Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend and the SMMT are both right. Turkey—as well as Japan—is important, not least to Ford. We prize our trading relationship with Turkey and recognise how important Turkish supply chains are to our automotive manufacturers, including Ford of Britain. I am pleased to say that UK and Turkish officials are working hard to ensure that trading arrangements transition into a bilateral agreement at the end of the implementation period, and I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting, unlike the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), issues that will help prosperity, jobs and businesses in this country instead of posturing and posing for the benefit of the hard left.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

What steps she is taking to ensure that arms and equipment licensed for export from the UK comply with the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

What steps she is taking to ensure that arms and equipment licensed for export from the UK comply with the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena) [V]]

We assess all export licence applications on a case-by-case basis against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria. We draw on all available information, including reports from NGOs and our own overseas network. I can assure the hon. Lady that we will not license the export of equipment where to do so would be inconsistent with the consolidated criteria.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank the Minister for his response, but there is a worrying pattern here. Last year, the Secretary of State said that her Department had inadvertently allowed licences for arms destined for Saudi Arabia to use against Yemeni civilians. Now she has failed to answer the clear questions of my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) regarding the export of riot control equipment to the US and its use against civilians involved in the Black Lives Matter protests. Is that because the Secretary of State has inadvertently allowed those exports too, or does she simply not know what is happening in her own Department?

[Mr Jayawardena]

Not at all. The United Kingdom has issued licences to the United States in a number of different areas, and those have been provided in written answers to the shadow Secretary of State, but we continue to monitor developments in all countries, including the United States, very closely, and we are able to review licences, and suspend or revoke them as necessary, when circumstances require. That would be done in line with the consolidated criteria.