Violent Crime Reduction Bill

I am grateful to the noble Earl for his contribution and to the noble Baroness for her questions. The noble Earl did not actually argue against the specifics of the clause; this debate is more a convenient point at which to air his understandable concerns and frustrations at the fruits of the consultation. It is true that we received a very large response to the consultation. There were around 4,500 submissions, many of which were very comprehensive. I can confirm that they have all been read and analysed. I can also confirm that we are giving very careful consideration to how to proceed and that we intend to produce a summary of responses. The clue to the difficulty, if difficulty there be, is that we received 4,500 submissions. There is a great deal of interest in this, and pulling together a summary and conducting the analysis has been very complex. I make no apology for the fact that we are taking our time over it, although it is regrettable that we have to move on and address some of the lacunae that exist in firearms legislation before we have been able to produce an analysis and summary of the points that were produced by the consultation. I take it as axiomatic that we have a duty as a Government to act when there is an apparent problem. It is always better, neater and more convenient to do these things in one space, at one point, but we must recognise that there are current and live issues that need to be dealt with. In particular, the increased use of imitation firearms for the purposes of criminal activity, on which we have statistics, means that we need to place restrictions generally on their availability. One can always criticise consultation. It is never perfect, but we have tried to be honest and open in the way in which we have approached this. We have also tried to ensure that there was the maximum opportunity for people to make responses. The noble Baroness asked for a timetable. I cannot give her one across the Dispatch Box but I will talk to our officials and try to get a clearer idea so that we can provide some sort of timetable if at all possible. I will happily write to the noble Baroness and others who are involved in this debate, particularly the noble Earl, to ensure that they are kept informed of how we intend to proceed regarding the outcome of the review.