Metal Theft

Simon Hart Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on securing this debate, and colleagues from all sides of the House on pushing this issue forward. We have heard many examples of what a terrible crime metal theft can be. I know that my constituents, among others, will be completely taken aback by how bad it can be, and by the mentality of someone who can steal a war memorial or a memorial from a park bench. One has to be a certain type of person to be able to commit such a crime. There are also examples of the crime that put the public at risk. They involve the theft of railway lines, telecommunications lines or electrical supply equipment.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Another example, in agricultural areas, is where metal thieves nick gates, which is not only inconvenient, but has the knock-on effect of allowing cattle and horses to get out and cause damage. That costs money, the insurance premiums go up and it all causes massive disturbance.

[Mr Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. One cannot underestimate the potentially disastrous consequences of a herd of cattle wandering on to a railway line. Indeed, rural areas can find themselves particularly targeted. He mentioned agriculture, but rural churches have also been targeted, because they are so isolated and are not overlooked by other properties. Edwinstowe church in my constituency has had the lead removed from its roof seven times, which is simply outrageous.

One way of dealing with the problem would be to improve the legislation. However, I would also encourage English Heritage to consider alternatives. English Heritage forces churches to replace the lead, but if we could find a fibreglass replacement that looks like lead, that would solve the problem and deter the thieves, because the value of fibreglass is zero. Indeed, not only have churches in my constituency been affected, but Newstead abbey, the home of Lord Byron, has been targeted, with its gutters and downrights stolen. Again, we are talking about an historic building, owned by the city council, which has taken the decision not to replace the gutters and downrights because it cannot protect the property in the short term. The council will have to leave that historic building in a poorer state of repair, which is an absolute tragedy.

I am therefore happy to support the motion. I hope that the Government will take the firmest and strongest action. Not only do normal members of the public support that, but the scrap dealers I have talked to—the legitimate businesses—also want us to take action. I pay tribute to my constituent Edward Donnington, a local trader who has been constantly lobbying me to try to improve the way in which such trades are recorded. He is a registered scrap dealer who welcomes the Government’s intervention to try to resolve the issue, because his business has also been targeted. He has had people breaking into his yard to steal his lorry and take scrap from his premises. The legitimate scrap dealers are looking to us to take firm action and clamp down on those involved. The only way we can do that is to stop cash transactions and also to have photographic evidence of those who undertake transactions, so that they can be clearly identified at a later date if something goes wrong.

Before I finish, I want to mention what has been happening in Nottinghamshire. I pay tribute to Nottinghamshire county council trading standards and Nottinghamshire police, as they have taken the issue very seriously. They have put together a local group of all the relevant authorities, to take action and, more importantly, to inform each other about what is correct and what is not, because a normal bobby on the beat might not be aware of some of the relevant issues in those scrap yards. For instance, there is only one registered scrap dealer in Nottinghamshire who can deal in, as it were, railway steel, and only one who is registered to deal in telecommunications cable from British Telecom. If such cable is found in any scrap yard other than the one that is registered, it is clearly in the wrong place and a crime has been committed. It is all about informing those authorities so that there is cross-information, as it were, and ensuring that when someone sees something out of line, they take firm action.

I hope that this debate is a step in the right direction, and that the Government grab this issue and drive the frankly terrible people involved out of the industry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hart Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I recognise the interest that he has consistently shown in ensuring that the police and crime panels have the powers necessary to scrutinise the work of the police and crime commissioners. They will be different from police authorities, so their role will not be the same. We have set out clearly the interaction that they should have with the police and crime commissioner and with the chief constable of the police force area. As for budgets, our overall aim is that the new regime will cost no more than police authorities do today.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking to improve efficiency within police forces.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

We are supporting police forces in their drive to improve efficiency, including through reducing bureaucracy, more effective procurement, collaboration and sharing services.

[Simon Hart]

Is the Minister satisfied that local forces are doing enough to share the costs of facilities such as human resources and IT with other public bodies and other emergency services?

[Nick Herbert]

It is important that police forces do more to take up such opportunities. We have already seen an increase in the collaboration between police forces over operational matters, but there are valuable opportunities to collaborate and share services for the back-office functions such as IT and human resources, which would result in significant savings. That is what we are encouraging forces to look at.

Government Reductions in Policing

Simon Hart Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to have been called in this debate, so soon after last week’s proceedings on the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, to express some of the frustration that has reached me from police officers in the far west Dyfed Powys force and, indeed, from members of the public, who are increasingly concerned about seemingly being used as a political pawn in the debate. It is affecting that vital bond between the public and the police, and indeed the morale of police officers themselves.

In our debate last week, I drew a parallel with the ongoing consultation on the future of the coastguard service, simply to remind myself as well as the House that the great passion for that service—one that is crucial in west Wales at Milford Haven—is built on loyalty, public respect, a sense of ownership and the sense that the coastguard and, indeed, the police are somehow part of the fabric and the architecture of the community, and that people know that when they ring the coastguard, as with the police, they will get a trusted and, above all, local response. That is increasingly relevant in this debate.

As hon. Members know, the Dyfed Powys force covers a huge geographical area of rural west Wales, but it has its fair share of terrorist-related incidents, urban crime and industrial-related challenges. Above all, however, what the force possesses is an ancient relationship with the community, and the potential compromise of that relationship, as a result of the terms of the Opposition’s motion, is causing our officers and our public to waver between nervousness and distrust and, at times, contempt. Public confidence is very precious, and the idea that we can compromise it on the back of financial mismanagement over the past few years is the scandal at the heart of this debate, rather than the proposals put forward by the Government.

Several Members have referred to conversations that they have had with their local chief constables, and I will be no exception. Mr Ian Arundale, who is highly respected by the public in our area and by his own members of staff, has told me on more than one occasion that the proposals are challenging but need not compromise public safety.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

The Opposition consistently contend that we are facing 20% cuts across the board, yet we know that the precept is not subject to those cuts, and that officers are likely to face a two-year pay freeze in the future, which means that in fact the cuts are far lower. Does my hon. Friend agree that a much more responsible approach is to make that clear, as that will be less worrisome to his constituents and mine?

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Indeed, responsibility and irresponsibility lie at the heart of this debate. I cannot think of a more irresponsible approach than to try to frighten the most vulnerable in society, and the police service itself, with spurious claims that cannot be backed up by fact.

[Steve McCabe]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that the chief constable of Lancashire, who is the ACPO lead on performance management, was being irresponsible or misleading when he said on the “Today” programme on 29 March,

“we cannot leave the front line untouched and that is because of the scale of the cuts”?

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman may also be interested in the comments of the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), who said:

“I don’t think it’s possible to make a direct correlation between police numbers and crime reduction.”

It is being assumed that a reduced number of police officers means a reduced service. I would argue, as have chief constables across the land, including my own, that that is not as clear cut as the hon. Gentleman might suggest. In Dyfed Powys, there will be a different sort of policing as a consequence of these changes—it will look different, as I said last week. There will be a greater reliance on technology, and things will not be quite as they were before. However, it is irresponsible to suggest that the public are somehow endangered as a result, and that makes the motion something that the Opposition should be rather ashamed of.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman says that police numbers and crime are not linked. Is he therefore suggesting that if crime does not go up we should carry on cutting police numbers?

[Simon Hart]

I fully follow the hon. Gentleman’s logic. The comment I made is attributed to a Member from his own party, and a similar comment was made by the former Home Secretary, so perhaps he will take it up with them when he has the opportunity.

I commend the approach of the Dyfed Powys force in its tackling of the challenges ahead. It had a simple strategy, which was to list its challenges as the things that it must do, the things that it could do, and the things that it must stop doing. Hon. Members may be interested to discover, as I was, that the last of those three lists is longer than Labour Members may care to consider. One such example was the victims of crime leaflet, a new Labour gimmick if ever there was one, which was abandoned by the Dyfed Powys police force as being a waste of officers’ time and the public’s time, and—guess what?—public satisfaction with the force went up at the same time as that measure was disposed of. That illustrates what I think, what my voters think, and what the police officers of Dyfed Powys think—that we would much rather have our police officers engaged in proper crime prevention and detection than in subsequently taking part in some sort of PR exercise to suit a political agenda.

[Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman join me, and indeed the Government, in welcoming the comments of Baroness Newlove who said last week that the assets of criminals should be used more for the benefit of the community that they have harmed? How does he suggest that that happens in the Northumbria police area, where the asset recovery unit is going to be subject to the cuts that he is advocating?

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman asks me to comment on a constabulary that is about as far away from my own as it is possible to go. All I can say on behalf of my own area is that we simply want our police officers to be solving crime and, better still, preventing crime—dealing with the realities of day-to-day life rather than engaging in spurious PR exercises and form filling of the sort that has dominated the political agenda for some time and that this Government are rightly seeking to reduce.

There is talk of its being easier simply not to replace chief superintendents—I almost said chief constables, which was a bit of a Freudian slip—after their 30-year service has come to an end. Of course there is a temptation to take that approach but, certainly in our case, it is balanced with the clear need seriously to address the issue of back-office support that other hon. Members have mentioned. That has been slightly misrepresented, because huge importance is attached to back-office police work as distinct from back-office administrative activity. The right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) was a little disingenuous in not making that clear separation.

[Paul Farrelly]

I mentioned the 149 police officers being forced to resign after 30 years’ service in Staffordshire, but I did not mention the six police stations, including my own in Newcastle-under-Lyme, that are being closed because of the cuts. These are police stations that survived Margaret Thatcher and are now falling victim to Cameron-Clegg. Would the hon. Gentleman designate those as much-needed assets or merely back-office functions that can be reorganised willy-nilly?

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman conveniently takes me on to my next point.

I do not think anybody on the Government Benches—obviously I cannot speak for the Home Secretary—has gone into these challenges with any great sense of glee based on any great ideology. It is grim reality time—responsibility time. I was fortunate enough to operate in the private sector before I came to this place. I was responsible for 90 employees and a budget of £5 million. Every single year I was forced to reduce that budget, every single year I went to my departmental head, every single year they said they could not do it, and every single year they said it would never be the same again and the end of civilisation as we know it, and—guess what?—after 10 years we had a lean, efficient machine that served its members responsibly and cost-effectively. What it boils down to—my own chief constable has said this publicly and privately—is that police officers are well capable of applying the same corporate disciplines in the police world that most people out there in the real world apply to their businesses. We should not automatically assume that a new approach to efficient policing will necessarily lead to compromises in safety.

The Government’s proposals take us back to relatively recent levels of funding, not to the dark ages. They remove a thick layer of bureaucracy that I thought everybody in this House was keen to see rid of, as well as members of the public and the police force. These proposals take police officers out of their offices and put them back where we need them: solving and preventing crime, and closer to their communities.

The scandal of this motion, and the reason I took part in this debate—I had no serious intention of doing so, but I was driven to it by frustration—is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting vulnerable people in society or defending jobs in the police, and everything to do with furthering Labour’s political aims. To do that in the run-up to a Welsh Assembly election when so many things are at stake, and to do so at the expense of the fear of vulnerable people in society and police officers worried about their jobs, is an absolute scandal. For that reason alone, the motion should fail dismally.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Simon Hart Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn]

In the first world war there were pages in newspapers listing the fallen and those missing in action, so it would not have been practical then, but it is practical in this conflict. Sadly, we are still losing soldiers—about one soldier a week dies in Afghanistan—so it is absolutely right to continue reading out their names and making such announcements. The Government should not stop doing that. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend agrees that MPs should be forbidden from reading out the names of the fallen, but I do not think that was a reasonable decision. I have challenged it and been stopped and I am sure that you would stop me now, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I attempted to read out the names of the fallen.

We really must pay tribute to Brian Haw. On nights when we have finished here and gone out, even in the middle of winter and sometimes in the early hours of the morning, he has been there, night after night, with his simple, anti-war message. Whether we agree with him or not he deserves our admiration and we do not need any attempt to sweep him and his companions out of sight to have a cosmetic effect on the square for an event that will be forgotten in a few years’ time.

I agree entirely with those who have said that the right to protest is honourable. It is a matter of pride when visitors come to London from countries in which any sign of protest would be swept away from their well-manicured streets and tourist attractions. The majority of the world’s countries would not allow such protest to take place in such a situation, but we are better and more advanced than them, and we should be proud that we have the right to protest. It is not available in the House, as it might be, but it is in Parliament square.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I join the diverse coalition of interests championing the right to protest in Parliament square, but I suspect that that is where the similarity between my interests and theirs comes to an end. Suffice it to say that the Government’s proposals take us a long way towards the goal we are all attempting to reach. Some Members might be aware that between 2000 and 2004 I was responsible for eight protests, in different forms, in and around Parliament square, six of which were resoundingly successful but two of which were not. I shall explain why things went wrong on those two. In each circumstance there were conditions that made it almost impossible for the police to safeguard the community and the protestors in a reasonable way. We are getting away from that situation and I commend the Government for their measures in that regard.

In championing the rights of legitimate protest, there are three areas that I want to address—accessibility, affordability and spontaneity. My first point on accessibility is fairly obvious: most protestors need to have the necessary access to make their point while the interests of other users of Parliament square and this building, as well as those of members of the public going about their business, are safeguarded.

Affordability is a rather different issue. It must be in the interests of those of us in this House and outside it to ensure that people who wish to protest can do so with the minimum of obstacles in their way in the lead-up to their protest. If any protestor has to go through a process that involves going as far as obtaining a licence in some instances—not in this one, I add—we will be putting obstacles in the way of those who wish to register, often in the only way they can, their distaste for what we are doing in this House.

[Paul Flynn]

Does the hon. Gentleman’s tolerance for protest extend to defending those who invaded this Chamber in support of a cause that he represented?

[Simon Hart]

I shall say only that I am surprised that it took so long for that point to be made. I prefaced my contribution by saying that I was going to discuss legitimate protest, so I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.

I want to discuss spontaneity. It is vital that we enable people who wish to do so to rise up in anger, frustration and exasperation and express their view loudly and lawfully in the minimum amount of time. If there was a problem with the previous legislation it was that the preparation time for protest was rather lengthy if people followed the measures sequentially. The Government’s proposals will ease that, which is why I am a big supporter, but it is right and proper to enable people who have read the papers one morning metaphorically to bang on the gates the next morning. If we prevent them from doing so we will fall into the trap to which most speakers have referred of setting one set of rules for our country while condemning those in other countries who adopt a different procedure on protests.

I have referred to the two occasions on which protests in which I was involved went wrong. The first took place in 2004, and there was a legitimate presence of angry protesters as well as of police to ensure the safety of the community. The protesters came that day with every intention of being peaceful, and the police policed the event with every intention of its remaining peaceful. However, Members who have taken part in a protest know that it is a potent and often high-temperature environment, and it does not take much to spark something that leads to a sequence of events which, in our case, led to 425 complaints from members of the public, about 60 people being treated in hospital for serious head injuries, a number of arrests, and an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission that lasted nearly a year, cost a fortune and regrettably resulted in a number of Metropolitan policemen being recommended for disciplinary action or worse. That was a thoroughly unsatisfactory conclusion to what should have been a perfectly legitimate protest.

We could debate the cause for hours, but I will suggest one particular reason why it ended up in that unsavoury position. Both parties were the victims of legal rigidity. In the case of the protesters, there was arguably not enough flexibility to enable nearly 20,000 people at one stage to engage in reasonable protest. From the police’s point of view, the confines or boundaries were set too tightly to enable them to adapt and adjust their policing as the protest unfolded over the day. When the IPCC report was eventually published, it focused on three things including, first, a complete breakdown of communications for technical reasons between the police and the protesters. That is not an issue for the Government—it is an issue for protesters and police in future—but the second and third reasons are important.

The IPCC confirmed without any doubt that the lack of loudspeaker equipment in the south-east corner of Parliament square led to an inability by the organisers and the police to communicate with a crowd that was contained and angry, which led to unfortunate downstream consequences. That happened because there was confusion about whether Westminster city council, I think, would allow us to have loudspeakers lest we contravene noise abatement conditions. In the circumstances, the police, in my humble opinion, should have had the operational ability to insist on having equipment on site that could have prevented that incident from arising in the first place.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point. During one of the Tamil demonstrations that I attended with a number of colleagues from the House, loudspeakers were not allowed for the demonstration. People needed to be moved, because there was a crush in one corner, and the police lent us loud hailers so that we could address the crowd. One could argue that that is breaking the law, but it was sensible and practical. We just need to be a bit more sensible, because there is a safety issue about being unable to communicate with a loud crowd.

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The point I am trying to make is that in such circumstances the police should not be encumbered in any way by having to refer to a local authority, some guidelines or a piece of statute. They should be able to make decisions that protect public safety and the interests of this building and of the demonstrators as an event unfolds. It was the inability to do that on the day in September 2004 that led directly to the unfortunate consequences I have described.

[Dr Huppert]

It is interesting to see the coalitions developing across the Chamber on shared interests.

The hon. Gentleman will presumably be pleased to see that clause 142(3)(a) states that for police purposes it is not an offence to proceed with such activity, which I think will allay his concerns. On a slightly broader point, has he seen the transcript of the discussions that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has had with the TUC and the Metropolitan police about the planning for the demonstration on 26 March, which looked at the use of loud hailers, other facilities and social media? Would he welcome that level of preparation for events so that problems can be planned for?

[Simon Hart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The short answer to his question is yes, notwithstanding my earlier comments about the need for spontaneity in—perhaps smaller—events. Steps are being taken in the right direction. However, having been personally responsible for a number of events between 2000 and 2004, I know that we were always led to believe that lessons had been learned from previous protests, but it became quite clear that they had not.

In more recent events in and around Parliament square, and indeed at the G20 demonstrations, it was quite obvious that some of the findings of the IPPC report, which were produced several years ago, had not been implemented, which was unfortunate. Perhaps there is some value, despite the views of one or two Opposition Members, to having this discussion and debate yet again, because it would perhaps lead us a little closer to a situation that is in the interests of protesters first and foremost and parliamentarians last and least.

The third point made in the IPCC’s findings was loosely described as relating to lines. I recall only too vividly being told at my meeting with the responsible commander on the morning of the demonstration in September 2004 that there was an invisible line—a line on his order paper—across which protestors could not pass under any circumstances. It was a ludicrous situation, as he admitted. We explained that it was ludicrous because there was no way to guarantee safely with 20,000 people that none of them would at any stage drift across that line for one reason or another. Flexibility was needed, but there was none. The result was that when protestors did drift across the line, officers fulfilled their orders, which was absolutely right, and started to make arrests, which led to a sudden and irreversible rise in the temperature. That contributed to the transition from an angry but peaceful protest to one that fell apart and resulted in serious injuries for a number of protestors and career-threatening implications for the officers concerned.

[John McDonnell]

That is an extremely valid point. When a particular line is used to demarcate a geographical area, often the protest spills out into another area and matters become confusing. On that basis, I believe that the legislation will simply lead to encampments elsewhere. It is almost a provocation for other encampments breaking out around the city. We should watch Trafalgar square in future; we will be back here in a few months’ time, with Members urging us to bring forward further legislation to deal with other areas of London.

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. He might be interested to learn that a week after the demonstration we held in September 2004 in Parliament square, the same angry army protested outside the Labour party conference in Brighton. It would be fair to say that the organisers—me—were getting quite nervous at that stage about what might happen in Brighton, but the lessons learned by Sussex police in those few short days in between the two protests were very evident when we got there, because they successfully achieved a flexible attitude to protestors, and as the temperature rose so they retreated, and vice versa.

The second point that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) made, which I should address, and which the Metropolitan police acknowledged at the time and subsequently, is that although the law said one thing back in those days, which was, “You cannot march within a mile of the Palace of Westminster when Parliament is sitting,” its enforcement by the police would have been entirely foolhardy. They knew and made it very clear to us that, had they prevented legitimate and angry protestors coming to the gates of Parliament to make their point, the consequences might have been even worse.

I am encouraged by the fact that the Government are moving a significant, if not the whole, way towards a situation in which there is greater recognition of the arguments that I have set out—enabling, I hope, the police to exercise that operational flexibility which is so important, which was so lacking and which led so directly to very unfortunate injuries and consequences for a large number of people who were already angry and frustrated.

I endorse absolutely the comments made by pretty well every other speaker. We should not underestimate the anger and the frustration sometimes at the consequences of the decisions that we make in this House, or the helplessness felt by many people who perhaps reside a long way from here, who can play no part in the political process and for whom protest is the only way in which they can make their feelings loudly and clearly heard not just by us in here, but by the media and the wider public.

I support any measure that makes it easier for protestors to exercise that absolutely ancient and important right, and I am not persuaded by arguments, which I hope will be put not too seriously, that the tidiness of Parliament square for the royal wedding is somehow more important than the ability of people to protest. If in the next few weeks we make a decision that has profound consequences for very many people, and those very many people wish to make their feelings heard, why on earth should they not do so? If that happens to coincide with the royal wedding, I argue that their right to protest is far more important, and I am glad that the Government recognise that point and are enabling protest to take place legitimately.

[Mr MacShane]

I much appreciate the speech from the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart)—his apologia pro vita sua.

I am trying to find out who was responsible for the dramatic changes to Parliament in my short time here, including, for example, the security screen that we now have between us and the Public Gallery. That came about because somebody who felt passionately about the cause of Fathers 4 Justice also felt that he had the right to come in here and throw a pink powder over the Bench—actually, where the hon. Gentleman is sitting; it did not quite arrive on the Front Bench. As a result, we changed the security laws dramatically.

Then, people felt so passionately about fox hunting that an hon. Member allowed a protestor to infiltrate this very Chamber, and as a result we have much tougher security. In the name of protest, we thus have a denial of the right of British citizens to come freely and easily into this House of Commons. When I was first elected, not so long ago, I took an American intern to Central Lobby, where he watched people coming in. I told him, “Any citizen can come here and ask to see his Member of Parliament,” and he replied, “My God. You let your voters get that close?”

On Monday night, I hosted the Belarus Free Theatre with Mr Jude Law and Kevin Spacey, the two actors. It was a marvellous moment, except that our police—acting under orders; I do not blame them—kept out the men who had been booted out of Belarus by dictatorial policemen. They were not even allowed into our House of Commons in time, so we need to set in some context the importance of access to this Parliament for MPs and for citizens who want to exercise their parliamentary, political and constitutional right to talk to their MPs.

Disturbances (London)

Simon Hart Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I would say to those who want to comment on the remarks made by individuals about the demonstration that the reason Opposition Front Benchers are choosing to say so much about the Mayor is perhaps because they do not want to talk much about the comments made by the Leader of the Opposition at the demonstration.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

The Home Secretary will be aware that, back in 2002, I was partly responsible for bringing 407,000 people to the capital and back again without so much as cracking a window pane. Will she assure the House that future protests will not be made more awkward or more expensive as a result of her proposals?

Cumbrian Shootings

Simon Hart Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I endorse the comments of the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed). All of us who represent rural communities—I represent one on the west coast of Wales—can only imagine how dreadful an experience the event that we are discussing must have been. Everyone in the House and elsewhere will be reflecting on the things that the hon. Gentleman put so eloquently, and on the measured response that he and other professionals in his area have so diligently delivered for the rest of us. I should declare a bit of an interest, in that before coming into the House I represented an organisation that had rural communities at its heart. I have been lucky enough to travel to many isolated areas, including the hon. Gentleman’s.

It is sometimes quite difficult to articulate to the wider public exactly what a rural community is—what its strengths are and why we are so passionate about it. It is also sometimes difficult to articulate what a blow an event such as this can be. Of course, it would be a blow to any community, but purely because of where I have worked and where I live, I feel that I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. For that, I am extremely grateful.

The hon. Gentleman made his strongest point when he said that we should proceed from here on the basis of the facts. In the past, there have been occasions when the instant reaction to a dreadful event has been a little too knee-jerk, political and shy of the facts. That has meant that the problem has not been dealt with and that people who should not have been caught up in the aftermath have been punished or penalised. The hon. Gentleman’s approach to this matter has been absolutely right, and has been generally endorsed across the House.

[John Woodcock]

I absolutely endorse the sentiments expressed by the hon. Gentleman and echo his call for our response to be fact-driven, but may I ask him whether he has any examples of knee-jerk and political responses to tragedies and of when the right outcome has not followed on from events?

[Simon Hart]

Yes, I have. Responses such as the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and legislation passed by a Conservative Government in relation to handguns did not achieve the objectives that this place and the public wanted, which is why there has been an ongoing debate about their effectiveness. There are also plenty of examples of people who have been adversely affected by the passing of that legislation. People at whom the legislation was aimed have hardly been touched at all, which is why a private Member’s Bill on dangerous dogs is starting its process in the House of Lords as we speak. There are probably more examples, but those are two with which I am familiar.

I want to cover just one area of the four that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Due to my previous interest in countryside activities, I should like to focus on the shooting community. I must be very careful about that because I do not want to underplay the seriousness of the situation or give any impression that those who shoot, either recreationally or as part of their daily lives, are not sympathetic to the points that the hon. Gentleman made. Moreover, those who shoot are not unrealistic about the fact that many things will need to be reconsidered in the near rather than the distant future by this House and the other place. There is a real awareness that these are important issues, and nobody I know who possesses a shotgun or firearm certificate—professional or otherwise—is in any doubt about the need to get right to the heart of the problem.

[Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is in no one’s interest to have a knee-jerk response? He is talking about the shooting fraternity, but it is not in the interests of the community of west Cumbria, or anywhere else, to have a knee-jerk reaction. What we need, and what my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) was asking for, is a thorough inquiry into the matter. I repeat: no one—but no one—wants a knee-jerk reaction.

[Simon Hart]

I absolutely agree. We cannot proceed without the facts. We cannot proceed sensibly until we have had the results of the inquiry by the Association of Chief Police Officers and of other investigations that may be associated with, or just on the fringes of, this particular incident. Yes, of course I endorse what the hon. Gentleman has said.

There is increasing evidence that, in many areas, gun crime is coming down while weapon ownership is going up, and interesting statistics on Scotland have recently been published on that score. Fewer than 0.5% of crimes involving weapons that have resulted in death or injury have involved licensed weapons—shotguns, in particular. As for the safety of the activity across the EU, target-shooting activities are among the safest for members of the public to take part in. If there is a lesson to be drawn from that, it is that any changes in legislation should be about the people who possess and use weapons rather than the weapons themselves. I mentioned the error that the Conservative Government made in relation to handguns. In that instance, they focused too much on the weapon, and not enough on the people who were ultimately going to be using it.

Moreover, there is not much evidence to suggest that shortening the certificate period for weapon ownership would have made much difference in these or other circumstances. Likewise, it is uncertain whether any evidence supports the theory that it is acceptable for people to keep no more than a certain number of guns.

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the media. The distinction in approach between the national and regional media resonates with rural communities. The idea that people would have to show a good reason for owning a weapon would be unlikely to make much difference, although I am not talking about this specific incident.

Lastly, let me turn to the thorny issue of mental health checks for people who wish to acquire and use weapons. The shooting community is particularly conscious of the matter and is inclined to investigate it further. Those checks have to find a way of safely predicting dangerousness, and that will be a very complicated medical judgment. GPs, who could be the final arbiters in applications, might be put in a very tricky position as far as potential liability is concerned if it emerged that someone they certified as safe to own and use a weapon subsequently turned out not to be. There may also be GPs who have a fundamental dislike of weapon ownership and shooting-related activities; that might put them and the applicant in a difficult position.

From the perspective of both a rural community and an urban community that has access to and enjoys weapons for whatever purpose, there is a real willingness to engage in the debate that has emerged from this tragic event. I do not think that anybody is under any illusion about the changes, but what I hope we can do is strike a proper balance between the safety of the public and proportionality as far as our freedom to own and use weapons is concerned. If we can achieve that balance as a consequence of the hon. Gentleman’s efforts, we will have made sensible progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want briefly to add to what has been said, and to pay tribute to an excellent and unconventional maiden speech by the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), which was quietly powerful. I also want to add to the comments on how my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) has conducted himself. All new Members come here wanting to represent our communities in the best way, and we look for examples of ways to do that; my hon. Friend has been an inspiration to me and others by his leadership in such difficult times, speaking out and representing a community in great pain. That will always stay with me.

My constituency is south of my hon. Friend’s, and like that of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), it was not directly affected, although the town of Broughton was put under lockdown when no one knew where the gunman was going. Also, about 700 people a day travel to Sellafield to work, so there are deep ties, including family ties, there. Everyone knows someone who has moved down from Whitehaven, or moved up, and the family bonds between those areas are incredibly strong. I know that my constituents see the hurt and suffering of their west Cumbrian neighbours, friends and colleagues, and are at a loss to know how to help, but they stand ready, as we all do, to try to help the community through.

I do not want to add to the comments on the national press, because a powerful case has been made about what people have seen at first hand, and the effect on the community. However, I want to mention the local press. I fully endorse the huge value of the community role that it plays throughout the year, in community events big and small—and never does it play that role more fully than in such circumstances as we are debating. The local press and media are going through difficult times; part of that is due to reforms that they are undertaking to try to ensure that they are financially viable at a time when technological change makes that increasingly difficult. However, the Government must continue to look for ways to support local papers and media. I hope that they will think carefully when they consider their policy on public advertising, for example, which has the potential to take out a vital income stream from the local press. That would make things far more difficult. It is so important that we keep such institutions able to serve the community.

I endorse the case that has been made for continued investment in the police and the hospital in the area. They are early examples—there will be so many more of them as the weeks and months go by—of cases where the need to ensure the sustainability of the public finances nationally runs hard against local communities’ needs for continuation of services. No one can pretend that this Government will not face difficult choices, or that any party that had won would not have done so. That is why it is essential that the efficiencies that we make are not driven beyond what is ultimately best for the economy, and do not damage our local communities to such an extent that it will be difficult for them to recover. I am not making a party political point; I simply urge Members on both sides of the House to bear that in mind.

On the inquiry, it is clear that looking at mental health provision in respect of firearms licensing is absolutely necessary, as is a review of mental health provision in the community generally. We do not know—we can never fully know—but it is extraordinarily unlikely that a person would flip overnight from being completely mentally stable to committing such dreadful atrocities. It may be that we are talking about something that it simply was not feasible to have picked up, but that is a point to consider when we look at mental health provision in the wider community.

Finally, I endorse what everyone has said about the need to look at gun licensing thoroughly in the round, and to not make a knee-jerk response, but I urge the Government to come to the matter with an open mind, and not a preconceived idea that legislation to restrict guns is not the way to go; that would steer them on to another path.

We may review the matter and decide that the laws are as tight as they feasibly can be and that, given the balance of risk, the restrictions that would have to be imposed for further tightening would be disproportionate, but it would have been far less likely that a man who had a licence to use firearms for sport would have gone on a lethal killing spree if he had not had access to those guns. That does not prejudge any review of the balance to be struck and the consequences of further tightening, but it is essential that the matter is looked at as a separate question. Clearly, in rural areas such as mine and across the whole of Cumbria, farmers have a real need for firearms, but we must be prepared to take an open-minded look at guns for sport, and all the pros and cons.

[Simon Hart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Woodcock]

I was about to finish, but I shall give way.

[Simon Hart]

I simply want to pick up on the issue of the review of mental health provision, which the hon. Gentleman rightly raised. Most people would be open-minded about such a review, and I agree that it should proceed on the basis of evidence rather than anything else, but surely there can be no distinction between people who own weapons for sport and people who own weapons as part of their livelihood when it comes to mental health assessment.

[John Woodcock]

That is a good point. I was not thinking of that specifically when I spoke about a review of mental health provision, although those issues must form part of it. As I said, it may be impractical to say that guns that are held for sport should not be kept at home but in some kind of secure premises, but it is right that we examine the matter and look at whether a distinction can be made between guns that are needed by farmers, which clearly need to be kept at home, and guns used for sport, which one cannot say need to be kept at home. It may be disproportionately difficult to put in place other arrangements, but I hope that the issue will be properly examined as part of the Government’s inquiry.