume—and trying to amend the agreement with Rwanda. Since the Appeal Court decision in June this year, the Government have known that our courts thought there was a real risk of claims being wrongly determined in Rwanda, resulting in asylum seekers being wrongly returned to their country of origin. Can the Minister help me? Where in our deliberations on the then Illegal Migration Bill was either the House of Commons or our House told that this training was going on because the Government thought that real risk needed to be engaged with, or that the treaty that had been entered into was being renegotiated? If we were not told, why not?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I was not present in all the debates regarding the Illegal Migration Act so I cannot honestly answer that question: I do not know whether we were told. I do not know whether the subject came up, whether it was a subject for discussion or any of those things. I am not sure it was relevant to the debates—maybe it was, maybe not; I do not know. I will endeavour to find out and come back to the noble Lord.

Pakistan: Evacuation of Afghans

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I have already made that commitment that the Government will move all those people to the United Kingdom by the end of this year. After the noble Baroness asked the last Question, the policy changed: we are no longer shipping people only when they have accommodation already approved. The object of the exercise is to get them out as quickly as we can.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, on 18 October, during the Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on the ARAP scheme, I and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, raised the need for an urgent review of the rejected or rescinded approvals of settlement applications of members of the Afghanistan Commando Force 333. I understand that some of these applicants sought refuge in Pakistan, and their forced return to Afghanistan may, quite simply, mean a death sentence for them. I commend the Minister on his continued engagement with me after that Question. If he is now in a better position to answer our respective questions, can he confirm that all rejected applications or rescinded approvals are now being actively reviewed, considering the true context of CF 333’s relationship with UK forces and policies?

Afghan Interpreters

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend raises a very good question. We estimate that currently, there are around 3,000 ARAP and ACR-eligible individuals in Pakistan. I am of course aware of the actions of the Pakistan Government regarding undocumented illegal immigrants in their country, but the Government are accelerating the arrival of ARAP-eligible individuals currently in Pakistan and we are doing our very best to move them into suitable accommodation as fast as possible.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Afghan Special Police Commando Force 333 was created, trained, mentored and funded by His Majesty’s Government, initially in support of British counter-narcotics objectives, but later for counter-insurgency and counter-terrorist duties. It is now clear that several deserving members of the force and their families were wrongly refused under the ARAP process and, as a direct consequence, several have been murdered in Afghanistan. Can the Minister provide assurances that the new director of the defence Afghan relocations and resettlement team will be given full support, including from the Home Office, to ensure that all previous 333 refusals are reviewed?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I have no knowledge of the circumstances the noble Lord describes, but I obviously very much regret them if they are as he says. It is worth pointing out that, as it says on the GOV.UK website,

“The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) is for Afghan citizens who worked for or with the UK Government in Afghanistan”—


these are the key words—

“in exposed or meaningful roles”.

Given what the noble Lord has said, I will pass his concerns on to the Ministry of Defence and make sure it is aware of his desire for a review of these circumstances. In total, more than 24,600 people have been brought to safety. Work is continuing at pace, but I will make sure the MoD is aware of those special circumstances.

National Crime Agency: Fraud and Economic Crime

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what is the total number of National Crime Agency staff dedicated to the prevention or investigation of (1) fraud, and (2) economic crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, due to operational sensitivity and flexible deployment of resources in response to demand, it is not possible to provide a precise figure of staff allocated to a particular type of criminality. However, the NCA’s National Economic Crime Centre, the NECC, leads the response to economic crime, including fraud. As of 1 August 2023, the headcount for the NECC, which brings together law enforcement agencies, government departments, regulatory bodies and the private sector, was 123.5 full-time equivalent. Many other teams across the NCA also contribute to the investigation of economic crime, in addition to the NECC.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the only way to assess the adequacy or otherwise of resources devoted to battling fraud, which was assessed last year to cost this country £219 billion, and economic crime—I understand that the Government’s own assessment is that this costs the country between £300 billion and £350 billion—is to look at the results. Will the Minister tell the House how many investigations the NCA has conducted in each of, or even one of, the last three years? How many cases of fraudsters targeting the UK from abroad have resulted in any criminal justice outcome and how many in any form of disruptive action? If he cannot do that, can he tell us how many investigations the Government expect it to conduct this year?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Significant resources are being allocated to the NECC to improve its investigatory capabilities. It will end up with an additional 400 new officers dedicated to tackling fraud; some of those will go to the NCA, some to the City of London Police and some to regional and organised crime units. They will be recruited by March 2025. There are also 475 new highly trained financial crime investigators, partly funded by the economic crime levy, who will also be spread across intelligence, enforcement and asset recovery at key agencies. I will not speculate as to their likely success, but I certainly hope they have some.

Asylum Applications Backlog

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I do not recognise any of the items raised by the noble Baroness. I can reassure her that there will be no such apologies.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, from my time as Minister for Immigration, I have some experience of the challenges of asylum casework. Indeed, when I was the Minister we had a backlog and the problem of many countries not taking back their own citizens, but they were nothing like this scale. The backlog has increased by 44% over the last year. I recently heard a Home Office explanation for this. Apparently, it is

“due to more cases entering the asylum system than receiving initial decisions”.

Where I come from, in the west of Scotland, explanations of that nature are responded to with the words, “You don’t say?”. This is a description, not an explanation, of failures. My experience in government was that, when there were failures, the best way to deal with them was to change methodologies. Can the Minister honestly tell us whether, in his review of how this came about, the Home Office has identified any failures on its part that have caused this backlog?

Firearms Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to rise in support of the Bill. Like the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said, this is a piece of legislation that will pretty obviously improve our weapons controls. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, on his customary precise and acute advocacy.

One recurrent concern that I have developed in recent years is that our legislation is reactive far too often. We scrabble to catch up with societal shifts outside this place and pass laws that are no sooner promulgated than they are eclipsed by rapid developments in technology or the attempts of those who are incentivised to find legal loopholes. It is in that state of mind that I listened carefully to the noble Earl’s contribution; I am glad that he raised the issue of 3D-printed weapons. Last year, there was a substantial amount of reporting on the growing threat of such weapons on our streets. I distinctly remember the National Crime Agency publicly stating—I think I quote it accurately—that the current generation of 3D-printed weapons are “credible and viable” compared with earlier versions and that, although they are often single-shot weapons, they are lethal. It seems possible that this issue will need to be returned to at some point in the future because, although I am pleased to hear that the relevant parts of our regulatory authorities are watching this carefully, we will soon need to do more than just watch it.

During my time as Secretary of State for Defence, I grew extremely familiar with Clemenceau’s axiom that generals always prepare to fight the last war. It strikes me that, in our attempts to deal with very serious problems, we sometimes have a tendency to do that too. However, the Bill is not one of those occasions for this reason, which is one of the reasons why I commend it to your Lordships’ House: it seeks to close a loophole in Section 11(4) of the Firearms Act but as part of an incremental process of improving our firearms laws and in response to concerns raised by law enforcement in the firearms safety consultation. I do not want to go back to 3D printing but I hope that 3D-printed weapons will be a significant part of that review.

While the loophole addressed by this Bill talks of “miniature rifles”, the fact remains that these are potentially deadly weapons. It is right that the operators of miniature rifle ranges should be subject to police suitability checks and that the definition of “miniature rifles” should be clarified to ensure that no one should be allowing others to have access to deadly weapons unless they themselves hold an appropriate licence.

Noble Lords may recall a disturbing image that emerged from a Scottish shooting event at Eskdalemuir a couple of years ago. It showed participants shooting at targets through a hatch that was daubed with misogynistic slogans. It is an unfortunate truth that misogyny and guns very often go together. I remember, when I was in America, going to an open sale of guns. There is an entirely different culture—in Florida, in this case—from the one we live in. The amount of misogyny that goes on the T-shirts of the people who are buying the guns was really disturbing. I do not wish to stray further into that territory, because it is well outside the scope of this Bill, but this fact should give us pause to reflect on wider regulation of firearms.

Noble Lords will recall the tragic events in Plymouth in 2021, where a shooter killed five women, including his own mother. The investigation found that the shotgun was legally owned and that the perpetrator had subscribed to incel content and uploaded his own material to incel forums. In an inquest earlier this year, the co-ordinator for firearms licensing on the National Police Chiefs’ Council said that if the mandatory checks had been properly conducted, they should have revealed that his firearms licence

“should never have been issued”.

While thinking about that appalling case, I note that there has been a surge in the number of temporary permits for firearms as a direct consequence of increasing backlogs in the system.

I make my next point not from a partisan perspective but as a question of safety. Can the Minister describe how the decision-making process in granting a temporary permit, as opposed to a regular permit, differs? If there is a difference in the rigour of background checks that are required, it may be that we need to operate on the presumption of refusal of them, save where there is a demonstrable need in terms of work—for instance, in the agricultural sector. In addition, I understand that the Government have committed to consulting on the question of application fees for firearms licences. Presently, very often they do not cover even half the cost of processing the applications. At a time when the public finances are, to put it lightly, rather overstretched, that would be a very welcome development. Alongside the measures contained in the first clause of this Bill, I also welcome Clause 2, which introduces a new offence of possessing component parts of ammunition with intent to manufacture and provides clear definitions and sentences.

In closing, I make the point that this Bill is not an attack on shooting as a sport. Thanks to careful drafting, Clause 2 will not criminalise those who already possess ammunition or component parts of it and Clause 1 merely requires the owners and operators of rifle ranges to possess a firearms licence and to restrict themselves either to lower-powered air weapons or to .22 rim-fire rifles. These are hardly insuperable barriers to operating such a facility. This Bill is a valuable contribution to our firearms regulatory regime, and this debate is a welcome opportunity to draw the Minister’s attention to some other issues. I shall support this Bill as it moves through your Lordships’ House.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with everything said by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, but it is already a very serious offence to manufacture a pressure-bearing component of a firearm. We have the legislative framework and officials are looking at it very closely.