Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Grand Committee

[The Duke of Montrose]

If noble Lords will allow me, rather than pointing out what might be missed by this legislation, I want to draw to the attention of the Committee places where people will be caught. One that strikes me, given my background of having been responsible for the sheep industry, is this. In the clipping of sheep, we use largely foreign clippers, often from New Zealand. They come here and stay in bed and breakfasts. As they move around, their blades have to be sharpened and replaced. I am sure that, in the current system, they just ask the company to supply it by post, but they do not have a residential address. They could probably work their way round it, but I want to highlight the problems that people will have.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

Is it the noble Lord’s wish to withdraw his amendment?

[Lord Lucas]

I was still mid-flow. Having allowed those interventions, I very much hope that the Government will listen to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and consider whether there is something we can do here.

I know that there is a system of customs declarations and that misdeclaration on small packages is responsible for the UK losing about £1 billion in VAT every year. I am not confident, therefore, in that system—someone has to check what is inside. We have the ability to do it, and I agree that a bad customs declaration would result in inaction. But, by and large, we do not open small packages to see what is inside, or else we would be better at collecting the VAT when something said to be worth 5p is actually worth 50 quid.

We can do better in preventing knives coming in from overseas. I very much hope that the Government will look again at the opportunities. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I apologise to the noble Lord for trying to cut short his remarks.

Amendment 42 withdrawn.