Scotland Bill

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tom Greatrex]

There has been much discussion of this issue and I know that many hon. Members wish to contribute to this part of our consideration today, so I shall keep my remarks brief. This emotive issue was considered in detail by the Calman commission and I know from my own experience that lengthy discussion has taken place involving the Scotland Office, the Home Office and, on various occasions, the Scottish Government on issues associated with the control of air weapons. The current definition of “air weapons” has often been raised and I was slightly surprised to see that the Bill uses the 1968 definition, because an issue had previously arisen regarding the proper definition of “air weapons”. I am sure that other hon. Members will deal with that in greater detail. I took the opportunity at today’s Home Office questions to ask the Home Secretary when she planned to review that definition and one of her Ministers said that he was not sure but he would come back to me on it at some point. We need to be confident that the definition is appropriate in respect of what the Calman commission recommended on air weapons and therefore what the Bill tries to do.

Amendments 17 and 18 do not relate to that issue but are probing amendments dealing with a couple of specific areas, one of which is the treatment of air weapons for recognised sporting events and what happens when people travel to the Commonwealth games or another event through England and into Scotland. Amendment 18 deals with cross-border issues—for example, what happens when an airgun is licensed in Scotland but not in England and someone from England takes a weapon without a licence north of the border. The Minister represents a rural constituency on the border, so I am sure he will be aware of the potential for some of these issues to arise. The amendment seeks to ensure that there is a mechanism to deal with any of those issues. I am well aware that other hon. Members wish to discuss this matter in much more detail, so I shall draw my comments to a close.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I wish to speak to my amendments 38 and 39. I do so as chairman of the all-party group on shooting and conservation, the secretariat for which is provided by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, the specialist shooting body. The BASC has briefed me on these matters and I took some of its members to see the Secretary of State last week, when they were able to put the technical arguments against this matter being included in the Bill and thus becoming a devolved matter. I shall use the latitude that the clause stand part debate provides to make that argument, as well as the one for my two amendments.

My two amendments are straightforward. Amendment 38 seeks to withdraw all but the least powerful air weapons from these arrangements. Amendment 39 goes some way towards dealing with the cross-border issues that the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) described and with the issue of weapons being legal in England and Wales but becoming illegal in Scotland if the matter were devolved and the Scottish Parliament were to use its powers under the Bill.

In arguing against this becoming a devolved matter, it might be useful if I put the whole thing into context. Shooting contributes £240 million to the Scottish economy and airguns are the entry point into the sport. It is estimated that there are some 500,000 airguns in Scotland, compared with 4 million to 7 million in the UK as a whole. They are owned for a variety of lawful purposes, such as target shooting and pest control. The majority of airguns do not carry any serial or other identifying number, and very few need to be held on the authority of a firearms certificate because their capacity is below 12 ft/lbs. The location of nearly all current owners is unknown.

Some 52% of all Scottish airgun crime takes place in the Strathclyde police area and this appears to be an urban problem, rather than a countrywide problem. The call in this Bill for the devolution of airgun legislation has been made following the tragic death of two-year-old Andrew Morton, who was shot with an airgun by 27-year-old Mark Bonini, a drug user from Glasgow. The subsequent tabloid outrage and a campaign by the Scottish nationalists has resulted in a “Scottish appetite” for airgun legislation to be devolved, despite the fact that the current criminal justice system worked by sentencing Mark Bonini to life imprisonment.

There is therefore really no need for any further amendments to the firearms legislation. Numerous pieces of legislation are available to the police across Great Britain to deal with the misuse of airguns and three further pieces of airgun legislation have recently been passed by Westminster: the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006, and the Crime and Security Act 2010. The Scottish police can also use the offence of reckless discharge, which is not available south of the border.

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman said that 50% of these incidents took place in the Strathclyde police area and that there was some sort of link with this being an urban crime, not a rural one. Given that the Strathclyde police area stretches from the Dumfriesshire border with Ayrshire into the lowlands of the highlands, I am puzzled as to how he makes that link between urban crime and the Strathclyde police area.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

It comes from the number of offences that have been reported—no more, no less. The average number of Scottish airgun offences per annum since 1996 is 565 and the number of incidents has been falling since 2006-07.

The apparent rise in the use of airguns is likely to be the result of improved police reporting procedures, but other weapons, especially knives, are much more likely to be used in homicide offences in Scotland and, indeed, elsewhere. There is nothing peculiarly Scottish about airgun controls or crime, so there is no justification for creating a system for Scotland that differs from the current regime in England. It is not enough for Ministers to wash their hands of it on the ground that the democratic process will produce the right answer. The campaign for the devolution of powers regarding airguns has been fuelled by tabloid scaremongering such as that around the recent incident in Auchinleck in Ayrshire. It was initially reported that 18 schoolchildren had been shot by a sniper armed with an airgun equipped with a muzzle, but it later turned out that eight children had been hit by plastic pellets from a BB toy gun.

The coalition has rightly resolutely opposed knee-jerk legislation on firearms that is not based on sound evidence. The Calman commission produced no argument for devolving powers on airguns beyond the statement that

“there is appetite to deal with airguns differently in Scotland.”

I submit to the Minister that that is not a good basis for legislating on this matter. The commission produced no evidence to back that up.

The coalition has advocated having easily understood legislation that protects public safety, whichever part of the United Kingdom one comes from. Public safety is endangered by complex firearms laws, and having a different regime for airguns in Scotland will increase the complexity of firearms laws. Devolving power over airguns will destroy the internal logic of firearms legislation as a reserve power and will fuel calls for the devolution of all firearms law, which I note the Bill specifically does not do; all the most serious firearms legislation is still reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament. There are already 36 offences that can be applied in relation to airgun misuse. The most recent legislation—the requirement in the Crime and Security Act 2010 to ensure that children do not have unrestricted access to airguns—came into effect only last month.

There is good evidence to suggest that increased powers, proper enforcement and education are behind the fall in airgun misuse that is most pronounced north of the border. The Government and Parliament are in the middle of a review of firearms legislation in the wake of Whitehaven, and Parliament is awaiting a response from the Home Office to the Select Committee on Home Affairs report on firearms. Devolving power over airguns in Scotland would be premature, would ignore the wider review and would mean having piecemeal legislation on firearms in response to outrage, which would damage effective legislation and enforcement. The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland has stated that

“in the ideal world, for the sake of lack of confusion…one set of legislation would be the best option”,

and that, given the number of airguns in circulation,

“in relation to cost and resources from a policing perspective, there would be a definitive impact”.

It has also said that regulating airguns in Scotland could be difficult and costly. It stated:

“Ideally, we would prefer them to come under the Firearms Act”—

that of 1968, to which the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West referred, and that of 1997, in particular, both of which are referred to in my amendment—

“so we don’t have two sets of rules.”

If a licensing system of air weapons was introduced, it would have a disproportionate effect on the operational capacity of the Scottish police forces. As I have said, they would not have the time or the manpower to deal with the issue properly. The new work load would require a serious displacement of staff from other more important fields such as crime prevention and detection. Any change to laws on airgun ownership proposed by the Scottish Government could criminalise an estimated 500,000 law-abiding airgun owners in Scotland overnight. The consequences of any change in controls over air weapons in Scotland would not be confined to Scotland, but no consultations have been launched to canvass the opinions of people in England and Wales who might be affected by such changes when they travel over the border. Any ban on air weapon ownership imposed by the Scottish Government would adversely affect trade and would lead to a significant bill for compensation for those who legitimately own air weapons. Is the Minister going to pay compensation to those people who suddenly find themselves with illegal weapons, or will the weapons simply become useless, in which case those people will lose out considerably?

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[Jim McGovern]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the tabloid press. I am sure he is aware that in the past week or so, the tabloid press have had a feeding frenzy about two football coaches in Glasgow falling out with each other, but there does not seem to have been the same feeding frenzy about an England football player taking an air weapon to a training ground and shooting someone.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I welcome that intervention. I take any infringement of airgun law very seriously indeed. Anyone who has an airgun, firearm or shotgun should use it safely and according to the law. I do not diminish incidents when they happen; I am merely saying that whether they happened in Scotland or England there would be the same tabloid coverage. I simply say, in all seriousness to all concerned, that I think we are better with one set of UK-wide firearms legislation, given that this is such a serious subject, so that everyone who uses a firearm of any sort, whether a shotgun, airgun or licensed firearm, knows exactly what the law is. Having different laws in the Principalities of the United Kingdom will lead to trouble.

[Pete Wishart]

Doing things differently in Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom is what we call devolution, and I say to the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) that we make no apologies for representing our constituencies and communities. If this is the legislation that our communities want, it is up to us as their elected Members to secure it.

I strongly welcome the clause and I congratulate the Calman parties on introducing it. It is one of the few examples in the Bill of a real and positive transfer of powers from the Scotland Office to Scottish Ministers, in recognition of the very significant and different issues in Scotland. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds mentioned the tragic incident in 2005 when young Andrew Morton lost his life at the hands of someone with an airgun. It was not the tabloid press but his parents who started a remarkable campaign to bring the issue to public attention, and they were supported in that cause by politicians, civic groups and everyone who took an interest in the subject.

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[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the topic of knives. I am sure he would be the first to congratulate the Scottish Government on reducing the number of knife-related incidents in Scotland in the past few years. It is a remarkable achievement that in four years of SNP government, we have made real progress in reducing knife crime significantly.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be arguing that he wants to go further than the Bill by devolving all firearms legislation to Scotland. The Scottish Bill Committee, in which he placed so much faith at the beginning of the proceedings, was split on the vote. Clearly, it is not the overwhelming opinion in Scotland that all firearms legislation ought to be devolved.

[Pete Wishart]

I accept that, but it is our strong view that all firearms legislation should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament because it would enable us to ensure that we could deal with all the issues relating to firearms.

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[Cathy Jamieson]

I absolutely agree. Of course, those are the types of incidents that local newspapers report far more regularly than national newspapers.

Information about the incident in Auchinleck quickly got into the public domain, some of which was not absolutely accurate. A number of school pupils were injured, albeit by what the hon. Member for The Cotswolds described as a toy BB gun—I have more to say on that in a moment—and required hospital treatment, so I hope that he is not suggesting that it is not necessary to have a serious look at how that gun got into the hands of the people who used it, what they were doing with it and why they became involved in such an incident. To be honest, I recognise where he is coming from in relation to his sporting and shooting interests, but I find it difficult to understand in any event why anyone living in an urban environment would require an air weapon in their home. It is time we looked at the issue, and I hope that that is something a licensing or other regime in Scotland could deal with.

I want to say something about firearms in general. I accept many of the points made by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), but I do not believe that at this stage we require responsibility for the whole range of firearms legislation to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. However, I do think that it is incumbent on the UK Government—perhaps the Minister will indicate what discussions he will have or has had with Home Office colleagues—to ensure that the provisions of the 1968 Act still stand the test of time. The worst possible thing that could happen is that we devolve something and discover subsequently that we will have to revisit it, for example if the definition of what constitutes an airgun is no longer seen to meet the needs of the legislation we are devolving.

I want to say something on BB guns, because I know that in many instances they are the weapons—I use the word “weapons” rather than “toys” because of the damage they can inflict—that cause exactly the problems that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) identified. I also believe that there is a gap in the legislation, because those weapons appear to be easily available, particularly to children and young people. The fact that they are not covered by legislation sends entirely the wrong message. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister will have discussions with his Home Office colleagues to take that forward.

I appreciate that other Members want to comment in the debate and so do not intend to speak for much longer. I feel that the time is right, and I have given the matter careful consideration because my initial response when Justice Minister, as I have said, was that we should not legislate or press for legislation in haste. It is four years since that time, and considerably longer since the incident in Easterhouse, so no one could accuse us of legislating in haste when we take these measures forward.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The hon. Lady is making a cogent and reasonable case, and I am interested to hear what she has to say as a former Justice Minister. In the Andrew Morton case, as I said in my contribution, Mark Bonini was sentenced to life imprisonment, so what does she think it is about the current laws that is not working and needs to be modified?

[Cathy Jamieson]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I say to him gently that the people of Easterhouse, and perhaps people more widely in Scotland, feel that legislation that would prevent someone like that from having an air weapon in their home in the middle of Easterhouse would be of assistance. That is why there is strong support in Scotland for a ban on air weapons. That is not the province of any particularly political party, but something that has united people across political organisations and local communities.

I said that it is not about legislating in haste. I believe that the time has come to look at how we can ensure that no other family goes through the same trauma as did the family in Easterhouse, but we will do that by having workable legislation. I end on a note of caution, because there are a number of areas where I think a great deal of further work needs to be done to ensure, for example, that the cross-border issues are manageable. We need to look at that in detail. It is entirely possible to look at exemptions for sporting activity, and I know from my previous experience in the Scottish Parliament that fruitful discussions were held, and I am sure continue to be held, on the transport and use of guns for sporting activities. This should not be the end of the matter. If the proposal is included and the Bill passed, it will be a stepping stone on a journey to ensure that, wherever possible, we avoid such incidents as have been described and are able to look at how best the existing firearms legislation throughout, importantly, the United Kingdom can be strengthened. In particular, I make the plea, which I shall repeat when the review reports, for the careful consideration of including in legislation BB guns and weapons like that to ensure that they do not fall into the wrong hands.

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[Michael Connarty]

I approach the issue from a slightly different position. I support clause 11, because it is sensible to route such decisions to the Scottish Government, and amendments 17 and 18, which I hope the Government will take on board. Strangely, in a Committee of the whole House, Members do not necessarily receive from the Government the moderate responses that they would if they were in Committee off the Floor of the House and outwith the view of the television cameras. Often, Ministers see the sense in amendments and accept them, but this is a much more public arena, so we might not get from the Government Front Bencher tonight the sensible response that we would have had if we had been off the Floor of the House. That is one of the problems of this theatre, as some people regard the Chamber.

I have had to handle many matters to do with guns—to do with normal firearms—because there is quite a large shooting fraternity in my constituency. My constituency is mostly urban, but it has a rural hinterland where people shoot in clubs, to get rid of vermin, which is what farmers consider rabbits to be, and they go further north to shoot deer. It is an urban environment, and with reference to the remarks of my good Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), strangely, where somebody lives does not necessarily determine whether it is right for them to have a weapon of any kind; the question is what they are going to use it for, whether it is properly secured and whether they are properly licensed, controlled and monitored by the police.

I hope that in this Bill we are giving to the Scottish Parliament the power to think about—in keeping the whole thing in perspective—what I would call regulation rather than prohibition. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) is partly concerned by the idea, whipped up by whomever, for whatever reasons and with the aid of whatever quality press, that we are talking about—and we do use the phrase—a ban on airguns in Scotland. I hope that that is not the case, and we are not talking about someone running such a campaign.

The problem with prohibition, which was very well exhibited in the USA when they tried to ban alcoholic drink, is that the banned item just goes underground. In that situation, weapons would not only be used but traded, and unfortunately a large number of illicit users might misuse them, so I hope that the Scottish Government are sensibly thinking about a regulatory regime for air weapons. People say that a licensing scheme will cost so much money that it will be easier or, certainly, cheaper to introduce a ban, but I hope that in Scotland there is a sense of perspective, so that the issue, when it is transferred, will be about regulation, not prohibition.

That is not at all to diminish the serious effects of the deranged misuse of such weapons. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) was right to point out that a lot of damage is done by misuse, particularly to domestic animals in our communities. I am sure that it does not happen just in communities in Scotland, either, and that the hon. Member for The Cotswolds did not mean to smear the good name of urban communities in Scotland, because we know of the terrible catalogue of murders by people using guns—firearms, not airguns—in England. I am sure that airguns are misused a lot in communities in England.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The hon. Gentleman has been a Member for a long time and, in fact, as long as I have. I did not in any way mean to smear the people of Scotland, as he has inferred from my remarks; that was not what I said at all. Does he, in turn, recognise that the vast majority of firearms offences and, indeed, airgun offences are carried out by unlicensed users? We can have in place whatever regime we like, but those offences will still occur from time to time.

[Michael Connarty]

I wish that we could expunge from the memories of the people of Scotland, particularly central Scotland, the fact that a licensed gun owner used guns that were then allowed to create the carnage at Dunblane. It is not wrong to say that by regulating and banning the possession of handguns we did something very positive. There are times when controls are needed. In the United States of America, people can buy what are basically machine guns over the counter; we cannot, thank goodness. This obviously has a lot to do with the person who misuses the weapon, but it is also about its availability in the first place.

I hope that whatever regime is introduced in Scotland will be strict. A regular firearm user who is a hunter recently came to see me about relicensing and could show me that they had a strongroom that was totally secure, which meant that access to their guns would be very difficult for anyone. Their licence was approved by the local police, and it was a very thorough operation. I do not know whether that operation could be replicated for airguns, but that would stop a lot of the illicit possession. It is much easier for the local community around the area to know that someone is misusing such a gun if they possess it without a licence, in a similar way as applies to the possession of ordinary guns. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun agrees with that.

I hope that the Minister is listening to the support for these small amendments, which are useful and helpful. With apologies to those who aspire to have this in Scotland because we are Scottish, there are some serious types of airguns that should be licensed universally on an all-UK basis. That will not undermine the ability of our communities to know that people who have unlicensed airguns can be immediately notified to the police to have those firearms removed.

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[David Mundell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a useful intervention. The division that took place in the Scotland Bill Committee in the Scottish Parliament, to which we have referred, was on exactly that point.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would make a nonsense of all firearms laws if the Scottish Parliament banned air weapons completely, because people would still have legitimate licences for serious firearms, while airguns would be banned? Does he agree that that would be a complete anomaly?

[David Mundell]

I do not accept that it is inevitable that the clause or the Bill will lead to an anomalous situation. As I have said, it is for those who advocate a ban to make their case and for those who believe that it would be a retrograde step to make theirs.

As the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun said of her time as Justice Minister—I am sure this is also the case with the current Justice Minister—the Scottish Government need to have a close working relationship with the Home Office and the Home Secretary to ensure that there is a coherent interlinking of the measures determined here and in Scotland, just as with any devolved matter. I assure the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) that there have been discussions on all aspects of the Bill with the relevant Departments. The Secretary of State for Scotland has met the Home Secretary. We are clear that the clause will provide the Scottish Parliament with the powers it needs to deal with air weapons, as proposed by the Calman commission.

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[David Mundell]

Thank you, Mr Benton.

I assure my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds that the control of air weapons in Scotland will not fall into a state of limbo. By devolving power, we are not disapplying the present regime, but simply allowing the Scottish Parliament to change the laws that currently apply to air weapons, should it so wish. Until such a time, the existing rules will apply. I therefore suggest to my hon. Friend that his amendment is unnecessary.

Amendment 17 would prevent the Scottish Parliament from putting any controls on air weapons intended for use in recognised international sporting competitions. The Government recognise the legitimacy and responsibility of those who take part in safe and undoubtedly well-regulated use of air weapons for target shooting purposes. We fully accept that individuals engaged in such activity are highly unlikely to misuse their weapons.

I also understand concerns that devolved powers could be used in such a way as to prevent such competitions from taking place in Scotland and that that would affect disciplines in the Commonwealth games. Although I understand that the air pistols and air rifles used at that high level of competition are relatively expensive and built to high specification for their grip and accuracy, it would be difficult in practice to distinguish those intended for such use from other high-spec weapons that are used in lesser competitions or for hunting small game or for vermin control.

The Calman commission took the view, and the coalition Government agree, that there is a case for air weapons being controlled at the most local level. We must accept that the natural result of devolution is that separate rules may apply in different areas of the UK. Apart from the question of principle, it would be confusing and potentially difficult to split air weapons into different categories when there is no clear difference in muscle energy between a gun used for competition shooting at an international level and one used for lesser competitions or other sporting purposes.

Amendment 38 would restrict the power of the Scottish Parliament to air pistols and air rifles with a muzzle energy below 6 foot/lbs. That means that any air rifle that has a muzzle energy between 6 and 12 foot/lbs would not be subject to any new controls that the Scottish Parliament tried to introduce, but remain subject to the Firearms Act 1968. Most modern air rifles fall within that range. Anything above what is already declared to be “specially dangerous” by rules made by the Secretary of State under section 53 of the 1968 Act becomes subject to the requirement to hold and abide by a firearms certificate under section 1 and will not be devolved. It is right to retain a common framework across Great Britain for the most lethal weapons. As I have already said, I see no reason to try to split responsibility for the lower powered air weapons that we are devolving in the Bill. Calman did not recommend that, and it is wrong that the Scottish Parliament should not be able to exercise control over the majority of air rifles in use today.

Amendment 3 would omit the words in the exception to the reservation, which provides for the Home Secretary to retain powers for declaring air weapons “specially dangerous”. Those are subject to stricter controls because they need to be tackled on a consistent basis throughout the United Kingdom. The effect of declaring an air weapon “specially dangerous” is that it becomes subject to the requirement to hold and abide by a firearms certificate under section 1 of the 1968 Act. Currently, air pistols that generate a muzzle energy in excess of 6 foot/lbs and other air weapons that generate a muzzle energy in excess of 12 foot/lbs are declared to be specially dangerous for those purposes.

In essence, air weapons that are the subject of such rules or orders are classified as firearms under section 1 or prohibited weapons under section 5. Since the regulation of such firearms and prohibited weapons will remain reserved, as recommended by Calman, it follows that the power to decide what is a section 1 firearm or a prohibited weapon should also remain reserved.

Amendment 18 would address cross-border issues, which several hon. Members raised. We should remind ourselves that the Bill is simply devolving the power to regulate air weapons—not setting out the framework for regulation itself. Any discussions about future operational challenges are therefore largely hypothetical at this stage. How far any alternative regime will differ from that which applies in England and Wales has yet to be determined. As I said, I encourage my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds to try to ensure that the debate that he set out this evening moves to the Scottish Parliament, if it is to consider those matters. Of course I accept that there could well be differences in its approach to controls, but that is a natural consequence of devolution.

The Scottish Government will, of course, need to consider carefully how any new controls in Scotland will dovetail with the law in England and Wales, Europe and the rest of the world. I am sure that they will consult widely if they choose to change the law. If the Scottish Government introduced licensing for air weapons, they would need to consider what form of temporary licence a visitor from outside Scotland needed on or before entry. Any such temporary licence could not be checked if the visitor’s first port of call was England or Wales, so the Scottish Government would need to think about how they might enforce such a requirement.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will my right hon. Friend address the point that I made before he concludes? What will happen to those people who currently have air weapons that are perfectly legal but would become illegal if the Scottish Parliament changed the rules? Would they be compensated?