Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department is taking to ensure export licence applications are processed in a timely manner.

The Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) is extremely mindful of the commercial pressures that businesses face - and of the need to process licence applications with minimum delay and within our public target timeframes. However, some destinations remain more challenging and will take longer to complete as we continue to maintain our robust export controls regime.

ECJU has an ongoing programme of Continuous Improvement and we routinely identify and implement opportunities to make targeted improvements to the way we operate and manage the export licensing service to help us adapt to the changing demands on the system.

ECJU is also in the process of rolling out its new digital export licensing system, LITE, which will provide a modern digital service that streamlines the export licence application process and supports decision-making through effective use of data. The key aim of LITE is to deliver an efficient, rigorous, and customer-friendly export licensing and compliance service.