Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps she is taking to ensure that her Department's guidance is followed correctly by the medical profession when people apply for a firearms licence.

In accordance with voluntary arrangements introduced in 2016, the police write to the GP of those applying for a firearms licence to request relevant information regarding the applicant’s health before the firearms licence is issued. We know that there are significant variations in how GPs now respond to this request and we have been discussing with the police, the relevant medical bodies and representatives of shooting organisations how greater consistency can be achieved in England and Wales. This includes the issue of fees being charged by GPs for providing initial information from a check of the applicant’s medical records, recognising that the decision whether to charge a fee and its level are matters which individual GPs have been determining.