INTRODUCTION
Individual and trade members of BASC and GTA sell knives to varying degrees. That includes private sellers of knives, specialist cutlery dealers, gun trade wholesalers, distributors and retailers who supply knives, often in small quantities, as point-of-sale items.
Knives are an important tool used by many people with an interest in shooting for a wide variety of reasons. Almost everyone on a shoot carries a knife for a wide variety of utility tasks from cutting bailer twine to dealing with a picnic lunch. In the case of deer stalking, a sharp knife is an essential adjunct for the prompt field dressing (gralloching) of a carcass to prevent the meat from spoiling.
Larger knives and bladed items such as machetes and billhooks play an important part in countryside management, from removing undergrowth in woodlands to building a hide for pigeon control. Away from the immediacy of the shooting field, knives are vital for carcass butchery and in the kitchen for preparing game for the table.
BASC and GTA members also include expert collectors interested in knives as heritage items with many of significant value, e.g. Fairburn-Sykes “Commando” daggers, or the more uncommon models of service bayonet. Modern knives are also collected.
Auctioneers who might occasionally sell a bladed item would be affected by this proposal as would small volume collectors and dealers.
Furthermore, private individuals selling a knife as a one-off would be affected, as would individuals importing a knife for personal use.
The mooted charges to achieve full-cost recovery per licence range from £250 to £466 for a three-year period. They would apply to both face to face and online sales.
The imposition of further costs on registered firearms dealers and other retailers already struggling with a heavy tax and regulatory burden is deeply undesirable. It is unlikely that private sellers and smaller traders would consider the cost of a license to be justified.
OUR POSITION
As an overarching position, BASC and GTA do not consider that any licensing regime for knife sellers would be effective in targeting knife crime.
No empirical evidence has been provided to sustain the Home Office proposals.
A Local Government Association briefing for a House of Commons debate on knife crime in October 2025 stated that the rise in knife crime has been attributed to various factors, including social inequality, gang-related activities and reductions in youth services.
The report explained that young black victims aged 16 to 24 made up the majority of people killed by a knife in the ten years to 2023. In 2023-24, eight-in-ten teenage victims were killed by a knife, marking the highest percentage in a decade. Metropolitan areas, particularly London, experience higher rates of knife crime.
The report highlights that kitchen knives are the most commonly used item in homicides involving sharp instruments. In the year ending March 2024, over half of such homicides were committed with kitchen knives.
Introducing a licensing system for sellers and importers of all knives and bladed articles ignores the obvious uncontrollable ease of access to kitchen knives in every home in the country. These number in the hundreds of millions.
If the Government wants to effectively tackle knife crime it needs to reject these proposals and address the root causes of some young people using kitchen knives and other bladed items as weapons.
The consultation references a licensing scheme in operation in Scotland, the Scottish knife dealers licensing scheme, which applies to businesses and regulates the sales of non-domestic knives. There has been no analysis of the impact of this scheme on knife crime rates in Scotland. Furthermore. the consultation omits that it is local authorities, not the police, that administer this scheme.
The consultation proposes that the police service be tasked with administering a proposed licensing system in England and Wales because of its experience with registered firearms dealers. Firearms licensing in England and Wales is the individual responsibility of 43 different police forces. There is no centralised oversight of Chief Officers as to how to run their Firearms Licensing Units (FLUs).
Consequently, the resourcing, training, processes and ultimate efficiency of FLUs varies considerably. Administrative consistency is non-existent. The service received by the public is a postcode lottery with only about 25% of forces performing efficiently.
Quarterly performance data collected by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) shows that the overall levels of performance are falling. When looked at against this background of failing FLUs, it is self-evident that it would be reckless to appoint the police service as the administrative and enforcement agency for any knife seller licensing scheme.
In any case, the police service’s enforcement and administrative capacity appear not to have undergone any realistic form of assessment before this proposal was made. Most FLUs struggle to discharge their firearms licensing function leading to long delays and backlogs. Adding a further licensing burden for knives to already overstretched police services for firearms is unrealistic and doomed to failure.
SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Recent data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and other official sources, including data released in January 2026, indicates a continued reduction in police-recorded knife crime in England and Wales for the past two years.
It is reasonable to conclude that this reduction is partly down to effective strategies combining community intervention with intelligence-led policing. On that basis, this success should be reinforced rather than introducing a licensing regime that would draw police resources away from its role in a multi-faceted approach to tackling the root causes of knife crime.
Integrating law enforcement with social services, health, and education -a public health approach -is considered the most effective way to address the root causes of violence.
We respectfully suggest to the Home Office that it should:
• Conduct an in-depth review of the evidential basis for licensing those who deal in or import knives. When the results of that are known, the proposition should be reassessed against it.
• Establish the drivers of knife crime and align law-enforcement policies to target them.
• Reinforce success by concentrating resources on those interventions that reduce knife crime.
We hold ourselves ready to engage constructively with Government to discover evidence-led solutions to knife crime that are proportionate and effective.
SUBMITTED JOINTLY BY:
Bill Harriman, Director of Firearms, British Association for Shooting and Conservation.
Stephen Jolly, Chief Executive, The Gun Trade Association.