§ Mrs. GillanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many handguns have been surrendered under the Firearms Amendment Acts; how many have been(a) destroyed and (b) disposed of by other means; and if he will list each of those means. [26565]
§ Mr. MichaelA total of 142,000 handguns were surrendered to police forces during the three months period which ended on 30 September.
The majority of these firearms will be destroyed under local arrangements in each police force area once the claimant has received compensation from the Home Office Firearms Compensation Section. A very small number may be retained by police forces for training purposes or passed on to museums for public display. There is no central record of firearms which have been disposed of to date in these ways.
To keep administration to a minimum, we are not collecting information on disposal during the course of the operation but once the compensation process has been completed, each police force will be asked to confirm the number of weapons destroyed or otherwise disposed of.