Contribution
Thank you very much for chairing the debate, Sir Alec. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough), my constituency neighbour, on opening it in such a measured way, which I think has been noted by all of us.
I need to start by declaring my interests. I hold a firearm certificate and a shotgun licence. I believe that I am still a member of the Countryside Alliance; I have not checked recently, but it is very good at taking the direct debit. I also represent a rural community. That is not a formal declaration of interest, but it is why I am here today. In my constituency, there is, overwhelmingly, a mixture of bafflement and anger. People are baffled because they cannot see what problem the Government are trying to fix with this potential legislative change, and they are angry—very angry. I recognise that it may not be the Government’s intention and that we are talking about a consultation, so it is early stages, but this feels like another ignorant attack on rural communities, with no proper interest as to the adverse consequences caused.
We have heard many excellent speeches today, and I will do my best not to repeat the points that have already been made, but I want to start by acknowledging that this is a deeply emotive issue, because every death caused by a gun—or any other weapon, for that matter—is in itself a tragedy. However, we are legislators and it is our duty to put aside emotion, focus on the facts and take a rational approach, even if that can sometimes lead us to slightly uncomfortable and emotive responses, so let us try to do that.
It is the first principle of government, when considering curbing individual liberties, that the Government must have cause and that the benefit sought must significantly outweigh the damage caused as a result of the removal of liberty, so what is the issue that the Government are trying to deal with here? The quick answer is public safety, but how much crime has been committed by legal holders of shotguns? Of all crime, it is a vanishingly small percentage. In fact, 0.00006% of crime is undertaken by legal holders of shotguns. I am told that homicides with legally owned shotguns averaged 3.8 per annum over the last decade, so people have a significantly higher chance of winning the lottery than of being a victim of homicide with a legally held shotgun. It is about a one-in-15-million chance.
To put that in context, 50 people tragically lose their lives every year because of faulty cooking appliances and 40 lose their lives because of accidents with ladders. We are talking about an average of 3.8 people tragically losing their lives as a result of legally held shotguns, so that is the size of the prize: reducing a long-term average of 3.8 deaths per year—but to what? It will not be to zero, because any system will contain a remaining risk. Sensibly, we all recognise that no system would be 100% successful, other than a system that removed all shotguns from the public, and we know that even if the Government were successful at removing all shotguns, other forms of lethal weapon are readily available.
There are more than 200 deaths per annum as a result of knives. For as long as we like to cook food and eat it, knives will be available, so even if the Government were successful at reducing the number of fatalities because of legally held shotguns, it does not necessarily follow that there would be a reduction in the number of killings. We are talking, at best, about a partial reduction in the number of killings from a maximum of 3.8, and yet the potential cost of the proposals that the Government are considering is enormous.
We have already heard from right hon. and hon. Members that there would be a huge impact in the form of a need for increased police resources. People like me apply for a firearms licence, and at the moment about 3,700 of those are renewed each year, which places a significant administrative burden on our police forces. On average, 150,000 shotgun licences are renewed annually. Even if we look just at the economic cost of the application fee, that would amount to an additional cost of £7 million, and that is before the cost of the police resources. Many people will think that it is not worth the candle and will give up shooting because it is simply too onerous. Other Members have already talked about the potential loss of about 20,000 full-time equivalent jobs and a loss to the economy of getting on for £1 billion.