Arms Export Controls

John Stanley Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I am glad to open what I hope and expect to be the first of our annual debates on the reports of the Committees on Arms Export Controls. First, I thank the members of the four Committees for their contributions to our report, which sets a high standard of detail, incisiveness and relevance to current events, with particular reference to north Africa and the middle east. I also thank the staff of our Committees for their invaluable contribution in bringing together our report, and I thank Ministers and their officials for the substantial volume of detailed information that they have provided to the Committees in the response to our report and in answer to our subsequent extensive questions. One of my objectives, which is shared by the members of the Committees, is to achieve a higher level of transparency in our work in the key area of arms export controls, and I believe that we have made a good start in that direction.

I start with various aspects of the arms export controls system. Much of the debate will focus on the situation in north Africa and the middle east, which I will come on to, but it is important to cover this central area of the controls system, and I begin with the Export Control Organisation. I see the attraction for the Government and, most particularly, for the Treasury of changing the system of funding for the ECO. The Government are considering a proposal whereby that funding is taken out of public expenditure and therefore from the general body of taxpayers and is made the responsibility of the arms exporting industry. There are, however, possible risks and dangers in going down that route, because a crucial feature of the ECO is its clear independence. We have no doubt whatever about the integrity of all the civil servants who work in the ECO, but the Government must answer the question of whether a change to the basis of its funding might change public perception from seeing the ECO as an independent watchdog to seeing it instead as a poodle of the arms exporting companies. That would be detrimental to the perception of our UK arms export controls. I hope that the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), and his colleagues will consider that point carefully.

We made recommendations about three particular issues: brass-plate companies, the pre-licence registration of arms brokers and extraterritorial arms export controls. I must express my acute disappointment that, six months after we published our report and its recommendations, we have still not received a substantive response from the Government on any of those three important policy areas. I put it to the Minister that we expect a substantive response on those three areas shortly, and certainly in good time before the Committees resume taking oral evidence in a few weeks.

On what are called military end-use controls, a key issue in how to deal with dual-use goods, I very much welcome the Government acting on the Committees’ recommendation to produce specific proposals for strengthening such controls. I gather that the Government have now proposed a specific strengthening of article 4(2) of the relevant European Union regulation. I urge them to continue to press for the amendment of that article so that we can achieve greater strengthening of control over military end-use.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

I am sorry to intervene so early in the right hon. Gentleman’s speech. On that point, does he agree that we could urge the Government to look at the work on the on-sale of arms to third countries, and that we could do a little more to ensure that the arms that we are selling to friendly or neutral countries do not end up in the wrong hands?

[Sir John Stanley]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady’s point. That is one of the central areas on which we constantly keep watch. It is of prime importance that when an export licence is granted to a particular country for a particular piece of military equipment or particular goods, we as the exporting country know that that is where the items concerned will finish up. I am grateful to her for making that point.

I come now to sodium thiopental and torture end-use controls. An extremely creditable bit of investigative journalism revealed to us in the autumn of last year that a small company, in Acton I think, was exporting sodium thiopental to certain states in the United States that still use capital punishment and that the substance was among the chemicals used in the execution of prisoners. In other words, items coming out of this country were being used for capital punishment purposes in the United States. Our Committees were deeply concerned and the Government did react. We have debated with the Government whether they reacted quickly enough, but they did impose export controls on that particular item. We have now asked for those controls to be carried out more widely. I very much welcome that the Minister himself wrote to the EU High Representative Baroness Ashton and urged that the controls we brought in as the UK’s national controls over the export of sodium thiopental should be applied EU-wide by means of an amendment to the EU torture goods regulation. I hope that the Government will continue to press for that important amendment to be made, so that we have EU-wide controls and ensure that, EU-wide, we are not making a chemical contribution to capital punishment executions in the US.

On the proposed international arms trade treaty, I am glad to tell the House that, since our report was published, the Committees have had a useful informal meeting with our former ambassador to the conference on disarmament in Geneva, John Duncan. I would like to put on the record that Ambassador Duncan performed outstandingly in his contribution to the preparatory committee phase of that key negotiation, and made a signal contribution to the current situation. We now have before us at least three quarters of a draft treaty, in a text, in advance of the crucial negotiating phase, which will take place next year. The Government in their response said:

“The Government is committed to securing an effective, legally binding international Arms Trade Treaty. The UK continues to play a leading role in the UN process on the Arms Trade Treaty to this end.”

I urge the Government to ensure that the UK continues to be a major driving force in hopefully bringing the treaty to a conclusion in 2012.

Finally on the arms export controls system, I come to bribery and corruption, and I want to make two points. First, our Committees recommended that an anti-corruption provision should be included in the arms trade treaty, and I trust that the Minister will assure us that the British Government will do all they can to ensure that that happens. Secondly, the Committees were somewhat concerned that the Government were taking too narrow a view in dealing with bribery and corruption with regard to arms exports. In our subsequent series of questions to the Government, we asked:

“Will the Government confirm that if it becomes aware of corruption in arms deals it will, regardless of whether there is a risk of diversion or re-export under Criteria 7, take appropriate action under the provisions of the Bribery Act 2010?”

I am glad that in their latest response to us the Government have answered with an unequivocal “Yes”, and that is very welcome indeed.

I come now to the Government’s arms export policy in the light of the Arab spring, particularly in relation to arms that could be used for internal repression contrary to criterion 2 of the consolidated criteria and for provoking armed conflict contrary to criterion 3. I want to start by putting what I believe are the absolutely essential facts on the record since the Government announced their review of arms export licensing in the light of what has happened with the arrival of the Arab spring.

I am mystified why the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign Office keep saying that the first announcement of the review was made by the Foreign Secretary on 16 March in answer to a question from the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) at a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is clear from the documentation that the first announcement was made by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), in his press release on 18 February. It was a highly significant press release, to which I shall return.

In the wake of the announcement of that review, there has been a revocation of existing UK licences for arms exports on a scale and over a geographical area totally unprecedented since the Committees were first formed more than 10 years ago. I cannot over-emphasise the extent to which that is the most enormous jump from anything that has previously happened. From the documents that we have received from the Government, I believe that a total of 158 extant arms export licences to countries in north Africa and the middle east have been revoked as a result of internal repression or the risk of it as a consequence of the Arab spring. Those arms export licences have been revoked in no fewer than eight countries: Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Syria and Tunisia. When I say that the scale of the revocations is unprecedented, I contrast them with, for example, the revocations made by the previous Labour Government following the Israeli armed hostilities in Gaza. The number of revocations then, mainly in relation to components given by British exporters to the Israeli navy, were a handful, so this order of magnitude is unprecedented.

In our questions to the Government, we asked for a list of all the licences that have been revoked. It makes extremely interesting reading. They are all there in the Government’s response—25 pages listing the revocations. It is extraordinarily helpful to the House and to the wider public that we now have that information. It lists in each case the end-user country and the details of the equipment sold. But there is one common denominator behind each and every revocation, and it is given in the “reasons” column. In every case, the reason for revocation was the Government’s conclusion that the licence now contravenes criteria 2 and 3 of the consolidated criteria. I remind the House that criterion 2 states that no licence will be granted for

“equipment which might be used for internal repression”.

Criterion 3 states that no licences will be granted for equipment

“which would provoke…prolong…or aggravate”

armed conflicts.

I and, I am sure, the whole House welcome the revocations absolutely, and we welcome the scale of the revocations, but the key point, which the Government seem to be reluctant to acknowledge, is that the scale of the revocations is the clearest possible evidence of the scale of the misjudgment that took place when the export licences were originally granted. The Government must address that—the scale of the misjudgment. The reality is that under the previous Government—we took our analysis back to January 2009—and under the present Government that misjudgment continued up to the dawn of the Arab spring, as journalists who managed to get into the ransacked British embassy in Tripoli found. They found papers there indicating that right up to the start of the Arab spring, we were engaged in major military support and military activities vis-à-vis the Gaddafi Government.

With that sort of background, one might have expected the Government in their response to be somewhat contrite, even apologetic, but sadly that has not been so. When I came face to face with the Foreign Secretary in the Foreign Affairs Committee on 7 September, I found his initial written statement giving the Government’s interim view of their review—the 18 July statement—profoundly misleading, and I will explain why. It contained the following sentence:

“The review concluded that there was no evidence of any misuse of controlled military goods exported from the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, 18 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 79WS.]

Of course there was no evidence. One has only to look through the 25 pages of items that we exported to see that their nature was overwhelmingly such that their origin could not be identified when they reached the specified countries. They were made up of electronics, communications equipment, cryptography, ammunition and sniper rifles. There are no Union Jacks on bullets and sniper rifles. The Foreign Secretary said that there was no evidence, but of course there was no evidence, and we did not have anyone on the ground anyway.

The Foreign Secretary continued:

“Consultations with our overseas posts revealed no evidence that any of the offensive naval, air or land-based military platforms used by Governments in north Africa or the middle east against their own populations during the Arab spring, were supplied from the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, 18 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 79WS.]

I tabled a question to find out what offensive naval, air or land-based military platforms we had supplied to countries that were the main focus of internal repression in north Africa and the middle east during the Arab spring. Last week, the Minister replied: to Bahrain, none; to Egypt, none; to Syria, none; to Tunisia, none; to Yemen, none. At that point, he must have breathed a sigh of relief in thinking that he was about to break the Government’s duck, and he said that we may have sold up to 12 armoured personnel carriers to Libya. He was, however, obliged to add:

“We cannot verify whether these items were actually exported.”—[Official Report, 12 October 2011; Vol. 533, c. 443W.]

Therefore, the Foreign Secretary’s statement suggesting that all is well and that none of the offensive military platforms exported from Britain have been used in the countries under discussion is based on a complete chimera. I have great respect and admiration for the Foreign Secretary, but if his officials, who no doubt drafted that statement, think that they can pull the wool over the eyes of the Committees on Arms Export Controls and of the House, they are making a serious mistake that I hope will not be repeated.

The Foreign Secretary’s most recent statement on 13 October was a distinct improvement, but I still need to be persuaded that the Government have addressed the root of the problem that has been illustrated by the Arab spring and the revocations that we have been obliged to make. The Foreign Secretary stated:

“The review concluded that there are no fundamental flaws with the UK export licensing system.”

It may—or may not—be true that there are no flaws in the system, but I am not persuaded that the Government are addressing the key point about flawed judgments within the system. The inescapable fact is that judgments have been shown to be wildly over-optimistic and rose-tinted regarding the sale to authoritarian regimes of weapons that could be used for internal repression.

The Foreign Secretary continued:

“The Government propose to introduce a mechanism to allow immediate licensing suspension to countries experiencing a sharp deterioration in security or stability,”

but that does not address the central problem, because suspension becomes relevant only after export licensed goods have moved out of the UK. Suspension means that a licence has already been granted and that the goods have left the UK and are out of the door—the bullets have bolted and are in the hands of an authoritarian regime. Although a better system of suspension would provide a good safety net, it does not deal with the central issue of making a correct initial judgment about whether to grant an export licence.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

rose—

[Sir John Stanley]

If the hon. Gentleman will wait one moment, I will finish my point.

The Foreign Secretary added:

“We also propose the introduction of a revised risk categorisation,”.—[Official Report, 13 October 2011; Vol. 533, c. 41WS.]

That is a crucial sentence but its meaning is wholly unclear, and it is an issue that the Committees must scrutinise and look at in considerable detail in their next report. They will need to be persuaded that the substantial errors of judgment that have taken place will not reoccur.

[Toby Perkins]

I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman did not accept my intervention the second I offered it, because he has partially answered my question. Given that the Foreign Secretary’s review went on for some time, was the right hon. Gentleman surprised at how little detail it contained about how the proposed changes will be delivered? There were a relatively small number of suggestions about possible outcomes, but little detail on how those outcomes would be delivered. Having read the review, is the right hon. Gentleman confident that the Foreign Secretary has told the House exactly how improvements will be delivered?

[Sir John Stanley]

As I have said, I remain to be persuaded that the Government have satisfactorily addressed the key issue regarding the scale of misjudgments that have taken place. The key sentence is the one about new criteria, which I have quoted. The hon. Gentleman is right that we need a great deal more detail about what that statement means in terms of the export controls system and how it will be operated by the Government in future.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am sorry that I missed the first part of the right hon. Gentleman’s speech and I thank him for the way in which he is presenting the report. He makes a good point about the suspension of licences. Is it the case, however, that licences are suspended once weapons or equipment are used and the media choose to report it? The abuse of human rights has been going on for a long time. The abuse of human rights in Bahrain is not new, and neither is the abuse of individual human rights in Saudi Arabia. What is different in Bahrain is that the world’s media have been on the ground reporting on the treatment of those who are opposed to the regime, which has provoked the suspension.

[Sir John Stanley]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that the serious abuses of human rights that have occurred in all those countries subject to revocation orders—I would also add Saudi Arabia, to which I am about to refer, even though there has been no revocation thus far—have been going on for a long period. That poses the central question whether the Government have done enough to ensure that in future we do not put weapons that can be used for internal repression into the hands of regimes in which the abuse of human rights is endemic.

I have three final points. First, I believe that the Government are skating on thin ice in their present policy of the non-revocation of a single arms export licence to Saudi Arabia. I understand the reasons for that policy, but regret that so far the Government have been less than forthcoming—indeed, pretty much non-forthcoming—about the real reasons why they treat Saudi Arabia so differently from those other countries to which I have referred. I am in no doubt about the reasons behind the Government’s policy: there is an intelligence dimension, an oil dimension and a British business interest, all of which are perfectly relevant and legitimate ministerial considerations. I believe, however, that the Government would do better to be open with the House and the Committees about why their policy towards Saudi Arabia is so conspicuously different from that applied to the other countries in question. I hope that Ministers will reflect on that point.

As I have said, the Government are skating on thin ice in their policy of non-revocation in Saudi Arabia. Among the important questions that we asked in our supplementary responses to the Government response, we asked the Government to state the totality of the extant arms export licences to Saudi Arabia and their value. I am glad to say that we have been provided with that information. Those members of the Committees who are present have the information and know that there are pages and pages of it. I am grateful to the Government for giving us that detail, but I intend to offer hon. Members the details of just one little box among the multitude of boxes relating to extant export licences to Saudi Arabia. It refers to

“assault rifles, blank ammunition, components for assault rifles, components for general purpose machine guns, components for machine pistols, components for pistols, components for rifles, components for semi-automatic pistols, components for submachine guns, general purpose machine guns, machine pistols, pistols, rifles, semi-automatic pistols, submachine guns, training small arms ammunition”.

That is just one little box among a multitude, and hon. Members will immediately see that each and every one of the items to which I have referred is usable for internal repression.

Alongside that, I place a report that appeared recently in the British press about the way in which, in the wake of the Arab spring, the Saudi security authorities were dealing with unrest among the Shi’a minority in Saudi Arabia. The report related to the Shi’a town of Awamiya. It stated that

“there have been protests for democracy and civil rights since February, but in the past the police fired into the air. This is the first time they have fired live rounds directly into a crowd.”

There is a huge plethora of weapons, components and munitions that are now in Saudi Arabia, exported from this country, that are not, in value terms, part of the very high end of British exports, which for Saudi Arabia are for national defence, self-defence and so on. Alongside those is this group of exports, which are wholly available to be used for internal repression. I will not be at all surprised if, before the Arab spring runs its course, the British Government find that they have no alternative but to end their policy of absolute non-revocation of any arms export licences to Saudi Arabia.

My second point is that a crucial recommendation made by the Committees has not been answered:

“We further recommend that the Government extends immediately its review of UK arms export licences announced by the FCO Minister, Mr Alistair Burt, on 18 February 2011 to authoritarian regimes worldwide in respect of arms or components of arms which could be used for internal repression.”

The Government said in their response:

“Although this review was originally commissioned in response to events in the Middle East and North Africa, any conclusions will apply to our procedures for arms exports to all countries.”

Applying conclusions to all countries is a different matter from the particular question that we asked—whether the Government would extend their review to authoritarian regimes worldwide. I therefore put these questions to the Minister. Did the Government extend their review to authoritarian regimes worldwide? If not, why not? If they did, have they decided whether to make any revocations of existing arms export licences as being in contravention of criteria 2 and 3? If they have made any such revocations, what are the specific licence revocations and to what countries do they relate? Those are the questions to which we want answers. I hope that the Minister will assure us that we will receive those answers very soon.

Finally, I come to the Government’s policy on exporting arms and equipment to countries where they might be used for internal repression. In my remarks so far, I have had to be somewhat critical of some of the comments made by Foreign Office Ministers, but at this point I warmly commend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), on his statement announcing the Government’s review of arms export controls on 18 February. He got the wording and the punctuation, which is critical, absolutely correct. I shall read into the record and for the benefit of hon. Members the key sentence from the Minister:

“The longstanding British position is clear: We will not issue licences where we judge there is a clear risk that the proposed export might provoke or prolong regional or internal conflicts,”—

that comma is crucial—

“or which might be used to facilitate internal repression.”

That is absolutely correct wording and punctuation, from which hon. Members will see that there are in fact two separate tests. There is the “clear risk” test as to whether the proposed export could aggravate conflict. If we had just the “clear risk” test, we could probably end up justifying the sale of pretty well anything to any country. We could say, “Well, there’s a bit of a risk, but it’s not a clear risk, so we can sell.” We would probably draw the line at Chairman Kim Jong Il in North Korea, President Mugabe and the Burmese military junta, but for everyone else, we could say, “Well, the risk isn’t clear. Let’s get on and sell.”

That is why the second part—the remainder—of the Minister’s statement is critical:

“or which might be used to facilitate internal repression.”

I say very firmly to this Minister and to the House that the Committees on Arms Export Controls attach the utmost importance to that wording and to its retention by the British Government, so that we can be assured that British weapons and equipment will not be used for internal repression.

I hope that I have not gone on too long. I hope that our report has been truly helpful to the House and to the wider public. I very much look forward to hearing the contributions of other right hon. and hon. Members, and of course I await the Minister’s reply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Prisk]

The first thing we had to do was analyse a live situation in a number of different countries, to ensure the analysis both in each country and across them was accurate. Given that even now—as we know in particular today—events are still happening in that part of the world, we need to ensure that we have that analysis right. With respect, that six-month period might appear longer than hon. Members might like, but as we are dealing with a live situation in a range of different countries, there will be common factors that we need to incorporate into the changes, but there will also be distinct issues in different countries. That is an important point to bear in mind.

We will shortly set out the implementation of the changes, so that we get the mechanisms right, and ensure that working across Government we will update the House on that in due course.

[Sir John Stanley]

Before the Minister leaves the issue of the revised risk categorisation, I want to put a key point to him. I understand that the Minister cannot speak for the revoked export licences that were granted by the previous Government. However, in the list of 158, there are quite a number granted by the current Government since they came into office. What is the degree of confidence among the Minister and his colleagues that, if the proposed revised risk categorisation had been in place before the Arab spring, none of those export licences, which were granted, would have been granted?

[Mr Prisk]

The intention is to ensure that no inappropriate grants are made. Can I be absolutely sure that a system we devise will preclude any decision made that in due course we look back on and decide to revoke? It is difficult to say I can absolutely guarantee that. The intention is to hone that risk assessment, that categorisation, so that it is more sensitive, and perhaps to understand the changed political dimension in those countries, and therefore the lessons we may see in other countries as well.

I am always wary of saying to the House, “Never again” or, “This will absolutely guarantee that what some people may categorise as misjudgments may be made in the future.” The intention, to which we will rightly be held to account by the House, is to ensure that we limit the opportunity for that kind of miscalculation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Stanley]

In accordance with the usual conventions, I will make a brief winding-up speech. I am grateful to all the right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed. I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) for her support for the Committees’ work. I endorse what she said about the need for the Government to continue to reply in sufficient detail to the Committees’ requests for information, and about the importance of the international arms trade treaty. As she knows, in recent years we have concluded a number of successful international agreements relating to specific weapons. We have had the cluster munitions convention and the anti-personnel landmines agreement, but I believe that this will be the first ever time when the international community has been able to enter into—we hope next year—a treaty covering the arms trade as a whole. That is an immensely significant event. We look forward to the British Government playing a prominent and proactive role in that negotiation.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) for his kind personal comments. He made a significant point about the discrepancy between the degree of information we receive, as the Committees on Arms Export Controls, on arms exports, and, as he illustrated extremely well, the almost nil information that he gets when we are looking at how the Government support security issues, including counter-narcotics overseas. That was a valuable and interesting point. I listened carefully to what he said about Colombia and counter-narcotics, and he rightly pointed out the Foreign Secretary’s written statement of 13 October, which said:

“The Government have also considered how we can strengthen our decision making when we provide security and justice assistance overseas.”—[Official Report, 13 October 2011; Vol. 533, c. 42WS.]

How far that particular area falls within the purview of our Committees, I am not sure, but I will certainly take advice, and the hon. Gentleman made an important point. I also listened with great interest to what he said about human rights and arms export policy towards Sri Lanka, on which he has been most diligent, as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and of the Committees on Arms Export Controls. I am sure he will continue to pursue the matter.

I appreciated what the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said about the contribution made by the Committees on Arms Export Controls. If there is a single person to whom the credit should go, I would give it to the late Robin Cook, who was the first Foreign Secretary to take the initiative and to submit to Parliament an annual report on arms exports. That was a major step forward in transparency and accountability. Once the Foreign Secretary had decided to do that, the House had to react by creating a satisfactory Committee structure to respond to that annual Government report. I am pleased to put on the record the tremendous contribution made by the late Robin Cook. That is how the Committees on Arms Export Controls started.

I am grateful for the support the hon. Gentleman gave to the Committees’ position on extraterritoriality, an issue to which I will return when I move on to the Minister’s wind-up. However, for many years now the Committees have been ahead of Government on policy in that area. We were ahead of the previous Labour Government, whom we brought along considerably in our wake. We now appear to be ahead of the new Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government, who, equally, we hope to bring along in our wake. In the Committees’ view, and most certainly in my view, the fundamental principle is that it is unacceptable for a British resident to be able to engage in arms transactions overseas that, if carried out in the UK, would be criminal offences. That is the position today; we do not consider that acceptable.

I welcome the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) to his first winding-up speech in his present position. I am glad that he shares my concern about the perception if the ECO is funded by the arms export industry. The issue is very important and we shall certainly be scrutinising it carefully when the Government’s proposals come forward, if they do so.

I am grateful to the Minister for his opening remarks, confirming what the Foreign Secretary has also assured us in several letters sent to me and, therefore, to the Committees: the Government’s policy is to be clear and open with the Committees, which is what we expect. I also welcome his response to my points about the critical value of judgments. I am glad that we agree that, when it comes to individual decisions on export licences, not only the system but the quality of the judgment is at issue. That is of the most profound importance.

The Minister referred to only two of the three areas on which we have so far not had a satisfactory reply—or even a reply—from the Government. He referred to brass-plate companies and to pre-licence registration of arms brokers, but not to extraterritoriality, so in conclusion I ask for what I consider essential: a ministerial written reply on those three areas of recommendation made in our original report, which we have not had to date. Please could we have that as soon as possible, and certainly before we start taking evidence again in a few weeks’ time?

Finally, a number of issues were raised to which the Minister has not been able to reply, but we understand that the subject is huge, covering a number of other Departments. I hope he will take particular note of my specific questions about our key final recommendation, which is that the Government ought to have extended their review of arms exports to north Africa and the middle east into a review of arms exports to authoritarian regimes worldwide. We are still awaiting a reply, and I have put to him the specific questions to which we wish to have the answers.

I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate, which has been extremely helpful. We look forward to an ongoing constructive dialogue with the Government.

Question put and agreed to.