Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on the extent of use of .50 calibre rifles in incidents of criminal activity.

On 14 October we published the paper ”Consultation on new legislation on offensive and dangerous weapons”. This included the proposal to make 0.50 calibre rifles subject to the controls on section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968. This is in response to concerns about such a powerful rifle only being subject to the controls in section 1 of the Firearms Act 1968 and the nature of the current threat to security we are facing. We are aware of one criminal incident involving the theft of such a firearm which was subsequently recovered.