Arms Exports

Baroness Clark of Kilwinning Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair.

It is also a pleasure to congratulate the Chair of the Committees on Arms Export Controls, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), on making an absolutely excellent contribution to the debate, as usual, and on discussing many of the issues addressed in the very substantial report from the Committees. I am a member of the Committees on Arms Export Controls. I sit on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, and I echo the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who is the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee—

[Mike Gapes]

Ex-Chair.

[Katy Clark]

I was not aware that my hon. Friend was no longer in that post, and I will now use this opportunity to pay tribute to the huge amount of work that he has done on these issues during many years, and to the contribution that he has made, and indeed is making today.

As my hon. Friend said, the Committees on Arms Export Controls are very broad Committees, in terms both of the politics of their members and of the various Committees that regularly sit in their meetings. The Committees on Arms Export Controls are very difficult Committees to manage, not least because of the rules of the House, which mean that there has to be a quorum for each of the Committees in the room—all four Committees—which has at times been an extremely difficult thing to achieve. Nevertheless, the Committees have done a huge amount of excellent work over many years, and in recent years that work has been taken to new heights by the Chair of the Committees, who has repeatedly and in great detail put together the questions that need to be put to Government, to ensure that we have greater transparency on these issues in this country.

The issues have developed over many years, since the Committees were established by Robin Cook when he was Foreign Secretary in the Labour Government, but the tremendous amount of work that has been undertaken by many who have sat on the Committees over many years is the reason why we are bringing so many more pieces of information to the public’s attention. As the Committees continue, I hope that we continue to push in that direction, to ensure that we are able to bring into the public domain all information that can be reasonably brought there.

I say that because the reality is that there is still a huge amount of secrecy surrounding the issues, and quite often it is far from clear why one application for an arms export licence is granted and another refused. Most applications are, of course, granted; only a small number are refused. The concern of the Committees is often about those that are granted. Often there is a feeling that perhaps the healthy cynicism of many of the politicians who sit on the Committees, and their seasoned view about whether an organisation applying for a licence will necessarily be falling over itself to provide all truly relevant information, is shared by others involved in the process. The rounded political views of many members of the Committees bring a lot to the process.

We should be asking serious questions of those who are trying to export arms or other items to countries where there may be concerns about their end use. We should be asking what those items actually are, whether they could have a range of different uses and who are the people who will have those pieces of equipment at the end of the process. The Committees have done a huge amount of work in asking those questions.

The Chair of the Committees spoke at great length about the issues surrounding the so-called Arab spring, and the countries in north Africa and the middle east. Of course, the Committees look at many other issues too, and I am pleased to put on the record both my support for a robust arms trade treaty and my hope that it will be possible to get a treaty next year, even if it is not possible for every country to sign up to it. It is essential for all of us that we get the strongest possible treaty, with as many key players as possible signing up to it. I hope that is something the Government will be able to achieve, and I know that all members of the House wish to give those taking part in the negotiations as much support as we can.

The other issue that I want to raise today is the Government’s position in relation to exports to Israel, particularly in light of the recent events in Palestine, especially Gaza. The Minister will be aware that on 4 December I asked, in a question in the House, whether consideration had been given to suspending the export licensing process with regard to exports to Israel, in light of the recent hostilities in Palestine and Israel. The response, from the Minister in the Chamber today, was that no such formal suspension had taken place.

On 7 February this year, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills announced that there would be a new suspension mechanism, which would allow the Government quickly to suspend the processing of pending licence applications for export to countries experiencing a sharp deterioration in security or stability, and that the suspension would not be invoked automatically or lightly, but would be triggered, for example, when a conflict or crisis conditions suddenly changed the risk or made conducting a proper risk assessment difficult. The Secretary of State said that situations would be assessed case by case, to determine whether a licensing suspension was appropriate.

Will the Minister address the approach to Israel that has been taken over the past few weeks? Surely the sudden intensification of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and, in particular, the Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza—there has been further action since—must qualify as a crisis condition. It would be helpful if the Minister outlined what the thinking was and what the Government’s actions were in relation to the matter. If the view was that in the particular circumstances such a suspension was not appropriate, will he outline what types of circumstance would trigger suspension of the licensing process?

We have spoken at great length today about the Committees’ work in bringing more transparency to the process, but over the past few weeks it has been difficult to get to the full truth about exactly what military relations are between the UK and Israel. We know that Israel is one of the lead countries in the world in relation to drone technology, and we also know that Britain is involved through the EU in joint work with Israel on the technology. We know, or we believe it is likely, that in the past UK components have been used by Israel in hostilities in the Palestinian territories. It would be helpful if the Minister outlined whether the Government’s view is that such components might have been used in recent times and whether, in the light of the latest developments in the region, the UK’s military relationships with Israel, particularly in relation to arms export controls, is being examined.

Israel is just one of the many countries the Committees looked at. The Committees play an extremely helpful role in bringing information to the public, and these annual debates provide a valuable opportunity for Members to question Ministers and get more information into the public domain, about what, at the end of the day, are life and death issues.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

If the Front-Bench spokespeople split the remaining time between them, they will have an hour each.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Fallon]

My right hon. Friend has made his point and, indeed, his allegation. All I can say is that such issues are reviewed case by case. Factually, he is right that no licence to Saudi Arabia was revoked but, to date, there is no evidence that UK-supplied equipment has been used in breach of the criteria in either Saudi Arabia or in Bahrain where Saudi forces were deployed in 2011. I appreciate that he is making a slightly different point about the diversion of Bahraini forces, but there is no evidence to show that the UK has supplied such equipment to date.

[Katy Clark]

Does the Minister agree that this situation highlights one of the concerns? We take such decisions only once the equipment has been used. Perhaps we need a more common-sense approach to the question whether our equipment would be used by a repressive regime if its authorities took action that contravened people’s individual human rights.

[Michael Fallon]

I am not quite sure what the hon. Lady means by taking a common-sense approach. Is she suggesting that at the beginning of something such as the Arab spring, we should simply list more countries that we are not prepared to sell arms to?

[Katy Clark]

I am happy to answer the Minister. I am suggesting that in certain countries it would not be surprising if, in future, the authorities repressed their own people who were fighting for democratic rights. If we have sold a lot of equipment to such a country, it is likely to be used in such repression.

[Michael Fallon]

I understand and take the hon. Lady’s point. I repeat, however, that there is no evidence so far that equipment supplied by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia has been used in breach of the criteria. Obviously, if any evidence comes to light, we would certainly need to re-examine the position.

On the improvements to the Export Control Organisation, I was touching on the CLC service, which is a non-statutory advisory service, so no performance targets were published, although it had some initial teething problems while the ratings backlog was being addressed. The service is now performing better, however, with around 45% of inquiries being processed within 20 working days. As a non-statutory advisory service and with a number of self-rating tools available to the exporter, the CLC service is not able to compete for valuable technical resource, which must first serve the priority casework for HMRC snags where goods are detained on the point of export, as well as SIEL applications of course.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool made a point about training. For companies that would like to find out more about the rating process, the ECO runs a training course for exporters on control list classification and use of the checker tools—a full-day workshop held approximately every six weeks. The course is designed to give attendees confidence in identifying control list entries that specify their products.

The ECO is keen to identify further areas for improvement and, accordingly, has a service improvement project in place. It is a continuous improvement programme and includes changes to the export licensing system known as SPIRE, encouraging the use of open and general licences and the provision of better and more comprehensive advice for exporters. As part of that process, the ECO has identified the need for a change to the end-user undertaking that accompanies an application for an SIEL, splitting it into two: a normal undertaking and a stockist undertaking.

The ECO will shortly produce the new forms and their associated guidance in translation to help exporters explain the requirement to their overseas customers. Changing the end-user undertaking will help to speed up the export licence application process by reducing the number of times that a licence is held up by the need to clarify information on the end-user undertaking document. To assist in the completion of the forms, the ECO is planning to provide guidance in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German and Spanish.

The ECO is also working to develop a manual and online training for exporters who use the SPIRE electronic export licensing system. It is developing desk instructions for staff that it hopes will improve consistency in the processing of export licences. It has also been mapping the customer journey on export licensing, so that it can better understand the pinch points in its processes. The intention is that that will lead to the development and delivery of tailored customer service training for ECO staff.

The ECO is implementing a new telephone system, which will provide better call and queue management, with pre-recorded messages and guidance information, and management information to ensure a better service to companies. The aim is to deliver management information on issues such as waiting times and dropped calls to enable the further fine tuning and development of the system.

Open general export licences have been very successful. They are one of the main reasons why the UK export licensing system is recognised as one of the best in the world. The light-touch approach of OGELs, coupled with rigorous enforcement through pre-registration and periodic risk-based audit, is virtually unique in the international community, although the UK model is now being adopted elsewhere, including by the European Commission, Germany and the United States, among others.

Industry wanted a much less complicated OGEL system that was easier to navigate and understand and that was written in plain English and with reduced legal terminology. The ECO initiated an OGEL review at the end of 2010. That work has now progressed to include a format that has been approved by the Plain English Campaign and the Export Group for Aerospace and Defence. The first licence issued under the new format was the OGEL relating to military components, which received the Plain English Campaign’s accreditation for clarity in July. The ECO has recently received further such accreditation for work on the OGEL relating to military goods, software and technology. All those things will take time to deliver, but we are already seeing the first fruits of these initiatives.