Asked by: Stephen Twigg (Labour (Co-op) - Liverpool, West Derby)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether any licences have been granted for military equipment where the Saudi National Guard is certified as the end user since the Court of Appeal’s judgment of 20 June 2019 on arms sales at risk of being used in Yemen.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Since the Court of Appeal’s judgment of 20 June 2019, no licences have been granted for military equipment where the Saudi National Guard is certified as the end user.
Asked by: Stephen Twigg (Labour (Co-op) - Liverpool, West Derby)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to the Secretary of State’s letter of 16 September 2019 to the Chair of the Committees on Arms Export Controls, what steps the Government is taking to review the way in which information is exchanged with the Joint Export Control Unit.
Answered by Graham Stuart
As the Secretary of State said in her statement to Parliament on 26th September, as soon as the issue was brought to her attention on the 12th September, she took immediate action:
This investigation will: (i) establish the precise circumstances in which these licences were granted; (ii) establish whether any other licences have been granted in breach of the Undertaking to the Court or the commitment to Parliament; and (iii) confirm that procedures are in place to ensure that no further such breaches can occur. The Director General Policy Group at the Department for Work and Pensions has been appointed to lead this investigation.
During the course of this investigation, licence applications for Saudi Arabia and its Coalition partners will be referred to a new weekly meeting of senior officials from DIT, FCO and MOD. (Some will have been refused by this point, for example where they fail to meet one or more of the Consolidated Criteria.) This meeting will reach a recommendation for Ministers as to whether applications are within the scope of the Undertaking and the Parliamentary Statement, applying a further checklist of questions which are designed to ensure that: (i) current and full information is available to enable an assessment of whether the items in question are for possible use in the conflict in Yemen; and (ii) if there has been any change in circumstances in the conflict in Yemen, this is properly included in the assessment. All recommendations to grant licences for the export of items to Saudi Arabia and its Coalition partners will now be referred to Ministers for decision.