Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend has pulled me up: words are important in this place. What I meant to say was medical conditions which might include a mental health condition—but there are medical conditions that might mean that someone was not granted a shotgun or firearms certificate.

I want to move on to the .50 calibre weapons themselves, and why they are not likely to be used in a crime—and never have been, as far as we know.

[Simon Hoare]

A moment ago, my hon. Friend said he did not want to be caricatured, and that is absolutely right. It is important for everybody to understand that this is not a rampant, American, NRA-type debate, but one based on evidence, fact, practical experience and trying to make good law.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend makes a really potent and timely point; I was about to demonstrate why these weapons have never been implicated in any crime. There was one incident when one was stolen; the barrel was chopped down but the gun was quickly recovered and never implicated in a crime. There has been only one other incident: more than 20 years ago, a .50 calibre weapon was stolen in Northern Ireland and used in the troubles and then, again, recovered.

Instances of such weapons being likely to fall into the wrong hands are incredibly rare. Even if they did, they are most unlikely ever to be used by a criminal, as I shall try to persuade the House. They are as long as the span of my arms and incredibly heavy and bulky. They demand a great deal of effort between shots. They are simply not the criminal’s weapon of choice. The weapon of choice of a criminal is likely to be something gained from the dark web or the underground. It is likely to be a sawn-off shotgun, or a revolver or pistol of some sort. These really heavy, clunky weapons are simply not the weapon of choice of the criminal. In the one instance I suspect my hon. Friend the Minister will cite in her summing up, a criminal stole it, realised what they had got hold of and that it was not suitable to be used in a crime, and chucked it over a hedge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The problem would be if people who lawfully hold a shotgun or firearm see this legislation and think that they might be criminalised next. They fear that this is setting a precedent and they do not know where it is going to end.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right about that. Those who see these things as the opening of a Pandora’s box are often right to see proposals in that way, and I am inclined to think that we are not necessarily looking at this from the right end of the telescope. I would much prefer a far more rigorous approach to sentencing, so that it actually acts as a deterrent, and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester and others have intimated the same. I am not convinced that the criminal minds, the modern-day Fagins who recruit these often vulnerable youngsters to commit these crimes to aggrandise the Fagins of, particularly but not exclusively, the drug world, will give tuppence ha’penny about what statute law says. If they want to get hold of a shotgun or something else, they will jolly well do it. We need to be focusing a lot more attention on sentencing than we have hitherto.

Obviously, we have do this as part of a legislative mosaic, which, as others have said, calls for even greater intergovernmental and cross-departmental working. The Times has been running an interesting series of articles this week. It has alluded to all the things that we know about gang culture—family breakdown, the lack of feeling of belonging, a lack of aspiration, poor educational attainment, and that self-breeding fear and anxiety that says, “I live in an unsafe area so I must tool up to protect myself.” In that way, the cycle just continues and continues. A lot of additional work needs to be done and other Departments need to be involved in it.

I wish to say a few words about the impact on small businesses. I do not understand the logic of a lot of these proposals on where and how one can sell, and on not delivering to a residential address. I am sure the Minister will be able to fill, to the point of overflowing, the lacuna in my knowledge of this, but I cannot understand the differential in respect of being able to have something delivered to a business premises or a post office, but not being able to have it delivered to one’s own personal address—likewise, where the Bill says that even if someone has ordered something online, they have to collect it from the branch. That is fine for national operators, but I have received a number of representations on this. Some have come from Mr Duncan Chandler, an artisan manufacturer of woodland and survival knives in my constituency, who is anxious about this matter and the impact it has on his business. Others have come from Mr Philip Hart, who runs the excellent Harts of Stur, 80% of whose kitchenware, which includes knives, is sold online across the country—the company has only one branch and it is in North Dorset. I ask the Minister to think in Committee about the definition of “knife”. I am talking about rather peculiar things here and am flicking through my notes to try to find the reference point I was looking for but I cannot. I shall say merely refer to a constituent of mine who manufactures and sells straight razors for wet shaving. Are they to be included in the definition of “knife” or not? Will they fall within the new requirements?

In conclusion, I support this legislation. If it is pressed to a Division, I shall certainly vote in favour of its Second Reading, but with a presumption that there will be some fairly dramatic changes in Committee: a greater understanding of the needs and difficulties of small businesses in particular, and an element of rural proofing. We are trying to address a national issue, but as it stands the Bill does not reflect some of the differentials between urban and rural living. I draw comfort from the fact that the Minister understands rural issues to her fingertips, representing, as she does, the second most beautiful part of the country after North Dorset.

Local Government Funding: Rural Areas

Debate between Simon Hoare and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right. His comments have the extra weight of his being Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

The Minister should be clear that this settlement will create some jobs as local government sheds yet more staff and services are cut. I expect to see job advertisements for local government commissioners appearing in lots of publications, because a number of chief executives and leaders will be seeking, in effect, to hand the keys back to the Department, saying, “Look, pal, we have tried our best. We have done what we think we can. We can make no further cuts, hand on heart, without thinking that our electorate and our residents will be unduly hurt.”

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

As my hon. Friend said, many of our rural councils have done exactly what the Government have asked. In Gloucestershire, four district councils now share back-office services. We share a chief executive. We have a common Gloucestershire-wide rubbish policy. We share business rates and second home bonuses. We have become super-efficient, yet we are one of the hardest hit local authorities, and we now have very little left to cut.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right. He amplifies a golden thread that has run through the debate.

I have two further points that I urge the Government seriously to reconsider. The Care Act 2014 implementation grant has hitherto always been free-standing of the RSG—a little bit of icing on the cake. The proposed settlement rolls it into the RSG, and that seems rather unfair. I am happy to stand corrected by the Minister, but it is certainly the collective view across local government in my county that, in essence, the strategy that the Department is setting out has a counter-Conservative mindset whereby every single year council tax will have to increase by below whatever the capping figure is prevailing at the time, so arguably 1.99% today, and that the ring-fenced and extremely welcome—we are grateful to the Chancellor—2% hypothecation for social care will have to be year on year. I urge the Minister to unravel the knitting that the Department has done in meshing the grant with the RSG.

On the implied and presumed increase in council tax, the insult is compounded still more by the situation, as we understand it, on business rates. We cheered my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to the rafters in Manchester just a few short months ago when he gave ground on the localisation of business rates, which local government had been campaigning on for many a long year. I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify this, but our understanding is that while we will be allowed to set it and will continue to collect it, the centre will determine how much of it we retain and top-slice or cream off that which it believes we do not need in order to underpin and subsidise other, less efficient, authorities. That is, in itself, an insult, but when we add the factored-in, year-on-year increase in council tax of at least 3.99%, things start to get very tricky.

As my late and noble Friend Baroness Thatcher would have said to those three points, taking off her glasses with a sweep, I too have to say to the Minister, “No, no, no.” The increase of the rural services delivery grant to £65 million is welcome but way south of the £130 million that the network believes is required. It might just about make a fig leaf for a dormouse but will not add up to anywhere near what is required to service rural local government.

I have some questions for the Minister, for whom I have personal liking and huge respect. I do not envy him his position as he sits like Daniel in the lions’ den with the lions not having been fed for many a long month. The questions boil down to this: where is the equity in this proposal?