BASC condemns proposed firearms fees hike as a threat to public safety

[Conor O'Gorman]

BASC has condemned the government’s decision to increase firearms licensing fees in England, Scotland and Wales without fixing the inefficiencies undermining the current system.

BASC condemns proposed firearms fees hike as a threat to public safety

BASC has condemned the government’s decision to increase firearms licensing fees to full-cost recovery without fixing current inefficiencies.

basc.org.uk

Written statement by Policing Minister:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-01-15/hcws366

New fees that are due to come into effect on 5 February 2025:

Circular 001/2025: Firearms (Variation of Fees) Order 2025

www.gov.uk

 

[chriswjx]

Whilst still rubbish, I am glad to see that it's not reached the order that some field sports news sites were preaching as gospel...

 

[finnbear270]

The Government’s manifesto commitment refers to the money raised by full cost recovery fees being used to support youth interventions to prevent serious violence. However, we have decided instead that firearms fees income must be retained by police forces to support improvements in police firearms licensing. Delivering the youth interventions element of the manifesto commitment remains a priority and will be funded by the Home Office.
A very small crumb of encouragement.

 

[finnbear270]

I will bin the shotgun next time around.

 

[WW.]

BASC has condemned the government’s decision to increase firearms licensing fees in England, Scotland and Wales without fixing the inefficiencies undermining the current system.

BASC condemns proposed firearms fees hike as a threat to public safety

BASC has condemned the government’s decision to increase firearms licensing fees to full-cost recovery without fixing current inefficiencies.

basc.org.uk

Written statement by Policing Minister:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-01-15/hcws366

New fees that are due to come into effect on 5 February 2025:

Circular 001/2025: Firearms (Variation of Fees) Order 2025

www.gov.uk

Probably won't get anywhere but thanks for trying. I imagine next step is a call to commit to certain performance targets if they're planning to raise fees anyway?

 

[finnbear270]

Probably won't get anywhere but thanks for trying. I imagine next step is a call to commit to certain performance targets if they're planning to raise fees anyway?

Deaf ears come to mind.

 

[john.g]

im glad I payed for renewal yesterday, glad to see its not the £400 hike that was getting banded about

 

[Greenmist]

Condemning (robustly) is one thing, will you be fighting it @Conor O'Gorman? Will we have reassurances of an improved and efficient service?

 

[Greenmist]

Whilst still rubbish, I am glad to see that it's not reached the order that some field sports news sites were preaching as gospel...

Perhaps that was the clever plan, spread the rumour it was going to be £400 so we accept the intended amount without a murmur

 

[T.eddie]

Would be good to see some of other orgs supporting here as well

 

[Jh1986]

That's not a terrible amount, so long as it actually leads to change. Paying over £200 for a 1-2 year wait, would be diabolical.

 

[gonzo]

Increasing by inflation is difficult to argue against. But the service has degraded seriously in the last 10 years.
So I would argue that an increase by inflation should be linked to a return to 2015 level service. Any increase above that, but an improvement over and above the 2015 situation.

Going for a 10 year licence period would make sense. No increase in costs and pretty much halving the workload.
I see that 10 years is mentioned in the document, but only as an appraisal period, not a license period!

 

[andyk]

In some ways that’s something of a relief, as it’s nowhere near as bad as threatened and at least suggests the ‘full costs recovery’ is based on the average(ish) force and not the worst ones.

While there are no guarantees of better service, this should prevent forces being able to hide behind a lack of funding as a reason for underperforming, so would hope this can be the first stage in a new approach to forcing them to improve.

As a bit of context, a rise in line with inflation would have taken them to c£120 in any event.

 

[Dickie]

It was in the manifesto to get the full cost for FAC and SGC and take any increase to fund inner city knife crime.
No increase of efficiency or anything positive will come about from this for us the legal owners because there's no money going where it's needed for us.
Another TAX by another means on a singled out group.

 

[DRZ]

It was never threatened to be £400, some shooting org went into full on scaremongering mode and made it up. All anyone needed was the data about how many certificate holders there are and the manifesto pledge around how much they planned to recover. Dividing one by the other gave a figure of almost exactly what this has turned out to be.

 

[JTO]

I will bin the shotgun next time around.

£24 is too much for you then?

 

[BenBhoy]

Wait.....so Field sports TV tried to misinform us with a load of tripe?? Surely not, pillars of the media community!!

 

[andyk]

The £400 may have come from a piece of research (perhaps done by BASC?) which worked out the real cost to each issuing force.

The variation was huge with some managing to stay around the ‘old’ statutory fees and with some up around the £400 mark for a grant.

The knife crime reduction thing is all smoke a mirrors. What the manifesto said was that, by charging the full fee for licensing, the HO would save money (as it wasn’t paying it to the police to administer firearms) which it could then spend on the knife crime thing. It was never in the manifesto to make money from firearms licensing and apply it elsewhere, so I’ve no idea why that minister is saying it and presume she must think it sounds good.

 

[SussexSteve]

I bet there will be plenty not renewing

 

[DRZ]

I bet there will be plenty not renewing

Why not? Plenty of people will be club members and the annual membership fees for most clubs are at least the cost of a co-terminus renewal, usually higher. That means club memberships are 5x more expensive than a licence. Even a BASC membership is substantially more expensive than the new fee level.