BASC backs single licensing authority but rejects Section 2 shift

BASC issued its formal response within hours of Friday’s HMICFRS report, welcoming the inspectorate’s call for a single national licensing authority while flatly rejecting the recommendation to bring Section 2 shotgun certificates into line with Section 1 firearms.

The response sets the sector’s largest association squarely behind the report’s central structural reform, and squarely against the proposal that would touch the almost half a million shotgun certificate holders in England and Wales.

Why does BASC back a single authority?

In its first report into firearms licensing since 2015, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services called for the licensing functions currently carried out by the 43 police forces of England and Wales to be brought together under one authority.

BASC has long argued for licensing to be removed from the force-by-force structure and delivered by a dedicated national authority with common standards, clear accountability and proper resourcing. Its own report last year found wide variation between police licensing departments, with some forces delivering a timely, proportionate service and others leaving certificate holders waiting more than a year.

Bill Harriman, BASC’s director of firearms, said: “We welcome this report’s conclusion that firearms licensing cannot continue to be delivered through 43 separate police forces, each interpreting the same guidance differently, each resourced differently and each producing wildly different outcomes for applicants and certificate holders.”

The inspectorate’s backing for a single authority “carries real weight and echoes BASC’s own detailed work on this”, he said, adding that the report “should settle any remaining argument about the direction of travel of firearms licensing in England and Wales”.

“But we are realistic. This will take years to deliver and will only succeed if the new authority is properly resourced and staffed with well-trained, specialist personnel from day one.”

The Section 2 red line

The association’s welcome stops at the recommendation to align shotgun certification with the stricter Section 1 regime. Mr Harriman said no proper evidence had been presented that alignment would improve public safety, and that BASC had consistently opposed the proposal and would continue to do so.

“Nothing has changed for shotgun certificate holders,” he said. “This is a recommendation, not a government decision. No consultation has been published and no legislation introduced. Any such change would be a matter for ministers and Parliament and supported by clear evidence.”

He pointed to the Westminster Hall debate on the proposal, ahead of which BASC briefed MPs across the parties, as demonstrating the substantial cross-party opposition the proposal already faces.

How have gamekeepers and the trade responded?

The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation (NGO), which contributed evidence to the inspection, said that carried through to its ultimate conclusion the report would deliver “the biggest shakeup of firearms legislation and licensing since 1968”. Its firearms licensing team, in a statement signed by Livia Brynin JP and Alan Barrell, said members had experienced the postcode lottery for many years and that a national authority could improve public safety and give certificate holders a fairer, more efficient service.

The welcome came with conditions. The organisation warned that “simply changing the name above the door will not be enough” and that the new body “must be properly funded, professionally staffed and developed with meaningful input from those who understand the lawful use of firearms”. On compulsory in-person medicals for every grant and renewal, it cautioned that the requirement could create “considerable additional cost, pressure and delay”, and on the wider legislative proposals it was blunt: “new legislation is not a substitute for administering the existing law properly”.

The British Shooting Sports Council, the sector’s umbrella body, backed a single professional licensing authority with real-time certificate verification, but cautioned that administrative failures “should not be confused with evidence that firearms law itself is fundamentally flawed”.

What happens next?

The report contains 23 recommendations in total. BASC says it is reviewing them in full and will publish a detailed analysis in due course. The NGO says it will work with Government, HMICFRS, policing, the British Shooting Sports Council and other shooting organisations as the report is considered.

The Countryside Alliance has taken a similar position, backing the single authority while warning that recommendations such as in-person medicals for every applicant and a compulsory competence test would be impractical. Any structural change would require a government decision, public consultation and legislation before anything alters for certificate holders, and BASC’s advice in the meantime is that nothing has changed.