Offensive Weapons Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

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

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, if that is the right word, to speak in this important debate. From the outset, may I say how much I associate myself with the comments made by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown)? The speeches by the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) were strong and compelling, particularly in their urging the Government to include a wider range of acidic substances in the list of those that we seek to prohibit the carrying of, particularly by those who are 18 or under.

I hope I will not be accused of making an overtly party political point. However, I have served for a short period as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, and I have listened to a huge number of speeches and oral questions at Home Office questions. Given that very often, though not exclusively, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester said, this is seen as a London-centric and urban daily threat, I am surprised by the lack of representation on the Opposition Benches today, with the exception of the fine speech by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), and the right hon. Member for East Ham and the hon. Member for West Ham. I am slightly surprised that those who have often spoken most loudly about the need for this legislation and what underpins the imperatives that drove it are conspicuous by their absence this afternoon. Sunshine, I know, can be a rather seductive entity, but I thought they might have forgone that for just a few hours on an issue of this importance.

The key thing to bear in mind is that, while the debate is often painted within the confines of an urban narrative, this affects all our towns and cities across the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester said. On 7 January 2016, a hairdresser in my constituency, Katrina O’Hara, was putting the rubbish out at the end of the working day in the little courtyard behind the barbershop in which she worked in Blandford Forum. Blandford Forum is a jewel in the North Dorset crown. It is a small Georgian market town; it is not one of the fleshpots of metropolitan England by any stretch of the imagination. Katrina was attacked by a former partner with a knife that he had taken from the kitchen drawer in his house. He stabbed her. She died of her injuries. He attempted then to take his own life, but was apprehended and resuscitated by Dorset police. He was put on trial and found guilty.

I relate that story because, as one can imagine, it had the most huge and profound effects on a market town community like Blandford Forum. The ramifications of it still reverberate in conversations just over two years later. It was not a crime perpetrated by drug users or by minors, and it was not a crime in which somebody had to go out and buy a knife to use as a weapon, either directly from retail or on the internet; the knife was just taken out of a kitchen drawer. That is the scale of the issue that this sort of legislation is trying to grapple with.

There is much to commend in the Bill. The Home Office and the relevant Ministers are to be saluted for their clear care and dedication in the consultation process and in talking to Members. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary gave a commitment to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds that that conversation would continue, and that is important.

As I say, there is much to commend in this legislation and the foundations of it are clear, but I would echo the comments made by a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends, and indeed by right hon. and hon. Members of the Opposition, about how, although the foundations may be very secure, the edifice emerging through the Committee process will require some work. On the eve of my 49th birthday, I may be able to claim some similarity with that. My foundations are fine—

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

You must be older than that.

[Mark Garnier]

His 59th—no, 69th—

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare). I am sorry to have missed a few of the earlier speeches; I had to be at a sitting of the Home Affairs Committee. The quality of the debate has been excellent and I am happy to support the Bill. It is a pity that it has been made necessary in the light of a recent uptick in violent crime, and not only in London. As my hon. Friend just said, the devil will be in the detail when it comes to practical implementation. We all know that acid and knives are not in themselves offensive weapons; the person using them makes them so.

I do, however, have some reservations, which I share with a number of hon. Friends, about the proposals on .50 calibre rifles. Shooting is a legitimate pursuit for sport or countryside activities. As Members have said on numerous occasions, it is weapons held without a licence by criminals that cause the crimes. Legitimately held, licensed weapons are very rarely involved.

Our gun control laws are rightly among the tightest in the world. I do not want to do anything that would weaken that, and I would certainly not go down the absurd lines of President Trump’s recent statement that the reason for our upsurge in knife crime is that we do not have gun ownership to combat it. That is a very slippery slope, and I do not think anybody has taken it seriously in this country, but we need to make sure that the restrictions are evidence based and properly risk assessed.

We are talking about fewer than 1,000 of the 2.25 million rifles and guns held legitimately on certificate—just 700 rapid-fire rifles and 132 .50 calibre rifles are involved. I have had more representations on that element of the Bill than on any other, particularly from disabled constituents who have used these rifles as part of their recreational activity.

The shooting community views these prohibitions as a gross breach of natural justice. Despite repeated requests, the Home Office has failed to provide any evidence that the rifles pose a risk to public safety. As it stands, applicants must provide clear and evidenced good reason for each and every rifle they wish to acquire and use. The very few who apply for and use high-muzzle-energy rifles have well documented and good reasons, and are limited to using them on specific ranges. Various shooting associations have suggested enhancing suitability assessments if that would help to prevent an outright ban, which seems disproportionate.

It is also reasonable to ask the Government what reductions in firearms crimes are expected as a result of the prohibitions in the Bill. It is difficult to see what problem we are trying to solve.

I have had representations from members of legitimate rifle clubs, such as the Aldershot Rifle and Pistol club. My constituent Martin runs the local disability forum. He shoots from a wheelchair using one of these guns. He started target shooting as an Air Training Corps cadet back in 1959. Prohibition would end his participation in the sport, because his disability means that it is not easy for him to use the alternatives. It is notable that of the 10,712 responses to the Government consultation, over 60% related to these firearms proposals.

I want to talk briefly about acid. I am pleased with the inclusion in the Bill of measures to deal with acid. This is a particularly cruel and vicious form of attack. People can recover from a gunshot or knife wound, with minimal scars in some cases, but the effects of acid are a life sentence of disfigurement, especially when acid has been used on the face. If anything, acid attacks deserve harsher sentences than attacks using some of the more conventional weapons we have been describing. The problem is that there are no official statistics on the extent of acid attacks. Voluntary data across 39 police forces found that there were some 408 acid attacks between November 2016 and April 2017, which represented a large increase on estimates that had gone before. It is also interesting that such attacks are prevalent in certain cultures, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, and among jilted partners. Globally, on the figures we have, 80% of the victims are women, but in this country the majority of victims are white men.

I pay tribute to the work of the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). He is not in his place, but he spoke earlier. When I looked at this issue, I was astonished to find that acid is freely available online to anybody of any age, including children. Incredibly, certain forms of acid needed in the making, as my wife does, of jams and cordials are restricted to registered pharmacies, but this stuff can be bought online without any problem. It has to be right to restrict the sale, at least to under-18s. It has to be right to beef up the penalties for possessing harmful corrosive substances where they are intended to cause injury.

The devil will be in the detail. The evidence shows that only one offence in five involving acid is committed by a child under the age of 18. We need qualifications in the Bill on substances that are capable of causing permanent harm. There is also a worry about the number of people coming forward: according to the St Andrews Centre for Plastic Surgery and Burns, fewer than half of acid attack victims in this country pursue criminal charges against their attacker.

On knife crime, again we need make to the tools of violence as difficult to procure as possible. I see absolutely no legitimate reason for possession of zombie knives and so on. There are all sorts of problems: age-verification online, as trading standards has stated; what we do about weapons imported from overseas; and what the duty of care will be on Royal Mail and other carriers. The rise in knife crime in London has been particularly horrendous. What has been more worrying since 2014 is that the age of both victims and perpetrators has been getting younger and younger. That is, of course, drug related.

We have to look at the complicity of social media. The major social media companies have been in front of the Home Affairs Committee with regard to radicalisation, access to hardcore imagery and hate crime. Increasingly, we are seeing easy accessibility to gang rap songs, with gangs brandishing and glorifying knives on social media platforms. That needs to be prevented in the first place and taken down immediately when spotted. Social media companies need to be much more responsible and proactive.

I query why the Bill does not, as far as I can see, extend the existing offence of having a knife or offensive weapon on school premises to cover other types of educational institution, as was covered in the consultation, but the problem is bigger than just the availability of offensive weapons, and bigger than just having stiffer sentences.

The measures in the Bill will increase the use of mandatory minimum custodial sentences for children, yet evidence shows that custody is failing in being rehabilitative. Last year, 69% of children released from custody reoffended within a year. That is a considerably higher figure than for those who were given community sentences, so we need to think much smarter about the criminal justice system and how we keep people out of jail and sustainably out of trouble.

Working in partnerships, we need to understand why gang culture in this country is increasingly using these weapons. I filmed a documentary back in 2009 called “Tower Block of Commons” in which I spent time with youth gangs in Newtown in inner-city Birmingham. Through the help of former gang members who then set up a charity to try to rehabilitate some of these people and bring them back in from the dark side, I began to understand some of the sensitivities and vulnerabilities of people who turn to gangs. This is about not just the penalties and the availability, but understanding the mindsets of the people who think it is good to use these weapons.

Finally, the Bill is just one part of a jigsaw, but we need to be smarter and take a much more holistic approach to violent youth crime.