Jacking up firearms fees will cost SMEs £3.5 MILLION. Thanks, Plod

This hike is actually to full-cost recovery levels. So why the annual review of fees?

Despite all the hair-shirt bleating about the “cost” of firearms licensing, buried in the full consultation document is this snippet:

The proposals are based on the estimated full cost of administering licences using a more efficient IT-enabled system (eCommerce).

Put another way, the police have now got exactly what they wanted; full cost recovery for operating the firearms licensing system. It's not clear why the licensed firearms community are now expected to part-fund the operation of a national police IT system – eCommerce – in which firearms licensing activity will form just a tiny part. Nor is it clear why a service already funded by general taxation should demand extra revenue from a tiny subset of, to use the market-driven parlance, “customers”. After all, we don't see other users of police “services” being charged, aside from ACPO's neat little earner from “police certificates” for holidaymakers and emigrants travelling to certain countries.

Yet there's greater cause for concern for the shooting community in the current consultation:

“The Government is clear that there should be annual reviews of the costs and fees set so that there is not a repeat of the current position where there has not been a change for 13 years.”

If fees have just been hiked to the full cost recovery level, there is no need for an annual review of fees. Short of saying extra cash is what “the government” (presumably Home Office civil servants) wants, the consultation document does not explain further why an annual review is necessary or proportional. This, if implemented, will give rise to a financially precarious situation for the licensed firearms community, especially with the Labour party's threats to quadruple the current cost of firearms licences if they win power in the 2015 general election.

(Diving into politics for a moment, it's fairly clear Labour's attack-the-shooters policy is designed to appeal to petty class warriors – and will doubtless cost them the vote of the million people who hold a firearm or shotgun certificate, as well as others involved in the billion-pound shooting sports industry.)