Firearms Licensing

Ben Lake Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for opening the debate in such an effective and measured way. Some 292 of my constituents signed the petition, and I thank all those who have contacted me in recent weeks to relay and explain their concerns about the proposed merger of the section 1 and section 2 firearms licences. A number of hon. Members have already outlined those concerns, so I will try not to repeat them, other than to summarise them. The proposed changes, although perhaps well intentioned, are disproportionate and will not realise the Government’s stated objective.

I will begin with the concerns about the proportionality of the changes. Many of my constituents pointed out that many of the safety checks in the current regime are similar for both section 1 and section 2 applications, including medical and background checks. There are very good reasons for those checks. Every constituent who has written to me or visited me in surgeries recently has said that they support tight gun controls. They are proud of the fact that this country has a very good record on firearms regulation, but they do have questions of the Government about the proposed changes, which I shall relay to the Minister. As far as they can see it, the changes and the proposed merger would not improve safety by much for the public, not least because the suitability test—the core tenet of both section 1 and 2 applications—is already robust.

My constituents also wanted me to convey that, even if we were to agree that the proposed merger would enhance public safety, whether or not it would realise that objective would depend on the efficacy and resourcing of the system. They have been clear to me that the current system is already creaking under great pressure. Across England and Wales, there are 43 different police licensing units, each operating with slightly different standards. The inconsistency in the system has been described to me as a postcode lottery. Surely we can agree that we need a more standardised, nationally consistent approach to processing applications for firearm licences.

Perhaps most importantly, the capacity of the existing system would struggle to deal with the proposed changes. At present, I think there are more than 500,000 section 2 certificates. There are concerns that that number would reduce under these proposals, but even if we were to have only 250,000 certificates for what would currently be section 2 licences, it would still be more than double the number of section 1 licences at present. There are severe delays and units under pressure across the country, with significant inconsistencies in processing times—from 12 weeks to, at the worst, more than three years. Even if we were to agree that the merger was a good idea and would enhance public safety, can we be confident that it could be implemented, given the operational difficulties that the current system is shouldering?

Like many of my constituents, I argue that instead of the proposed merger of sections 1 and 2, we should look at the system itself. Other hon. Members have already mentioned the need for greater resourcing, which I very much support, but a bolder idea, which was presented by the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) and others, is a centralised national licensing body. It strikes me as eminently sensible that we should have a specialised, centralised body, much like the DVLA for motorists, to realise efficiencies of scale, introduce expertise and ensure a more effective system overall.

My other concern, if we proceed with these changes, is that an already overwhelmed system will find itself even more overwhelmed. Firearms applications, which our predecessors correctly deemed to carry more risk because of the greater lethality of the weapons, will inevitably be prioritised, so there are clear risks that what were section 2 applications will fall to the bottom of the pile. That means that many of my constituents—farmers and those involved in pest control—will find that they are facing even longer delays in securing the relevant licences so that they can operate and perform their crucial function in the rural economy.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman’s point about the DVLA is an interesting one. If I consider my casework load over the years, I would not necessarily hold up the DVLA as a model of the advantages of centralisation.

Are we not losing sight of the fact that, when Parliament legislated in the first instance for two different classifications, it did so for a reason? That reason, in essence, has not changed. There is a risk that, in pursuing something that is essentially procedural, we come away at the end of the day with worse outcomes, which are surely what matter to all those who care about the safety issue.

[Ben Lake]

I must concede that the DVLA was perhaps not the best of examples to cite. The right hon. Member is correct that the original Firearms Act—back in 1920, I believe—differentiated between the smooth barrel and the rifle for very good reasons. Others have touched upon that, and my hon. Friend the Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) elaborated on the point about the differentiation of lethality and effective range. Those are very important points that surely remain salient and key if the objective of this exercise is to ensure public safety.

Leading on from that point, my concern is that, if we merge sections 1 and 2, we will have an already overwhelmed system where licence applications for less risky weapons fall to the bottom of the pile, with an impact on legal and lawful uses such as those in my constituency—whether for conservation, farming or sport—or, controversially, we might have a situation where the riskiest, most dangerous weapons also find themselves lost in an overwhelmed system, which is surely not what we want. That is one potential unintended consequence that we should be mindful about as legislators.

For those reasons, I should like to urge caution and impress upon the Government that we need to be mindful of many unintended consequences, and that, rather than looking to embark on this very significant change, we might be better off first looking at ways of making the current regime work better. I commend to the Minister the idea of a centralised body—not like the DVLA—that could free up police resources to tackle illegal firearms and ownership. That would represent a far better way forward and achieve what I think we all want, which is to improve public safety.

Immigration System

Ben Lake Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome what my hon. Friend has said. There have been shameful examples of exploitation, which all of us have probably come across in our constituencies, involving the social care visa and the way in which it was introduced. People have come here to work incredibly hard in our care homes, which is why it is so important for us to tackle that exploitation and ensure that standards are met. We must ensure that we have a fair pay agreement, and, certainly, that we maintain the standards relating to tackling trafficking and modern slavery.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)]

The Home Secretary will be aware of the funding crisis that affects many of the UK’s universities. Last year, when the Migration Advisory Committee reviewed the graduate visa route, it concluded that it should be retained, stating:

“Under the current higher education funding model, closure or additional restrictions could put many universities at financial risk.”

What is the Home Secretary’s assessment of the impact that these changes will have on the financial sustainability of our universities?

[Yvette Cooper]

Where universities are already meeting high standards of compliance, as most of them are, that is very welcome, but those that do not currently meet them will need to raise their compliance standards to ensure that we have a proper, robust system. The graduate visa will enable people to stay on for the unrestricted 18 months, but if they want to stay longer they will need to be contributing in graduate jobs. Too often people have stayed without doing that, although they have degrees and should therefore be obtaining graduate jobs, which they can also do through the skilled worker visa.

Rural Depopulation

Ben Lake Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)]

Thank you, Ms Vaz, for the unexpected pleasure of contributing to this important debate; I congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) on bringing it to this Chamber. I thought I would offer a Welsh perspective, to ensure that all the nations of these islands are spoken about in this debate, although I fear that much of what we have heard rings true in Wales, too.

I represent Ceredigion Preseli. At the last census, Ceredigion—the majority of my constituency—recorded a 5.9% decrease in its overall population, and the communities in Preseli or Pembrokeshire that I now represent saw their population flatline. This is a problem that we are very much living with today. What does it mean? In practice, it means that we are having very difficult discussions about, for example, the provision of public services and whether the school estate is sustainable for the future. We are talking about the lack of GPs and the fact that we do not have an NHS dentist any more in much of the constituency. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned bank closures. I shall not name them now, but there are three well-known banks in the UK that no longer have a single branch in the two counties that I represent. This is the real consequence of depopulation.

I very much align myself with the comments made by all colleagues on what needs to happen to try to reverse this trend. However, I will add that a Labour predecessor of mine in what was then the constituency of Cardiganshire, the great—and sadly late—Baron Elystan-Morgan, talked in his maiden speech about how the outmigration of young people sapped the vitality of rural communities. He was speaking in the 1960s, but I fear that that is as true today as it was then. As well as sapping the vitality from private enterprise and having a detrimental impact on the provision of staff for key public services, this outmigration is also sapping and undermining the viability of our rural communities.

This is something that the UK Government can help with, and it should be on their radar. When the Cabinet Office looks at the range of risks it must monitor as part of its remit—something that the Public Accounts Committee discussed in the previous Parliament—it should look at how the discrepancies in demographic trends across these islands might have an impact on key public services, because in certain areas of rural Wales we will, I am afraid, see a collapse of public services. That will have a knock-on impact on more urban areas, which are themselves struggling with different demographic pressures.

This is an important debate, and I would ask the Home Office Minister to consider, as part of her important work in this new Parliament, the lessons to be drawn from experiences across the world. My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) mentioned the experience of Quebec. As west Walians, we often turn on the radio to hear adverts from the Government of Western Australia trying to attract many of our young doctors and nurses to migrate to that part of the world. Are there incentives we could use to persuade more of our young people to stay or to attract those from other parts of the world? There are many benefits to rural living, as all hon. Members have outlined today. Perhaps we could be more creative in grasping this problem by the scruff of the neck, because I fear we do not have much time left to deal with it.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Malhotra]

The hon. Gentleman can come back to me later, but I need to continue my remarks, because I want to make the point that it is important for us to learn what has and has not worked in the UK, as well as learning from abroad.

The arguments in favour of legislating to enable rural communities to recruit and retain international recruits more easily are well intentioned, but could risk placing international recruits in a particularly vulnerable position, especially at a time when, as has been mentioned, we are looking to protect workers against exploitive practices in the care and fishing sectors and elsewhere in the economy. Previously suggested schemes for devolved migration controls would restrict their movement and rights. However, immigration is a national system, not a local one, and although we have routes and flexibilities in our immigration system, a range of issues have contributed to depopulation—a point that has been raised in this very effective debate—so we need a much more integrated strategy across Government and with the devolved Administrations. That is why it is important that it is taken further.

On housing, the Government have set out an overhaul of the planning system, and we have introduced new mandatory housing targets. We are looking at prioritising brownfield sites, and it is a key mission of ours to build 1.5 million affordable homes across the country. That is essential for the reasons that we have talked about, including stability for families and for our local economies.

I mentioned the need for a coherent link between our labour market and migration. Since the new Government came in, we have been working to establish a framework in which the Migration Advisory Committee, Skills England, the Industrial Strategy Council and the Department for Work and Pensions will work together to address the issues facing the UK labour market, including skills gaps—

[Ben Lake]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Seema Malhotra]

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman, but I may answer his question with my next point.

Those bodies will also look at pay and conditions, economic activity and the role that migration can play in supporting that. In order to deliver on the Government’s missions, we need to tackle these challenges in all parts of the United Kingdom. The bodies must work closely with our devolved Governments, our combined authorities and local government to address these matters.

[Ben Lake]

The Minister has gone halfway to addressing the point that I wanted to raise. Australia, which has a federal system, operates a single immigration system, but the territories and states can nominate key critical shortage occupations to encourage and boost them. In her discussions with the devolved Administrations, will she bear in mind the experience of Australia and see whether its approach can be brought into the UK system?

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I was pleased to visit Australia very briefly in May to talk about the work that is being done on skills there. I think it would help him to know that we have announced a new council of the nations and regions, and we are starting the process of establishing local growth plans and encouraging local authorities to take on more devolved power. He may want to contribute to some of those discussions.

I do not wish to test your patience, Ms Vaz, so I will conclude.