Put ’em under pressure: Home Office shotgun licensing backlash

Keep the pressure on

Jack Charlton’s coaching tactics 40 years ago led to a glorious decade of self-belief and success for Irish football, immortalised in the song “Put ‘Em Under Pressure”. A great supporter of shooting and fishing, “Big Jack” would be urging us not to lose heart and to keep piling the political pressure onto a government that seems determined to damage fieldsports.

The petition and the Home Office response

Which brings me to the Home Office’s recent response to a petition signed by more than 100,000 people calling for shotguns to remain subject to section 2 licensing rules, in the face of government plans to consult on changes. The Home Office cites public safety as justification for the consultation, yet the test for public safety is the same for shotgun and firearm certificate holders. Readers can view the official response via the UK Parliament petitions website at petition.parliament.uk and related policy information at gov.uk.

Keyham tragedy misused

The tragic mass killing in Keyham is also given as justification, but that occurred because the Devon and Cornwall police licensing department was a “dangerous shambles”, with staff expected to learn on the job. The department could not operate its own risk matrix, issued a certificate to the murderer, revoked it following an assault, and then reissued it after the completion of an online course. None of these failures would have been prevented by changing shotgun licensing rules.

Furthermore, it is bizarre to see the criminal use of knives referenced in the Government’s response to a petition about law-abiding shotgun owners complying with firearms licensing law. It is a worrying reminder of the attitudes that exist in parts of the Home Office towards the farmers, land managers, pest controllers and gamekeepers who rely on shotguns as essential tools of the trade, and the rural jobs and conservation work that depend on them.

BASC criticism

Commenting on the response, Christopher Graffius, BASC’s Executive Director of Communications, said: “This reveals a complete misunderstanding of how firearms licensing operates and raises serious concerns that ministers are seeking to reduce the lawful private ownership of firearms. If the Government was really serious about public safety, it would be consulting on how to fix a failing and inconsistent police firearms licensing system, rather than imposing new restrictions on responsible people who comply with the law.” Further comment from BASC is available at basc.org.uk.

The firearms consultation was expected to launch before Christmas but has yet to be published. The government response to the petition was disappointing in content but surprisingly speedy, published only a few weeks after it launched. If we keep the collective pressure going, especially by writing en masse to Labour MPs holding rural seats, we can awaken this government from sleepwalking into a disaster of its own making.

Growing support

BASC received 400 emails over the Christmas period with copies of responses people had received from their MPs. Please keep them coming in by email to politics@basc.org.uk

As for the petition, gaining 100,000 signatures in ten days was unprecedented and is something to build on. The petition will be considered by the House of Commons Petitions Committee and it is highly likely they will recommend holding a debate.

Persistence can pay off and the Government has shown some capacity to listen. At the recent Oxford Farming Conference, Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds stated: “Good governments listen. And when they hear real concerns, they act”, with reference to an increase in the inheritance tax relief threshold after months of lobbying by farmers and organisations.

Meanwhile, the collective noise we have been making about the diabolical performance of some police forces administering firearms licensing is being acted on. For example, the combined firearms licensing unit for Bedfordshire Police, Cambridgeshire Constabulary and Hertfordshire Constabulary has been subject to an investigation by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), details of which are available at justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs.

Police licensing failures under scrutiny

In a damning report, HMICFRS issued an “Accelerated Cause of Concern” after identifying significant backlogs, inconsistent procedures and poor communication within the firearms and explosives licensing collaboration. Improvements should now follow and we need to keep the pressure going on the police, PCCs, MPs, Ministers and the Government. Let’s keep the faith and keep the pressure on.