Violent Crime Reduction Bill

I, too, was extremely disappointed with the Opposition’s attempts to remove the mandatory five-year sentence. With a constituency such as mine, where we have a firearms-related incident every 17 days on average, the removal of such sentences would be absolutely detrimental to the good work that the police are doing in ensuring that gun crime is reduced. We should act responsibly when the Government introduce measures that will effectively save people’s lives and ensure that younger people do not take up guns because they know that doing so will carry a mandatory five-year sentence.