Licensing set to rise up to £200

BASC has criticised suggestions by the Government that shooters could soon be asked to pay up to £200 for their firearms and shotgun licensing ? an increase of 300 per cent.

Crime prevention minister James Brokenshire, announced last week that a review of fees was under way to ensure that the cost of the licensing scheme was met by shooters. He said: ?We have been working on an urgent review around the licence fees so that they are on a full-cost-recovery basis. It doesn?t seem right that the police should be bearing a number of those costs.?

BASC?s director of firearms, Bill Harriman, said: ?We want a consistent approach so all police forces follow Home Office guidelines. This is not being done across the board. They cannot ask for ?full cost recovery? on licence fees before they show that they are efficient, that costs are minimised and that a standardised approach to licensing is applied across the country.?

The cost of a firearm or shotgun certificate is £50 with a renewal cost of £40. An unnamed firearms licensing officer told the BBC that police forces recovered only a quarter of the cost of the work involved in licensing and renewals from the cost of the licence.

The rest of this article appears in 16th February issue of Shooting Times.

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