Violent Crime Reduction Bill |
|
John Thurso: We come to part 2 of the Bill and the important questions of firearms control and legislation. I preface my remarks by saying that I abhor gun crime and the misuse of guns. The crime that comes from the misuse of guns in society is an evil that everybody on all sides of the Committee will want to combat. In the past I have supported legislation and I shall continue to support appropriate legislation. I also point out—this is possibly an interest that I am declaring—that I am a shotgun certificate holder and a firearms certificate holder. I have charge of a number of weapons that are used for a variety of legitimate purposes. As a legitimate gun owner, I welcome strong controls because they enable me to operate within the law and in a proper manner. Steve McCabe: I have a straightforward question. Will the hon. Gentleman, as a firearms certificate holder and the owner of a shotgun, tell me how one can unintentionally ask someone to look after one’s weapon? John Thurso: If I may continue to develop the argument, I intend to come to precisely that point. As a legitimate weapon user, I am concerned that when we come to legislate, we do so effectively and do not put forward legislation that has the unintentional consequence of depriving legitimate users of the ability to use their weapon, while failing to tackle those who would seek to use guns illegally. We must focus on illegal use. I am sure that there are many Members in the Committee who have been briefed on the availability of illegal weapons. Those weapons are not registered, nor are they part of the legal system, but they can be purchased. I have been briefed on the pistols, machine guns and all sorts of weapons that can be acquired openly in some areas. We must ensure that the legislation we pass achieves what we seek to achieve. I have just gone through the firearms certificate renewal process. I have had to obtain two referees and, as I am sure most members of the Committee will know, a report from my doctor. That was the difficult bit. I shall be interviewed by firearms officers in Thurso, who will visit the sites at which the weapons
The important point to which I wish to draw the Committee’s attention is that there is a great deal of legislation. Since I first held a certificate during the late 1960s and early 1970s, there has been a considerable mass of legislation and a lot of control now exists. Through the amendments, I am seeking to find out the Government’s thinking and work out whether we are overstepping the mark or whether we have got the balance right. Amendment No. 147 would insert the word “intentionally” into subsection (1)(a) so that it would read
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green asked me how it can be that one could do this unintentionally. It is actually very easily done, and I was very nearly guilty of it myself. When transporting a shotgun from A to B, a clay pigeon shoot or whatever, by car people are required to keep it in a locked boot—absolutely properly. If a person is travelling with a good friend and perfectly respectable person who does not have a shotgun certificate and at some point asks them to drive the car it may be, as nearly happened to me, that the person forgets that there is a weapon locked in the boot of the car. Under the clause, that person would have committed a crime. We have to consider what would happen, and we are looking at terms of imprisonment of not less than five years in some cases and not less than three in others. There is a great difference between someone who is actively engaged in criminal activity and almost certainly operating with an illegal weapon, who gets someone else deliberately to transport that weapon to another point so that they can commit a murder, stick-up or whatever, and a circumstance where a legitimate gun owner may find that he or she has broken the law. We have to be careful that we do not create criminals out of people who are striving to stay within the law; we must target the legislation at those who are deliberately flouting it. Mr. Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab): It is reassuring to see a blood and guts Liberal rather than the bleeding heart one we heard earlier. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the amendment were accepted, it would leave a loophole that any person engaged in a nefarious activity could use as an excuse? John Thurso: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his sweet words. I disagree with them, but we shall leave that for another occasion. Column Number: 169 I am not a lawyer, but I have spoken to friends with legal experience and there are a number of occasions in law where intention is required and is stated in a Bill. The concept of whether someone has intentionally done something or unintentionally allowed something to happen is accepted legally, so I see no reason why it cannot be accepted in this case. To reassure the hon. Gentleman, I am seeking to find out the Government’s thinking on the matter and if I am reassured by what the Minister says, I may well withdraw the amendment. Jim Sheridan: Picking up from what my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) said, the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the tragic death in Easterhouse in Glasgow of young Andrew Morton. The man who was charged with that murder is now claiming that he did not intend to shoot that child. That could end up being a loophole for him to get off. John Thurso: We have to make a distinction. I do not believe that he can get off. This point will come up later. If someone recklessly discharges a weapon in the way that he did, at the very least they will be guilty of manslaughter. I hope that, whatever the outcome of our deliberations, that person, who behaved—I hope I am not encroaching on something that is sub judice. The Chairman: Order. Hon. Members must tread carefully and be aware of the sub judice rule. We must not discuss ongoing judicial proceedings. I hope that hon. Members will bear that mind. 2.30 pmJohn Thurso: If there were a case in which someone had recklessly discharged a weapon and caused a death—such a case is particularly tragic if the death is of a toddler—I hope that the full weight of the law would be brought to bear and that they would receive an appropriate sentence. I do not think that I can go further in making my views plain. Amendments Nos. 148 and 149 are on the same lines. They would delete the phrase
from clause 24(2)(b) and replace them with the words
It is dangerous for legislators to set out in a Bill provisions relying on what is likely to involve, or lead to, something happening. We are asking for a judgment to be made prior to the commission of a crime. That worries me. The point could be reached when someone could be walking along the street and be arrested, for whatever reason. The policeman could say that he thought they were likely to go shoplifting. We should not pass legislation that involves making a judgment on the likelihood of someone committing a crime. The amendments focus on that and change the wording to specify that the person concerned intends to use the weapon in the commission of an offence. It might be argued that there is not a huge difference
All the clauses that we are soon to consider deal with matters that are extremely serious, whether replica guns or real guns are concerned. There are some legitimate uses of guns. People have a legitimate right to have collections. I know that the Government recognise that, and I am sure that we shall work together to reach the right balance. Our job now is to get the balance between those individuals who are exercising legitimate rights and those who seek to commit crime using weapons. I want, by means of the amendments, to test the Government’s intentions. Steve McCabe: The point that the hon. Gentleman raises is the nub of the debate. We agree about people engaged in deliberate activities, with illegal guns, but the hon. Gentleman is saying that someone with a firearms certificate or a rightful use for a gun is a responsible person who has passed all the tests, and that there should be a special allowance for such a person when they transgress—an extra test about intention. The reality is that someone who has failed to observe the rules has shown themselves not to be a responsible person holding a firearms certificate. We are entitled to demand a higher test. John Thurso: I am actually saying that there may be circumstances in which an individual who has gone through all the steps that I described and is a legitimate gun owner may find that they are in transgression of the new law. I do not think that that person would deserve five years in prison. Perhaps their firearms certificate should be removed; other punishments might be appropriate. It might simply be a caution that is required. There are more deaths in a month in my constituency from dangerous driving than there have been in a decade from gun crime. I happen to live in one of the safest areas of the United Kingdom so far as gun crime is concerned, but the area commander in Rosshire recently told me about the number of deaths caused by the misuse of cars. I do not place a different value on a life that is taken by a gun from one taken by a car; that would be utterly spurious. Anyone who causes a death by whatever means should be dealt with properly under the law. Driving offences, however, have been separated into bigger breaches and minor breaches. We want there to be education as well as enforcement, and we are trying to achieve that in the Road Safety Bill. We give people the right not to acquire statutory penalties, but to go on speeding courses instead. That is the minor end of the spectrum. The point that I am trying to make is that some gun crime offences might similarly be at the minor end of the spectrum within the total range of laws, and it is not right that we should have sentencing that puts people away for five years for committing such a crime. Yet that is possible. I hope that a judge would use the discretion that is granted, but we all know of cases in which that did not happen. Column Number: 171 The debate is important to ensure that we get the balance right between legitimate use and deliberately setting out to commit a crime of murder or aggression. Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman compares gun crime to dangerous driving in the sense that both can cause loss of life. Does he accept that the problem with gun crime in areas such as the one that I represent is that it entails not only loss of life, but a whole culture and way of life that corrodes the community and the lives of very many people? That is why the Government are introducing this legislation. John Thurso: I am happy to agree. I know the amount that the hon. Lady has done to combat such crime and I am sure that she would agree that much of the problem is caused not by legitimate owners of weapons or even by weapons that have been stolen from the legitimate gun-owning community, but by gang members with an Uzi or a pistol, which are illegal in this country but are regularly smuggled in. The Bill will not deal with the problem to which she refers, whatever we do, although the clause would catch someone who is already committing the offence of illegally possessing a firearm and getting someone else to transport it for them. I also agree that a certain culture has sadly developed in our society. There is a long debate, which we will not have today, about where it might have come from and about the influence of the media, film, television, and all sorts of other things. She is absolutely right that that culture is extremely worrying, but it is found among criminal elements, not among the legitimate gun-owning community. That separation can be made. This is an important debate and I am sure that we shall return to it. I would be grateful if the Minister will respond to our questions so that we can see how the Government are thinking. Mr. Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con): I declare my interest as the owner of an air rife and a shotgun licence. I am also a member of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, which has had a lot of input in the Bill. The amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friends would give us the chance to consider in detail some of the problems with this part of the Bill. I shall show that many of the controls on firearms in the UK are represented by a series of haphazard and disjointed laws that unfortunately create anomaly after anomaly. Part 2 does not sort out those anomalies; instead, it builds on a series of extra burdens and administration problems without offering anything substantive in the fight against violent crime generally or gun crime specifically. I should like to highlight the inconsistencies and show that, in places, the Government have not only reversed their position but ignored their own advice, not to mention ignoring a large amount of existing legislation. It is impossible to debate new laws controlling weapons without doing so in the context of existing laws. I have counted some 42 offences relating to weapons, and a further 17 relating to passes and
In May 2004, the Home Office published “Controls On Firearms—A Consultation Paper”, commissioned by the Government. Astoundingly, the Government have not yet responded to that consultation. They have undertaken a full review, but have not published a response. Are they ignoring the findings of that review? We do not know because they have not said. Surely, any legislation should take into account that review. Changes to firearms and weapons legislation affecting more than 1 million sportsmen and women, plus the owners of up to 7 million air weapons and 30 million imitation weapons, should be soundly based on evidence, not on a perceived need to be seen to be doing something in reaction to a handful of criminal events. The Home Office’s website states that
The Home Office’s regulatory impact assessment on the amendment to firearms legislation specifies that there were some 4,371 responses to that May 2004 consultation. However, the Opposition have so far seen nothing. In fact, I recently submitted a Freedom of Information Act request, which elicited the entirely unsatisfactory response from the Minister that there will be a review by 8 November. By that time this Committee will be long gone. This is too little, too late, and adds further weight to our grave concerns about the basis of this part of the Bill. Surely the review should come before the new amendment just lobbed in by the Minister without a word of explanation to ban the sale of air weapons except through registered firearms dealers. Doubtless, those 4,371 consultation responses represented many hours spent by sportsmen and collectors contributing to the review, and contained many valid views and concerns. Why have they been ignored and why have we been banned from seeing them? The Chairman: Order. I have allowed the hon. Gentleman to range widely so far, but I am becoming a little concerned that he has not yet got round to addressing the clause or the amendment. At this stage, I would ask him to concentrate his remarks on the group of amendments that we are considering. Mr. Djanogly: Thank you, Mr. Forth. The background information is important because it is relevant to nearly every clause in this part of the Bill. My main point is that if we do not know what people think, how can we proceed today? I hope that the Committee will allow me briefly to summarise the point that I was making. The Government went to consultation in 2004, then did nothing for a year, then disbanded the firearms consultative committee, then announced a new firearms consultative committee, which has not yet been formed, and finally they introduced this
2.45 pmClause 24 relates to the new offence of using someone to mind a weapon. The purpose is to make it an offence to use other people to hide or carry dangerous weapons intended for unlawful use. This is a welcome clause, and one with which we are in general agreement, save for the fact that some definitions must be tightened. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) gave an example of how, in practice, mistakes are possible, and the clause is too unbending. I would like to give the Minister another example. There are rules about how long I could store my shotgun in someone else’s gun cabinet before its removal to a new cabinet would require notification to the police and a statement on the shotgun certificate. I appreciate that the clause contains a requirement for there to be an unlawful purpose. However, it is clear that if the unlawful purpose includes non-notification of storing a gun in a cabinet for, say, a day, the mandatory prison term would be totally inappropriate. In effect, the clause raises practical implications that have not been thought through, and I would like the Government’s assurance that they will be considered. I support the probing amendments. The purpose of amendment No. 147 is to add clarity and certainty to a clause that creates a new criminal offence. The amendment would prevent injustices that may result from the unintended consequences of loosely drafted legislation. Given the mandatory sentences in clause 25 that apply to the offence, the insertion of “intentionally” would reinforce the requirement of criminal intent in the unlikely, but not impossible, event that another person is looking after, hiding or transporting a dangerous weapon unbeknown to the offender. The purpose of amendments Nos. 148 and 149 is to add clarity by removing the ambiguity involved in the phrase
in line 24 and adding the far more certain words
Those words would tighten the clause and confirm the requirement of criminal intent suggested by the use of “unlawful purpose”. The words
are too broad and woolly, and could cause difficulties in enforcement and interpretation. It is critical to the operation and enforcement of criminal law that there is certainty, and such phrases are best avoided. Amendment No. 185 is also intended to add clarity. It would remove the words Column Number: 174
from line 15. That expression is open to much interpretation and is best left out. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s comments. Hazel Blears: I am delighted to welcome the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) to this part of the Bill. Clearly, he is an experienced shooter and possesses weapons himself. I acknowledge that I am probably more of an expert on alcohol than on shooting, so I look forward to many interesting discussions with him over the detail of the Bill. I want to make it clear that we are dealing with the Violent Crime Reduction Bill and addressing our minds to the misuse, not legitimate use, of guns. I entirely accept that we must always be conscious that many people use guns in a perfectly responsible way. We are aiming at the minority of people who use guns in an unlawful or irresponsible way. Their guns can have an absolutely devastating impact on communities, as has been illustrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) in this debate and in many of the campaigns she has undertaken. I have met people who have been the victims of gun crime, and no experience can be more traumatic or devastating. We are discussing the misuse of guns. As in the previous section when we discussed the misuse of alcohol, we recognise that 95 per cent. of people do things properly. The Bill is aimed at mischiefs, and it is important that we always have that in mind. Amendment No. 147 would introduce an express requirement for an element of intent in using another person to look after a weapon. Inserting the word “intent” would add nothing to the drafting. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green asked, how can one use something without intent? It is tautology to seek to insert the word “intent”, because one cannot use someone inadvertently. John Thurso: We genuinely want this Bill to reach the statute book, so this is not about opposing the legislation, but about ensuring that it is right. The Minister talks about using a person; will she expand on that point? It may be that someone who uses a person deliberately sets out to do something, but does she contend that the drafting satisfies what I seek, which is a sort of test of intent? Hazel Blears: If the hon. Gentleman considers the whole of clause 24(1), he will see that the first limb of the offence, in paragraph (a), is that someone uses somebody else to
and the second limb, in paragraph (b), is that they do so under arrangements
Both limbs must be fulfilled. If someone uses someone else to hide a weapon, they must intend that that is what they will do. That is the element of intent that I am trying to explain. If one uses someone to carry one’s bag, one must intend that they will carry the bag; if one uses someone to hide one’s gun, one must intend that they will hide it or look after it. We then come to
The hon. Member for Huntingdon made another point about unlawful purpose. One must use another person, and there must be an unlawful purpose. Those two limbs should, we hope, be enough. John Thurso: I am grateful and apologise to the Committee for going into this in a little detail, but I think that we can resolve the matter. If I understood the Minister’s point, it was that someone must set out to use someone else, so in the scenario that I brought up, in which someone unintentionally left a weapon in a car, they would not have used anybody, and that satisfies my point. If that is the case, this will be an extremely useful dialogue if there is ever a Pepper v. Hart requirement in relation to the Bill. Hazel Blears: What I have established is that if one inadvertently let someone else drive one’s car with a weapon in it, that would not be for an unlawful purpose, so the test in paragraph (b) would not be fulfilled. Amendment No. 185 seeks to remove from paragraph (b) the second scenario—that the weapon is intended to be used for an unlawful purpose—which would reduce its effect. Amendments Nos. 148 and 149 would make it more difficult successfully to prosecute offenders for using other people to mind weapons for them. The clause requires that the minding of the weapon would facilitate the weapon being available for an unlawful purpose. In many cases, the mere possession of the weapon by the offender would be such a purpose, because possession of an illegal weapon is clearly unlawful, so it would not need to be used in a further unlawful act, as its mere possession would be sufficient to complete the offence. If one gives such a weapon to another person to look after for them, an offence is committed in the round. The introduction of the mandatory five-year sentence for carrying illegal firearms has, in many cases, changed the behaviour of people who habitually carry such firearms. They know that if they are caught with such a weapon in their possession, they will go to prison for five years, so they increasingly use other people to hide and transport them, because they think they will then escape the mandatory sentence. The huge rise in offences involving imitation weapons also shows that the mandatory sentence has affected people’s behaviour. The use of real weapons is going down. Our latest crime statistics, released today, show that the use of shotguns and handguns has gone down and the use of imitation weapons has risen. People are changing their behaviour as a result of the measures, and it is becoming quite common for people to use others to hide their weapons. Indeed, there is an growing issue with people using children to hide weapons, in the hope that they can evade responsibility for their actions. If we took out the reference to weapons being Column Number: 176
as the hon. Member for Huntingdon wants, it would be more difficult for prosecutions to succeed, because we would tighten the tests in the Bill and water down the clause’s effectiveness at a time when, as I said, passing weapons has become almost commonplace. We are trying to cover a range of scenarios in our fight against violent crime, because criminals often change their behaviour as a result of the provisions that we introduce. We must therefore have a wide enough definition to deal with the behaviour that our law is aimed at. I hope that hon. Members feel that we have identified a real mischief here. In many of our communities, people are hiding lethal weapons—often with children—and we seek to ensure that they cannot evade the full force of the law by this subterfuge. The provisions are not aimed at the decent, law-abiding majority who have proper certificates for their firearms and who act responsibly. There is a real mischief here, which needs to be dealt with properly and firmly so that people do not evade the law or their responsibility for actions that can be devastating for many of our communities. I therefore ask hon. Members not to press their amendments. |
| |
| ©Parliamentary copyright 2005 | Prepared 21 October 2005 |