Firearms Licence Holders: Mandatory Medical Markers

Edward Morello Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this important debate, on her hard work on the topic and on her very moving speech.

This debate is about lives that should not have been lost. It is about a system that failed, when it could have made the difference between safety and tragedy. When warning signs exist but are not seen, when safeguards are optional rather than embedded and when responsibility is fragmented across an overstretched system, the consequences can be fatal, as we have heard. I support my hon. Friend’s call for change. The Liberal Democrats want to ensure that firearms licensing in this country protects public safety while remaining fair, workable and, most importantly, proportionate for those who hold licences responsibly and lawfully.

I want to begin by acknowledging the unimaginable loss suffered by the family and friends of Emma and Lettie Pattison. It should not take such a tragedy for us to act, but we owe it to them and to the public to learn lessons and make changes that will prevent further harm. The inquest into their deaths found that George Pattison was legally permitted to hold a shotgun licence despite having concealed relevant medical information. He had obtained significant quantities of medication for anxiety through online services entirely outside his GP’s knowledge, and when he renewed his licence there was no effective mechanism to identify that risk. The senior coroner issued a clear warning that unless gun ownership laws are tightened, the risk of future deaths will remain. That warning must be taken seriously.

Mandatory medical markers for firearms licence holders are a proportionate and evidence-based safeguard. They are not about punishing responsible gun owners; they are about ensuring that when someone’s health changes in a way that may affect their suitability to possess a firearm, that risk is identified early, rather than years later at the licence renewal or not at all. Effectively, as the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) outlined, it is an ongoing safety check against changes in an individual’s circumstances.

The legal framework already recognises the importance of medical fitness. Under the Firearms Act 1968, police must be satisfied that a person can possess a firearm

“without danger to public safety or to the peace.”

Medical information is already part of that assessment; the question before us is whether the system is robust enough.

In 2022, an important step forward was taken when GPs in England were given access to interactive medical markers that can be placed on medical records for firearms certificate holders. Making those markers mandatory would help to better identify individuals whose medical conditions may temporarily or permanently impair their ability to handle a firearm safely. Current guidance includes

“post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal thoughts or self-harm or harm to others, depression or anxiety, dementia, mania, bipolar disorders or a psychotic illness”

and neurological conditions such as alcohol or drug abuse. When assessed, that marker alerts a GP that a patient holds a firearms licence and allows concerns to be flagged to the police where appropriate.

The system works. It respects professional boundaries. GPs do not decide who holds a licence; that decision rightly remains with law enforcement. It imposes no financial burden on surgeries. It enables safeguards throughout the life of a licence, not just at the point of renewal. But there are flaws in the system: its use is voluntary, it may not account for online workarounds, which people are adept at using, and there is no obligation on GPs to apply the marker. That is because under the previous Government, the Home Office declined to make it mandatory. As has been outlined, we do not even know how many practices actually use it.

The evidence strongly supports change. The police support mandatory markers. The Countryside Alliance supports mandatory markers. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation supports them, and has suggested that they be incorporated into GP contracts. The British Medical Association now recommends their use. Perhaps most compellingly of all, 70% of firearms certificate holders support the change, according to a survey by the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, and among the wider public that support is at 86%. It is a sensible proposal enjoying widespread support among the public and the sector.

In 2016, Christopher Foster killed his wife and daughter before taking his own life. He had discussed depression and suicidal thoughts with his GP, but there was no way for the GP to know that he owned a firearm. In Plymouth in 2021, six people were killed with a licensed firearm. The inquest found that a marker had not been placed, despite the police requesting one. Thankfully, in the UK, murders, suicides and deliberate injuries by licensed firearm owners remain mercifully low. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of licensed gun owners in this country are responsible gun owners, but there is no ignoring the fact that lives could have been saved in those cases if medical markers had been mandatory.

Medical markers are about early intervention. They protect the licence holder as much as anyone else. They ensure that when someone is struggling with their mental or physical health, support and safeguarding go hand in hand. Having safeguards in place is important because of the wider issues at play. The process for approving or refusing a firearms licence is currently slow, inconsistent, expensive and, in large parts of the country, under huge strain. The processing time varies wildly depending on where a person lives, fees differ, and huge backlogs exist in some places.

Firearms licensing is a specialist function delivered by local police forces, yet rural police forces such as mine in Dorset, which are responsible for areas with high levels of gun ownership, are under the greatest financial pressure, struggling with overstretched resources. Firearms in farming communities are not recreational; for most farmers, they are an essential tool of their trade. When renewals are delayed, livelihoods are affected.

There are further challenges. The Home Office is consulting on merging section 1 and section 2 licensing. This may be well intentioned, but it risks adding complexity, cost and delay to an already fragile system unless carefully handled. Licensing is already expensive, and delays already undermine confidence. That is why I believe we must look seriously at proposals for a dedicated firearms licensing agency. The Government’s recent police reform White Paper acknowledges that firearms are a specialist area and that concentrating such functions in centres of excellence could improve effectiveness, consistency and value for money.

A centralised body could standardise fees, reduce waiting times, ensure the consistent application of medical markers and take the pressure off local police forces, freeing them to focus on their job—frontline policing. A specialist agency would be better equipped to process licences efficiently, apply safeguards properly and respond to risks swiftly. It would also ensure that reforms such as mandatory medical markers were implemented consistently and effectively, rather than, as at the moment, unevenly across the country.

The Liberal Democrats are proud champions of rural communities. We support responsible gun ownership. We are also clear that safeguarding must go hand in hand with support. We will always stand up for people experiencing mental ill health or addiction, but that is precisely why early identification and intervention matter. Mandatory medical markers are about not punishment but protection.

At a time when mental health services are under immense strain and online medical services can be used to bypass safeguards, it is more important than ever that our licensing system is joined up, informed and proactive. Will the Minister release the data that my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell has requested? Will he give consideration to centralised licensing systems and to making medical markers mandatory? Will he ensure that public safety measures are not undermined by a system that is slow, inconsistent and overstretched?

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Morello]

Without wishing to labour the point, and accepting that the data may in fact show that we are getting the level of penetration that we would expect, there is undoubtedly an unquantifiable risk of another tragedy happening. Given the level of uptake in a mandatory system, and given the requests of the sector—and, in fact, the BMA—for use of the marker to be made mandatory, it seems to me, purely from the perspective of de-risking it for the Government, that that would be a logical and relatively simple thing to do, so that, when we inevitably return, at some point in the next three to five years, to talk about another tragic death, it is not laid at the feet of this Government for following the mistake of the previous Government and not making it mandatory.

[Mike Tapp]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very well-made point. This is of course being kept under review. Today’s debate is important and will of course be listened to by the Home Office, but as it stands our position is that the evidence is showing us that GPs are using the marker as we would expect them to.

I am conscious of time, so I will move on to the points made on shotguns, because I am sure that the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) would not want me to miss them. We know that shotguns are used for a range of legitimate purposes, such as target shooting and hunting, and that the vast majority are used safely and responsibly. We also recognise that shooting contributes to the very important rural economy.

However, legally held shotguns have been used in a number of homicides and other serious incidents in recent years, including the fatal shootings in Plymouth in August 2021. That is why we have committed to a public consultation on strengthening the licensing controls on shotguns, to bring them more into line with the stringent controls on other firearms, in the interest of public safety. We will publish the consultation shortly—I do not have the exact date today. We will carefully consider all the views put forward in response to the consultation before taking any decisions on whether—and what—changes may be necessary in the interest of public safety.