Headingley Incident

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I can give the assurance the noble Lord seeks. I will certainly make sure that the comments he has made are fed back through the appropriate channels. I agree with the point he is making; it is important that the local community feels reassured.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I also send our best wishes, from these Benches, to the people who were injured. It must have been such a dreadful shock, and our hearts go out to them. I also welcome the Government’s recent amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill on crossbows. The Liberal Democrats have long called for these, and I hope that the upcoming consultation findings can kick-start a further conversation about the need for full licensing and a registration scheme for crossbows. Firearms in the UK require strict licensing, police checks and registrations, with severe penalties for unlicensed possession. In contrast, adults can buy and own crossbows without any license, registration or police oversight. Does the Minister agree that there is an urgent need to tighten the law, particularly around high-powered crossbows with limited legitimate sporting use, which are so easy to obtain and are available online as we speak?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for those questions. I can confirm that amendments will be tabled to the Crime and Policing Bill to strengthen the verification controls. I can also confirm that we will publish the review shortly, which will look at how to address this issue. As the whole House will know, there have been a number of these attacks in recent years and, as the noble Baroness rightly says, these types of weapons are available online. We do not know how many are owned in the country; of course, they are much more powerful than they were 10 or 20 years ago. It is a problem which the Government are very aware of and we will publish some recommendations soon.