The government has launched a consultation seeking views on its proposals to introduce a licensing scheme for all retailers of knives. The core proposals for this consultation, as laid out by the government, are:

"A new licensing scheme […] to block illegal knife sales and imports – helping save lives and keep dangerous weapons out of young hands. 

The measures would introduce mandatory licences for businesses and private sellers, as well as for importers of knives and bladed items.  

Subject to consultation, sellers could face police suitability checks, mandatory age verification and secure packaging requirements. Import licences would prevent sellers from moving operations overseas to avoid regulation."

Apart from the question of whether licensing knife retailers is necessary, which the Countryside Alliance will be responding to in due course, the government’s proposals for the conducting of knife retailer licensing present a distorted view of firearms licensing in Britain. They propose that:

“the best body to administer the licensing system for knife and bladed article sellers is the police. The police have the relevant experience of running the firearms licensing scheme for Registered Firearms Dealers and can carry out the relevant suitability checks.”

It is extraordinary that the government should believe that the current 43 police firearms licensing departments in England and Wales would be best placed to administer this additional licensing system, and that they could cope with the huge additional administrative burden it would entail. Even with a respective increase in fee income, many of those 43 licensing departments are currently struggling to keep their heads above water with firearms licensing alone.

It is acknowledged by many in police firearms licensing as well as those who work adjacently to them, that if a model for firearms licensing in Britain were to be set up from scratch today, it certainly wouldn’t follow the current one; it would instead be set up as a single, national licensing authority which could operate a consistent, efficient, and safe service for everyone. That the government seems to want to double down on the current flawed system by adding the knife retailer licensing is ludicrous, if not delusional.

No police force was ever set up to be a licensing body; they were set up for law enforcement, and we should enable them to focus on this, not make their administrative and financial burdens worse. In line with our current campaign on firearms licensing, the country needs urgent consideration of root and branch reform of the existing system, not another (bale of) straw on the struggling camel’s back.