Liberal Democrats back plan to tackle guns and gangs (Chris Nicholson)

Liberal Democrats back plan to tackle guns and gangs

September 21, 2007 11:00 AM

Liberal Democrats have passed a motion at their annual conference in Brighton have approved plans to tackle guns and gangs.

The Conference overwhelmingly supported proposals for:

A 24 hour border force that would incorporate immigration, customs and police at all the UK's ports to stop guns appearing on the streets
The Home Office to recognise that those areas with high incidents of gun and violent crime require additional resources, funded by scrapping expensive and wasteful ID cards
The Government to give local authorities and the police real power to tackle the gun and gang crime locally by allowing the granting of anonymity to witnesses who are afraid to testify.

Chris Nicholson, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesperson for Streatham speaking in the debate to support the motion said:

"After the tragic shootings in Streatham, Clapham and Brixton people want real action to cut the supply of guns on our streets and in our schools and youth clubs. Labour are offering nothing but talk. We need to stop guns coming into this country - at the moment nine times as many customs officers work on seizing illegal cigarettes as work on seizing illegal guns."

"We want customs officers to put the safety of the public first, not the protection of government revenues. We want more police working to tackle this problem not the expensive and useless ID card scheme that this Government wants to spend our money on."

After the debate Chris commented:

"I have received personal assurances from our Home Office team that as well as working to tackle the supply of guns we will also be working up proposals to tackle the root causes of these problems."