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Strategic Export Controls

In the end, a political judgment will have to be made. Our view of whether the correct situation exists to lift the ban will be affected by a series of questions, issues of human rights and how we think such military equipment would be used. I will reflect on whether I can give him further information and clarity by way of correspondence, but I say to hon. Members that in the end a political judgment will have to be made. I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman and other members of the committee will already have a sense of the different issues that will help to inform the decision on whether arms embargoes can be lifted. On the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), as she will recognise, Israel like all other countries has a right to self-defence. Nevertheless, there are clearly cases where some defence exports are of more concern than others. All applications to Israel are rigorously assessed against the criteria that the export control organisation uses. If issuing a licence is considered to be inconsistent with that criteria, it will be refused. My hon. Friend may be aware that in 2002, the Government refused some 84 individual licences to Israel. Since then, the annual figure for refusals has fluctuated between nine and 26. In 2007, for example, some 24 standard individual licences were refused. I reassure my hon. Friend that we keep each individual application for arms sales to Israel under close review. My hon. Friend also raised the issue of Sri Lanka, and I understand her concerns about human rights. She will be aware that Sri Lanka has been the subject of debate on a number of occasions in the House, which has involved discussion of not only the deteriorating human rights situation, but the increasing ethnic conflict, which is a source of considerable concern to many constituents and hon. Members. That is one of the reasons why the Government took the decision to suspend the debt relief that was granted in the wake of the tsunami last year. It is also one of the reasons why, again, applications for arms sales to Sri Lanka are reviewed carefully. In 2007, six standard individual licence applications for Sri Lanka were refused. We regularly consult the British high commission in Colombo about the possible impact of exports in terms of the arms trade to Sri Lanka. Given the situation in Sri Lanka, I do not envisage any significant change in that practice. We do not want any exports from the UK to facilitate further human rights abuses or inflame the conflict that is taking place. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) raised the issue of exports to Columbia and Saudi Arabia. Let me confirm that licences are not granted where there are significant human rights concerns. Criteria 2, 4 and 7 are relevant to that issue. Again, we considered applications to Saudi Arabia and where there are concerns we will turn those applications down.