Scotland Bill

I welcome the opportunity to make a contribution to this part of the debate. I hope it will be one based on the experience of representing an area that has had its fair share of difficulties with airguns, and of four years as the Justice Minister in Scotland, including at the time of the incident that has been referred to when a toddler lost his life in the east end of Glasgow as a result of an air weapon. Far from responding to any media frenzy, I hope that I was able as a politician to respond to the real tragedy for people in the local community, not least the child's parents, who witnessed the event and had to deal with the consequences. At that point, when there were demands for an immediate, all-out ban on air weapons, I took the view that we should take a considered approach that looked at the evidence and brought together the police and other organisations. At that stage I met a number of those organisations. I believed that it was best to deal with the situation not through a piecemeal approach, but by working with the UK Government to secure changes on sentencing and tightening the legislation, which we did, and with a view to looking at how a licensing regime could operate in Scotland in future. I welcome the clause that will give the Scottish Parliament the opportunity to do something about this. Let me make a few comments to clear up some misunderstandings about the types of areas where there have been incidents with air weapons. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) said that most of these incidents occur in the Strathclyde region. If he looks at a map of the Strathclyde region, he will see its size and scale and note that it takes in not only cities and large towns, but small towns, rural areas, remote rural areas, islands and everything in between. It is not entirely accurate to suggest that because the figures relate largely to Strathclyde it is not a problem for the rest of Scotland. Indeed, the opposite could be argued; the region takes up so much of Scotland that if it is a problem there, we can be pretty sure that it is a problem elsewhere. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds also mentioned an incident that occurred only a couple of weeks ago in Auchinleck, which is in my constituency. Of course, not absolutely everything that appears in the tabloid press is 100% accurate. Only a few weeks ago there was some interesting reporting of a junior football match between Auchinleck Talbot and Cumnock Juniors that suggested that mounted police were involved in something akin to the charge of the Light Brigade. A constituent suggested to me that when the horses came on to the pitch it was more like dressage than a charge, so I understand that things can be exaggerated. However, in an era of mobile phones and 24-hour news, I also understand that any incident witnessed in a local community is likely to get into the public domain quickly, as people will report it to newspapers or online, perhaps on Facebook. Indeed, that is where many of my constituents first heard about the incident in Auchinleck.