Offensive Weapons Bill

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th January 2019 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Viscount Craigavon]

8: Clause 1, page 2, line 23, leave out “to” and insert “and”
Member’s explanatory statement
This is a paving amendment for the amendment tabled at page 4, line 23. Together both amendments seek to exclude objects such as car and motorcycle batteries from the definition of a corrosive product in section 3 to allow for their continued delivery to residential premises.

[Viscount Craigavon (CB)]

My Lords, of the two amendments in this group, both in my name, the first is a paving amendment to Amendment 18, in Clause 3, which has the heading, “Delivery of corrosive products to residential premises etc”. Clause 3 would carry on the same definition of corrosive products, but my Amendment 18 would allow for an excepted class of product, of which an example is motorcycle and car batteries. The amendment is solely to deal with their delivery to residential premises.

While fully and obviously agreeing with this Bill providing sweeping protection from the misuse of corrosive products, I hope the Government will recognise that unintended consequences—on quite a scale—could occur in the particular case that I am setting out. I hope that the Minister will not want this Bill to disadvantage or even punish an important section of the population, when, by accepting this amendment, a perfectly safe resolution can be achieved.

The wording of my main amendment might appear to be rather obscure, but it is, with reason, copied from what is successfully used in the Poisons Act, as amended. The clue is in the wording: I have narrowed its scope and restricted it to just one of the nine substances listed in Schedule 1, sulfuric acid. It applies to objects containing sulfuric acid, which will usually, but not exclusively, be batteries.

In making my case here I will concentrate on car and motorcycle batteries, in particular the latter category, which would be most affected by an unamended Bill. We are talking mainly about the delivery to residential premises of such batteries. I declare my interest in this matter as a frequent motorcyclist and a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Motorcycling. The Motorcycle Industry Association has picked up the potential problem: the present extensive online sale of motorcycle batteries to individual customers at their residential address would simply be unable to continue were this Bill to pass unamended.

I use the example of motorcycle batteries but this would apply to car batteries and other such sulfuric acid battery users. However, motorcycle batteries are produced and designed in small sizes, to fit particular specialisations and models, unlike car batteries, which are fairly standard and interchangeable and some of which can be bought sealed with a lifetime guarantee. I know to my cost that motorcycle batteries, which are normally sealed, have to be frequently replaced in the normal course of things, and then by the exact shape and power of battery that each machine requires. They are much more prone to failure and the effects of the cold and normally have to be replaced every two or three years. I say all that to emphasise the need of motorcycle owners to obtain ordinary and specialist batteries on a regular and speedy basis, specified for their machines.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, for raising this important issue. Before joining your Lordships’ House, I was warned that I would be surrounded by world experts on almost every topic and this short debate has reinforced that view.

The noble Viscount’s amendment seeks to address the potential that the provisions in Clauses 1 to 4 will have unintended consequences for suppliers of car and motorcycle batteries and, as the noble Viscount pointed out, other batteries which contain acid, for example those used in mobility scooters. I agree that this is an important point. Noble Lords may be assured that, in the light of discussions we have had with the representatives of the industry, the Government are carefully considering the impact that the Bill may have on the sale and delivery of such batteries. We remain committed to preventing young people from getting hold of acid in a form that they can use in the sort of horrific attacks that we have seen. But I agree with my noble friend Lord Goschen that it is quite a different matter to prevent the sale or delivery of car batteries and the like to those who have a legitimate need for them.

I ask the noble Viscount to bear with us a little longer. The Government need a little more time to consider how best to meet the point without impacting on the purpose of the Bill. I fully expect that we will have completed this work ahead of Report when I hope we will be able to reach a satisfactory conclusion. Given this assurance, I ask the noble Viscount to withdraw his amendment to give the Government further time to consider this issue.

[Viscount Craigavon]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the spirit of that reply and to all noble Lords who have spoken in support. There is a genuine problem, which I outlined. It is useful to know that the Government are discussing this and coming up with some sort of answer because it has to be dealt with. I think it can be dealt with. I deal with it also under Clause 3. The Minister mentioned Clauses 2 to 4. I hope this can be dealt with. I am grateful for her answer. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Craigavon (CB)]

My Lords, as I moved the original amendment in Committee, I will intervene first. I am grateful to the Government and the Minister for coming up with these amendments, which give me and the people I am interested in more than I asked for. That is a very good start. The wording is much clearer and more elegant than that of the amendment I tabled at the previous stage, which I described as “rather obscure”. The key phrase, which will be totally intelligible to anyone reading the Act is:

“References to a corrosive product … do not include a substance or product which is contained in a battery”.


I am grateful to the Government for coming up with that simple phrase.

I am also grateful to noble Lords who supported me in Committee and for all the lobbying which must have been going on outside Parliament. I support this amendment.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I will probe whether the amendment fully does what the Government intend on one or two points, and look at the issues surrounding wet batteries. I declare an interest as a farmer with numerous occasions to use batteries, both in vehicles and outside them. When I first read the amendment I was surprised. Noble Lords will be aware that Schedule 1 says that sulphuric acid is permitted if it is under 15% concentration. Batteries are 32%, so they contain a very corrosive substance. I recognise the problem raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, in Committee and with the Government, for those who sell batteries. The Bill mainly tries to deal with the remote ordering and delivery of weapons and corrosive substances. By their very nature, batteries are unlikely to be sold remotely—they are normally sold in a face-to-face meeting—but it is still worth looking at what the law requires to police that.

From what the Minister said a minute ago, the new phrasing means that Clause 1(1) will not be implemented for the sale of batteries. Does this mean that anybody under 18 will be able to buy a battery, or do the Government wish to prohibit those under 18 buying wet batteries? I can also see that, in everyday use, issues might arise with Clause 6(2). How would you get around someone using a car for social or, particularly, recreational purposes having to prove that they have a good reason or lawful authority for having a battery with them? With any luck, the Government’s wording will cover that.

There is a danger in the phrasing of the clause excepting sulphuric acid in a battery. Somebody might contend that they were allowed to extract the acid from the battery and carry it as a weapon. Would the Minister wish to address this at a later stage? Rather than saying,

“product which is contained in a battery”,

should the amendment say, “product while contained in a battery”? You could, admittedly, say that extracting the acid was a stupid thing to do, but you never know what interpretation people will put on these things.

Clause 6(1) refers to having a corrosive substance in a public place. The Bill does define what constitutes a public place: in Scotland, particularly, it is anything other than a private residence. My concern is, perhaps, slightly wide of the immediate issue but will this clause entail that ordinary garages or agricultural engineers, which usually have a site for monitoring and recharging batteries, will be required to install that in a secure room, so that no member of the public can access the liquid while visiting the premises and find themselves in possession of a corrosive substance in a public place?