Violent Crime Reduction Bill

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, for the way in which he has dealt with the amendment. As all speakers have acknowledged, almost with one voice, it is a very sensitive issue. Nearly all speakers have taken us back to the events of 1996 and the Firearms (Amendment) Act of 1997 which followed. The issue was quite properly raised at Second Reading by a number of noble Lords. They pointed to the considerable success that our shooters achieved at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. We confirmed then, as we have done on many previous occasions, that pistol shooting events can, of course, go ahead at the 2012 London Olympics without the need for changes to legislation. Instead, we would use the Home Secretary’s powers under Section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968 to authorise competitors and officials to possess competition pistols for the duration of the games and for special warm-up events. Those arrangements worked very well for the Manchester Commonwealth Games but, if there are any lessons to be learnt, we are happy to consider how we might fine tune what was done last time. My noble friend Lady Scotland made it clear that we would be discussing with colleagues at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport what arrangements should be made to allow squads to practise in Great Britain in advance of the games and this we are doing. I am happy to confirm all of this again today but I have to say that we are not persuaded that we need to change the legislation in the way in which the new clause before us proposes.