In answer to the point made by the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), that this measure has been pushed by the Labour Opposition, I say that success has many fathers and failure has none. I refer him to my private Member’s Bill of 2016, on the regulation of sales, ownership and illegal use of laser pens. The Bill was intended to make
“the sale, ownership and use of portable laser emitting devices with output power of more than 1 milliwatt unlawful in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.”
At that time, having looked at the matter since 2014, I was grateful to the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), and to my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), whom it is a pleasure to follow today. During that time he was a Transport Minister and then a Home Office Minister, and I had discussions with him about addressing the misuse of laser pens. More recently I have had discussions with Business Ministers, because the issue of the misuse of lasers goes across the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Defence. I have therefore spoken to and worked with a raft of Ministers to find a coherent strategy to address the misuse of laser pens.