Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department is monitoring the (a) importation and (b) online sale of imitation firearms; and whether she plans to make an assessment of whether the online sale of imitation firearms contravene (i) product safety and (ii) trading standards legislation.

The Government works closely with the National Crime Agency and the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) to address any potential risks to public safety posed by the sale and possession of imitation firearms. The Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 makes it an offence to manufacture, import or sell a realistic imitation firearm. It is also a requirement that imitation firearms are safe for their intended and foreseeable use before they are placed on the market.

The Government, the National Crime Agency and the NPCC, together with Border Force, have taken, and continue to take, action to prevent the import and sale, including online sales, of certain types of blank firing firearms, which are viewed as readily convertible, to prevent these getting into the hands of criminals. Such imitation firearms are contrary to existing legislation, and to remove these particular types of imitation firearms from circulation, a four-week amnesty was run by the NPCC in February this year saw around 3,000 such firearms being handed in to police forces, and further action is being planned to remove further makes of blank firing imitation firearms from circulation as they have been found to be readily convertible.