Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and Viscount Goschen

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

They are certainly not infallible—I speak from great experience on that— but the Home Secretary clearly did not come to the House of Commons unprepared and without checking thoroughly in advance. His statements are clearly there. His predecessor was misled and she resigned. I do not think that the present Home Secretary is likely to make that mistake again or that he has been misled; he said what he believed and what he had been told.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a brief intervention in this debate. I declare an interest as a holder of a firearms certificate and the owner of a number of rifles, none of which would come anywhere near the type of muzzle energy we are talking about.

I support the description of our firearms licensing regime given by my noble friend Lord Lucas. It is generally accepted internationally that the UK has one of the most rigorous and best informed firearms licensing regimes in the world. It is also generally accepted that the shooting community respects and understands that the holding of a firearms certificate is a privilege that can be removed. Because of that, they are a very law-abiding section of the community. They are acutely aware that their sport and activity can be curtailed should they be involved in criminal activity entirely unrelated to the use of their firearms.

With that in mind, we have to be a bit careful of banning things because they are an easy target—forgive the pun. It is easy to work out where a particular category of firearm is and remove it from circulation. I hold no particular candle for the .50 calibre rifle and I am open to arguments about where the line should be drawn, because one indeed has to be drawn somewhere. We have acted in the past regarding handguns, fully automatic weapons and a number of other eventualities, but I very much support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s contention that before we ban something we have to have a closely argued, coherent case that is evidence based. Just banning something because we feel like it or because it is easy to do should not be a proper course of action.

Debate on the Bill has, on the one hand, largely been about very large numbers of people carrying knives, often using them and being closely tied up with the criminal fraternity, particularly drug dealers. On the other hand, the Bill talks about banning the use of a piece of equipment that is legally held when no recorded crime has ever been committed using a legally held rifle of such high-muzzle energy, as far as I understand it. I am open to correction by my noble friend and other Members of the Committee. We have to be very careful about that. Where do we draw the line?

I quite accept what the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, said: these are weapons of very high power and very high destructive capability. That is absolutely correct. On the other hand, their utility for criminals is much lower than that of many other sniper rifles. He described them as sniper rifles, and indeed they are. But they are not the typical sniper rifles used by the British Army, which are in calibres much closer to sporting rifles and are much smaller pieces of equipment. We have to put this in perspective and look at the actual threat.

When the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, referred to what was worrying the Home Secretary about these rifles, it occurred to me to question whether he was worried about the theft of these 130 or so rifles, a tiny number, or about one of those firearm certificate holders turning bad. Or was it really about someone purchasing one of these—in America, for example—and turning it into a small number of machinery components, putting them in a container and smuggling them in, as a vast number of illegally held pistols arrive in this country. The real danger faced on the streets is from illegally held weapons, not legally held weapons.