Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, particularly for her constituency, and I can give the assurance that the Government will continue to work closely with Seafish and the Shellfish Association of Great Britain to encourage their members to look at new markets and drive awareness of UK seafood in international markets. We have a network of trade advisers in the UK and overseas who can support the sector to trade successfully, and I am happy to put any of her businesses in contact with them.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

In December, the Government snuck through a change to the UK’s arms export rules, and charities such as Oxfam have warned that these changes will lessen transparency over arms exports and could see UK arms being used against civilians such as those in Yemen. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that UK arms exports are not used to commit breaches of international humanitarian law?

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Penny Mordaunt)]

The Government have not “snuck through” such changes. We are very open and transparent about the policies that sit behind our very good arms export controls, which are also scrutinised by this House. The Department is due to meet a number of stakeholders; I can check whether Oxfam is part of that. We meet regularly to discuss these issues. We have one of the best arms export regimes in the world; it is flexible and changes as situations change. The hon. Lady will know that we recently made some new changes because of what is happening in parts of the world. She should be confident in what we are doing on that.