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Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

I did not wish to cause the Minister personal offence. The point that I was trying to make was that when there was an outbreak of public concern about gun crime and the Prime Minister called a ““gun summit”” at No. 10 Downing street, and legislation on gun crime went through the House in various criminal justice Bills to put in place a mandatory five-year sentence, the overall effect of that range of activity was to convey to the public that the Government were tough on crime and, by implication, that the other parties in the House were less tough on crime. I was making the point that legislation is not always brought before the House with the intention of trying to make the laws of the land more effective; it is there for presentational purposes and to have an ““eye-catching”” approach, as the Prime Minister put it. Quite often, it does not actually work in practice.