Plymouth Shootings

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments. What a truly tragic comment to have to make from her point of view—although, of course, I agree with her. I cannot go into detail as to what the review, and the reports to which we will respond, will say, for obvious reasons: we have not had them all yet. Again, I quote my right honourable friend in the other House, who made it very clear that we will respond comprehensively to the recommendations in these reports. He said that he knows that it

“will include consideration of domestic abuse and domestic violence, which are clearly indicators of substantially increased risk”,

as they were in this case. He said that he

“would be happy to discuss those recommendations as soon as they come out”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/2/23; col. 163.]

I think that we should wait for those recommendations, but I cannot believe that they will not be part of any response. It would seem to me inconceivable that that would be the case.

On enhanced psychiatric monitoring, if we can call it that, it is again too early for me to speculate, but, clearly, GPs are not always going to be qualified to make some of those judgments—or so I would assume. I think that the noble Baroness makes a very good point, and I will make sure that it is well known in the Home Office.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, I will continue on the subject of the involvement of GPs but will look at it slightly more systematically. The Minister referred to NHS Digital and markers in GP records, but he also referred to inconsistencies across police forces. As we come to the review and we look at how data and the system are shared, can he assure the House that the various police forces, the police and crime commissioners, and GPs across England and Wales, which are much more shared systems, are consistent in how they approach these matters?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments; that will certainly be part of the approach we will take. Obviously, the tone of this discussion has to be very gloomy, but there are a number of things that would suggest that firearms licensing is being carried out safely in other forces. I will refer to that, because it is important that we do so. Immediately following the tragic shootings, the then Home Secretary asked all police forces to review urgently their licensing practices, and, in particular, to carry out a full review of all the certificates that had been seized, refused, revoked or surrendered in the previous 12 months and subsequently approved by the police. The main points from that review, which were announced on 1 November 2021, were that, collectively, a total of 6,434 firearms and shotgun licences had been surrendered, seized, revoked or refused over the previous 12-month period across England, Wales and Scotland. Of those, a total of 908 licences had been subsequently returned or issued following further checks or appeals decided by the courts. As a result of that review of returned licences, in eight cases the original decision was overturned, and licences were resurrendered or revoked. Those findings ought to provide some reassurance that the police have in place robust processes for issuing and reviewing firearms and shotgun licences—which is not to say that we could not do more and perhaps introduce a bit more national consistency, as discussed.

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, because, in my opening remarks, I neglected to refer to the article that he mentioned. I have seen the article; I have not studied it in detail, but I will come back to him on it.