Violent Crime Reduction Bill

I welcome the Bill and I gain the sense that many of us have been sent here by our constituents because they want to know that someone will do something about the problem of violent crime and drunken yobbish behaviour. People are fed up with it and they want us to do something about it. I received a letter the other week from a constituent, Mr. Smith of Sunderton road. This elderly gentleman wrote me a letter that is probably similar to many that we all receive. He was particularly upset by a report in a newspaper that a bunch of yobs had attacked a funeral cortege. They actually managed to break the window of one of the vehicles carrying a group of 60-year-old ladies who were mourning a lost relative. Mr. Smith rightly asks in his letter what kind of world we are living in and how we can tolerate such behaviour. My answer is that we cannot and will not tolerate it, which is why we need the Bill. I particularly welcome the proposals for dealing with weapons in general and imitation guns in particular. Many people have campaigned for these measures: rank-and-file police officers throughout the country will be relieved; and the Police Federation will be relieved, as will officers in armed response units. We must recognise that we are in danger, as was mentioned earlier, of developing a fashion culture about guns, particularly among some of our young people for whom guns end up being a sort of fashion accessory. That is one of the reasons why we should be concerned about imitation weapons, which are becoming part of a violent and aggressive culture. That is one good reason for tackling them. I acknowledge that my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) expressed some concerns about the problem of imitation guns, but it cannot be an accident that imitation weapons are prohibited devices in Canada and that controls are in force against them in places as far and wide as Australia, Malta and the Netherlands. Even in gun-loving California, there are massive restrictions on imitation weapons. We are certainly doing the right thing in the Bill. I intervened on the Home Secretary earlier to say that without tackling the internet, the measures in the Bill would be virtually pointless. That may have been a slightly inappropriate choice of words, but I would say to Ministers that the effect of the Bill will be severely diluted if we do not tackle the availability of weapons on the internet. I was struck the other week when the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) wrote to eBay about the disgusting spectacle of Live 8 tickets, which were originally free, being traded for profit. The response was prompt and eBay closed it down. Would Ministers be prepared to write to the organisation about its trade in weapons in order to secure a similar response? I have some recent examples from the internet site, deactivated-weapons.co.uk. The problem is that we do not know whether those weapons are deactivated as there is no reliable test when they are put on the site. One can buy an MP40, an M4 carbine, a P38, a 226, which comes in a nice black, we are told, or a Chinese 7.6 rifle. Any kid can buy those guns on the net, so there is no point in taking steps to control weapons unless we tackle the internet business. I do not understand how we can have reached a situation where there are strict controls on reliable dealers yet people can flog anything they want on the internet. When they are tackled about that, they say that they are not actually responsible for the sale but that they merely facilitate the transaction. They certainly pocket the profit, which in some cases is massive, and it is often a profit on crime and death. I hope that I can persuade my right hon. and hon. Friends to reconsider the matter. Other Members have mentioned alcohol disorder zones. On balance, they are probably a good idea, although my preference is that people should be able to deal with the situation in a voluntary and co-operative way. I read a story today about Broad street, which is a large regeneration area in Birmingham city centre. By bringing together the police, the council, businesses and, interestingly, the hospital, money was raised to deploy extra police in the Broad street area. There have been two effects. The first is that crime has dramatically reduced. The police report that 18 months ago 40 per cent. of violent crime in the city centre occurred in the Broad street area. Due to that extra policing, the figure is now 10 per cent. Secondly, Broad street is bringing a large amount of money to Birmingham city centre. I am not as worried as the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) about constituents running to me bleating that the price of their house will be affected because we are tackling violent crime, but I agree that there could be problems about the way that the police and local authorities impose alcohol disorder zones. We must take care that we do not damage good regeneration initiatives by using such zones as a substitute funding mechanism. We should look at positive voluntary experiences and I hope that Ministers will reassure us that they will monitor the introduction of alcohol disorder zones so that problems do not arise. I want to make one more bid to my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench. As well as tackling violent crime, we must make it clear that we do not condone those who have been convicted of it. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety has been following the case of Mr. Lorworth Hoare, the convicted rapist who bought a lottery ticket when he was on weekend leave from his open prison and won £7 million. He has now left jail and it is reported that it costs about £10,000 a week to protect him. It is not much incentive to hard-pressed, decent, law-abiding citizens to know that money that could be spent on something else is being spent on protecting that rapist thug. Is there scope for an amendment whereby there would be an assessment of the services we provide for such people? A rapist worth £7 million who has to be protected by the police and probation services should be subject to a financial assessment so that we can recover some of those costs. If we cannot do that, why do not we simply keep him in prison? Then he will be perfectly safe—well he might not be, but he certainly would not cost us what we are paying at present. If we were to impose a financial assessment on that chap, the money could be channelled back to the victims of crime and on tackling other aspects of violent crime instead of wasting it on him.