Firearms Control

Debate between Keith Vaz and Tony Cunningham

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). I am afraid that I do not have her command of Latin or popular music, but I listened with great interest to what she said. Judging by the number of Members present, I am sure that others will make an equally important contribution to this very important debate.

It is not often that on the very same day that Parliament produces a report the Government hold a debate on the same subject. I have not experienced this kind of choreography before, but I am delighted that they have chosen to have this debate so soon after the Select Committee on Home Affairs published its report. I confess that when the Committee heard about the debate being held on 20 December, we worked very hard to make sure that our report was ready for the House to consider, because it would have been rather odd to have published it after the debate. I know that some who represent constituencies in the relevant area have had concerns about the timing of the debate, but the Government pledged to hold it by a certain time and they have kept their promise—obviously, they could not hold it tomorrow because of the winter Adjournment debate.

The debate gives us an opportunity to consider what has happened in this tragic year in which so many communities were touched by the violence of Raoul Moat and Derrick Bird. It is right that the Minister began and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), completed the sequence of paying tribute to all those who have been involved in this matter, including the emergency services and the relatives who gave evidence to our Committee in such a passionate and eloquent way.

This is a debate that we would rather not have, as we would rather consider these matters when there had not been a tragedy of this kind. However, the Committee’s report was not—I hate to use this word and everyone says that we should not use it—a knee-jerk reaction. We were keen not to react in that way and we wanted to review the previous Select Committee report on this subject, which was 10 years ago. It was appropriate to reconsider the issue and to draw on the terrible experiences of Cumbria and Northumbria.

[Tony Cunningham]

I should like to pay tribute to all the emergency services, but specifically to the health workers who suffered as a result of the shootings in west Cumbria. Perhaps hon. Members can imagine dealing with the consequences of shotgun wounds and bullet wounds: it must have been absolutely horrific, traumatic and terribly difficult for the doctors and nurses to deal with. I wanted to put on the record my tribute to their work.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to do so. In an emergency of this kind, many people are involved in alleviating the pain and distress of members of the local community—the list is endless. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham), to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed), who wanted to stay for the entire debate but had a long-standing commitment that he could not break. The debate was scheduled after that commitment was made. We all remember the way in which my hon. Friends the Members for Copeland and for Workington and others represented the views of their constituents day after day on a 24-hour basis, and we all hope that we will never be in that situation in our own constituencies.

This is, in a sense, a House of Commons day. There was not a single area of disagreement between the two Front-Bench teams. There are points that Members in all parts of the House will want to emphasise, but there is agreement that we should look carefully at the reports that have been produced. I pay tribute to members of the Select Committee. Again, I apologise on their behalf. Most of them very much wanted to be present for the debate today but the severe weather and constituency commitments have prevented them from attending. They worked hard to make this a unanimous report where consensus was the order of the day. The report is not intended to have a go at any group in society.

I knew very little about firearms when I began the inquiry. That is why I was delighted to be involved in it—not delighted for the reasons that I mentioned, but pleased to gain some expertise in an area that I know nothing about. As Members of Parliament, we are supposed to be experts on everything, and it is not often that we say we know nothing about a subject. However, I knew nothing about firearms. The nearest I had got to a firearm was a water pistol when I was much younger.

I thank the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) who was extremely helpful to the Committee in a number of ways and to me personally. We asked that firearms be brought into the Committee so that we could look at the various types. Sometimes it is difficult for lay members—I am a lay member—to understand the difference between a section 1 firearm, a shotgun, a pistol and an air weapon. The hon. Gentleman arranged for that to happen. I thank the Serjeant at Arms and the Deputy Serjeant at Arms for allowing us to bring the weapons into the Committee. I think we gave them a bit of a fright when the firearms came in, but it was important for us to look at them.

I valued immensely my visit to Bisley, where I met so many talented individuals who had represented our country in shooting at the highest level and had won gold medals at the recent Commonwealth games. They were not bulky men with big muscles, though there were some of those about—not members of the Committee. Some were women, who had shot so successfully. One of them hung all four of her gold medals around her neck. I no longer need to be convinced of the importance of the sport. When we look at the figures, showing the hundreds of thousands who apply for a licence in good faith, with excellent characters, and get their licences, we know that we must be careful if we try to change the law.

That is not what the Committee suggested to any great extent. Like the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal, we suggested measures that we think can improve the situation. Hindsight is a wonderful gift and none of us possesses it. We do not know what is going to happen in the future. It is terribly difficult for the Government of the day, having had so many difficulties to deal with in the events that took place in Cumbria and Northumberland, to call it right. If anything happens in the future, and the odds are that it will—the evidence before us suggested that it will happen at some stage—we do not want people to be blamed for having failed to take action.

Some of our proposals are direct recommendations: we made 22 recommendations. Some are an invitation to the Government to consult further—for example, on the age at which children may apply for a licence. I was confused about that, as were the Clerks and members of the Committee. Therefore, for the convenience of the House, we set out the current law in a table that appears on page 42 of the report.

As the table shows, it is possible to apply for a licence for a shotgun at any age, but for a section 1 firearm, one can apply only from the age of 14. One may use a shotgun under supervision at any age, but, for a section 1 firearm, in certain circumstances, it is from the age of 14 with a certificate. To be in possession of a firearm unsupervised, the minimum age is 15 for a shotgun and 14 for a section 1 firearm. To purchase or hire a firearm and/or ammunition, the age is the same—18.

We did not suggest an age to the Government. We recommended that the Government look at the various ages. They may decide that there is no empirical evidence that a change is needed. However, we suggested a number of areas for consideration: the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot under supervision in the controlled environment of a shooting range, the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot under supervision outside such a controlled environment, and the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot unsupervised.

No age is specified in the report, although Mr Whiting said when I pressed him that he thought it should be 10. That was under pressure from the Chairman seeking to get him to alight on a particular figure. I was very surprised that there were 26 children aged 10 who had shotguns, even though I have a 15-year-old son who is in the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme. When he heard that I would be speaking about the subject, he said, “You’re not going to ban us from doing this, are you?” I said, “I’m not going to ban you from doing anything, apart from being on the computer for too long.”

We have asked the Government to consider the question of age. The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal need not fear. We are not coming to a conclusion; we are just saying that the matter requires further thought.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is right. That is why we batted the issue over to the Government for them to look at. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) is the parent of two very young children, because they are regulars at the Westminster kids club party. Any parent would be concerned if they were not in the know about what is going on. We are not saying, “Let’s make it 10.” Let us consider the issues and let the Government perhaps come back with a view in the two-month timetable that they have given themselves.

My second point is about the 34 pieces of legislation covering this area of policy. It is a no-brainer that we need to consolidate. We need to make sure that the police and those responsible for holding such firearms know the law, which needs to be clear, so that nobody is under any misapprehension. That is why clarity of law and consistency are extremely important, and that is an easy one for the Government, as the Minister hinted in his very careful speech from the Dispatch Box.

There was a debate in the Committee about the role of GPs, but we concluded that we can live with the reasonable deal struck between the British Medical Association and the Association of Chief Police Officers—and therefore the Home Office. We should not try to interfere in the judgment of a general practitioner. Let the general practitioner alert the authorities if he or she feels that it has to be done. GPs will be very careful when they write their references or provide any information to those making such decisions, because they will not want to make mistakes. They also have a duty of confidentiality, however. The Committee was reluctant to intervene on that duty, but we felt it necessary to bring it to the attention of GPs themselves, if they needed reminding, because they have a crucial role in ensuring that proper consideration is given when licences are granted.

[Tony Cunningham]

Before my right hon. Friend concludes, will he comment on the Committee’s report concerning the media? My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) was extremely disturbed by the way in which the media covered the terrible shootings in west Cumbria.

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, we considered that issue in the inquiry, and it is in the report, although I cannot remember the exact paragraph. With such tragic events, the media tend to go to the scene, and there is 24-hour coverage, which understandably upsets local residents. One witness, it might have been Professor Shepherd or the witness from the health authority—

[Tony Cunningham]

Professor Ashton

[Keith Vaz]

Professor Ashton, I thank my hon. Friend. Professor Ashton said that the constant media coverage might encourage others to do the same, so one has to be very careful not to glamorise what happens.

The report has a section on key facts, and I shall read just a couple. The most recent figures show that there are 138,728 firearm certificates, covering 435,000 firearms, and 574,946 shotgun certificates, covering 1.366 million shotguns. That is a huge number, but the number of cases, tragic though they are, in which legally held firearms have resulted in homicide, deaths or injuries, is very small indeed. That is not to excuse the number or to say it is not important, but it needs to be seen in proportion to the number of guns that are about.

So the Committee has not sought to condemn or criticise; all it has sought to do unanimously is to make suggestions, so that, by closing the loopholes and ironing out the creases, our already tough law becomes not necessarily tougher, but slightly better. It is up to the Government to adopt the measures that we suggest. They have given themselves a two-month timetable, for which I am most grateful, and we look forward to re-examining the issue.

We have decided to publish our recommendations in a grid on our website—we decided to do that after the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) left the Committee—and, as soon as the Government meet those recommendations, we give them a tick. So far, in our three reports, we have totalled about 60 recommendations, and there are 22 in the report before us. We look forward to ticking as many as possible. If we cannot tick them, and if the Government have a better measure to put in place, we will give them the credit they deserve. The Minister and the Government have handled the matter sensitively and carefully and the Opposition Front Benchers have dealt with it in an equally proper way. This is the House at its best, and I hope that the debate continues along those lines.

Cumbrian Shootings

Debate between Keith Vaz and Tony Cunningham

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be in a debate under your chairmanship, Mr Benton; I think that this is the first such occasion for me. I am pleased to be following the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart). One of the great values of this House is that Members come from so many different backgrounds. They are able to give the House their experience and expertise in areas of policy of which some of us have absolutely no experience. I represent an urban constituency, which does not have anything like the open space and rural background of the constituencies of many hon. Members here this afternoon.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) for the way in which he has conducted himself as Member of Parliament for the area where the event that we are discussing took place. It must have been a 24/7 experience, the like of which none of us would ever want to be involved in. Of course, we are always there to represent our constituents every moment we are in the House, but what he had to go through was exceptional. He conducted himself with enormous dignity, and he is a credit to his constituency and to this House.

[Tony Cunningham]

I just want to endorse what my right hon. Friend has said about my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland. However, there is one word that he did not use that I should like to add—it is “leadership”. That is what communities would always want to see in their MP in such difficult circumstances. Throughout this entire tragedy, my hon. Friend has shown real leadership and he is to be commended for that.

[Keith Vaz]

Indeed; my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say so. As we are in the business of acknowledging hon. Members, I should say that all the other Members with Cumbrian constituencies who are here today also played their parts in responding to this tragedy—the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and my hon. Friends the Members for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) and for Workington (Tony Cunningham). Those constituencies were just names to me until I went to Whitehaven on Monday. As I went down the motorway, I saw all those constituency names; I am sorry that I did not have a chance to notify the Members that I was driving past, as is the convention, but I tried my very best.

I will speak very briefly as I know that other hon. Members who represent Cumbria wish to be involved in the debate. I was in Whitehaven in Copeland on Monday, at the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland, as I had expressed the view that it was important that we not only looked at the overall area of policy that is paramount in this particular case, but recognised, following statements made by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, that it was important that Parliament itself should look at the events that had occurred in this tragic set of circumstances.

Of course, those of us who live outside Cumbria send our condolences to the families of those who have died; it must be an awful experience for those families. On Monday, I met the vicar of Egremont and he told me about the funerals that he had conducted and the fact that it is a very close-knit community—everyone knows everyone else. The tragedy is taken very personally.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland are absolutely right: the reaction of politicians, including the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, was spot on. There was no rush to judgment. There was a careful and measured approach, as was demonstrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland here in Westminster Hall today. That approach was also reflected in the statement of the Prime Minister when he went to Cumbria and by the Home Secretary in her statement to the House, which she made very soon after this tragedy.

It was right to say that we have to wait and see. There must not be a rush to judgment. Let us look at the facts, see exactly what happened and consider, in a careful and measured way, how to proceed. I think that that is what will happen in this particular case.

Nevertheless, I feel that it is important that there should be an urgency about getting to the facts. My hon. Friend and I had a meeting with the deputy chief constable of Cumbria, Stuart Hyde, who talked about a series of inquiries that were taking place. Clearly, the police do not want to leave things in a position where people have any further questions to ask, so there are a series of inquiries. There is the inquiry into the issuing of the gun licence, the inquiry into the circumstances of the day itself and another internal inquiry that the police are conducting. Those inquiries are all very important and very relevant.

At the end of the day, however, judging from the limited time that I spent in Cumbria, the interests of the constituents of my hon. Friend and other Cumbrian MPs will not be served until all the facts of the case come out, so that people know precisely what happened. That is important, although not so much for us to guard against this tragedy happening again—because, although we do not know the full facts yet, we think that this tragedy could have happened anywhere in the country at any time; this was not a premeditated series of events. It is important because it is right that the public should know about the full sequence of events. So I hope that when the Minister responds to the debate, he will tell us something about the timetable that has been placed on the local police force in Cumbria.

Although the deputy chief constable of Cumbria did not ask for additional resources, there may be a resources issue. As a second point of clarification, I seek an assurance from the Minister that, if those additional resources are necessary, they will be provided.

The deputy chief constable spoke intelligently about the fact that Cumbria does not own a helicopter, for example. He also said that, in his view, Cumbria does not need one. A deal had been done with another force—the Greater Manchester force, or perhaps the Merseyside force—to provide a helicopter when it was required. Obviously, not all police forces can have their own helicopters, but there may well be resource implications that need to be examined in the cold light of day.

I hope that in the meantime, before we get to the conclusion of the inquiries, whatever Cumbria’s police ask for and whatever hon. Members feel is appropriate is provided. I know that the Prime Minister has said to my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland that he is keen to know the views of local people; I know that, because my hon. Friend told me so on Monday. If the local people ask for something, I hope that it will be granted.

As we all know, we are in something of a limbo situation. As we speak, there are elections for the membership of the Home Affairs Committee, so that Committee has not yet been formed. However, at our first meeting I will certainly recommend to members of the Committee that we should look at this area, because I think that it is important that Parliament itself should examine the wider issues. We should not necessarily examine the detail of what happened, although of course we will need to take evidence from those involved, but we should examine the wider area of the policy issues that emanate from what has happened.

As I am sure the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire will remind us, we have some of the tightest and strictest gun laws in the world and people will find it amazing that anyone should have been able to do what this person did to the citizens of Cumbria and then to himself. However, the fact is that we will have to look at the issue of gun law in the round. It would be very odd if we did not look at it.

I think that that is what my hon. Friend is talking about; he is not saying that there should be an instant revision of firearms legislation, but that we need to look at firearms legislation in context. The Home Affairs Committee last looked at this issue 10 years ago, when we made certain recommendations about having people on the national register. Immediately, the issue of data sharing is important too. When a gun licence is applied for and the data about that application are held locally, what happens to them? Are they available to others?

So broad issues need to be raised, without our getting into the finer detail of this case, because that is what the people will require. Of course, it is up to the Committee to decide on the inquiries that it carries out. It is not up to the Chairman, even in these days of electing Chairmen and having independence and accountability to Parliament. But I very much hope that this is an issue that we will look at when we have the opportunity to do so.

My hon. Friend mentioned a number of other issues concerning the media and his local hospital. On the media, I think that he has made some very valid points. It is important that we look at how these matters are reported and he is absolutely right to want to write to broadcasters and the Press Complaints Commission asking them to look at the overall handling of this situation.

My hon. Friend is also right to praise his local media, as we all do, because they have a better feel for local people. They are unwilling to trample on the lives of people, either the living or the deceased, because they know that they will be meeting them again. For the national media, it is something of a visit; they may be there 24/7 during the rolling period of a crisis, but they then go away quite swiftly to the next story. My hon. Friend’s concern is about how the story was reported at the time and I was certainly told about examples of cheque-book journalism and other issues of that kind, which really ought to be explored. He is right to raise this whole issue of the media; it is one of the lessons of Cumbria and one of the points that we need to remember.

As for my hon. Friend’s local hospital, I am sure that he makes his case more powerfully than anyone else here can, and I am sure that that case has been heard by Ministers. I wish him well in what he seeks to achieve.

In conclusion, the people of Whitehaven, its local Member of Parliament and the other Members of Parliament who represent the region desperately want to return to normality. I had never been to Whitehaven before Monday. It sounds odd, but I think that the furthest north that I had travelled in England previously was to Carlisle; of course I had been to Scotland before, including to the western isles many years ago on parliamentary business.

On my visit to Whitehaven, I saw a very beautiful place; it was absolutely stunningly beautiful. Local people, including the excellent leader of the local Labour group, Elaine Woodburn, and the local vicar, Richard Lee, wanted to return to normality. They want Whitehaven and Cumbria to be remembered for the beautiful places that they are, rather than for any other reason. We have a duty to ensure that they are able to return to that position. We also have a duty to ensure that all the facts come out. I hope that the Minister will assure us that the Government are also keen that that should happen.