Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, following their decision to suspend the issuance of new export licences for the sale of arms to Bahrain, whether they intend to impose a similar moratorium on the technical assistance programme to Bahrain in view of reports of human rights abuses in that country.

Following the Court of Appeal judgement in a Judicial Review into the Government’s decision-making process for granting export licences to Saudi Arabia, Her Majesty's Government will not be issuing new licenses to Saudi Arabia and its Coalition partners for the sale of arms destined for use in the conflict in Yemen. The Government is currently considering the implications of the Review. The judicial review judgement is not about whether the Government has made the right decisions in granting export licences but concerns the rationality of the process used to reach those decisions.

Under the UK technical assistance programme within the Integrated Activity Fund, each project goes through a rigorous compliance process before commencement. All projects are regularly monitored and reviewed to ensure that the training provided by or on behalf of the British Government complies with our domestic and international human rights obligations.