Offensive Weapons Bill (Second sitting)

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Nigel Huddleston]

Q What would that mean?

Mark Groothuis: You can be fined, although I don’t know the scale of the fines off the top of my head.

Assistant Chief Constable Orford: Summary only.

Mark Groothuis: Yes, it is only a summary offence, so it is normally just a fine.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Q I want to probe a bit further on the use of antique guns. I was quite surprised that anyone can access one. In the Paul Edmunds case, which was very famous, he bought the guns, fitted them with ammunition and then passed them on to criminal gangs. What do you feel about his passing them on to, I think, 50 criminal gangs? Do you think the legislation around that is strong enough, and if not, what can we do?

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: We worked with the Law Commission and we provided evidence about the threat from obsolete calibre firearms in criminal hands. The Policing and Crime Act 2017 came into effect last year, and there is now an ongoing piece of work looking at removing certain firearms from the obsolete calibre list if Ministers make that decision. That would make it illegal to hold antique or obsolete calibre firearms that are currently used in crimes, unlike now, when anyone can hold them if they are not a prohibited person.

One outcome of our work with the Law Commission was to recommend the full codification of firearms legislation. Unfortunately, that has not come into effect because the legislation is complex. The definition of antique firearms and parts in the obsolete calibre list were brought in last year under the Policing and Crime Act. We are now waiting for decisions as to what will or will not be removed from that list. That is already in train; we are just waiting for outcomes, which I am told will not come before the summer recess.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q Would you advocate that?

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: Yes, definitely, as well as an ongoing review of the obsolete calibre list, so that, as and when ballistics experts identify trends in the criminal use of firearms, we can put evidence forward so that those can be removed and the public can be kept safe.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q Do you have any idea of the number of antique guns in circulation, or is that impossible to gauge?

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: As I say, you do not have to record them and you can pay for them in cash, so there is no record. You can take scrap metal, but you cannot get cash for it. There is an audit trail for scrap metal, but not for antique firearms. Anyone who is not a prohibited person can buy them and we would not know.

Gregg Taylor: In the Paul Edmunds case, it was impossible to know how many guns he was actually bringing in and transferring to criminals because there was no requirement to record the seal numbers. He also brought in guns and claimed that they were antiques, and were therefore exempt, but in actual fact they were not; they were being wrongly described. He was fooling the authorities to get the guns into the country in the first place.

The ammunition was actually key to that case. As I said, guns are exempt from the Firearms Act if they are kept as a curiosity or an ornament. If ammunition is made to fit the gun, that is when it reverts back to being a prohibited weapon, so the making of the ammunition is key. That is what we see in criminal use right now. People out there make ammunition to fit these obsolete guns, and there are no restrictions on the components of the ammunition. It is only when the ammunition is made as a whole round that it becomes licensable, but the actual components, and the sourcing of them, can be done freely on the internet.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q Would you advocate strengthening the legislation around that?

Gregg Taylor: From what I have seen in criminal use, I think we need tighter controls on the purchasing or acquiring and the possessing of components of ammunition.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q To slightly shift my line of questioning, I am a London MP and I am aware that the number of criminal firearms offences per head is highest in London. Can you shed any light on why it is different in the capital from the rest of the country?

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: Why it is—?

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q Why is it different from the rest of the country? Firearm offences in London are the highest per head of population. I am curious to know why that statistic exists.

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: We tend to see the metropolitan forces as the main ones having gun crime problems. It is a complex issue. I know from my previous role, before I was head of NABIS, having run the communities against guns, gangs and knives programme, that it is very complex and is a serious violence issue. Guns are just one factor.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Q I want to draw back slightly to the discussion about bump stocks. The example given was the Las Vegas shooting, but how many of those weapons used would have been lawful here? One of the issues in the United States is the pairing up of assault weaponry that is lawful there—unbelievably, quite bluntly—with bump stocks to make fully automatic assault weapons. How many of those weapons, given that the NCA evidence cites that incident, would have been legal here?

Also, do you think the definition in the law is drawn tightly enough? Clearly, bump stocks are being developed to get round the law on automatic weaponry in the United States and here. Do you think the definition is tight enough to prevent some sort of modification that has the same effect as the bump stock, but is not a bump stock?

Christopher Lynn: To answer your questions chronologically, because of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, which prohibited full-bore self-loading rifles, the impact in the UK is limited, although we still have .22 rimfire self-loading rifles on section 1 firearm certificates. We are aware of at least two designs of bump stocks in the States that would be compatible with certain patterns of .22 rimfire self-loading rifles that are legal here, so there is some carry over, although it is very much more limited.

In terms of definitions, I was involved in a definition, and we went to the Patent Office to try to identify how the items were patented and described in the patenting, but it is always a competition on the wording. You think you have wording that is robust, and then there are some other means of getting around that. I have spent 23 years in the firearms world and throughout that time it has always been a competition of exploring the letter of the law and sometimes undermining the spirit of the law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

Q Just to be clear though, challenge 25 means that if you look under 25, I will ask for your ID to see whether you are 18; it is not about being 25.

Vin Vara: From the ID you can work out their age. We say that 21 is a good age to challenge and to make as law, but the problem is that not all our members have the tools to verify—they do not have the ecosystems to challenge when you scan the barcodes. They still use the old tills. They and their staff need to be better trained on selling, which we are doing at the moment.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q Mr Wynn, you mentioned age verification and how the face-to-face encounter is more obvious. Which is the acceptable form of identification for retailers when they check age? In my experience of speaking to small businesses in my local area, there is a real challenge with fake IDs and what is an acceptable form of identification. If someone presents an international driving licence that states that they are the right age, sometimes a retailer will be forced to accept that, but a lot of those have turned out to be fake in the long run. Do you feel the legislation around that is strong? Do you feel like things need to be changed and that the acceptable form of identification needs to be dictated more strongly?

Vin Vara: Most people will produce a driving licence or a provisional licence, or young people will bring in a passport copy. There are not many other forms of ID. They bring bank and credit cards, but they do not verify their age, so we will tell members not to accept them. Something with a photo ID, date of birth and probably an address on it would help, but we need to standardise it. There are so many different types and, as you say, there are a lot of fakes out there.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q Is that a problem that you have?

Vin Vara: It is a major problem for us.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q Is there anything you wanted to add, Mr Wynn?

Graham Wynn: The list in the Bill relating to Scotland of the IDs that are acceptable under Scottish law are generally the ones that will be used in England and Wales, too: passport, driving licence, or the PASS card, as it is called, which will be linked to the Yoti system and other systems. There is another that escapes me. Those are the ones that would normally be used—ideally a driving licence or something like that because we do not want to encourage young people to carry their passports around.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q I understand that, but my question is that if someone does not supply the documents that you outlined—driving licence, provisional licence or passport—but they come up with something like a student card, what grounds do retailers have to challenge that and say that it seems fake?

Graham Wynn: There are none.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q They have to accept the student card, even if they think it is fake. Is that right?

Graham Wynn: They would not in a larger retailer; they would say, “I am sorry I cannot sell the goods to you,” because it is a question of being sacked, frankly.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Q But they are not backed by legislation to say, “This is against the law”?

Graham Wynn: No, but they have to apply due diligence so it is a matter of employment, contract and training for the person, and getting a criminal record.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Q Mr Wynn, you expressed a couple of concerns in a paper that was submitted to us. One is that you are not convinced that the arrangements for parcels supplied from overseas are watertight. Could you explain that concern?

Graham Wynn: It does not directly affect our members in that sense, but it is an observation. If a delivery company here has a contract with an overseas supplier or seller of these things, you can understand that it could be required in the contract that the seller advises the delivery company that there is a knife or corrosive substance. But in our view, it is quite possible to have an overseas supplier or seller who might be a small business in or outside the EU, who does not have to mark the parcel and puts it in the post. Customs would intercept it if it is an illegal import, but it may not be as such. The delivery company, the post office, or whoever it is, would not necessarily know that it was one of these articles that ought to be delivered to someone, or not to a residential address, or not to someone under 18. We think there is a gap there. The point of view from our members is that it could discredit the whole system if this becomes widely known. We would like to have more assurance that that is relatively watertight.