I am delighted to speak in this debate, and, like a number of people, I have had the honour and privilege to sit through the vast proportion of it. The debate has been well conducted, with a lot of speeches touching on a number of important issues.
The issue of knife crime and murder in our capital city of London is highly relevant to the Bill. Let no one pretend that what is happening in London has not directly influenced the Government in their desire to see some form of legislation on this particular issue. The situation in the capital is, frankly, scandalous.
When my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) was Deputy Mayor in charge of policing, the crime rates were significantly lower than they are today. That was because of policy and political leadership. It is entirely legitimate to suggest that the kind of leadership that London had at that time no longer exists. It would be invidious, I fully agree, to blame the current Mayor of London entirely for the situation in the capital. I am not saying that it is all his fault, but he does bear some responsibility for it.
It is no accident that, given the increase in knife crime and the increase in fatalities here in London—in our capital—the Government have introduced the Bill. Those two events, I would suggest, are related. It is therefore entirely appropriate for Members who represent London seats—my seat is just outside London, but many of the issues in London pertain to the bit of Surrey that I represent—to address and focus their remarks on the situation here in London.
The Bill has many excellent provisions. Surely the laws against selling dangerous acid to youngsters—to children, in many instances—are well overdue and will be well received across the House. There are issues relating to knives. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) said that he thought it extraordinary that so-called zombie knives had not been banned a long time ago. He was quite right to suggest that the manufacturers of these knives—and their designers, if one can call them that—clearly fully expected that the knives would be used not only to commit grievous, violent crimes, but to threaten and intimidate. There seems to be no other reason that such knives should have been manufactured. Not even for ornamental reasons would the case be a strong one.
Some provisions in the Bill have rightly caused a measure of concern among Conservative Members. The proposed ban on .5 calibre guns seems a little excessive because, as many Members have pointed out, these guns have never been used, as far as we know, in the commission of violent crimes. Banning them therefore seems wholly disproportionate to the threat that they actually pose to members of the public. As has been observed many times in this debate, people who possess these weapons are vetted. They have gone through a measure of screening. They are people who are law-abiding. They pursue their interest in arms in clubs. They practise their activities in highly regulated and very safe conditions.