Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what powers her Department has to specify the practice to be adopted by constabularies on firearms licensing.

While firearms licensing is an operational matter for the police, the Policing and Crime Act 2017 allows the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance to the police on their firearms licensing functions which police forces will be required to have regard to. The Government has consulted on the introduction of this guidance and we will publish a response to that consultation, and the statutory guidance, in due course.