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Scotland Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who took part in what developed into a debate that was much more interesting than my introduction. From my experience in your Lordships' House, that did not surprise me. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who in one of his early interventions brought a degree of clarity that I had not managed to achieve to a point I had tried to make. I disagreed with some of his other interventions, but we will have an opportunity to debate the genesis and value of Calman at a later stage and in proper circumstances. However, in his most recent intervention he may well have pointed out where the problem lies in relation to a coherent approach to this. It is a matter of regret that we do not have a Home Office Minister at the Dispatch Box to respond to the debate. The story that lies behind this is that repeated incidents in Scotland of the nature of the tragic death that I referred to generated a desire to regulate air weapons. The noble Viscount, Lord Slim, pointed out very wisely from his informed background that air weapons are all potentially lethal. There was a discussion between those who represented the Scots, including Members of Parliament and the Home Office, which moved toward the possibility of regulation on a UK level, but then stopped. The frustration generated by the Home Office's unwillingness to proceed exacerbated the discontent in Scotland. An indication that something would be done was snatched away. The key difference is between weapons that are regulated and those that are not, because those that are not have the potential to be lethal and have been proven to be lethal in a number of cases. This has caused the Scottish people to say, ““We want our Parliament to have the power to do something about unregulated weapons and to regulate them””. That is the set of circumstances to which Calman responded. Far from having to look around for powers to devolve, the significant cross-party lobby for the regulation of air weapons in Scotland was waiting for the opportunity of Calman or something similar to articulate its arguments.