Arms Exports and Arms Control

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

The 2013 report by the Committees on Arms Export Controls is the most extensive that we have ever produced. The report, plus its evidence, encompasses nearly 900 pages in three volumes, all of which are available on the internet, although in the interests of economy, only the first volume has been printed. It is entirely for the House and those who are outside it to decide whether the length of the report has been accompanied by additional merit.

In the report, we have broken new ground in two ways that I highlight at the outset, the first of which relates to arms control. Sadly, globalisation extends as much to arms transfers as to pretty much any other activity in which we engage, and the electronic age is accelerating that process. As a result, the ability to procure devices that kill or maim, either individually or on a horrendous scale, has never been more widespread. The consequence is that effective international arms control agreements—whether nuclear, chemical, biological or conventional—have never been more important and imperative. That is why the Committees have substantially extended their scrutiny of the Government’s policies over the entire international arms control agreement area.

The second area in which we have broken new ground is that, for the first time, we have taken the list of 27 countries highlighted in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s annual human rights report and asked the Government what existing arms export licences they have approved to each of those 27 countries. The Government’s answer took me and many others greatly by surprise: the total number of extant arms export licences approved by the Government to the 27 countries of top human rights concern was just over 3,000. The value of those licences is equally astonishing, at £12 billion. Even that figure is an understatement, as the Government, reasonably, can provide value information only for standard individual licences, not for open individual licences, where they do not know precisely what quantities will be exported. The details of those 3,000 licences, country by country, can be found in volume 2 of our report, annexe 13. For those who are interested in the subject, it makes concerning reading.

We carried out the same exercise in relation to five additional countries not currently on the Foreign Office’s list, of which four are still of human rights concern: Bahrain, Egypt, Madagascar and Tunisia. The additional fifth country is Argentina, which is of concern due to its posture in relation to the Falklands. Again, the details of extant licences to those five countries are available in our report.

A key point to make is that the Committees’ report would not have been possible on the scale on which we have produced the information for the House without the Government’s co-operation. With one conspicuous and important exception, to which I will come in a moment, the Government have broadly co-operated in providing us with the information that we have sought. As a matter of course, I maintain contact with parliamentarians in the major arms-exporting countries in Europe and north America. I am in contact with those who are interested in the field in the Italian Parliament, the Bundestag, the National Assembly of France, the Swedish and Canadian Parliaments and the Capitol in Washington.

Our Committees will continue to strive to improve our performance as far as the House is concerned, but I think that I can fairly say that at this moment, as far as I am aware, no Parliament and no Government in Europe or north America have the same timely access to detailed information as we do. That is a considerable credit to the British Parliament and to successive British Governments. I say “successive” deliberately because I want to put it on record once again that, had it not been for the initiative of the late Robin Cook in being the first Foreign Secretary to publish an annual arms export report, the Committees on Arms Export Controls might never have been constituted as they have.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Given my right hon. Friend’s expertise and diligence in the matter, will he say which arms export concerns him most? Can he identify one thing, or perhaps two or three? We should highlight those things, perhaps in the press, as concerns for us as the Committees on Arms Export Controls.

[Sir John Stanley]

My hon. Friend will be glad to know that he has anticipated what I will come to a little later in my remarks.

I come to our difference with the Government over one critical piece of information. Members from throughout the House were utterly appalled by the sarin attack that took place in Damascus on 21 August. Sarin is a ghastly chemical weapon. It is one of the most painful and grim ways in which anyone can die, and as we know, hundreds of men, women and children died in that attack. However, the uncomfortable reality that we in this Parliament must face is that between 2004 and 2012, a total of seven export licences were approved by the present and previous Governments for the export to Syria of the dual-use chemicals sodium fluoride and potassium fluoride, which are precursor chemicals in the manufacture of sarin. Those seven export licences have been under detailed scrutiny by the Committees, and that scrutiny commenced well before the sarin attack to which I have referred.

The one crucial piece of information that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has so far not been willing to provide to the Committees is the names of the companies to which the Government provided export licence approval to export the precursor chemicals from the UK. That is crucial information for the Committees, without which the Committees are unable to take either oral or written evidence from the companies concerned. In his latest letter to the Committees, dated 25 October, the Business Secretary once again advanced arguments about why he should not disclose the names of the companies to the Committees. I shall take the arguments one by one.

First, the Business Secretary said that, in deciding not to provide the names of the companies, he had done so in the framework of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, to which I reply: that Act does not circumscribe inquiries carried out by House of Commons Select Committees.

Secondly, the Business Secretary said that companies deal with his Department on the basis of confidentiality. However, he has been willing to provide every other important piece of information that the Committees have sought. He has provided the Committees with the names of the chemicals involved; the quantities of chemicals approved; the financial value of the approved chemicals; the dates of the licence approvals; and, most significantly, the names of the concerns in Syria to which the chemicals were to be exported. On that basis, I fail to see how the names of the companies applying for the licences can be considered confidential.

Lastly, the Business Secretary said that he does not want to disclose the names of the companies because of the reputational risk that the companies would face. He also advanced the argument that there could be physical danger—imagined, in my view—to the companies’ employees. To that argument, I say that if Select Committees were to be debarred from taking evidence from witnesses on the grounds of the risk of reputational damage, that would effectively destroy most of the inquiries carried out by Select Committees. That would clearly be unacceptable.

In the Business Secretary’s latest letter to me, he has offered an alternative proposal. He said that he would be willing to give the Committees the companies’ names in confidence and on the basis that they took evidence in a closed session. However, that would defeat the central purpose of Select Committees, which is to carry out open and transparent inquiries and to make full reports to the House on the basis of the evidence received.

The Committees will of course respond to the Business Secretary’s letter. I hope that he will consider the issue further, achieve the change of policy that the Committees are seeking and disclose the names of the companies to the Committees, so that the Committees can take evidence from them.

I am glad to say that, over a substantial area of the Committees’ work, the Committees are broadly on the same ground as the Government. However, I owe it to the House to highlight two important areas where the Committees differ from the Government’s position. The first is the key area of UK arms exports and their possible use for internal repression. There is no difference between the Committees and the Government on the wording of the policy; the difference comes in its implementation.

The policy wording goes back 13 years to a written answer provided by the then Minister of State at the Foreign Office, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), on 26 October 2000. That wording was fully reflected in the wording provided by the Foreign Secretary to the Committees when he gave oral evidence in February 2012. The wording is:

“We will not issue licences where we judge there is a clear risk that the proposed export might provoke or prolong regional or internal conflicts, or which might be used to facilitate internal repression.”

When asked whether that still represented the Government’s policy, the Foreign Secretary replied:

“That is still the policy. The ‘or’, as you have pointed out on other occasions, is important.”

The “or” is indeed of crucial importance. The House will see from that statement that there are effectively two tests for the policy in deciding whether an arms export application should be approved in circumstances where internal repression could arise.

The first test is what I call the “clear risk” test, which is a relatively loose test. I can hear the arguments going on around Whitehall regularly, with officials and Ministers saying, “There is a risk, but it isn’t clear, so we can approve the export.” The much more stringent test is in the second half of the sentence—after the “or”—the test of whether an export might facilitate internal repression. That is why both halves of the Foreign Secretary’s policy statement are crucial.

Our deep concern is that the Government repeatedly only refer to the relatively loose “clear risk” test, but fail to refer to the “might facilitate internal repression” test, which is much more stringent. I will provide the House with just two examples. First, paragraph 46 of Command Paper Cm 8707, the Government’s response to our latest report, states:

“The Government will not grant an export licence if there is a clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression.”

The Government’s answer is wholly silent on the second half of the policy—the “might facilitate internal repression” test.

My second illustration of precisely the same point comes from the Business Secretary’s letter to me on 11 October regarding dual-use chemical exports to Syria. He said:

“Specifically with regard to exports that might be used for internal repression, the Government continues to assess applications against Criterion 2 in full, which states that: ‘[The Government will] not issue an export licence if there is a clear risk [my emphasis] that the proposed export might be used for internal repression.’”

Once again, the key words—

“or which might be used to facilitate internal repression”—

were omitted.

Worse still, in that letter, the Business Secretary claimed—without any foundation—that the Committees were over-interpreting the Foreign Secretary’s policy statement to the Committees on 7 February 2012, which I have read out. Let me put the Business Secretary’s mind at rest: the Committees have not made any interpretation of the Foreign Secretary’s statement. The wording of the statement is perfectly clear; it requires no interpretation. The Committees look to the Government to implement that policy statement not selectively, but in its entirety.

Equally, we look to Ministers, in their future public statements on arms exports and internal repression, to state the policy in its entirety, not selectively, and to use the complete wording as endorsed by the Foreign Secretary to the Committees on 7 February 2012.

I now turn to the Government’s implementation of their policy, as stated by the Foreign Secretary to the Committees. In our latest report, we specifically named a total of 32 countries of human rights concern and asked the Government whether they were satisfied that each of the existing Government-approved export licences to those countries conformed with their policy on arms exports and internal repression. I am disappointed with and concerned about the Government’s reply to that key series of questions, because in each case they state that they are compliant with their policy, as set out in paragraph 46 of the Command Paper, from which I just quoted, which only refers to the clear risk test and ignores entirely the phrase,

“or which might be used to facilitate internal repression”.

That is an unsatisfactory feature of the Government’s Command Paper response, to which I am sure that the Committees will return.

I shall now highlight just three instances where the Government’s adherence to their own stated policy appears to be highly questionable: first, Sri Lanka. I read with some amusement a headline on the front page of Saturday’s Independent newspaper. Mr Sutharshan Uthayaswriyan, who is a Tamil refugee and has been since the age of seven, was reported as saying,

“We believe in David Cameron. He is God!”

If I may be presumptuous and bring God down to earth for a moment, I ask the Prime Minister and his fellow Ministers to address arms exports and internal repression in Sri Lanka. I do not need to recite the appalling human rights abuses that have taken place in Sri Lanka. I strongly support the Prime Minister in his calls for an international independent inquiry. However, against that human rights background, the House will wish to consider the British Government’s arms export licence approvals in just nine months of last year. They included 100 pistols, 130 rifles, 210 combat shotguns, 600 assault rifles, unknown quantities of small arms ammunition and unknown quantities of machine guns. I hope that the Minister will not say that these were all for counter-piracy, because I do not find that a credible answer, particularly when combined with the complete list of the 49 extant arms export approved licences to Sri Lanka that we detailed in our report.

I return to the Committees’ original question. How can the Government’s approval of these arms export licences to Sri Lanka be compatible with their arms exports and internal repression policy, as stated to the Committees by the Foreign Secretary?

I do not need to recite the serious human rights abuses that took place in Bahrain in the wake of the Arab spring. They have been well documented and were all too observable by any and all of us on television, where we saw police vehicles being driven towards and into those demonstrating peacefully in Bahrain. Against that same human rights background, it is extraordinary that the Government’s existing approved arms export licences to Bahrain include licences for small arms ammunition, pistols, gun silencers, assault rifles and machine guns, to cite just a few of 105 extant Government-approved arms export licences to Bahrain.

The third area is a group of arms exports by category. The category is cryptographic equipment, which encrypts clear speech and text and is intended to make that impenetrable to others. It is, of course, dual-use equipment —I entirely accept and understand that—with a perfectly legitimate civil use to protect confidentiality, but it is also key equipment for security services, not least in countries noted for internal repression and human rights violations.

The Committees’ report has exposed the fact that, of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s 27 countries of top human rights concern, as detailed in the FCO’s latest human rights report, no less than 23 of them have received UK Government approval for licences for the export of cryptographic equipment, cryptographic technology, cryptographic software and cryptographic components. Those countries include Belarus, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka—once again—and Zimbabwe.

The two biggest recipients of approval for cryptographic exports among those 27 countries of top human rights concern are of most concern. First, China has the largest number of extant cryptographic licences of any country among the 27: a total of nearly 200, with a value of £600 million. China is a one-party state, where there is no clear boundary between the Communist party and the private sector. It would seem highly likely that there is a real risk that some cryptographic exports that may be going into the private sector initially end up being utilised by security services in China.

The second largest recipient of approval for cryptographic exports, with more than 100 extant cryptographic licences, but with far and away the largest value, is Israel. The value of those cryptographic export licences is staggering, at nearly £8 billion. Hon. Members might think that I have misspoken, but I repeat: £8 billion. Again, it seems highly likely that some of that massive cryptographic export to Israel will be used, sooner or later, to the advantage of the Israeli security services in operations against Palestinians. For all those reasons, the Committees’ scrutiny of the Government’s extant licences, particularly in countries where there is significant internal repression, will continue intensively.

A second area where we have a significant policy difference with the Government is in relation to authoritarian regimes. The policy followed by the present Government, and indeed by the previous Government, could be described most charitably as benign. Others might describe it as reckless and possibly even irresponsible. The policy that the two successive Governments have followed is one of broadly supporting most types of exports to authoritarian regimes, providing that the regime appeared stable and there was no blood on the streets. Hence the flow of British arms export approvals from the present Government and the previous Government to Gaddafi’s Libya, Mubarak’s Egypt and to Assad’s Syria—I have previously referred to the dual-use chemical exports.

In fairness to both Governments, they recognised that there was something of a safety net if their policy approvals turned out badly. They recognised that they could revoke licences after they had been granted. The previous Government, for example, revoked a handful of licences to Israel after the last major Israeli attack on Gaza. The present Government have now revoked—this is a massive number—more than 200 licences to north African and middle eastern countries following the Arab spring and to Argentina following the fairly bellicose statements by the Argentine leadership towards the Falklands. Those revocations are detailed in annex 12 of our report.

With much trumpeting, the present Government have introduced a further safety net if things turn nasty in authoritarian regimes—namely, the power to suspend licence applications, in addition to the power to revoke them. The problem with both revocation and suspension is that they are of only limited practical effect for the simple reason that, once military and dual-use exports have been exported out of the UK, there is effectively no means to stop their use. As I have said previously, the bullets have bolted.

I hope that the Minister will not trot out the familiar ministerial response that there is no evidence that British arms exports are being used for internal repression. In case my right hon. Friend is tempted to do that, I say to him that that line simply does not stand scrutiny for anyone who takes the trouble to look at the approved arms exports to the countries with the worst human rights records, as set out in annex 13 of our report.

Annex 13 shows at a glance that the overwhelming majority of exports will not be visible once they have been exported from this country. Those exports are made up of components, software, technology, communications equipment, cryptographic equipment, ammunition, small arms, automatic weapons and sniper rifles, which will not be identifiable as having come from the UK once they have left our shores, even assuming—it is most unlikely—that we have anyone on the ground to see what those items actually are. We are dealing with exports that, by and large, are invisible once they have left this country.

The crux of the Government’s policy decision and the Committees’ scrutiny is the nature of the original decision to grant the export licence. The Government have a simple choice: do they follow a relatively risky policy that has been the policy hitherto, or do they adopt a more cautious policy when approving export licences to authoritarian regimes? For the Committees, the fact that the present Government have now had to revoke more than 200 arms export licences to countries predominantly in the middle east and north Africa is the clearest possible indication of the extent to which both this Government and the previous Government misjudged the risks that they were running in approving those arms exports in the first place.

I stress very clearly that the Committees do not criticise the Government for being unable to predict the future. None of us can reliably predict the future, and it is precisely because neither the Government nor any of us can do so that we believe that the more cautious policy should be adopted. That is why, for two years in succession, the report of our four Committees unanimously urges the Government to adopt a more cautious policy on arms exports to authoritarian regimes, particularly on those items that may be used for internal repression.

I am only too aware that I could have raised a great many other issues, but I have tried to focus on what I consider to be the two most important policy areas before the Committees and, indeed, before the Government. I look forward to hearing the contributions of right hon. and hon. Members to this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Pritchard. May I start by congratulating this Government, and indeed the previous Labour Government—in particular the late Robin Cook—on being hugely instrumental in setting up the first international arms control treaty that applies to conventional arms? It is a huge achievement and one that we in the Committees on Arms Export Controls should celebrate. In my short speech, I intend to concentrate on some aspects of the Government’s response to the Committees and hope to touch on aspects that have not yet been mentioned.

Let me start by saying that the British system of arms control—the Government’s system—is one of the best in the world, and it is absolutely excellent that both Ministers and senior officials are made so readily available to our Committees to explain policies and answer our questions.

I now want to be more specific about matters of concern to the Committees on Arms Export Controls, starting with so-called brass plate companies. It is absolutely right for the Committees to emphasise that the Government should do all in their power to take action against UK-registered companies that carry out arms-export and arms-brokering operations overseas.

I accept that the gathering of evidence of illegal activities may be difficult, but the Government should direct their investigators and officials to that end. I fully accept, however, that it is extremely difficult for the Government to supervise subsidiaries of UK-registered companies that are under the jurisdiction of a foreign country. Such companies are outside the UK’s legal jurisdiction, so I accept the Government’s comment that they have no plans to legislate on the matter. To be honest, I cannot see how they can introduce meaningful legislation that would be effective.

There are still obvious problems in the regulation of arms brokers. It seems clear that sometimes previously licensed and, shall I say, clean arms brokers can turn to crime, perhaps many years after they have been licensed. Before I became an MP, I sometimes came into contact with some of them, when I was abroad—a few were pretty despicable characters. Personally, I think that we would be right to establish a register of arms brokers and to get it published.

I am very pleased that the UK Government have set their mind completely against the use of cluster munitions. To me, they are appalling weapons, which often persist in an operational state well after the cessation of hostilities. I have personal experience of such foul weapons, as one of my soldiers in Bosnia was severely wounded in the head by a ball bearing in 1992. It had come from a cluster bomb. The bomb was totally undetected until a child picked it up. My soldier was badly wounded when he tried to tell the child to put it down gently. The boy threw it on the ground; he was lucky to avoid being injured, but my soldier got a ball bearing through the head.

As an ex-infantry soldier, I am less against anti-personnel mines than cluster munitions—in fact, I am less against anti-personnel mines than most of the Committees, for reasons that I hope I can explain. When infantry soldiers place anti-personnel mines, they do so to protect themselves—that is the primary purpose of the mines, which are normally in sight and covered by fire. I myself have not used them operationally, but not using them on the battlefield normally implies that more soldiers are required. For a small army, anti-personnel mines often make up for lack of personnel, because they are used to provide intimate protection, perhaps in a defensive position where the enemy might creep up. Anti-personnel mines could stop the enemy, or give warning.

The lasting problem of anti-personnel mines, however, is that they go on for a very long time. In 1992 to 1993, I was the British UN commander in Bosnia. When I was looking for a base for one of my companies, I went to northern Bosnia and came across a former Yugoslav air base at Tuzla. It was a huge place, and I decided to position one of my rifle companies there—lots of space, lots of cover and lots of hard standing. The whole place, however, was surrounded by anti-personnel mines—vast numbers of them. There were so many that we made no attempt to try to clear or neutralise them. Visiting the place 20 years later, I saw that the mines were still there.

Eighteen years ago, my wife was a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Lebanon, and she actually lost her driver to an anti-personnel mine. The minefield was old and unmarked, and the man did not realise that he was walking in a minefield. Just think of that—if an adult does not realise that a minefield is there, what chance does a child have? My point is that once anti-personnel mines are laid, they can be there for years and years. Anything that we can do as a country to stop their deployment would be a very good thing. We are doing our best.

To conclude, I endorse the tribute already paid to our Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley)—I hope I pronounced “Malling” correctly. He puts enormous effort—dare I say, in a softer voice, unpaid effort—into his role, often with little support from the rest of us; I do not include the Opposition Members present in that, but rather accuse myself. The effort put by our Chairman, or Chair, into the report and into his chairmanship of our Committees all year long is outstanding. He is an exemplar of proper, detailed chairmanship of a Committee and a beacon of how it should be done.

I will not leave my tribute there; I will also refer to our Clerk, Keith Neary. He does at least the same amount of work—although he, of course, gets paid. These two gentlemen have put a huge effort into the report, which is so long and detailed that we could not even contemplate publishing it widely—we would have broken the Bank of England. The fact of the matter is, however, that it is there for the record, and it is a damn good report. I am privileged to be a member of the Committees. I thank the Chair and the Clerk and pay tribute to them both.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in this extremely important debate. I thank the Committees on Arms Export Controls for their excellent work in producing the report. In particular, I thank the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), the Chair of the Committees, not only for the work that he has done, but for his explanation of the report today.

In many respects, the response of the Government answers a fair number of the Committees’ queries, problems, questions and recommendations. Today, therefore, I will speak about the areas in which I feel that the Government did not answer the concerns expressed, or did not answer adequately. That does not detract from the areas in which there has been a helpful response from the Government.

It is extremely worrying that in spite of the good work done to date we still have a situation in which there are some 3,000 extant licences and some £12 billion of goods—and that is only the countables, not the uncountables—going to countries with a poor track record on human rights. There is a mismatch between the Foreign Office’s list of such countries and what is happening with arms exports on the ground. The situation is concerning, so we should continue to look at the issue and not simply let it die a death.

I pay tribute to all those on both sides of the House who have helped to bring the arms trade treaty into being this year. That was a tremendous achievement. Although that is extremely good news and the UK can be extremely proud of its work to date on the treaty, we now need to work proactively to ensure that it is ratified. It does not come into force until 90 days after the 50th country has ratified it, and to date only eight countries have done so. We know that there are certain issues with regard to the EU that are shortly to be resolved, which will enable a lot more countries to ratify the treaty, but I would stress that the UK needs to use every opportunity to push ratification with other countries. We might also need to offer financial and legal help to those countries that need that sort of support to ratify the treaty, so that we can see the treaty fully up and running in a year’s time. Perhaps the Minister could take that message back to colleagues in the Foreign Office.

Here in the UK we need a strong, clear explanation of how the UK intends to apply the criteria in articles 6 and 7 of the treaty. It is most important that we state that the UK will deny any export licences where there is a significant risk that the goods in question will contribute to breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law. Now we have the instrument of the arms trade treaty it is important that we have the strongest possible interpretive statement and description of what it means to the UK, so that it can be as effective as possible. It is important not only that we do that but, as it is a treaty, that we encourage other countries to do likewise, to make the most of the opportunity the treaty brings.

I turn now to the issue of brass-plate companies. The Committees say in their report that the Government have not taken any action against brass-plate companies involved in arms exporting and arms brokering. Those companies have the benefit of UK company registration but export arms and carry out arms-brokering activities overseas in contravention of UK Government policies. I feel that the Government’s response is a little vague and that this area needs significantly more attention. The Government speak of using existing export control legislation in certain circumstances and of using other legislation to discontinue the UK registration of such companies, but stress that they need to have the necessary evidence. I believe that we need a concerted strategy. Will the Minister tell us what measures he could take to develop a strategy to pursue those companies more rigorously? It is quite clear that they are used as an avoidance mechanism. Such companies want the brass plate along with the good name that it brings, but have ways of avoiding UK legislation.

[Bob Stewart]

I have some sympathy for the Government on that point. If these brass-plate companies want to do bad, they use their subsidiary company in another jurisdiction. That means they are cut off from our oversight of what UK companies are doing. I think this issue will be extremely difficult to crack.

[Nia Griffith]

The hon. Gentleman puts the matter very well. The problem is the devious nature of such arrangements. That is why I am suggesting that the Minister could look into ways of developing a strategy, closing loopholes and collecting evidence—possibly in conjunction with other countries—in order to get the necessary detail and put the measures that are needed in place to enable us to discontinue the UK registration of such companies. I am not saying that the problem is easy to solve, by any manner of means—I accept the point being made—but it is something that we need to be looking at, to try to work out how we could bring more pressure to bear.

I want to discuss Syria briefly. Many of my constituents contacted me about Syria over the summer. They had a particular concern: if we were to go into Syria and support the opposition there, who exactly would we be supporting? It is worrying that a gate has been opened that basically allows EU countries to export arms to the opposition in Syria. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) pointed out, Croatia has taken advantage of that situation.

It seems to me that people in this country really want the Government to crack down on that loophole, because they do not want to see arms going to rebel forces when we do not know who they are or which groups they consist of. Given that we are very concerned about what both the Government parties and some of the opposition groups in Syria are doing, the position seems quite straightforward to me: we should close the loophole and reinstate the full EU arms embargo on Syria that existed prior to May 2013. That would not mean that we were turning our backs on the people there—there is a huge amount to be done for the refugees and we also need to see a lot of negotiation—but the embargo needs to be reinstated as soon as possible.

I turn now to Egypt, which of course has had a tumultuous time over the past couple of years, swinging one way and then the other. Many of us have been contacted by Christians in Egypt, who also fear for their safety. The situation, again, is that we need to re-examine exactly which arms are being transferred to Egypt, who the end users are, to what use those arms are being put and what licences there are for Egypt. I ask the Minister to re-examine those matters, and to look again at trying to set out a clear strategy to ensure that those items are not misused or diverted. We want to know exactly what the UK policy is for arms exports to Egypt, because the situation there is extremely volatile.

I will briefly mention the situation in Colombia. There are still £20 million of extant UK licences there. Members will be aware of well-documented violations of the human rights of trade union activists in Colombia. There are worrying reports—I have heard accounts of this myself from Colombian lawyers—about the army’s track record towards indigenous peoples. There are serious concerns not only about how the Colombian Government treat activists who speak up for indigenous peoples but about the behaviour of the armed forces, particularly in areas where indigenous people are being moved off the land, often to enable mining activities. Moreover, concerning evidence is now emerging that multinational companies are contributing to the funding of those armed forces. Once more, I would ask the Government to look again at what we are doing about arms exports to Colombia.

In conclusion, I wish simply to say that this issue will not go away. I ask the Committees to continue their excellent work and continue to be vigilant. The issue is one that every single one of us needs to know about, and the report is extremely valuable.