Export Licences: High Court Judgment

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, reminds us that this judgment has similarities with the recommendations of your Lordships’ International Relations Committee when we examined the subject some months ago. We then argued, as is implicit in the judgment, that this is a matter not of suspension but of process. In our report, we argued that there needed to be more rigorous checks on export licences in future, given particular horrific incidents in Yemen of a kind which, sadly, continue and have shocked the entire world. We also argued in that short report that we needed to be less reliant on Saudi and local sources for verification and inspection of incidents. In the Statement, the noble Earl mentioned the processes by which decisions are reached when terrible things happen on whether British armaments could be in any way involved. We took evidence to the effect that there was a rather heavy reliance on local reports from the Saudi region and the Saudi authorities, and suggested that that was too great and that other sources of checking and verification would be an improvement. Can the Minister assure me that, whatever the legal outcome of this process, with the appeal and all the rest, those common-sense moves for much more rigorous checks on export licences and less reliance on the say-so of authentication coming from Saudi Arabia itself will be made?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend, who has extensive knowledge of the subject, and specifically for his committee’s report. He asks the Government to look again at the whole question of the issue of licences. We will look carefully at that, as well as at the court judgment, which we will consider in particular over the next few weeks. As I said, we will also consider existing licences. We will review all the licences in the light of the court judgment, but the points he made are well taken and I will ensure that the department is aware of them.