§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with the procedures for checking applications for firearms and shotgun certificates.
§ Mr. BrittanThe responsibility for these procedures rests with chief officers of police, and I am satisfied that they are appropriate.
§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he has any plans to increase the fees for firearms and shotgun certificates or to introduce further controls;
(2) whether he is satisfied that the present laws relating to the possession of firearms and shotguns are adequate; and if he has any new proposals to limit the illegal possession of firearms.
§ Mr. BrittanWe have these matters under review.
§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with the control of private advertising of gun sales.
§ Mr. BrittanThere are no specific controls over advertising of gun sales. Both purchasers and vendors are bound by the provisions of the Firearms Act 1968, and we have no immediate plans to amend it.
§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what 724W was the number of total indictable offences recorded by the police in England and Wales at the latest convenient date; and in what percentage of these guns were used.
§ Mr. Brittan1978 is the latest period for which information on the total number of indictable offences recorded can be related to the number of offences in which firearms were reported to have been used; the numbers were published respectively in tables 2.1 and 3.1 of "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales, 1978".—Cmnd. 7670. Overall, firearms were reported to have been used in less than a quarter of 1 per cent. of all the indictable offences recorded in 1978; corresponding percentages for the most relevant individual offence groups were given in table 3.2 of the same publication.