Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs,what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department's policy of the decision by the German Government in 2017 to cease selling arms to the Saudi Government; and what recent discussions he has had with his German counterpart on that matter.

​The Foreign Secretary has not recently discussed arms sales to the Saudi Government with either German or Norwegian counterpart. The British Government takes its arms export licensing responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust arms export control regimes in the world. All export licence applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria, taking account of all relevant factors at the time of the application. The key test for our continued arms exports to Saudi Arabia in relation to International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is whether there is a clear risk that those items subject to the licence might be used in a serious violation of IHL. The situation is kept under careful and continual review.