Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether a Temporary Shotgun Licence, issued as a result of delays in processing shotgun licence renewal applications, permits the holder to purchase shotgun ammunition.

If a shotgun certificate due for renewal is automatically extended for up to eight weeks, then the certificate holder can continue to buy ammunition. Such an automatic extension is a temporary measure that can be used by police forces to help manage delays in processing renewal applications when a certificate is soon to expire. However, if a permit under section 7 of the Firearms Act 1968 is issued by the police force instead, new ammunition cannot be purchased.

The processing of firearms and shotgun licences remains an operational matter for chief officers of police. The time taken by police forces to process firearms and shotgun licence applications will vary depending on factors such as local circumstances and the details of each application. Most recently, the Covid 19 pandemic has an impact on the time taken by police forces to process applications as the provision of relevant medical information by General Practitioners (GPs) has been delayed because of temporary measures taken by GPs to prioritise the vaccine booster programme over the Christmas and New Year period.