Export Licences: High Court Judgment

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The joint incidents assessment team was set up by the Saudi Government in February 2016 to help with that. It examines military activity in civilian areas to minimise possible civilian casualties and assesses the coalition’s rules of engagement. We have had input into that to ensure that the coalition is operating in a way that we would find acceptable.

Of course, we simply would not take that as being the end of the matter when it comes to information. As I have said, we look at a range of information from foreign Government sources, from our own Government sources, both those in the public domain and those that are restricted, and from NGOs and the media. It is in taking that complete picture that we are able to assess what we believe the risks to be, but we are always looking to see whether further sources of information may help to improve our decision making, alongside the decision making of our allies.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have just returned from the Court of Appeal, where I listened to the judgment. The judges, in paragraph 141, say there was a decision in 2016 no longer to apply criterion 2 on the checking of IHL. This resulted in 100,000 deaths. Who made that decision?

My Committees, the Committees on Arms Export Controls, have manifestly failed to hold the Government to account. We now need urgent reform of the Committees’ powers, including creating a standalone Committee. Will the Minister confirm that he will not allow the use of any existing open licences to coalition partners during this review?

Finally, after the arms scandals of the 1980s and ’90s we had the Scott inquiry, and we now need an independent judge-led or parliamentary inquiry not just on this particular issue but on the failings of our arms control system—taking it away from the political interference and political control of Ministers to a truly independent and world-class system, which we do not have at the moment.

[Dr Fox]

We are ultimately accountable in the courts, as we have been, and the divisional court was clear in its praise for how Government rigour was applied to this process. We are not in breach of the consolidated criteria, nor has the Court of Appeal said that. What the Court of Appeal said is that the process by which decisions are reached needs to change, and needs to take into account the possibility of international humanitarian law having been breached. To compare that, for example, to the incidents in the Scott report is simply not credible.

Of course, we will review all licences in light of today’s judgment, as we are required to do. That will include open licences.