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Arms Export Controls

Yes, absolutely. I am grateful for the Committee Chairman's intervention, and I shall come to that point later in my speech. I shall not rehearse what I said about the historic nature of the debate when I intervened on the hon. Gentleman. The Minister will have heard it, and I shall not quote from the report, which makes criticism of the issue, but I hope that in future the Government will produce a reply, so that the debate can include consideration of the reply and be more up to date. There was some criticism of the statutory instrument that the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Des Browne) introduced on sting sticks, because only 14 days' consultation took place. The Government must think carefully about how they respond to such matters and provide the Committee and others with adequate time to reply not only to their responses but to statutory instruments.