Firearms Licensing

Debate between Dave Doogan and Joy Morrissey

Monday 23rd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dave Doogan]

It is only fair that I accept both of those from the hon. Member. We are here because of the 121,000 signatures on the petition, and many of the constituencies with the highest counts of signatures are in Scotland, where gun ownership per capita is much higher than it is elsewhere in these isles, for entirely predictable and understandable reasons.

Angus and Perthshire Glens has the highest response rate in the United Kingdom; 550 opponents of the Government’s proposal have come forward from my constituency. They have good reason, because whether someone is up Glen Prosen, Glen Isla, Glen Clova, Glen Esk, or Glen Lethnot, or in Strathtay, Strathtummel or Strathmore, their possession, operation, use and discharge of their shotgun is just a part of everyday life. It is an essential tool for the maintenance of a rural way of living. As other right hon. and hon. Members have attested, concern is growing that perhaps this Government are not fully conversant—or nearly conversant enough—with what goes on in rural communities.

In terms of the evidence On public safety, I do not think that anybody in the Chamber is minded or motivated to get in the way of something that would improve firearms or shotgun control to protect the public. No one would object to that. What people in this Chamber, and many people outside it, object to is a vast increase in the bureaucratic burden that will deliver no significant increase in public safety.

As other Members have pointed out, during this debate we should remember those who have suffered at the hands of delinquent use of shotguns and firearms. That is vital, but so too is ensuring that any measures to modify the regulation around public safety are effective. Where it is seen to not be effective—and it is clearly demonstrated that these measures will not be effective—we should be very sceptical indeed.

I will not cover again the points that others have made on the well-documented difference in effect and lethality between firearms and shotguns. That substantial difference in lethality is why, dating back to 1920, they have been categorised differently. That difference has not changed; it is the same difference in 2026. If we look to tragedies such as that which happened in Plymouth, the problem that facilitated that tragedy was one not of regulatory impropriety, but of application of the regulation. If the regulation had been applied effectively in that instance, there is a good probability that that tragedy would never have happened.

Around 25% of firearms applications already take more than a year to process and 30 out of 43 police forces in England and Wales have missed the four-month processing target already. Licensing fees have risen by 133% and applying section 1 checks to all shotguns risks overwhelming an already underperforming system, which will present clear demonstrable challenges to our rural communities. Police Scotland operate a single national licensing unit, which consistently outperforms forces in England and Wales—I say that not as a cheap political point but because, quite clearly, if we centralise, standardise and properly resource the licensing regime, we will see substantial improvements in turnaround times.

As well as that, we need far more robust public protections. Do not let me forget to mention that, despite the work that Police Scotland’s licensing unit does, many of my constituents and others in Scotland still have to run the gauntlet with the general practice regime, which is by no means straightforward; that is certainly also something that should be looked at.

Strengthening firearms licensing units throughout the United Kingdom would be positive; standardisation of it would be positive; electronic record keeping would be positive, and so would closing the gaps in private shotgun sales by requiring sellers to verify buyer certificates directly with issuing police via a secure online portal. Those are all reasonable and practical changes that can be presumed to have a positive effect on the regime, in contrast to what the Government are proposing with their merger of the two sections.

Today’s debate is well attended and people are speaking passionately about the strength of feeling that they from their constituents all up and down these islands—mine included—that there is enough burden on ordinary people in rural communities trying to maintain the countryside in the way that we all expect them to. They are trying to make their farm businesses work properly and deal with the effects of challenges ranging from the family farm tax to employer national insurance contributions, and from the business property relief to the tax on crew cab pickups. Many people across rural Britain are thinking, “What next from central Government?”.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

A farmer in my constituency who runs a shoot in Hedgerley has told me repeatedly that, if the legislation goes through, he will lose his family-run farm business. This proposal will put him, and many other farmers who run shoots that have kept them viable, out of business. Does the hon. Member agree that the legislation is not the way forward?

[Dave Doogan]

I completely agree that the Government have to look again at it and listen carefully. I know it is a serious Minister who has come to speak to the debate today, so I am hopeful that we will get clear remarks on how the Government intend to properly interrogate the consultation and divine from the responses precisely how seriously licence holders take the issue. Licence holders are not looking for an easy life—if they were, they would not be in the employment they are in. They are not looking for any shortcuts. They are looking for a robust regime, but one that respects and understands the rural way of life.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Dave Doogan and Joy Morrissey

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

I shall keep my remarks brief, out of courtesy for those further down the call list, but also because there is little left to say about the Bill and the Government’s ambitions therein. I support amendment 16B and its provisions on equivalence for agrifood standards in relation to future trade. The amendment places a benign requirement on the Government to have, as a negotiating objective in trade deal negotiations, the ambition of achieving equivalence of standards. While noting that, I would point out the Secretary of State’s insistence that proponents of protecting food standards, environmental protections and animal welfare standards are seeking to mandate precisely the same standards as we produce here in the UK. That is a tendentious misrepresentation of the pursuit of equivalence, encompassing as it does the same or higher standards.

Amendment 16B does not tie the Government’s hands when negotiating or bind them to any requirements and outcomes, meaning that the Government would still be free to prioritise other negotiating objectives above the duty to seek appropriate equivalence thereby representing the wateriest of all provisions, which if the Government oppose it—as they will—should leave us all very concerned.

I have to say that the Minister has been very generous with her time in discussing these matters with me and listening to my deeply held concerns about the Bill. She debates in such a conciliatory and kind way that I come away believing that she has agreed with me when in fact she has done no such thing in any given instance. [Laughter.]

If this is the last thing I say on this subject, I will observe that I believe the Government have wilfully lost sight of the fundamental importance of the material we are legislating for. We are transacting frameworks for the import of production domestically, not of timber or textiles or televisions, but of the foods that we will eat, and that is what is at risk when the Bill passes unamended, as it inevitably will. The food we prepare and feed to our children has not received the protection it deserves, and nor has its intrinsic worth been recognised—a theme which is manifest in the Agriculture Bill, but also in the Government’s Trade Bill and, of course, the detestable smash-and-grab United Kingdom Internal Market Bill. Everything I have done and said in the passage of this Bill has been in the interests of those working in farming and food production in Angus, in Scotland and across the whole of the UK. The people of these islands deserve better than this, whichever nation they call home. Scotland will have better than this, as the dawning of independence supports.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her incredible work on the Bill, and may I thank the Conservative party—every other Member has thanked their party—because we put this in our manifesto and we have delivered. We promised high standards on animal welfare, and we have kept that promise. We promised that our farmers would be protected, and we have done that. We have fulfilled and honoured what we said we would do. We have taken the EU commitments that we had, and we have brought them into statute.

I thank the Government for listening to farmers, and I am proud that our party is the voice for the British farmer. I welcome the new partnership with the Department for International Trade, but I hope that we will look not only at how we can protect ourselves, but at how we can promote the British farmer; how we can package ourselves; how we can put our delicious cheeses, apples and wines on the lips and in the stomachs of our North American colleagues so that they long for the delicious food quality standards that only we can provide.

Look at the success of Yorkshire Tea, which increased its consumer value in the US by 950% this year alone. That shows what can be done with a strategic plan to market our amazing agricultural products abroad. I welcome the Bill—