Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the Academic Technology Approval Scheme backlog.
The UK takes its responsibility towards countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and advanced conventional military technology seriously. The Academic Technology Approval Scheme is a thorough, necessary and proportionate tool to protect UK research from misappropriation and divergence to military programmes of concern. The majority of applications are processed within published timescales, which is 30 working days between April and September. We are aware that a small percentage of cases remain outside of target processing times and our teams are working to clear those. We continue to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the scheme and a planned IT upgrade should provide greater capability.