Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many export licence applications were escalated to the dispute resolution mechanism or complex cases mechanism in each year since 2010; and what the destination country was in each such case.

Export licence applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis against announced policies and the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria (SELC). Decisions are routinely taken by the Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU), on behalf of the Secretary of State for Business and Trade. These decisions are taken in consultation with officials from other government departments, principally the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence but occasionally other Departments are also consulted depending on the nature of the case.

There is no single ‘dispute resolution mechanism’ which is regularly or consistently enacted. There have been various occasions since 2010 where different procedures have been set up to enable wider consultation and scrutiny of export licensing cases with Ministers across Government. These were in reaction to specific concerns or strategic priorities at the time. They can involve different attendees and terms of reference depending on the situation. We do not maintain data on how often this sort of procedure has been used over multiple years.

There is no specific ‘complex case mechanism’. ECJU receives a high volume of ‘complex cases’ and the vast majority are decided upon by consensus. However, if ECJU officials are unable to come to a consensus about a case they could refer it to MOD and FCDO Ministers, and ultimately to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade who has the responsibility for making the final decision. This happens extremely rarely in practice and therefore we do not maintain data on its occurrence over multiple years.