Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of increases in the cost of shotgun licences on funding for youth activities.

On 5 February 2025, increased fees came into effect to provide full-cost recovery for firearms licensing applications processed by police forces. This was the first increase in fees for 10 years and we intend to undertake more regular reviews in the future.

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.

It is important that the additional revenue from firearms licensing fees is used to support improvements in police force firearms licensing teams, and my predecessor, Dame Diana Johnson MP, wrote to all Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables to make clear that the increased fees must be used for this purpose.

Whilst the Government’s manifesto commitment referred to the money raised by full cost recovery fees being used to support youth interventions to prevent serious violence, it was decided instead ahead of the February 2025 increase to fees, that firearms fees income must be retained by police forces to support improvements in police firearms licensing.