Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many (a) companies and (b) organisations currently hold strategic export control licences.

The number of businesses holding a strategic export licence varies throughout the day, every day and therefore cannot be answered accurately.

The number of applications made over the last 12 months (1 October 2015 – 30 September 2016) is:

18,275 Standard Individual Export Licences (SIELs) and 595 Open Individual Export Licences (OIELs).

The number of licences granted over the same period is 13,782 SIELs and 314 OIELs.

The management information provided for licences granted contains some data that has not yet been published, nor quality assured to the same standards as Official Statistics. Licences may, for example, be amended by the time the data is published as Official Statistics.

The Government publishes Official Statistics (on a quarterly and annual basis) on export licences granted and refused on GOV.UK.