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03
Jun
Summerbridge arms supplier 'deeply worried' about lead ammunition ban
A forthcoming ban on using lead in commercially available gun ammunition could cause serious difficulties for the police and armed forces, a local MP has claimed.
Sir Julian Smith, MP for Skipton and Ripon, raised the issue in Parliament this week, adding that Viking Arms, an arms supply company in his constituency, was “deeply worried about this issue”.
Summerbridge-based Viking supplies guns and ammunition to the fieldsports community, but also to the police and armed forces.
Legislation banning lead in commercial ammunition was passed just last month following a lengthy campaign by environmental campaigners and some fieldsports enthusiasts.
Lead poisoning
According to one of the bodies calling for the ban, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, around 7,000 tonnes of lead ammunition is released – or shot – into the environment in the UK each year.
According to the WWT’s website:
It seeps into the soil, climbs up the food chain and lingers for generations.
Centuries after the dangers of lead were first discovered, ammunition remains the last major source of lead poisoning in nature, killing up to 100,000 waterbirds in the UK and a million across Europe every year.
Supply chain concerns
The ban, which comes under the UK’s REACH (registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals) regulations, is due to come into force on April 1, 2029. It will see lead shot replaced by shot made of steel, tungsten or bismuth.
The legislation applies predominantly to field sports and explicitly excludes the use of lead in ammunition used by the armed forces, police, government security services, border forces and private maritime security companies – a point made by Emma Hardy, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in March in response to an earlier question from Sir Julian.
So why did he raise the subject again this week? We asked Sir Julian, who told us that these exemptions did not solve problems in the supply chain.
Sir Julian Smith speaking in the House of Commons.
He said:
The forthcoming restrictions on ammunition containing lead for commercial purposes will mean a contraction in demand for lead bullets in the UK, in spite of the aforementioned exemption. This contraction in demand will mean that UK import orders as a whole will be smaller, and therefore less attractive to exporters in the rest of the world, who must follow a number of requirements when exporting ammunition, and therefore face regulatory costs.
Furthermore, restrictions are also likely to hamper domestic manufacturing of lead ammunition – many will stop producing ammunition containing lead and move to lead-free alternatives, and those that continue to produce lead ammunition might struggle to compete in a global market with producers who are able to rely on steady domestic demand.
The effect of both of these factors – less attractive import orders, and a contraction in domestic supply – will result in a less reliable and more expensive supply chain of lead ammunition for defence and security.
Therefore, even whilst as a matter of law these sectors will continue to be able to buy ammunition containing lead, because their supply chains are intertwined with the commercial market, as a matter of fact they are likely to find it more difficult to procure.
In response to Sir Julian’s request in Parliament this week for a meeting with Viking Arms, Luke Pollard, minister for defence procurement, said he would be happy to meet, and added:
We inherited stockpiles that were much lower than we would have liked, and this government are determined to refill those stockpiles; anything that goes into rebuilding those is important to me. I am happy to meet and discuss this further.
The Stray Ferret approached Viking Arms for comment.
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