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Strategic Export Controls

My hon. Friend asks a challenging question, not least because I was not in the Government when the 2002 Act came into force. He is a persuasive and effective advocate for the committee, and I suspect that his influence has worn Ministers down. We genuinely take the committee's comments seriously. I know that its members put in a substantial amount of work thinking through the complexities of suggestions that are put to them. I do not always agree with my hon. Friend, and I am sure that on one level he is reassured by that, but when the committee makes a recommendation, we consider it seriously. We still need to determine precisely which activities to control involving UK persons overseas in relation to small arms, MANPADS and cluster munitions. For example, we must think through issues concerning transport, finance, insurance and reinsurance and renegotiation of contracts. We are considering those issues, and I hope that deals with the concerns of the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), who highlighted what he called ““anomalies””. I would not use that word, but we are considering what further controls there should be. We are considering the case for tighter controls on export of non-controlled goods for military end use, and whether we should introduce a pre-licensing registration system for arms traders. We are working with a series of stakeholders and, as I have said, we aim to publish a further response later this year. We have already introduced legislation to control the export and trading of sting sticks, and it will come into effect on 6 April 2008. We aim to introduce legislation to extend controls on small arms, MANPADS and cluster munitions by 1 October this year and to make any further changes to matters under discussion by 6 April 2009. That is our aim, but I would not want the House to hold us rigidly to those target dates. The issues are highly complex, but those are the dates for which we are aiming.