Asked by: Baroness Hoey (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the amount of drone equipment and heavy machinery going from the UK to Armenia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan which is then sent on to Russia.
Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
HMG has sanctioned every item that Ukraine has found Russia using on the battlefield to date. This includes goods that could be used for drones and heavy machinery.
We maintain a Common High Priority List (CHPL) of items critical to the Russian military, to thwart attempts to circumvent sanctions through third countries.
We continue to engage with relevant countries and monitor our exports for signs of circumvention, to do everything we can to ensure that sanctioned UK technologies do not make it to Russia.
Asked by: Baroness Hoey (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government who are the members of the statutory inquiry established to investigate the Post Office Horizon scandal; and who chairs that inquiry.
Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry is chaired by Sir Wyn Williams FLSW, a former High Court judge, who is supported by an Inquiry team including counsel, solicitors, assessors, and the Secretariat.
The statutory roles to the Inquiry which support the Chair are Counsel to the Inquiry (Jason Beer, KC), Solicitor to the Inquiry (Segun Jide) and Secretary to the Inquiry (Leila Pilgrim). There are two assessors to the Inquiry (Erika Eliasson-Norris and David Page) who have been appointed to provide advice to the Chairman on their area of relevant expertise regarding the Inquiry.
Asked by: Baroness Hoey (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the National Federation of SubPostmasters concerning the removal of DVLA services from Post Offices.
Answered by Earl of Minto - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) meets with the National Federation of SubPostmasters (NFSP) regularly, both at official and at ministerial level. The NFSP have raised their concerns at the potential future removal of DVLA services from Post Office branches at these meetings, and officials have ensured these concerns are highlighted at Ministerial level and with Post Office Limited. The contract negotiations themselves represent a commercial matter between DVLA and Post Office.
Asked by: Baroness Hoey (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to using the Export Control Act 2002 to filter unsuitable items crossing from Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland to prevent a border in the Irish Sea.
Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Export Control Act 2002 provides the legal basis for our export control legislation on military and certain dual-use goods. Military list items and certain dual-use items specified within the European Union (EU) Dual-use Regulation (“the Dual-use Regulation”), require an export licence for export from Northern Ireland to Ireland. Export licence applications for these items would be assessed against the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, which is statutory guidance issued by the Secretary of State and laid before Parliament under section 9 of the Export Control Act 2002. We would not issue an export licence in response to an application where to do so would be inconsistent with the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria. Unless specified within Annex IV of the Dual-use Regulation, dual-use items exported from Northern Ireland to Ireland would not require a licence.
The Windsor Framework ensures the free flow of trade from Great Britain to Northern Ireland through a new green lane, removing unacceptable customs processes. The only checks conducted will be risk-based to target smuggling or criminality in the green lane, highly-controlled goods, or any goods bound for the EU in the red lane.