CHEAP gun licences will come to an end, under Labour plans – potentially raising more than £500,000 for Hampshire’s cash-strapped police force.

The Opposition vowed to make applicants for firearms pay the full processing costs, after Hampshire’s police chief led protests that they are being subsidised by taxpayers.

Figures released earlier this year suggested the county’s force is left with a staggering shortfall of £545,490 every year, because the £50 cost has been frozen since 2001.

In the summer, Downing Street blocked a proposed rise in the cost from £50 to £88, designed to be the first step towards “full cost recovery”.

No 10 declined to comment on claims that Mr Cameron - who has hunted stags on his stepfather-in-law's 20,000-acre shooting estate - had intervened personally.

The climbdown prompted Andy Marsh, Hampshire’s chief constable, to write to the Home Secretary to protest it was a “significant setback” to improving public safety.

Now the cost of a licence is set to quadruple to around £200, if Labour wins power, the average bill for processing a licence.

Yvette Cooper, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, said it was wrong for gun owners to enjoy subsidies when the police were about to be ordered to make further cuts.

She said: “The police are already struggling to cope with growing crimes such as violent crime, child sex exploitation, online child abuse and online fraud, and prosecutions are falling as they can’t get cases to trial.”

However, a Conservative spokesman said the plans “actually mean more spending, not less.

“Nobody will believe a word Labour say on the deficit – they’ve opposed every step we’ve taken to cut it, and the independent IFS say Labour’s policy means £28 billion more borrowing and more debt.

“And because Ed Miliband forgot even to mention the deficit in what he called his job interview for being Prime Minister, it’s clear that he’s just not up to it.”