Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether his department is aware of UK manufacturers exporting drone engines to military clients abroad without requiring an arms export license.

The requirement for an export licence is set out in the Export Control Order 2008, Schedule 2 of which covers Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and parts thereof (under ML10). Export licence applications for all controlled goods, including UAV components specially designed or modified for military use, are rigorously assessed on a case-by-case basis against strict assessment criteria, the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria.

Where licence applications include items that are not covered by the 2008 Order, exporters can be informed that no licence is required. Beyond such cases, by definition, the Department does not hold information on the export of items that fall outside of export controls. For goods export data, you should refer to HMRC, who publish UK trade in goods statistics by partner country and product which can be found on www.uktradeinfo.com.