Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
MP for North Cotswolds · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I do not know how the Government will meet their efficiency targets unless they start to introduce proper AI and get rid of some of our legacy equipment, which, as the Defence Secretary knows only too well, is more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. I turn to local government reform.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Those delays in procurement particularly affect some of our smaller defence companies, because they do not have the cash flow. I mentioned artificial intelligence in an intervention yesterday.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It was then transferred to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, but DSIT was abolished. Now it is in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—the Department which historically has been used to dealing with sport and culture, not the important matter of AI.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have had five hearings on the Public Accounts Committee into the dreadful mess that Capita has left that scheme in—five hearings where every single deadline has been missed. That is not good enough for the poor 1.7 million members of that scheme. The Government have done a good thing.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye in this important Budget debate. I listened to the Defence Secretary, and thought he absolutely embedded his comedic skills. Some of what he was saying would have been better said on “Have I Got News for You” than in this Chamber.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Surely if the Labour party and the Government keep boasting that they will go to 3%, the least they owe the British people is a path to get there—and it is not only the 3%, but the 3.5% in the following Parliament, which is a great deal of money. Importantly, as General Sir Richard Barrons said recently, we do not own the clock.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Another issue that the PAC will be examining closely is the cost of Government compensation schemes, which over their lifetime are expected to exceed £102 billion, or just under what we pay in debt interest in any one year. The Government, of course, have a moral obligation to compensate citizens when the state makes serious mistakes, but we must do so in a fair, proportionate and non-litigious way. Finally, and most importantly, I want to turn to defence. The first absolute duty of any Government is to ensure that our nation is properly defended. The King’s Speech made a commitment to NATO and to a sustained increase in defence spending, yet the defence investment plan, promised from that Dispatch Box in June 2025 and in every month since then—alongside the strategic defence review—has still not been published.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That almost outweighs the income tax payments of £330 billion that we receive from hard-working people. Imagine that: the total amount of income tax from hard-working people almost does not pay for the bill for the Department of Work and Pensions. The pension and benefit budgets are ballooning, and that expenditure is only due to increase as we mercifully live longer and healthier lives. Somebody else mentioned that we are at risk of intergenerational unfairness. There is a risk that our children will be unable to pay off this increasing debt, yet this Government have failed to take back control of this skyrocketing budget. Instead, their Back Benchers refuse to support such changes, which would cost just £5 billion.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“After all, every efficiency and every saving that can be made is more money to spend somewhere else. The public sector is constantly behind the private sector digitally, and we need to do much better to ensure that our public services actually deliver for taxpayers, using the latest and best technology to do so. AI is a tsunami that the Government are nowhere near prepared to deal with. I do not mean this as a criticism of the civil service—it is just how it is—but only 5% of the civil service have specific IT qualifications. Some experts say that needs to rise to 10%, which would be a massive transformation. The Government announced a Bill to reform the welfare system. This year alone, the Department for Work and Pensions budget is expected to reach a projected £333 billion, or around 23.7% of UK spending.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Department for Work and Pensions has had its accounts qualified for 36 years because its fraud and error rate is 3.3%, costing the taxpayer a staggering £9 billion. Overall—this is even more staggering—the Government have written off close to £7 billion this year across Departments, including the Ministry of Defence writing off £1.5 billion purely on cancelled projects. I repeat: £7 billion has been written off this year from cancelled and wasted projects. That is staggering. The PAC has consistently recommended that each Department improves its digital and AI efficiencies. We believe that should be implemented from the top down, and that a chief digital and information officer should be appointed at a senior level in every Department and on arm’s length bodies. That would lead to efficiencies and savings.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not think I could design a tax increase that was a bigger tax on jobs than the hike in national insurance. I totally agree with the hon. Lady, and I think it is tragic in particular for our young people trying to get into the world of work today. As Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, my focus is on value for money for the taxpayer and ensuring that no expenditure goes to waste. Figures published by the National Audit Office in its “Audit insights” report in January 2026 point to a deeply worrying picture. The Government now spend around £1.1 trillion of taxpayers’ money across 17 Departments. A Department’s accounts are qualified—sorry, this is getting a little technical, but I hope the House will bear with me a little in this section of my speech—when it does not spend its budget as Parliament intends.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the hon. Gentleman is just a little patient, he will find that, two or three paragraphs down, I will address precisely that point. Currently, the defence budget for 2025-26 is £62.2 billion, which is a measly 18% of the welfare budget of £333 billion. The Government have pledged to increase it by 2.6%, or £9 billion, by 2027 and by 3% in the next Parliament, which means a further increase of £14 billion. But none of that new money has yet arrived.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These delays will have significant cost implications, so when, or if, the extra money does arrive, it will buy less and less equipment. I went to Ukraine earlier this year, and it is clear to me that we need more and more rockets, drones, interceptors, unmanned vehicles and investment in space. However, some of the proposed equipment is designed for yesterday’s wars, and it remains to be seen whether the MOD will be agile enough to make those substitutions in future procurement.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. As someone who worked under my right hon. Friend for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) as a junior Opposition defence spokesman, I understand the value of overseas aid, and I particularly understand the elements of it that he describes as soft power. The other day the PAC conducted an inquiry about the BBC World Service, and I do wish that the Government would fund that service properly. It is an extremely well-respected element of Britain’s ability to project our values around the world, and it is very sad when the Chinese and the Russians come in as soon as we make cuts in it. At a time when the world is increasingly uncertain and bellicose, our MOD budget is in crisis, and as a result a significant number of procurement projects have been put on hold.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Only with a stronger, leaner and more resilient economy can we fund our defences, secure our future and meet the challenges ahead.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It may be pretty obvious to some, but it is not so obvious to others. To govern is to make difficult choices. In short, the Government are spending more than the country can afford, funded by ever-increasing amounts of debt. If we are serious about protecting our nation in an increasingly uncertain world, we must also be serious about the strength of our economy. That means bringing our unaffordable welfare bill under control, creating a stronger environment for growth, eliminating billions of pounds in waste—some of which I have identified in my speech, although if time had allowed I could have identified billions more—and reforming how government works through the rapid roll-out of digital reform. The civil service must be reoriented around productivity and efficiency.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secondly, what reassurance can he give Royal Mail pensioners that their pension scheme will be managed properly during the transition and afterwards, either in-house or by an external provider?”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for his statement, and for meeting me to discuss this issue. As he is aware, the Public Accounts Committee has held multiple sessions with Capita on the broader civil service pension scheme and the problems that scheme members are having accessing their pensions. As numerous colleagues from across the House will have experienced, some of these cases are tragic and deeply distressing. People have not been able to get statements, or even payments, at the most important points of their life. Does the Minister have confidence that his team will be able to manage Capita and rapidly provide civil service pensioners with the scheme that they deserve?”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Lords amendment 11 relates to the police powers to crush vehicles, which are rarely used for fly-tipping. I remind my hon. Friend and the House that similar powers exist for hare coursing. Once one or two high-profile hare coursing cases had been handled that way, it had a dramatic effect on reducing that crime.”
House of Commons20 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although I thank the Minister for the limited amount of support that he has announced today, may I represent to him two of the most vulnerable groups in this regard: the very old and the very young? I ask him to consider them. I have elderly constituents who hardly dare turn on their heating because they do not know whether they can afford it. Will he consider including those groups in the regulations, and if not, will he give local authorities greater discretion to pay out hardship payments in the scheme?”
House of Commons16 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister may be aware that the Public Accounts Committee held a session on 8 January on the BBC World Service. At that session, we pushed for the BBC to be given a budget for the World Service, but here we are, two months on, and I understand that we have still not had notification of that budget, although we are nearly at the beginning of the next financial year. Will the Minister tell us when that budget will be forthcoming?”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We know that nuclear is consuming over 25% of the entire budget and growing, which is bound to have a knock-on effect on how much we can afford to spend on the rest of the procurement programme, so it is vital that we have the defence investment plan. I say to the Minister in the most gentle but persuasive way I possibly can that, if we achieve nothing else from this debate, will he confirm in clear terms when the defence investment plan will be published so that the PAC, the Defence Committee and the House can scrutinise it properly? I note that, during today’s Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister did not answer the question from the Leader of the Opposition about the date of publication.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It also incurred non-budget expenditure of £2.56 billion, which will result in an excess vote. This debate could not have come at a more significant time, with the events in Ukraine and the middle east. When the PAC last examined the defence procurement budget, over two years ago, the 10-year programme was £16.9 billion in deficit, which the National Audit Office described at that time as “unaffordable”. In June last year, the Government announced a highly ambitious strategic defence review. The defence investment plan—and I absolutely echo the remarks of the Chairman of the Defence Committee—has been continuously promised at the Dispatch Box, but we are still without the detail.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Madam Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to catch your eye to speak in this very important debate. I congratulate the Chair of the Defence Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), not only on securing this important estimates day debate, but on his excellent speech. We face a common problem, so I am afraid that some of my speech will repeat what he said, but I can assure the House that we did not collaborate on our speeches. The job of the PAC, as the House knows, is to look at expenditure right across Government. However, Ministry of Defence procurements and finances have too often been dysfunctional in the past. Indeed, the Comptroller and Auditor General qualified his opinion on this year’s MOD accounts because it could not provide adequate accounting records to support the value of assets under construction of £6.13 billion.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As everybody knows—and the Minister certainly knows—it takes a long time to procure and manufacture some of these important bits of kit, so we need to get on with that now.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is shocking, as my hon. Friend says from the Front Bench. As the Chair of the Defence Committee said, not only is it terrible for defence companies wanting to be able to plan their manufacturing programmes, but it is not good for MOD personnel, because they do not know how to plan either. Current events in the middle east have given a serious warning that we need to increase defence expenditure. It is therefore really important that we see the defence investment plan so that Parliament can scrutinise the latest plans. Without this information, the Office for Budget Responsibility has questioned whether the Government will be able to reach their target of 3% in five years’ time. That will also be too late, because we need to get the investment soon.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Fourthly, one of the squadrons had recently returned from the highly successful Operation Highmast to deploy around the world, ending up in Japan. Now, in a matter of a week or two, they have had to redeploy to the middle east. This is a good illustration of how some of our servicemen face considerable stretch. This is to be expected in wartime, but more resources must be deployed to support them and their families. Another example of that is that our submarine crew on HMS Vanguard recently served a 204-day deployment. The MOD budget is going to grow considerably, but the money is not going to purchase military hardware in the most strategic or cost-effective way. That will happen only if the Quad radically reforms the way the MOD has been run, especially with smarter recruitment of personnel and procurement of equipment.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have four main takeaways from that visit, all of which stem from the lack of urgency to be ready for war according to General Walker’s three-year timescale. First, the accommodation for our servicemen needs urgent upgrading. It is a disgrace that servicemen can be sent on long tours while their families do not have proper accommodation. My second takeaway was the effect that has on retention. We were told that pilots and training instructors for the F-35 programme are 50% below optimum levels, which is highly unsatisfactory for a project of this importance. Thirdly, it is difficult to plan the whole operation when the timing and procurement of the additional 27 F-35s are unclear. Hopefully, that will be revealed in the defence investment plan when it is published.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They say that tanks are effectively redundant. The Ukrainians inform us that 80% of their kills are as a result of drone strikes. Modern warfare is changing rapidly, and the MOD needs to be sufficiently agile to adapt. From the recent activity in Cyprus, and other lessons learned from the conflict in Ukraine and ongoing war in the middle east, we need to invest in comprehensive counter-drone systems and training across our armed forces. As an example, we use the Sky Sabre air defence system, which can shoot down drones, but can cost up to £250,000 a shot. We need to invest further in anti-drone technology to ensure we can do this far more rapidly and cheaply. As I am sure the Minister is aware, last Thursday the PAC visited RAF Marham, which houses two F-35 squadrons.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The drone operators’ experiences are directly and rapidly informing their procurement decisions. The Ukrainians are able to change the specification of their drones within a week. I suggest that it would probably take us some months to do the same thing. One of the top Ukrainian military experts told us that the future of warfare was following three domains: drones, cyber/electronic and space. I think, hearing those words, that some of our capabilities in those areas need bolstering pretty rapidly. We and NATO need to learn the lessons of the war in Ukraine. Without being too specific, there are severe gaps in NATO’s anti-drone technology. The experts also made the telling point that modern main battle tanks can cost between $4 million to $9 million per unit, but they can be destroyed by a swarm of drones costing less than $20,000 each.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our procurement system is far too slow, subject to mission creep, usually late and usually over-budget. As the Chair of the Defence Committee said, Ajax is a classic example of all those problems. We need to learn those lessons, move on and make sure they do not happen in future. Last week, as the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) mentioned—he is no longer in his place—I joined a group of 20 MPs who visited Ukraine. We were in air raid shelters several times during our visits to Odessa and Kyiv. On one night the Russians fired 290 drones: 220 were destroyed but 70 got through, causing a significant amount of damage, and a few injuries and fatalities as well. Ukraine’s technology and digital capability in tracking and destroying those drones is some of the most sophisticated in the world.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I sincerely hope, given their new powers, they will radically reform how the MOD functions. We need to take a more strategic view of systems that we procure—going to the point made by the hon. Member for Plymouth Moor View (Fred Thomas)—and consider above all the capability and speed we are able to acquire them. Why is it, I say to the Minister, that the Japanese can procure their version of the highly sophisticated Type 26 frigate, a Mogami class, in a third of the time that we do? The consequence of that is that the Australians have just struck a deal for £10 billion to purchase those ships from the Japanese. Why is it that the Israelis can procure their military equipment with just 1,000 people, yet our procurement body, Defence Equipment and Support, employs 12,500 people?”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is a commitment to increase defence expenditure from 2.2% of GDP to 2.5% by 2027, followed by an increase to 3.5% of GDP by 2035. In the Government spending review, the current budget is expected to increase by 18.2%, or £11.3 billion by 2028-29. Minister, we really do need to see those numbers incorporated into the Government’s expenditure plan in the autumn Budget so that we can be absolutely certain about them. Many Members will know—certainly the Chair of the Defence Committee knows, because I have been a guest on his Committee—that the MOD has been reorganised into the Quad: the permanent secretary Jeremy Pocklington; the Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton; the National Armaments Director, Rupert Pearce; and the Chief Of Defence Nuclear, Madeleine McTernan.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. and gallant Member has great experience in these matters. I think he must have been reading my speech. If he is patient, I think he will get exactly what he wants. The PAC recommended more than two years ago that the Government should set up a sensitive scrutiny committee to examine confidential military expenditure. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister on the Front Bench today, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, for their careful consideration of that matter. I hope it will now be possible to make real progress, but as the Minister will remember, I raised this matter in the estimates debate in June last year. I hope it will not be necessary to raise it again in another year’s time.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“] I can see that you are urging me to finish, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have overrun, but I did not wish to try your patience. Simply put, we cannot go on doing what we did in the past. We need to do things differently and better in the future.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It might mean different things; it might mean retraining some of our existing personnel to operate these new weapons. Above all, our armed forces are at the lowest they have been for decades—the Army in particular. We will need to bolster the numbers somewhat because of the reason I have just given: the overstretch of our personnel. We cannot go on doing that to them. We need to have enough people available on rotation so that next time a long deployment comes around, different people—different regiments and different squadrons—are deployed. There are a lot of things we need to think about when it comes to personnel. One is that we must have a pipeline in the future. The PAC did an inquiry into reserves and cadets, and it seems to me that we need to do a little better in both categories. [ Interruption.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. In the reorganisation of the MOD into the Quad that I have talked about, the critical person is the Chief of the Defence Staff, because he has now assumed responsibility for all personnel matters. I am sure that he will be looking at this very carefully. We need to look at recruiting people with different skills from those we have recruited for in the past. To operate drones, for instance, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we need people with good computer and dexterity skills. That may mean recruiting youngsters, who have the brains to be able to do this work, but who are not necessarily the people we would traditionally have recruited to be running around the battlefield 100% of the time.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The reason cited by the school was the 20% VAT charge, which is having an unfair effect on children in private schools.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I should perhaps clarify for the House that I chair the all-party parliamentary group on shooting and conservation. I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Does she agree that one of the critical reasons that medical markers are not yet compulsory—I entirely agree that they ought to be—is that some doctors do not want to do it because they think it will put them in a decision-making position on whether a person should have a shotgun or firearms certificate? In fact, that is not the case; the decision maker is the relevant constabulary, and, in law, the chief of that constabulary is ultimately responsible for the decision.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member has prompted the second point that I want to make. Doctors and other medics are perfectly happy to do medical checks on people in relation to driving licences. That is an issue of public safety. Why is there inconsistency in doing it for firearms?”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Even if a GP is a conscientious objector, they still ought to be interested in public safety as an overall priority of their work, so it would be reasonable to require them to just look at a person’s medical notes and take account of whether their medical condition made them a suitable person to hold a firearm.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The second reason that GPs do not want to operate the medical marker is that they are very busy people—they are overworked—and it is another thing that they have to do. But if they are going to do it for driving licences, heavy goods vehicle licences and a number of other categories, I cannot see why they would not do it in the public interest for firearms. My sister was a GP and the senior partner of a GP practice. One of her partners was a conscientious objector to people having guns, and she ended up having to do all his casework to do with firearms.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Lady, the first is that there is a widely held concern among the people who will not do so that they will be regarded as the decision maker. They do not want to be the decision maker because, at the margin, it will be quite difficult to decide whether a person should possess a shotgun or other firearm. But that is not the case, as I made clear in my intervention; the chief constable of the constabulary that granted the certificate is the final decision maker. Of course, the normal appeal rights apply to the chief constable. If he has decided that somebody’s firearms licence should not be granted or should be revoked, the affected person has the right to appeal against that decision. It is quite clear that the GP is not the decision maker, and I therefore cannot see any reason why they would not want to operate the medical marker.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As the hon. Lady made clear, the lacuna in the system is that not all GPs currently operate a medical marker. She was quite right to ask what percentage of GPs operate a medical marker, and it would be really interesting to hear the answer from the Minister. If he and the Department of Health and Social Care do not know, they should send out an inquiry to all GPs to find out, and then he could begin to have a negotiation with the General Medical Council and the BMA about whether doctors should operate this service when the Government next sign a contract with them. There are two principal reasons why doctors do not operate a medical marker—something that is actually very easy to do and involves very little work. As I said in my intervention on the hon.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the patient is a belligerent sort of person, he or she would say, “Of course I’m a fit person.” The GP would then be in the position of having to say, “Well, I’m very sorry, but I don’t consider that you are, and I’m going to have to report your medical condition to the police.” On the other side of the coin, there could be a more sensible conversation with a more rational person, who would say, “Doctor, I hear what you say, and I think it is a concern. I will now take steps either to transfer the guns that I hold in my gun cabinet to a person who has a certificate, to a firearms dealer or to the police, until such time as you and the local constabulary think it is fit for me to repossess those weapons.” That is how it ought to work; that would have prevented a lot of these tragedies. I think the Government have a role here.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Lady said, having had it flagged up in the GP’s mind, he or she would have a conversation with that person: “I see you are a shotgun certificate holder. You tell me you are feeling terrible and that you sometimes have feelings of wanting to commit suicide. We’re going to do our best to provide treatment for you, and it may be that in future you could return to a normal position where you could hold a shotgun, but at this particular time, do you think you are a fit person to be holding that shotgun certificate?” One of two things then happens.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The terrible incident at Epsom college highlights exactly why we need a robust system of medical markers. I will explain a little more how it works. The current two-stage system makes it possible without adding any financial burdens to the GP. When a patient comes in for a consultation with the GP, the medical marker automatically flags up on his or her screen that Mr X or Ms X has a firearms or shotgun certificate, and the GP considers what they have come to see them about. If it is a medical condition such as a propensity to wanting to commit suicide or manic depression, or if domestic violence is involved, that would automatically flag up in the GP’s mind whether the person was a suitable person at that time to be holding either a firearms or shotgun certificate. As the hon.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To make it absolutely clear where I am coming from, I have been a shotgun and firearms certificate holder for over 50 years. I have been campaigning with the BASC on the issue of medical markers for many years, and have written articles and delivered speeches on the subject, so it is not a new one for me. I fully support a strict licensing system that works effectively for everyone—the police, firearms and shotgun certificate holders and, most importantly, the wider public, our constituency—because it is in no one’s interest that we should have any of the tragic incidents that the hon. Lady so powerfully alluded to. If we had a proper firearms certificate system with medical markers, then clearly, as she demonstrated, some of the tragedies could possibly have been avoided, so I wholly support her in that.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a great pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I reiterate my congratulations to the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this important debate. I have campaigned for medical markers for at least 20 years, long before the technology that now exists to do them digitally, which of course makes the whole thing far easier than having to put them on manually. In those early days, a few put them on manually, but now, with digital technology, there is no reason why the Government could not have an agreement with the BMA that all GPs and some other health professionals should put them on digitally. To add to what the hon. Member said in her excellent speech, I am chair of the all-party group on shooting and conservation.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When the PAC had our hearing on recovering fees and charges, we found that it is much better to gradually update them each year rather than leave them with no update, as has happened for 12 years, which is why that very large increase was needed. An update every year would be appreciated. It is a large task to license 650,000-odd firearms and shotguns. There is an opportunity here, with the announcement of the White Paper this week on reforming our police forces. One would need to think carefully about this, but there is a case for considering more centralisation of shotgun and firearms certificates. The centralisation of the police would be an opportunity to consider that. It would relieve the local police, who often struggle—”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was coming on to the wider firearms licensing regime. BASC thinks that there are about half a million shotgun certificate holders and about 150,000 firearms certificate holders, so this is a large and costly job for the 43 forces to undertake. There have recently been increases of 250% in the fees for firearms and shotgun licence renewals and grants, so I understand—and I am Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee—that the system is largely self-financing at the moment. I make one plea to the Minister. That big 250% increase came as a great shock, particularly to some firearm and shotgun holders of modest means.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She looked at the cabinet and at the amount of ammunition I had, and she questioned me about how much I had used and where I had used it. This was under the firearms regime, which is a different subject, but the Government are consulting on aligning the shotguns regime with the firearms regime. There are a considerable number of problems with that, and it needs to be very carefully considered. I happily give way to my fellow member of the Public Accounts Committee.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will just make this point first. Local police often struggle to have well-trained people in their firearms department. It is quite an onerous task; they have to know a lot about guns to work out whether a gun is the one on the certificate or not, and there are a number of other questions. Centralising the processing part of firearms and shotgun licences could make a lot of sense. There would still need to be a local inspection regime. The local firearms officer came round recently, because I have just renewed my certificates. She talked to me at some length, to make sure that I was a sane person with no obvious mental problems, but equally she looked at the guns and she jolly well thoroughly checked that the guns on my certificate were the guns in my cabinet.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Nevertheless, every death and every wounded person is one too many and is a tragedy for that person and their family. It is incumbent on the Government to take this proposal seriously. I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell again on bringing it before the House.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) knows—our report is out shortly—we found that a lot of forces, particularly the smaller forces, could not afford to upgrade their IT properly. That is a really serious issue, because as our Committee has found, if police forces do not have properly upgraded IT, that not only makes processes such as shotgun certificate licensing more expensive, because it is more inefficient and they have to do it manually, but makes the police force more liable to cyber-attacks. It cannot operate the proper AI learning systems and so on if there are not the proper systems to operate them on. All in all, this is a really sensible proposal. We know that the number of homicides by licensed shotguns and firearms is very low in this country.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very grateful for the support from my fellow Committee member. She is dead right: it is a sensible idea that the Minister and the Government should seriously consider. This complex process, with a very large number of shotgun and firearms certificates, could be made considerably more efficient—the best forces do this already—by proper IT. The problem is that the best forces have the IT and do it really efficiently, but the worst are really not geared up properly with that IT. That is why, in the discussion about fee increases, we wanted to make sure that they were based on the best performance and not the worst. In our recent PAC hearing on police productivity, as the hon.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗