Shotgun licensing review revived by inspectorate report, says GTA

The shotgun licensing review, a proposal which the gun trade believed the Home Secretary had quietly shelved, has been revived by the police inspectorate’s report on firearms licensing, the Gun Trade Association’s chairman has told members. In his report to the association’s annual general meeting, published on 10 November, Oskar Waktare said the review of Section 1 and Section 2 licensing “may have been kicked into the long grass by the current Home Secretary”, but that the August 2026 inspection report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services had brought it back, a development he called regrettable.

What is the trade doing about it?

Mr Waktare said the association had worked with the Shooting Industry Fund to bring together a coalition of 16 organisations under the British Shooting Sports Council to oppose the proposed changes to shotgun controls. The same alliance of trade and shooting bodies drafted, with the association and the council, the official Home Office guidance on removing sound moderators from certification, and is pressing with sister organisations for a single national firearms licensing agency to replace the police forces’ separate licensing departments.

The chairman’s report also sets out the questions the association’s help desk fielded over the year: the new Home Office guidance, licensing delays, the proposed ban on private sales of firearms, lead restrictions, import testing of blank-firing guns, the Online Safety Act, the new National Firearms Licensing Portal, changes at Parcelforce and moderators.

A smaller council and a virtual association

Membership stands at “well over 400 members” and the association is now fully virtual, Mr Waktare said, and is exploring membership from overseas and the defence sector. David Stapley stood down from the council during the year and Sean O’Driscoll of Rothery’s steps down at the AGM, while Alex Levett-Scrivener of Shooting Star has been co-opted. The report pays tribute to the late John Batley, a former director of the association.

In a separate legal column published the same day, the association warns certificate holders that some forces are deciding on revocations and refusals using untested allegations without giving the applicant the chance to respond that the Home Office statutory guidance requires, and advises anyone called to a so-called suitability review interview to ask what it will cover and to take someone with them.

What happens next

The association says new IT, customer relationship and website systems and new branding will arrive “over the next few weeks”, and a member survey on training, including qualifications for dealers’ staff and a pre-renewal audit product, will follow in the new year. For certificate holders the live question is whether the Home Office picks up the inspectorate’s recommendations on shotgun licensing in the firearms legislation it has signalled for this Parliament; the coalition formed under the British Shooting Sports Council is the sector’s vehicle for answering it. The chairman’s report is published in full on the association’s website.