Words matter, particularly in politics and the words ministers are using to describe their plans for firearms licensing are changing. In February last year they said that the government “intends to issue a new consultation on improving and aligning the controls on shotguns with other firearms”. The Alliance had warned before the last election that there was a significant lobby within the Labour Party that wanted to treat shotguns as Section 1 firearms and this statement clearly pointed to an intention to deliver that outcome.

We reacted immediately to that announcement. Newspapers carried stories explaining the dire consequences of the proposal for the countryside and the rural economy. Thousands of you joined our lobby of MPs with a clear message that the firearms licensing system, not the law, was the real threat to public safety and that replacing the antiquated model of 43 separate licensing bodies with a national agency was the logical way forward. We have lobbied relentlessly in Westminster, even bringing recently retired senior police officers into parliament to meet MPs.

The timing of this was crucial, because government consultations are largely token exercises designed to give cover from legal challenge through the fiction that they have sought the views of the public. In reality, by the time Ministers publish the questions in a consultation they have already decided what they intend to do. Perversely, the period when you can have most impact on the government’s thinking is not, therefore, during a consultation, but before it. One of the first rules of politics is that that it is ten times as hard to get a government to change its mind than it is to influence it before it has set on a course.

U-turns are an anathema to ministers, even when they know full well that the evidence justifies them, because they require an admission that they have got something wrong. Take the changes to agricultural property relief on inheritance tax announced in the 2024 budget. Within days most Labour MPs had realised that this was a major error and that the government was going to suffer all sorts of reputational damage, yet it took more than 12 months, hundreds of headlines and dozens of demonstrations in Westminster and the countryside before the treasury finally backed down.

That is why it was so important to get a message to ministers that their firearms licensing proposals were aiming at the wrong target before they published their consultation. The results will not be completely clear for some time, but the words that matter have changed. The Policing Minister, Sarah Jones, who has responsibility for firearms licensing, now says that the government will be “strengthening the licensing controls on shotguns to bring them more into line with the controls on other firearms in the interests of public safety”. We will continue to challenge the government to justify stricter legislation ahead of reforming the licensing system, but bringing legislation on shotguns ‘more into line’ with Section 1 firearms is not as bad as fully aligning them.

Meanwhile, my own licensing department Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire has boosted the argument for reform of the licensing system. An inspection of the combined firearms licensing department by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) found that serious failures in the department have increased risk to public safety.

Amongst other things, the inspectors found huge backlogs – with applications taking over two years in some cases – well over 1,000 temporary permits on issue, an ineffective case management system and inadequate training. Inspectors also found 2,190 emails unanswered, staff unaware of their roles and responsibilities, and no plan to deal with the extensive backlog.

What is most worrying about this new report are the echoes of another investigation, this time by the coroner who considered the shooting of five people by a licensed gun owner in Plymouth in 2021. He found a “catastrophic failure” by the licensing authority, Devon and Cornwall Police, relating to management, processes and training in its firearms licensing department. In many cases his findings were identical to those of the inspectors in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire. Plymouth is the justification Ministers have consistently cited for their proposed change to the law. What the coroner in Plymouth actually found, however, was a failed system, exactly as HMICFRS has in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire. It is time for the government to aim at the right target.

First published in Shooting Times, January 2026