Firearms Licence Holders: Mandatory Medical Markers

Debate between Helen Maguire and Mike Tapp

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mike Tapp)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate, and I thank all the other Members who are here today for their well-argued, compelling, considered and sensible points. I will address those points as best I can in my response, then I will move on to address the shotgun issue near the end.

As we know, firearms licensing controls are crucial to minimise the risk of harm and to keep the public safe. Medical checks and the use of firearms markers are an important part of those controls. Although I understand why there are calls for such markers to be mandatory, the Government do not consider that to be necessary at this point, and I come on to the reasons why. It should be recognised that the decisions in all firearms application cases are taken by the relevant police force. Medical information provided by GPs is very important, but it is just one part of the information that is considered by the police.

Before I address the specific points that have been raised during the debate, I reassure Members and their constituents that work continues to make the firearms licensing system as robust as it can be. Although public safety is and will always be the priority, it is also right to acknowledge that the large majority of firearms licence holders—there are some in the Public Gallery today—do not cause any concern. The challenge is to have an effective system in place to identify individuals who might cause harm.

Of course, the tragedy at Epsom college in February 2023 shocked us all. In discussing these issues today, I know that we all have the victims of that crime—Emma Pattison and her seven-year-old daughter, Lettie—and the victims of other such crimes well and truly at the forefront of our minds. The perpetrator at Epsom college was Emma’s husband; he was a licensed shotgun owner, who then killed himself. He had suffered from anxiety, but his GP and the police were unaware of that because he had sought treatment from an online doctor, as was explained earlier. He did not disclose that information when he applied for his certificate renewal.

The medical checks for firearms licensing have been significantly strengthened in recent years. Medical information for firearms licensing has been a requirement for every firearm and shotgun licence application since November 2021, when the new guidance for chief officers of police on firearms licensing was introduced. An applicant’s doctor must now provide details of any relevant medical conditions, such as depression, dementia, mental health issues or drug or alcohol abuse, that the applicant has experienced. A firearms licence will not be granted without this information.

A digital firearms marker is placed on the GP patient record when a certificate is granted. This means that if a certificate holder has a relevant medical condition during the five years’ validity of the certificate, their GP can alert the police, who will then review whether that individual is still suitable to have a firearms licence, and—if necessary—revoke the licence. Initially, the marker was in the form of a paper marker on a person’s medical record. However, because of concerns that a paper marker could easily be overlooked by a busy GP, work has been done to replace it with a new digital firearms marker.

Use of the digital firearms marker is not a core health requirement for GPs and is not part of the GP contract, nor is it a legal requirement, but the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners support its use, and the BMA issues guidance to GPs about it. Therefore, any GP who fails to engage with the process would be going against the advice of their professional associations, as well as taking a significant risk.

The available data indicates that most GPs in England are applying the digital firearms marker as they are expected to. We have received very encouraging data from NHS England about how the marker is being used by doctors, and we continue to work with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care to assess whether there are any regional variations that could signpost whether greater engagement between police and doctors at local level is needed in certain areas.

The data provided by NHS England gives figures for the number of active digital firearms markers applied by GP surgeries in each of the last three years, and—

[Helen Maguire]

rose—

[Mike Tapp]

And I will go through the data now, before the hon. Member intervenes and asks for it. If there are any gaps in it, I will welcome an intervention at the end, and I will take note and we can write back.

In 2022-23, 93,700 new digital markers were applied, in 2023-24 that figure was 85,650, and in the latest year for which data is available, 2024-25, 98,690 new digital markers were applied to medical records. Those are broadly the numbers we would expect when compared with the data for the number of firearms licence applications and renewals made each year.

We also have data on the number of cases where a GP has notified the police of a medical concern about a certificate holder following a review prompted by the digital marker. In 2022-23, 1,180 cases were referred by GPs to police forces as a result of the digital marker, in 2023-24 that figure was 1,040, and in 2024-25 it was 1,140. That data is also broadly where we would expect it to be when compared with the annual figures for revocations of licences by police forces, and it gives us confidence that GPs are using the digital firearms marker as it is designed to work.

[Mike Tapp]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. I cannot comment directly on the data that he provided from his quick google—GPs may be qualified but not practising, and I would not want to jump to any conclusions—but that can certainly be taken away. It is the Government’s position that it is not necessary to make use of the firearms digital marker mandatory. If there was compelling evidence of systemic failure by GPs to engage with the digital marker, the case for mandatory requirement would be stronger, but that is not the picture painted by the available data. In fact, it shows that the digital marker is already being applied and used by most GPs.

[Helen Maguire]

I am listening intently to the Minister, but if he is saying that the number of people who have been referred to their GP with potential conditions and the number of markers are as expected, I cannot understand what difference it would make if the marker were mandatory. It seems as though it is sort of happening already, and if there were no additional cost to making it mandatory, then I struggle to understand why it is difficult for the Government to change their position.

[Mike Tapp]

We need to bear in mind that the governing bodies that oversee GPs are against this, given the potential for liability if a GP failed to disclose something to the police. I assure the hon. Member that the Home Office will keep our approach under review, as we do with all aspects of firearms licensing control, but we believe that the data available at this time shows that mandating is not necessary, and that the digital marker quite simply is being applied and used by most GPs.