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Arms Export Controls

I am saying that we believe that at this stage it would not be appropriate to proceed with a pre-licensing registration scheme. We think that that would impose a burden on legitimate businesses and we want to see how the other actions that we are taking will work. We will review that decision when we have more information. It is right to take time to make that assessment. My hon. Friend and others raised the important issue of end-use monitoring. Our position remains that the best means of ensuring that goods are not diverted is to conduct a rigorous assessment at the licence application stage. That includes careful examination of the information on the proposed end use and end user of the goods. As hon. Members will appreciate, UK diplomatic posts are regularly asked to check the accuracy of the information in the end-user documentation submitted in support of an application. Should that assessment identify an unacceptable risk, the application will not be approved. The primary purpose of any monitoring of equipment once it has left the UK is to generate information to assist the risk assessment of other current or future applications that are similar. The Government believe that we already have adequate systems in place to do that. The use of military equipment in destinations of concern is monitored by UK overseas posts using a variety of information, including from the media, NGOs and intelligence reports. Those posts have standing instructions to report misuse of UK-origin defence equipment. Given that the ECO issues about 10,000 individual export licences a year and that, in addition, a substantial volume of exports are made under cover of the open individual and open general export licences, the Government do not have the resources to monitor routinely end use overseas. It simply would not be practical for every export to have a British civil servant attached to it or to have a British person in post, meeting it at the border.