On Tuesday 13 May an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill was rejected by the Bill Committee. It sought to require police firearms licensing departments to be inspected for efficiency and effectiveness by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMICFRS as part of every police, efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy (PEEL) inspection). The amendment was brought forward by Shadow Policing Minister Matt Vickers MP before being resisted by Dame Diana Johnson, the Policing Minister.

It is unfortunate that such an amendment was rejected - it is no secret that many police force firearms licensing departments perform woefully and deliver not only an inadequate service to gun owners, but more importantly have failed in their duty to protect public safety, as was seen in the tragic 2021 Plymouth shooting.

Part of the reasoning the Minister gave for her resistance was that the performance of forces is “actively being monitored” by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for firearms licensing, Deputy Chief Constable David Gardner, and that he has developed a new “performance framework for firearms licensing teams”. Realistically this has been an ongoing project for the NPCC for several years, and the most recent outcome was a quarterly league table based on the metric of percentage of licence applications completed withing four months, along with number of temporary permits currently issued. Some forces performed laudably on these rather basic metrics and others performed, unsurprisingly, with abysmal incompetence.

Firearms licensing should not be a postcode lottery, and trying to mend this current, flawed system is more likely than not on a hiding to nothing. What is needed is a root and branch upheaval of firearms licensing. Police forces should be focussing on law enforcement, not licensing, a function they were never set up to conduct. The Countryside Alliance is therefore calling for a centralised, single firearms licensing authority, akin to the DVLA or DBS, to replace the archaic 44 separate police firearms licensing departments in Great Britain. 

We have seen that a single body works effectively, as is the case in Scotland - we now need that across Great  Britain. If you want firearms licensing service and public safety to be improved then you can write to your MP using our e-lobby to ask them to contact the Minister telling them to reform the system, save lives and safeguard shooting. It takes a matter of seconds and every voice counts.