Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Lord Lucas and Lord Ribeiro

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Ribeiro (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for not having been present for Second Reading and for speaking from the wrong side of the Room.

I will give you a medical perspective, as medicine has been mentioned and is very much part of this. I am holding a letter I got from the Hampshire Constabulary when I applied for my firearm renewal. It says:

“Thank you for your application for the renewal of a firearm and shotgun certificate. In your application you have disclosed that you have glaucoma.


To suffer from a medical condition of any kind does not preclude you from possessing a firearm. When considering application for Firearm or Shotgun Certificates the Chief Officer of Police has a statutory responsibility to ensure that people wishing to possess firearms can do so without being a danger to public safety or to the peace.


To enable the application to progress we require a medical report from your General Practitioner … detailing the background to your condition, the effects it may have and a description of the medication or treatment you received and are currently receiving”.


That is pretty clear on what the police require. It goes on to say:

“Any physical or mental condition that may affect your ability to possess and use firearms safely should be declared”.


Here it diverges slightly from the nine conditions listed in the 2016 Act, in that it includes,

“mental health disorder, epilepsy, stroke, stress related illness, depression, alcoholism, substance use or dependency”,

which are all in the nine conditions, but it then mysteriously adds heart disease and cancer. I could not really see the relevance of that. It goes on to say:

“This list is not definitive”.


I read that out because we already have a pretty stringent process with the police.

In answer to the question about the cabinets, I remember that when I had my cabinet inspected by the police, they came to the house, had a look and asked, “Who has responsibility for and possession of the key? Does anybody else have access to this key? Yes, you can put your wife’s jewellery in there”—I do from time to time—“but technically she should not know where the key is”. That addresses that point.

I have permission from my GP to give noble Lords some idea of the process that GPs go through in doing this. First, the GP will see you—my GP is a senior practitioner in her practice. All the requests are initially screened by the administrative staff, who then pass them on to the GP. The GP makes time to review the patient’s records and checks the history and the paper records—increasingly, these are electronic—for any relevant correspondence or letters that come through and any prescribed medication. The GP then has to make a judgment as to whether there is a risk. If no risk is identified, a relevant code is added to the notes. Administration then takes over the case. It is filed away and an invoice is made—in my case, for £15; we have heard the variations in the cost. If a risk is identified, a report is produced and sent to the police. GPs inevitably get the blame if the application fails. The patient’s record is flagged with an encoded reminder or marker. Should a relevant medical condition occur over the five years of the licence’s term, there is a visible reminder that the patient has a firearm or shotgun certificate.

My GP notes that although this should be straightforward, many reminders relating to other data collections come into their systems and must be dealt with, and that GPs must cope with an element of reminder fatigue. From time to time, an alert may go unnoticed; that is human error but it does happen. I know that the BMA is reported as being against flagging notices, citing a lack of clear protocol for their removal, but the 2016 firearms licensing law requires GPs to place that reminder code in the patient’s notes. That is a very clear statement and GPs should be doing it.

My GP also noted that in the context of extending the period to 10 years for those with mental illnesses, which is being mooted at the moment, GPs would like much more prominent markers so that they can associate a developing mental illness with the person holding a firearm or shotgun certificate. Mental illness is the one real area of concern for general practitioners here. GPs want a much more prominent marker to be flagged up on their screens when this situation arises.

The firearms licences and medical evidence factsheet being produced identifies who should pay fees and when that payment should be made. Where the applicant has declared a medical condition on the application form, as I did, a fee would be expected. If a further medical report is required, the police must pay. During the normal course of validating a certificate, the GP initially checks the patient’s records. There is no current expectation of a fee being submitted, but as noble Lords will know, there has been variability in the amount of fees charged. In some cases, the charging of fees as high as £200 for just an initial check has been reported in Scotland. We must address that lack of conformity now. We should suggest a standard fee equivalent to the charge for a heavy goods vehicle licence, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury, right across England and Wales.

Providing firearms reports for the police is part of a GP’s job but not of their core general medical services, so they have freedom to charge if they wish to. GPs are under considerable pressure to get this right. The system is in place and is effective. We need clear systems for flagging up critical medical problems to which GPs can respond. I support the amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, as I have said before, it is crucial that the Government get this right. I hope that they will put some energy behind it. I say to my noble friend that the answer to a plague of rabbits is not a .22 rifle but a pack of Sporting Lucas terriers.