Mr Jerry Wiggin: It has been the practice of the Select Committee on Agriculture, since I had the honour to become its Chairman in 1987, from time to time to examine major sectors of the agriculture industry. It had been clear for some years that we should undertake an inquiry into the dairy industry, but we felt it right to await the ending of the Milk Marketing Board's statutory monopoly before proceeding....
Mr Jerry Wiggin: The amendment, which appeared at the 11th hour, appears to someone such as myself—I am not qualified as a barrister—to give sweeping powers to the Home Secretary. I have, however, been given an absolute undertaking that it refers only to the transition period and will help to smooth out minor irregularities and problems. Bearing in mind the fact that there are those in the shooting...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: The argument seems to revolve very much around precedent. I am not a lawyer, but I am advised that the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 offers not only compensation in general but compensation for anticipated profit. The national compensation code deals with local authorities and Governments acquiring land, property or businesses and is being applied to businesses required to relocate or...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: On a technical point, is my right hon. Friend predicting that there will be a charge for that permission? The chief constable will have to give his permission, and presumably there will be some bureaucracy. Is there any suggestion of a charge being made? What is the initial cost of a firearms certificate, at the end of the 28 days?
Mr Jerry Wiggin: It would be churlish not to thank the Government for accepting the principle. Had the amendment not been made, it would have been virtually impossible for anyone wanting to take up shooting to do so without spending a great deal of money—the amount of which we shall no doubt hear later—to get a firearms certificate from scratch and without trying the sport. I sympathise with the hon....
Mr Jerry Wiggin: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Time is short, and it is just conceivable that the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) is speaking to a different amendment from the one we are discussing. We should like to hear the Minister's response. I think the hon. Gentleman mentioned Lords amendment No. 2, which we are not discussing.
Mr Jerry Wiggin: Perhaps I shall not be out of order if I refer briefly to the comments of the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman). I am sorry for interrupting him in the last few seconds of the previous debate. I fully understand the hon. Gentleman's concern. The shooting fraternity will have taken notice of the incident that he has mentioned, and will want to take security measures to...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will it be possible to have separate votes on Lords amendment Nos. 25 and 27?
Mr Jerry Wiggin: My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary presented one of the worst cases for an amendment that I have heard in the House, but the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) made an even worse case. As the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) said earlier, when those who sit on the Front Benches get together, let the citizens beware. That has never been more...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: I suppose that, remarkably, the Snowdrop poll was in no way organised. The truth is that the moment a poll is not agreed with, everyone rushes to a conclusion on why there should be some inaccuracy in it. On the hon. Gentleman's point about the "Today" programme, the e-mail message had been placed on the Internet a quarter of an hour after the poll closed. He may believe that shooters are so...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: I am beginning to wonder if some of my colleagues in the debate have been in the House for only five minutes. Have hon. Members never received letters threatening not to vote for us? I should imagine that almost every day I receive a letter saying that someone will not vote for me for one reason or another. That has been going on for a good few years, and they still send such letters....
Mr Jerry Wiggin: As the hon. Member for Stockton, North said, if the amendment were to be accepted, the weapon would never be whole except in a licensed rifle club. Among the various bits and pieces that have been sent to me, I received a copy of a cutting from the News of the World. It claimed—perhaps my right hon. and learned Friend will tell me whether it is true—that 12 full-bore pistols had been...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: I hate to pick holes in my hon. Friend's argument, but we are talking only about .22s. Disassembly would indeed be cheaper for the taxpayer, because more shooters would be able to continue their sport and more clubs would remain open. Clubs will still require a good measure of security, but not the fortress approach that will be required to store arsenals of fully assembled working guns. He...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: rose—
Mr Jerry Wiggin: I shall begin by apologising to the House for having to be absent for a few minutes, but the progress of Government business is such that it was necessary to take action on tomorrow's rather unpleasant experience, and we shall have to deal with that when it happens. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall), but I fear that I may disappoint him about who...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: Are the hon. Gentleman and his party in favour of the selective cull?
Mr Jerry Wiggin: First, I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for Construction, Planning and Energy Efficiency for taking the trouble to reply to the debate this evening. I am conscious that the hinge on which I have to hang ministerial responsibility is not the direct planning issue that I am about to raise. I hope that my hon. Friend will be tolerant when I describe the events that have persuaded me to draw...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: Avon county council, which has emerged from this matter with no credit, was a Labour-controlled council, supported and kept in power by a substantial number of Liberal Democrats. The council claimed that the Willowmead site had planning permission for holiday caravans. The truth is that most of the site had been used for the construction of the new highway. The amount that remained allowed...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) gave a welcome assurance to the House on the subject of shotguns, but, as I recall, his reason for so doing was that shotguns are not designed for killing people. Nor are .22 handguns, .32 wadcutters or .38 wadcutters. For reasons that I nevertheless understand, the Labour party has decided that all handguns are to be banned—it has been carried away...
Mr Jerry Wiggin: With the leave of the House, I must admit that I am more than somewhat disappointed by the Government's response to a debate in which every Member who spoke advanced very plausible reasons for investigating further the dismantling of firearms as a security measure. The proposal has come about not as a result of the shooters' wish to see their firearms dismantled, but as a means of trying to...
