Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with stakeholders in (a) Somerset and (b) the South West on the proposed increase in firearms licencing fees.

On 5 February 2025, increased fees came into effect to provide full-cost recovery for firearms licensing applications processed by police forces. This gave effect to a commitment in the Government’s manifesto.

The fees were previously increased in 2015 and they no longer met the cost of the service provided. It is essential for both public safety and police efficiency that the fees provide full-cost recovery so that service improvements can be made. The need to increase firearms licensing fees to help address shortcomings in firearms licensing was highlighted by the Senior Coroner in his Preventing Future Deaths reports into the fatal shootings in Plymouth in August 2021.

The new fees are based on data produced by a 2023 review of firearms licensing costs in 31 police forces, including Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. This data has since been updated to reflect increases in costs since then. The review was discussed at the Firearms Fees Working Group, chaired by the Home Office, which met in 2022 and 2023, and which included representation from the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, and national representative shooting organisations, including the British Shooting Sports Council, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, the Gun Trade Association, the National Rifle Association, the Countryside Alliance and the National Gamekeepers Organisation.

It is essential for both public safety and police efficiency that full cost recovery fees were introduced. I have written to all Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables, including those in the South-West, to make clear that the income from increased fees must be invested into their firearms licensing operations, in the interests of both public safety and to support improvements in the service provided by their firearms licensing teams.