Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. She speaks with authority and personal passion and we should listen with great care to what she says. I listened to her a few weeks ago at the annual Livia Awards, a remarkable institution created by the parents of a young woman who was killed in a road traffic accident to recognise in the Metropolitan Police those who expend extra effort and trouble to bring perpetrators to justice—but, again, focused on the victims of crime. I did the guest of honour speech last year and the noble Baroness did it this year. It is a remarkable organisation, to which I pay tribute.

It is one of the tragedies of the way in which Brexit has sucked the oxygen and energy out of political discourse that issues such as this, which are of huge importance to people in their daily lives, have been sidelined and have not been given anything like the attention they deserve. Therefore it is right that the Government should expect detailed consideration of this Bill and that we should spend a little time on it. It raises a whole host of major issues, which have come out already, even at this early stage.

There are deep social problems in our society today, some of which are manifesting themselves in the violence that is affecting so many parts of the country. We in this House are a million miles away from a lot of those social problems and find it difficult to understand them, let alone find remedies that will be applicable to the areas which they deeply affect. I took part in a programme recently and the very senior presenter, a prominent person in public life, told me on the sidelines of the interview that his son had been stabbed in an incident in London. He had been an inch away from ending his life—a young man now completely traumatised and whose personality has been changed. The presenter said, “It’s like the wild west out there”. For somebody to say that about our country and our capital city highlights something very serious, which merits our concern.

I come from Scotland. In Glasgow the problem manifested itself a number of years ago. All the agencies came together in the violence reduction unit that was created at that time, and a radical difference has been made in the situation there. I am glad that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has taken on board the lessons of that and that a violence reduction unit has been created in London. I know that Ministers and the Government are also paying attention to the success of something that has worked. Of course, all this is highlighted by the terrible incident that took place on a train last week, and I am sure that all of us here feel profoundly for the Pomeroy family, and especially for their young 14 year-old son.

I will concentrate on only one aspect of the Bill, firearms. I have a degree of knowledge and expertise in this area as I was Defence Secretary of this country and then Secretary-General of NATO, and it was perhaps part of the armoury of military forces to know a lot about these instruments. But I am also a resident of the town of Dunblane. At the time of the 1996 incident, I was the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland and I lived in the town. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, was the Secretary of State for Scotland, and although we were political combatants at the time, we were welded together in the wake of the evil perpetrated by a criminal who both of us knew. I played a part in the legislation that was passed when we came to power in 1997 to abolish the private ownership of handguns in this country, legislation which has had a major influence on gun crime in this country as a whole.

That background gives me a deep concern about the progress of the Bill, in particular the fact that .50 calibre high-powered rifles have now been taken out of the legislation after the initial plan to keep them in. The term “.50 calibre rifle” does not mean an awful lot to the ordinary person, but they are colloquially known as “sniper rifles”. That is a technical expression used in the military to describe guns that kill people at long distance, and that is effectively what they are. If you look them up on the internet you will find that .50 calibre rifles are also known as sniper rifles. The Government’s impact assessment—an interesting document on the subject of .50 calibre rifles—states:

“There is concern about the availability of .50 calibre and rapid-fire Manually Actuated Release System (MARS) rifles being available to some civilian firearms licence holders. The range and penetrative power of 0.50 calibre rifles makes them more dangerous than other common firearms and were they to be used in criminal or terrorist activities would present a serious threat to the public and would be uniquely difficult for the police to control. Due to the rate of discharge MARS rifles pose a comparable risk to the public and police as other self-loading weapons already banned in the UK. The Government need to intervene to ensure the purchase, ownership or possession is illegal”.


That was the opening statement of the Government’s own impact assessment, which went on to go through all the other effects. In the Second Reading debate in the Commons, the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, said:

“We based those measures on evidence that we received from intelligence sources, police and other security experts”.


He was challenged throughout the whole of that Second Reading debate by a concerted group of Conservative Back-Bench MPs who are part of the All-Party Group on Shooting and Conservation, and he went on to say:

“According to the information that we have, weapons of this type have, sadly, been used in the troubles in Northern Ireland, and, according to intelligence provided by police and security services, have been possessed by criminals who have clearly intended to use them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/6/18; cols. 918-19.]


Those are not my words or the words of gun campaigners but the words of Her Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for Home Affairs, speaking in the House of Commons.

Why on earth were the Government persuaded to take out the clause in the Bill that would have removed those weapons from legal ownership? I appreciate that the Minister and the Government have said that they are now open to consultation on the matter, but they have not even included some of the safeguards that the gun lobby was recommending, as outlined by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, to separate out these elements. At the moment, there is nothing: there is no restriction on these weapons. These are weapons that can immobilise a truck—or a human being—more than a mile away from the person handling the rifle. We are talking about a serious weapon with enormous potential. If the Home Secretary of this country believes that they are in the hands of those who may use them, the call for action was all the more important. The police, the intelligence authorities and the National Crime Agency have all come to the same conclusion.

As I read the debate in Hansard and the background documents, the echoes came back of the arguments we had after Dunblane from the shooting lobby, who said that these guns were only for recreation and were in the hands of people who were properly licensed, et cetera. But the evil criminal who perpetrated what happened in Dunblane and the one who perpetrated what happened in Hungerford were holding legally obtainable guns at the time. It is right and proper that assessments be made and that we listen to the people who know. As I said, if the Home Secretary of this country believed that there is the potential for these weapons to be used, action should have been taken.

I hope that during the course of the debate in this House, we will return to this subject and perhaps go down the road that the Home Secretary was deliberately on before he was derailed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I broadly welcome the Bill. My interest in it stems from my record as an enthusiastic supporter of the shooting sports. I am a former president of the Gun Trade Association and a former president and chairman of the British Shooting Sports Council, and a former chairman of the Firearms Consultative Committee at the Home Office, appointed about four weeks before Dunblane happened. I am a member of the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers and a member of both the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Countryside Alliance. From that, your Lordships will probably realise that I am quite keen on my chosen sport and, I hope, moderately knowledgeable.

Every shooting organisation to which I have ever belonged has had one common goal: the responsible promotion and enjoyment of its chosen discipline while ensuring that safety, especially the safety of the public, should always remain paramount. Indeed, I recall that during the passage of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, Her Majesty’s Government wished to ban and remove from circulation entirely and without compensation the Brocock air pistol. This weapon, which was easily capable of conversion—probably in a garden shed—into a deadly little weapon using basic tools, had become popular as the weapon of choice of criminals. It had been used in a number of fatal shootings, and there were very many of these guns in circulation. The Gun Trade Association and the other shooting organisations actively supported the Government’s view that these guns should become a prohibited weapon under Section 5(1)(af). However, under the Act, and as a consequence of the Government’s unwillingness to compensate owners and the manufacturers, some people were permitted to hold such a gun under a Section 1 certificate. Today, around 60,000 Brococks are still in existence somewhere out there—nobody really knows where—and the manufacturers have still not been compensated for the loss of their expensive tooling and equipment. The support of the Government’s actions by the various shooting bodies bears testament to a responsible shooting community.

In that light, I will offer a few comments on the Bill, specifically with regard to guns. First, the question of so-called bump stocks was raised in the Government’s policy paper, in their overarching fact sheet. That document states that the Bill will prohibit,

“high energy and rapid firing rifles and a device known as a ‘bump stock’ which increases the rate of fire of rifles and provides for compensation of owners”,

of such weapons. Compensation is not normally the case.

I take this opportunity to remind your Lordships of just what is a bump stock. It is, in simple terms, a piece of equipment which, when fitted to the stock of a self-loading rifle, enables it to fire missiles much faster, and exponentially turns that firearm into an automatic weapon. Incidentally, although a legal definition of a self-loading rifle is yet to be decided, a useful one could well be: “a weapon where, after the weapon is fired, it is reloaded without the intervention of the operator”. The perpetrator of the massacre in Las Vegas used guns fitted with bump stocks. So far as I am aware, such stocks are made only in the United States, and they were subject to a ban on importation into the UK in 2017 through the Notice to Importers 2896 of 4 December 2017. In any case, self-loading rifles are already prohibited firearms under Section 5(1)(ab) of the Firearms Act 1968 as amended.

Briefly, on .50 calibre rifles, it is my understanding that these weapons came under the scrutiny of the police when one was stolen from a car and recovered, having not been used in a crime but with its barrel sawn off. Anyone who is stupid enough to do that to a .50 calibre and fire it is ensured of a very brief life expectancy.

In addition, I understand that the police misguidedly believe that such weapons are used for material destruction. The ones used by the military most definitely are, as they are used as snipers’ rifles. There are only about 130 civilian versions of these rifles held privately in the United Kingdom. They are used by target shooting enthusiasts with Section 1 target ammunition only. Owing to their barrel length, their weight of about 20 pounds and the fact that they are single-shot or bolt action, it is extremely unlikely that they would or could be used in criminal activities. They are target-shooting guns for very specialist marksmen and are used in a very small number of specialist licensed ranges, many of which are military ranges.

A far more sensible way of legislating for those rifles would be to keep them as Section 1 with a few modest security requirements—for example, the bolt having to be kept at a licensed club, separate to the rifle, the ammunition being secured at a club with usage being signed for in and out and being on the owner’s firearms certificate.

I am delighted that, following debate in the other place, Her Majesty’s Government have thought again and will have further consultation. My concern is, first, that this round of consultation must be a vast improvement on the last one, which was universally regarded as heavily flawed, and that Her Majesty’s Government do not try to slip a quiet little clause into the Bill during its passage through your Lordships’ House. I am certainly not intimating that the Home Office might be disingenuous; I am simply rather an old hand on gun legislation.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving way. If the case is as strong as he makes out, why was the Home Secretary convinced that criminal elements in Northern Ireland and on the mainland were likely to use the .50 calibre weapons?

[The Earl of Shrewsbury]

It is my belief that, as my noble friend Lord Robathan said—he served for a long while in Northern Ireland—that was a one-off case of an imported, illegal .50 calibre used. That is the only time, to my knowledge and to the knowledge of the shooting sports associations, that a .50 calibre has been used in criminal activity. That was for material use as well as human destruction.

Surely if the police have issued certificates which also control the amount of ammunition that can be possessed, they have done so because the good reason test for possession has been justified. Therefore, the Government must review the original consultation and bring forward a proposal which is better worded to meet the needs of public safety. If this were done and further evidence offered to support the need for a ban, in the event of MARS and lever release becoming subject to Section 5 prohibition, I would strongly support the view of the British Shooting Sports Council and support an amendment by which the possessor of such rifles could have them converted to a straight-pull or bolt action function and thus retain them on a Section 1 certificate. In the view of the BSSC experts, which I wholeheartedly support, surrender and the cost involved in either conversion or deactivation would attract compensation. This compensation was mentioned in the policy statement, as I said. I should be happy to table such an amendment in due course, unless HMG wish to table their own.

I turn to air rifles and air weapons in general. I am aware that the Government have stated that they will consider what action or actions might be appropriate with regard to air weapons. That is fair enough, but there must be a thorough consultative process—a process which would have the support of the BSSC. A while back, on a Starred Question concerning air weapons, a noble Lord opposite from Scotland mentioned that we should follow the Scottish Parliament’s lead in legislating for the licensing of air rifles. Heaven forbid. That process north of the border has been an unmitigated disaster which has achieved absolutely zero benefit to the safety of the public.

I turn to medical issues relating to firearms licensing. I can do no better than quote the BSSC’s view on this matter. This issue affects every firearms certificate and shotgun certificate holder in England and Wales. The EU firearms directive mandates in Article 5.2 a medical assessment of every applicant for a certificate. In England and Wales, there is no consistency of practice between police forces, nor is there any consistency of the fee charged to the applicant by his or her GP for a medical assessment.

What is required is, first, a compulsory and once-only medical records check by the GP in response to a police inquiry about the physical and mental health of the applicant; secondly, an enduring marker to be placed by the GP on the patient’s medical record, noting that he or she may be in possession of firearms or shotguns, to ensure that thereafter the GP is reminded to draw to police attention any future adverse change in the patient’s health which may have a bearing on their abilities safely to possess a firearm or shotgun; thirdly, an agreed reasonable fee for the GP’s original medical records check and placing of the enduring marker; fourthly, an extension of the life of firearm and shotgun certificates from five to 10 years, which would reduce pressure on licensing departments and police forces; and, finally, protection of the confidentiality of applicants’ and certificate holders’ data. Despite warm words from my honourable friend Nick Hurd, there appears to be inaction by the Government to bring that forward, although it has the backing of both the BSSC and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Shooting and Conservation.

In conclusion, I agree with suggestions that a firearms advisory committee should be established, provided that it is statutory. My experience as a former chairman of the then FCC was first class. On that committee, we had representatives at most senior levels of the police, forensic scientists, shooting organisations and those who supported gun control. That committee demonstrated a true ability to work well to address complex technical and legal issues. Further, we developed a rapport and an excellent working relationship with the police, instead of the usual perceived combative attitude so often held by some elements of both sides.

I rest my case and look forward to hearing my noble friend’s comment on the issues I have raised when she winds up.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

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

We need to keep this under review. Things change from time to time. Fashions change. Ways in which people choose to commit crime change. At the moment, on the evidence that I have, and I have done my best to ask the Government to show us their evidence, although I have not got much from them, which I suspect is because they do not have much evidence—

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

I am listening to what the noble Lord is saying and the assumptions he is making about the guns that are being talked about—or in this case, not talked about—and them not falling into the wrong hands. Why does he think the Home Secretary of this country said in the House of Commons that,

“according to intelligence provided by police and security services”,

these .50 calibre guns,

“have been possessed by criminals who have clearly intended to use them”?—[Official Report, Commons, 27/6/18; col. 919.]

Does the noble Lord have better information and intelligence than the Home Secretary?

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, if I might help my noble friend, it is possible that Ministers and Members in another House have been slightly inaccurately briefed. For instance, they were told that the effective range of a .50 calibre round is 6,800 metres, whereas in actual fact, it is only about 1,800 metres.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I was talking about the two forms of rifle which are specifically addressed in the Bill. These are not .50 calibre rifles, but lighter ones, which are adapted for use by disabled people and make it easier to reload the round using power derived from the previous shot. That is a .50 calibre, but again, the calibre alone does not tell you all you need to know about the rifle; you need to know whether a particular weapon is dangerous. The weapons used in target shooting tend to be heavy and cumbersome and the ammunition is not the same as that used in military operations.

I have asked for evidence. There may be evidence out there, but it has not made its way to me. My particular arguments are about the guns addressed in the Bill, as there is no evidence of misuse of those guns or available evidence showing that these are fundamentally more dangerous than other rifles. There is also no evidence that they cannot be properly secured through a mixture of physical security and the systems we have to ensure that firearms are only held by the people who ought to hold them.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

Before Hungerford and Dunblane, there had not been evidence of legally held handguns being used to massacre people. However, Hungerford and Dunblane happened, and after that, we passed legislation and the country is much safer as a result.

[Lord Lucas]

Absolutely. We need to keep these things under consideration. However, if one took the noble Lord’s argument to its logical conclusion, we would ban cars because they have been used deliberately to kill people. Any kind of weapon, including knives, presents a danger to the public. Because there is a legitimate use for these objects, we choose to look at how to balance the potential danger with the potential good. I hope that we will choose to do it on the basis of evidence, which says, yes, these things are dangerous, but we have systems in place which negate that danger. Rules on the weapons the public may hold legitimately, plus the safeguards we take, mean this is not the route through which weapons reach the people who will misuse them. In society as a whole, we have adopted a system which is safe and which allows us to live with the existence of those weapons. It seems to me that the evidence says that is the case at the moment. We do not have a recent history of misuse—of any degree at all—of the weapons which are currently allowed.

It is important to keep these things under review, but it is also important to be sensible. A lot of what is in our lives is dangerous. It is the business of legislators to balance that danger with utility and reach a conclusion; there are lots of different conclusions that can be reached. If we say that people are to have weapons of any description, it seems to me that the current arrangements for allowing people to have firearms are working very well. There is no evidence that incremental banning of particular types of firearm will produce any benefit at all and, as a matter of principle, we ought to take those sorts of decisions based on evidence, rather than because someone feels like it somewhere and no one quite knows why because it is buried in the decision-making processes that created this Bill.

My appeal to my noble friend is that we ought to be looking at where this process is going in the long term, at what we should be doing to make sure that firearms can be legally held, and at the security we want around that. Then, when we arrive at that conclusion, we can show that the weapons which fit within that are not a source of danger to the public, by their nature, because they are not what people who wish to commit crimes will go for.

A lot of guns are being recovered by the police, and by and large they are illegal guns because the guns that are being brought in are much more suitable for use in crime. People will not go for a hunting rifle to commit crime with. We are not talking about hunting rifles in the Bill, but the same considerations apply. If hunting rifles were being widely used in crime, we would be fussed about it, but they are not. The rifles that are the subject of this Bill are not used in crime. There is no instance of them being used in crime. There is nothing obvious about them which makes them more dangerous than other firearms in the context of the controls that we have. As a result of the deliberations in another place, our concerns about .50 calibre are under review. We ought to do the same with the other rifles that are mentioned here and come to a coherent, evidenced conclusion about where in this society we now choose to draw the line on the firearms that people may legally hold and on the purposes for which they may legally hold them. I am not saying that there is an absolute value to any particular place to draw the line; I am saying that we ought to do this on the basis of evidence, and nothing that my noble friends have been able to provide me with at the moment offers evidence that the rifles we are discussing pose any greater danger than the many other rifles that we permit people to hold. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

I appreciate what the Minister is saying but this is a critical part of the legislation, where some strong views are held on both sides. Having sat through the debate so far, I also appreciate that we want to finish the business. I am not an expert in this field but I know that there are many experts around, who will undoubtedly contribute. This matter has excited a lot of interest outside the House.

First, I am not anti-target shooting. I was a member of the House of Commons rifle club, when it existed, and went target shooting in the subterranean depths of this building. Of course, I was Defence Secretary and then Secretary-General of NATO so I must have ordered huge quantities of guns of every description. As I said at Second Reading, I am a resident of Dunblane and became deeply engaged in the debate that took place after that shooting. I would contradict what was said about the banning of the private ownership of handguns leading to an increase in the amount of crime involving them. My colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who has now left, also disagreed with that.

I am here to probe the issue of .50 calibre guns. In other contexts, they would be known colloquially as sniper rifles; they certainly have a destructive power over very long distances. I want to pray in aid what was said by the Home Secretary. I am not normally a great disciple of his—I think that he is running for Prime Minister at the moment, or at least leader of the Conservative Party when the vacancy eventually and inevitably occurs—but, as the Home Secretary, he has access to a lot of information that the rest of us do not. So, when he comes to the House of Commons and makes Statements, we should listen carefully.

We should also listen to what the Home Office had to say in preparation for the Bill. The department produces impact assessments—a very good innovation, whenever they were brought in, to describe the impact of legislation on costs, society and provisions on law and order. An impact assessment was done on .50 calibre rifles but, oddly enough, it is not in the Printed Paper Office. An impact assessment on the knife aspect of the Bill is available, but not one on the part about guns. If I can read its very small writing, the impact assessment which I found on the internet states:

“There is concern about the availability of .50 calibre and rapid-fire Manually Actuated Release System (MARS) rifles”—


as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas—

“being available to some civilian firearms licence holders. The range and penetrative power of 0.50 calibre rifles makes them more dangerous than other common firearms and were they to be used in criminal or terrorist activities would present a serious threat to the public and would be uniquely difficult for the police to control. Due to the rate of discharge MARS rifles pose a comparable risk to the public and police as other self-loading weapons already banned in the UK. The Government need to intervene to ensure the purchase, ownership or possession is illegal”.

That Home Office impact assessment was delivered to the Government in preparation for the legislation.

In the House of Commons, the Home Secretary said when he presented the Bill:

“We based those measures on evidence that we received from intelligence sources, police and other security experts … According to the information that we have, weapons of this type have, sadly, been used in the troubles in Northern Ireland, and, according to intelligence provided by police and security services, have been possessed by criminals who have clearly intended to use them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/6/18; cols. 918-19.]


These are not my words or an exaggeration by anti-gun campaigners, but the words of the Home Secretary. He did not resile from these comments when he withdrew the clause from the Bill, under pressure from a large number of Back-Bench Conservative MPs. All he has said is that the matter would be subject to further consultation. The danger between now and the end of the consultation is represented precisely by the Home Secretary’s warning. I hope the Minister will be able to explain why the Committee should listen to outside experts when the Home Secretary of this country has given such a graphic description of the dangers presented by these weapons.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I hold the noble Lord in very high regard, but is he saying that Ministers and their advisers are infallible?

[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.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 4th March 2019 Lords Chamber

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will feel able to withdraw his amendment, on the understanding that I will move my amendments when they come up in their place on the Marshalled List.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I think we are all agreed that this is an important issue which needs to be debated. As my noble friend said, he is simply moving in his amendment what the Government put in their original legislation, so one would have thought that it would be uncontroversial. My noble friend has read out what the Home Secretary said in the debate at Second Reading in the other place. I think it is legitimate for us to ask the question and be given an answer as to why the Home Secretary has chosen to ignore the advice of the agencies concerned when he withdrew the amendment to the Bill. However, having said that, the Government have promised a consultation on this matter, which is an important statement on their part, and therefore it would be wise not to press the amendment to a vote today.

In the consultation that is to take place, I expect that the agencies quoted by the Home Secretary will want to tell Members of both Houses what their view is of the dangers of these weapons. As the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has outlined, officials have given a view about these pretty dreadful weapons. A .50 calibre rifle sounds almost innocuous, but they are basically sniper rifles that can take out a vehicle and human beings at a mile’s distance. These are formidable weapons in war. They are highly prized and valued in conflict given their accuracy and lethality.

I recall as Defence Secretary going to Bosnia and watching Operation Harvest involving members of the Royal Highland Fusiliers in Banja Luka. One of them, with a broad Glasgow accent, came back from one of the houses in the village with a sniper rifle. Since he did not have an interpreter with him, I wondered how he had managed to persuade the individual in the house to hand over such a prized instrument of the conflict. I think it was the nature of his accent that persuaded the inhabitant of the house that he was not a friendly force and they should therefore hand it over. It was regarded as enormously significant that day that he had managed to persuade them to hand over what was regarded as one of the key instruments of the conflict there.

It is quite legitimate for Members of the House to listen to the words of the Home Secretary read out by my noble friend. The Home Secretary said that he based these measures on,

“evidence that we received from intelligence sources, police and other security experts”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/6/18; col. 918.]

That is pretty all-embracing. This is not just a handful of individuals putting this forward. We are talking here about representatives of 43 police forces in the United Kingdom, the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service, GCHQ and the National Crime Agency. Their distilled view and wisdom was that if these weapons were to fall into the hands of criminals or others with malign intent, they would have particularly dangerous effects. The Home Secretary did not underestimate it. He said:

“According to the information that we have, weapons of this type have, sadly, been used in the troubles in Northern Ireland”—


the noble Earl said they had never been used in the United Kingdom, but we are told by the Home Secretary that they have—

“and, according to intelligence provided by police and security services, have been possessed by criminals who have clearly intended to use them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/6/18; col. 919.]

We have had a discussion about knife crime, a huge issue affecting us at present. One can only imagine what would happen if the Home Secretary were right and criminal elements got their hands on .50 calibre rifles, and what damage they could do.

The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, poured scorn on advice given by officials. I was a Secretary of State and had officials who gave me advice in NATO as well. It is the role of Ministers to listen to advice and to make decisions, but the Home Secretary presumably would not come to Parliament not having given careful attention to the advice offered to him on that occasion. There must have been something pretty radical to change his mind—not just the assembled Members of Parliament who argued vociferously against it.

I went through the great debate about handguns in 1997-98, and I have heard all the arguments before. Yes, they will be safe if we have safeguards and the police are satisfied. I remember the number of people who had these handguns, some of them large numbers of handguns, and being assured that they were all safe—yet we saw the two major incidents in Hungerford and Dunblane caused by the private ownership of handguns.

I am not reassured by some of the statements that have been made. I would prefer to follow the course of action laid down by the Home Secretary in his opening speech at Second Reading. I hope that during the consultation we will be able to make that case and that the Home Secretary will return to his original view.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, I understand why the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, are saying what they say. I am not as surprised as the noble Lords, in that my experience is that Governments argue until they are blue in the face that they could not possibly adopt an opposition amendment, only to adopt it at the next stage. Such a change of view is not without precedent when it comes to these matters.

I am more warmly disposed to the calls of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for a compromise, if you will, of increased security. However, I hope to be even more convinced by the Minister that the right way forward is further consultation.