My Lords, I thank the Minister for the attention to detail he has given and for responding so fully to what has been an interesting debate. I am intrigued by some of the comments. My noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey perhaps hit the nail on the head in trying to bring the debate back to the intent of my amendment.
In some ways, I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Deben and Lord Marland, that you cannot legislate out crime, but I am not pretending for one second that by passing this amendment there would never be another incident. You could make that argument for any provision in the Bill. You could argue that you should not have legislation on anti-social behaviour because that will not get rid of it or that you should not have legislation to evict people for riot offences because that will not stop all rioting. That is not an argument for not bringing forward legislation that can make a difference.
The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, hit the nail on the head. You have to legislate with facts—not in haste. What we are seeking is to ensure the police have the powers they need. I take the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about the importance of background checks. Yes, we understand that, and we know that background checks are made. I made this point very clearly in my comments on Michael Atherton’s application, where the licensing officer would have liked to refuse because of evidence of domestic violence—he had received a caution. The licensing officer would have liked to refuse, but for various reasons the police may come back and say, “We do not think we can”. When we read that it has cost Hampshire police thousands of pounds when licences have been challenged, we realise that there is a case here.
The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said that a decision must be taken on its merits, and that is exactly what the police are seeking to do. They want to take decisions
on their merits, but there is a fear of legal action. The amount of discretion offered means they could be challenged. In the Michael Atherton case, three people were murdered with a legally held shotgun despite a previous caution for—and therefore substantive evidence of—domestic violence. It is worth nothing that after this case the IPCC said that there has to be legislation alongside guidance.
I do not accept the Minister’s comments. It is not a matter of having evidence but of giving the police the tools they need to act on the evidence they have. That is what the legislation at present does not do. I am grateful to the Minister for his comments, but I do not share his confidence that there is no legislation that could be brought forward to protect the public. The public will be absolutely horrified to know that, where there is evidence of violent behaviour or domestic violence, people can be legally allowed to have firearms. That is quite shocking and I am surprised that it is being defended by noble Lords.
I am sure that when checks were undertaken on the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Marland, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, no evidence was found of violence in their backgrounds, so they were happily given a licence. But there are many people who are not like the noble Lords and who do need to have some checks and balances.