Have your say on the Offensive Weapons Bill

Do you have relevant expertise and experience or a special interest in the Offensive Weapons Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament?

If so, you can submit your views in writing to the House of Commons Public Bill Committee which is going to consider this Bill.

A post at www.parliament.uk reads: ‘The Public Bill Committee is now able to receive written evidence. The sooner you send in your submission, the more time the Committee will have to take it into consideration and possibly reflect it in an amendment.

The Committee met for the first time on Tuesday (July 17) but will continue to receive written evidence at the end of the Committee stage, which is expected to be not later than 5pm on Thursday September 13. However, the post adds: ‘Please note that when the Committee concludes its consideration of the Bill it is no longer able to receive written evidence and it can conclude earlier than the expected deadline.’

The Bill covers three types of weapon – acid, knives and offensive weapons, and firearms – and is the Government’s legislative response to a Home Office consultation that ran between October and December 2017.

The key changes that the Bill would make are as follows:

• a new offence of possessing a corrosive substance in a public place;
• a new offence of selling certain harmful corrosive products to under18s;
• new restrictions on online sales of bladed articles and corrosive products, including restrictions on deliveries to residential premises;
• a new offence of possessing certain offensive weapons (the weapons concerned are already subject to restrictions on their sale, manufacture and importation); and
• reclassifying certain firearms as “prohibited weapons” under section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968.

Your submission should be emailed to scrutiny@parliament.uk

Further guidance on submitting written evidence can be found here ( PDF 1.25 MB).

At the time of writing, an online petition launched to remove Article 15 of the Offensive Weapons Bill had garnered 20,276 signatures.

 

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