---

Violent Crime Reduction Bill

My noble friend has shown admirable persistence in bringing this amendment forward for debate. He mentioned that he raised this matter in March 2002. That was a couple of months before I found myself put into my current job in home affairs. I recall taking part in a debate after that, on 29 October during consideration of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, when my noble friend tabled the same amendment. We had another debate, but on each occasion the Government did not give him a satisfactory response, so I hope the Minister will be able to give a much better reply today. As my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury has said, firearms used for illegal purposes are the scourge of our generation. We talked earlier about the legal use of firearms, and particularly about the legal and sensible use of air weapons. Now we are considering the entirely different matter of the use of illegal firearms on our streets by criminals, often drugs and trafficking gangs, who certainly have no regard for their own trading enemies and little, if any, regard for the safety of the public on the street. So I do think that my noble friend Lord Marlesford was right to table his amendment. If the Government accept it, as I hope they will, they will have the opportunity to put on the statute book a provision that has clarity of purpose. That can only improve our current position.