Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he has made an assessment of the potential implications for the Government’s arms export licensing regime of the judgment in the recent case concerning the sale of F-35 components to Israel.

In the judgment handed down on 30 June, the Divisional Court accepted the Government’s submission that the only way for the UK to ensure that components supplied from the UK to the global F-35 programme do not reach Israel is for it to suspend all exports into the programme, and that therefore this Government faced the blunt choice of exempting F-35 components from its decision to suspend certain exports of military equipment to Israel, or accepting significant consequences for national and international peace and security.

That decision was in line with the UK’s Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, which provide for the application to specific cases of specific measures as announced to Parliament. The Court acknowledged the F-35 decision was a such a specific measure in an exceptional case and its judgment reflects the rigour, care and thoroughness the Government applies to its export licensing decisions.