Today, I am publishing the Government response to the consultation we launched in January 2017 on new fees for applications for firearms licences administered by the Home Office and the Scottish Government. These licences are:
licences to possess firearms that are prohibited under section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968. Such licences are issued to, for example, dealers or manufacturers of prohibited firearms and are distinct from police-issued certificates for civilian firearms, shotguns, and those issued to registered firearms dealers who deal in civilian firearms and shotguns;
licences for museums that hold firearms as part of their collections; and
licences for approved target shooting clubs.
The Government introduced measures, through the Policing and Crime Act 2017, to enable new fees for these licences to be set on a cost recovery basis, through secondary legislation. The fees will apply in England, Wales and Scotland.
I am very grateful to those who responded to the consultation. We received almost 5,000 responses.
The Home Office has reviewed the levels of fees set out in the consultation document, and we discussed our proposals with representatives of fee payers. The levels of fees now set out in the Government response are significantly lower than those originally proposed, due to both revised estimates of Home Office costs and a fresh look at the costs that it is appropriate to recover through the new fees.
An important issue raised by fee-payers’ representatives was the potential impact of the proposed fees on museums with firearms collections. Given that the museums involved are publicly funded and act in the public interest, the Government has decided to maintain the current museum firearms licence fee level of £200 for the grant and renewal of these licences. This is set out in more detail in the impact assessment accompanying the consultation response. The Government response and the impact assessment will be published on gov.uk, and I will arrange for copies to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The new fees will be introduced by statutory instrument as soon as parliamentary time allows.
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