Meeting of the Parliament 25 June 2015
I am pleased to open the stage 3 debate on the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Bill. For the purposes of rule 9.11 of standing orders, I advise the Parliament that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interests, so far as they are affected by the bill, at the Parliament’s disposal for the purposes of the bill.
As members are aware, the bill sets out a new licensing regime for air weapons and amends the existing alcohol licensing and civic licensing regimes. I thank past and present members of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee for their detailed scrutiny of the bill over the past 13 months, and I am also grateful to the Finance Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee for their consideration of the bill.
The Local Government and Regeneration Committee invited a wide range of stakeholders to give evidence at stage 1. That evidence, as well as the committee’s stage 1 report—which supported the general principles of the bill—has proven to be extremely valuable in helping the Government to reflect on whether we had the provisions exactly right.
The stage 2 committee meetings helped us to further refine the bill. We have in front of us today a bill that will make a number of significant improvements to the relevant licensing regimes.
We have a long-standing commitment to reducing gun crime, and the licensing of air weapons is central to that aim. It featured in our 2007 and 2011 manifestos, and the power to regulate air weapons was finally devolved to this Parliament in the Scotland Act 2012.
We have acted on that new power and consulted widely with experts and the public. Our proposals have not been universally welcomed, but we believe that they strike the right balance between respecting the interests of people who shoot legitimately—for work, sports, pest control or leisure—and the need to ensure that those who would misuse guns do not have access to them.