Saudi Arabia: Arms Export Licences
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Browne of Ladyton(5 years, 1 month ago)
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The Earl of Courtown
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I was aware of the report from the committee on this issue. As I said earlier, we are confident that the UK export controls provide a robust means of assessing human rights concerns. Human rights are a core consideration in assessing export licence applications, and we will not now grant that licence as that would be inconsistent with the licensing criteria. These criteria require us to think very hard about the implications of human rights on granting licences.
Perhaps I should just repeat briefly that the interim procedures put in place mean that, on future licences, senior officials in DIT, FCO and the MoD are guaranteeing the latest information available to Government is used in this advice. All recommendations to grant licences for the export of items to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners will now have to be signed off by Ministers, as opposed to at official level.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I have lost count now of the number of times in the last 24 hours we have been told by government Ministers that this Government act lawfully. But four days into this Government, they were not only in breach of a court order that was made in June by granting licences to Saudi Arabia but in breach of undertakings that were given to Parliament. We know now of four instances and we can guarantee there will be more in a relatively short period of time into this Minister’s role.
We are reassured that no further trade is taking place with Saudi Arabia in this respect until this is all sorted out, but in the middle of this the Government invite the Saudi regime to come to the world’s biggest arms fair in London and allow them to look at what we can sell them there, while we are apparently not selling them anything because of their humanitarian failures. The real question here is: why did it take a court order in June that the previous Conservative Government was acting unlawfully to stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the face of all their behaviour? Is it the case that this regime can behave just as it likes and it will get the support of this Government in terms of arms sales unless the court says that to give them to them would be unlawful?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, I cannot agree with the noble Lord. The judgment of the Court of Appeal back in June endorsed the view of the Divisional Court of July 2017 that the processes we have applied were rigorous, robust and multi-layered. The noble Lord is quite right that, regrettably, there were errors in that process, which are very rare. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has commissioned this independent investigation to ensure that these do not happen again. As the noble Lord has said—he drew attention to humanitarian law—we have undertaken not to grant new licences for exports to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners for items which might be used in the conflict in Yemen.
Eurotunnel
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Browne of Ladyton
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, my noble friend is right. Patients can have confidence in the Government’s contingency plans to work with suppliers who provide medicines and other medical supplies to the UK to ensure the continuity of supply. We have selected the best way of ensuring that patients continue to receive the medicines, devices and medical supplies they need.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, no one believes that this £33 million was paid to Eurotunnel to secure medicines post Brexit. Anyone who knows anything about the legal process knows that, at the door of the court, the Government’s lawyers told them, “We need to settle this case”—and they settled it for £33 million to Eurotunnel. The question, which has been posed to the noble Earl twice now, is: did or did not Chris Grayling, when he personally signed these contracts, sign them against any advice that the process that had been undertaken and was challenged in court was anticompetitive and could not be protected against a legal challenge? If all the legal advice was that the process could be protected, are the Government ever going to use these lawyers again?
The Earl of Courtown
We are not publishing our legal advice, but we did not go against it. We had to enter into these contracts—the expedited form of competitive tendering—because the planning assumptions changed and the maritime market was not responding to the risk. As a responsible Government we had to react to ensure the supply of important medicines if we ended up in a no-deal scenario.
United States-North Korea: Summit in Singapore
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Browne of Ladyton
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, we are in regular dialogue with the US and our international partners on the subject of the DPRK. As for the actual detail of what has been discussed, in particular the matter that the noble Lord raises, I am not aware that this has been raised as yet.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, while the Singapore summit is clearly better than the alternative, which was escalating belligerent rhetoric between the leaders of two nuclear-armed states, I invite the noble Earl to agree with the words of Mark Fitzpatrick, the very well respected executive director of IISS, who yesterday wrote that,
“void of verification measures, the Singapore summit result pales in comparison to the Iran nuclear deal, from which Trump withdrew a month ago. The hypocrisy is beyond words”.
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Browne, makes a very good point. The goal has to remain the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of North Korea and the removal of its ballistic missile capability. This is what is required to protect UK national interests in the region and uphold international security. The noble Lord brought up the subject of Iran again, and I know what he says.
Iran: Nuclear Deal
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Browne of Ladyton
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, the noble Baroness mentions our relationship with the United States Administration, with whom we are in continual contact. Our contacts with the US Administration are very important. The noble Baroness has talked about our relationship with President Trump, one of our closest allies. The fact is that we continually engage with the Administration and no doubt that will continue.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, a US pull-out and the reimposition of tough sanctions on Iran will lead to those very firms that we have encouraged to trade with Iran, as well as our banks making contact with Iranian banks, to potentially suffer devastating losses of financial support by commercial banks. Last Thursday, when EU foreign Ministers met, at least some of them were contemplating an emergency line of credit of support for EU businesses trading with Iran. Do our Government intend to support that initiative if it is necessary to do so? If not, how do they intend to support our businesses?
The Earl of Courtown
I thank the noble Lord for raising a very important point. As I have said, the business environment in Iran is incredibly difficult and the opportunity for due diligence is equally so. The noble Lord mentioned a number of details which I am not aware of, and therefore I will have to write to him.