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Arms Export Controls

I am happy to do so, and I was going to say that. I am happy to return to my hon. Friend on that point, when I am in a position so to do. Some of the points raised by the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood. I hope that some of them have already been covered. The right hon. Gentleman made several points relating to individual countries, to which I have referred. In respect of Libya, I can make it absolutely clear that the Government do not and will not use licences in any way as sweeteners to develop a relationship with a country. That is the case with any country, but Libya was the one to which he referred. It is central to having a proper regime that such an approach is never undertaken. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield referred to the extremely difficult—perhaps tragic is a better description—position in Israel and Palestine and the circumstances that have led to so much suffering for both communities over many years, but particularly in the past year. I pay tribute to the long years that my hon. Friend has spent working on the issue and taking a close interest in the position of the UK Government and our involvement in the process. The Government have made it clear that we regard it as extremely important that when we have any form of relationship in terms of selling items that require export licences to Israel, we consider the situation very closely. When we were considering the position earlier this year in determining licences, we did make a number of changes in our approach, because of the information that we talked about. The activity of the Israeli Government was something that we had not previously anticipated. For example, in respect of the Saar-class Corvettes, we had not previously been aware that there had been any circumstances in which those had been used in a military context. When we learned that they were being used in that way, we revoked the licences. That will, of course, be taken into account when determining future licences and is an example of the way in which we will take into account changes that occur over a continuing period.