Violent Crime Reduction Bill

25 Oct 2005

Ms Diane Abbott: The debate has been dominated by the interests of hobbyists, businessmen and historical re-enactors. Therefore, it would not be right to let the debate pass without putting on the record the policy context of this important clause.

Although, in common with other Committee members, I have received dozens upon dozens of letters from business people, hobbyists and historical re-enactors, I have not of course received any letters from the thousands of my constituents who have woken up on a Monday morning to see the police incident boards that tell them that yet another shooting has taken place at the end of their road. I have not received any letters from the people who have been injured by drive-by shootings or by accidental shootings at nightclubs and parties. I have not received any letters from mothers who every Saturday night cannot sleep until they know that their children have returned safely from such parties or nightclubs. Above all, I have not received any letters from those mothers and parents from Hackney—and from communities throughout the country—who have had to do what a parent should never have to do, which is to bury their child who has been killed as a consequence of gun crime. It is to speak to those letters unwritten, and those issues untouched on by Opposition Members, that I rise to speak.

Jeremy Wright: Does the hon. Lady accept that it must be possible to draft legislation that deals with the perfectly legitimate concerns she is raising, yet also protects the legitimate interests of those people mentioned by Opposition Members?

Ms Abbott: Of course I do. I think the Government are genuinely trying to do that in their amendments. Until now, the debate has been one-sided, and the hon. Gentleman must accept that on behalf of my constituents and of people who live in Harlesden, Manchester and Birmingham. It would be wrong not to put on the record the concerns of all the people throughout the country who have suffered from gun crime and to put the clause into some sort of context.

The first thing to say is that we as a Government and a society have come a long way on gun crime. It may be a new issue to some Committee members, but it has been an issue in Hackney for 10 or 15 years. I well remember a new chief superintendent in Stoke Newington coming to ask me about what issues he should take up. When I said to him that as a black person, mother and member of the community, I was concerned by the increasing number of anecdotes about young people who went out for a night’s clubbing with a gun as a style accessory and about young people not necessarily firing guns, but showing them as part of their interaction as gang members, that chief superintendent said to me, “Well, they are not using them on my men, so it’s not my problem, is it?”

I am sorry to say that there was a time when the assumption was that because black people were shooting other black people—as some policemen used to put it, “bad on bad”—gun crime was not of wider concern. However, I am glad to say that the Metropolitan police has moved on and I commend the work of Trident and policemen up and down the country. I am glad to say that the Government have moved on; I commend them for their efforts to raise the penalties for carrying a gun and for this important clause, which will make imitations illegal.

I have heard much from Opposition Members about historical re-enactments, and I have nothing against hobbyists. However, let me remind Opposition Members of the views of the police. For some time, the Police Federation has been of the opinion that a complete ban on imitations must be part of any serious war against gun crime. Let me cite what was said at the Association of Chief Police Officers annual conference in Birmingham. Deputy chief constable Alan Green said that the problem of imitations must not be ignored. He went on to say,

    “I feel the service is going to be in the dock for having shot some young person . . . The threat from imitation firearms isn’t that of slight injuries to young people, it is that you are likely to shoot someone at the age of 13 in the not too distant future. The service will then have to answer some serious questions about what we’ve done to tackle gun crime.”

Given that the policemen at the sharp end of the fight against gun crime are so clear about the importance of banning imitations and so insistent about the problems that imitations bring—when faced with a gun, they do not know whether it is imitation or real and fear that children might be shot—I am surprised that Opposition Members take the issue so lightly.

Mr. Prisk: The hon. Lady is making a powerful and passionate presentation, and rightly so. This issue is crucial and the former attitude of the police that she described was disgraceful. I share her pleasure in seeing that it has changed. However, does she not accept that at the heart of this issue—whether we are talking about imitations or other things—is the culture that underlies it, and that the guns are merely totemic of that?

Ms Abbott: That opinion is comfortable for people who want to protect the interests of those who shoot for fun—hobbyists or whoever. However, there is no question but that, serious as the gun crime problem is in this country, it makes up only a fraction of that in the United States because we have much stricter, firmer regulations on the use and possession of guns.

What we do about the availability of guns—legal or illegal—the imitations and the hardware has a bearing on the number of people caught up in violent incidents and, ultimately, shot. This is not the time nor the place to talk about the gun culture of some of the young people walking the streets of our city, but I tell the hon. Gentleman this: what was described in the past as a black youth culture approach to gun crime is bleeding—I use the metaphor advisedly—out to other communities.

In Hackney, there are issues with Turkish gun crime, and in the west midlands, Asian youngsters have guns, so let us not talk only about youth culture, but turn again to the hardware. The problem in London is that more than half the weapons seized by the police are converted replicas. I do not want to inconvenience people who want to dress up as cavaliers or world war two soldiers, but that problem is why the amendment has been tabled.

Opposition Members will say, “But the weapons are replicas after all, so what harm can they do?” Well, as I said earlier, the amount of criminal offences involving imitation firearms has rocketed by 66 per cent. The most important fact, and why the police are concerned, is that it is almost impossible to distinguish many imitation weapons from real weapons. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green explained about her work at the Metropolitan Police Authority and said how, when she saw guns—imitation and real—side by side, she could not tell the difference. How is a policeman to tell?

One reason why the police have campaigned on the issue for so long—apparently unheard by Opposition Members—is that they are frightened. When they are called to an incident at which there is a young man with a gun in his hand, how are they to know whether it is real or imitation? We have heard the public furore on all sides of the political debate about the unfortunate shooting of the Brazilian at Stockwell. What would the public say if a 13-year-old was shot because he was carrying an imitation gun that looked too much like a real weapon?

Replica guns are responsible for a substantial proportion of United Kingdom gun crimes. Many of the guns are converted readily at low cost into lethal weapons. We believe that stemming the flow of imitation and replica firearms could have a positive impact on reducing the number of people who die or are injured by firearms. Replica guns put policemen under pressure. It costs thousands of pounds each month for armed policeman to be called out to incidents when it turns out that the gun involved was only a replica. Moreover, the wide availability of replica weapons strengthens the argument for the police to be armed routinely, which neither the police nor I want. It would simply escalate issues on the ground in the communities.

Reference has been made to toys. I do not think children should be using guns as toys. I shall refer to an incident that happened last week: four handguns—two of which were loaded—and a pump-action shotgun, and more than 60 rounds of ammunition, were found hidden in a children’s bedroom. That is the sort of culture that I want to stamp out in my community. Children should not be inducted into the gun culture by being encouraged or allowed to have imitation weapons. An early interest in guns, which may take the form of imitation guns, might lead young people into the illegal market of real handguns. Those guns are currently being carried as a fashion accessory, and failure to ban imitation guns would send out completely the wrong message.

It is inevitable in such a Committee that we deal with detail. It is the proper role of Opposition Members to query Ministers about details and to tease out the thinking behind those details. However, it would be wrong for a Member of Parliament who represented an area such as mine, which has one of the highest levels of death by guns and one of the highest levels of gun crime in the country, not to draw the Committee’s attention from the detail to the reality that the clause is designed to address. I have campaigned for a long time for a ban on imitation guns, and I welcome the clause. I certainly believe that it should stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Djanogly: The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) made a moving and thoughtful speech. It is proper to recognise that she has contributed greatly to the debate on gun crime and that she has, indeed, spoken out against it. However, that is not an adequate reason to pass bad law, and we have great worries about the clause.



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