Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for introducing this important debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. More than 121,000 people have signed the petition, and I believe it has been signed more quickly than any petition the Committee has received for a long period of time.
I think we will all agree that this has been a very worthy debate. I have engaged my constituents in Keighley and Ilkley on this important issue: most recently, BASC kindly invited me to speak at an event at Ilkley rugby club. Many farmers, land managers, pest controllers and those participating in game shoots and clay pigeon shoots turned up to express their concern about the Government’s aspiration to merge section 1 and section 2 licences under the Firearms Act 1968.
It is widely recognised that firearms licensing is effective at protecting public safety, and there is no evidence that moving section 2 to section 1 will improve that protection. I think it is right to look at the data, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) rightly went into. Of course, any death is horrendous, but we know from Home Office data that homicides committed with legally held firearms have averaged about 3.8 deaths per year for the past decade—or, to put that in context, around one for every 15 million of the UK population. Meanwhile, an average of 280 people die each year from knives, and 32 people died in 2023 alone from handling fireworks.
I raise those points because it is important to understand that, despite the coroner’s report into the deaths in Plymouth and the level of reasoning he came out with, he did not conclude by recommending the merging of sections 2 and 1. Therefore, I ask the Minister why this consultation is even being brought before the public and why the Government want to pursue this narrative, despite the data held by the Home Office and despite this proposal not being a recommendation of the coroner.
I raise the point about fireworks because, as a member of the Petitions Committee, I know that we have had two petition debates about them in this Chamber in the last 12 months alone, which were attended by many Members of Parliament. It has been an ongoing request that Governments of the day bring out tougher regulations on fireworks, yet nothing has been forthcoming from this Government. However, here we are in another petition debate, on a consultation that has not been requested by the wider community or by those who hold firearms, and that consultation is forthcoming.
We all know that, despite the regular tightening of controls on firearms since the 1968 Act, there has been no correlation between the rate of deaths from firearms and increased controls. I therefore advocate, as the coroner did in the Plymouth deaths, that we focus on all the other aspirations that have been rightly expressed, around tightening the existing control mechanisms, rather than on merging sections 2 and 1. I also note, as I indicated in an intervention earlier, that the Law Commission’s 2015 report on firearms law did not recommend moving section 2 into section 1. Therefore, I again ask the Minister why this consultation is coming forward.
It is important to look at the inefficiency we are experiencing across the country in the way that firearms licensing departments are working. There are 43 licensing authorities, and the vast majority are operating inefficiently. A quarter are taking more than a year to process grant applications, and some are taking well over three years. Many of those who want to renew their applications or make them in the first place are suffering delay. Processing applications under section 1 for rifles involves more checks and more costs, so this proposal will inevitably place a greater burden on those 43 authorities. Why, therefore, are we going forward with it despite it not being requested?
I also want to look at the impact on the wider shooting community. Shooting alone is worth £3.3 billion to the UK economy. It generates £9.3 billion in wider economic activity and supports 67,000 jobs. Those jobs are not limited to licence holders: there is also the farming community; those carrying out pest control; gun shops; shooting grounds, instructors and coaches; ammunition, firearms and accessory manufacturers; country clothing; pubs, hotels and the hospitality sector; farms and estates; game dealers and processors; vets; feed merchants; agricultural services; and event staff. All of those will be negatively impacted if the Government pursue their agenda. Therefore, I urge them not to pursue this narrative.
In my view, this issue is actually about politics. Under this Government, firearms licensing costs have increased by 138%. We have seen the Government ignore the scientific information put to them about how our moorland is controlled, and ban the controlled burning of heather. We have seen them attack other country pursuits, and we have seen the family farm tax and other negative impacts on our wider farming community. I therefore think the Government are actually pursuing our rural economy in a negative way.
To conclude, I ask the Government why we are in this scenario. I have mentioned the data and the fact that we have had request after request to bring out tougher regulation on fireworks, yet we see nothing from the Government. Meanwhile, we are in a scenario where the courts, the Law Commission and coroners have specifically not put forward this recommendation, yet we are debating it in the House and a consultation is forthcoming. I would like to understand from the Minister why we are even having this conversation about the consultation.