PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Arms Trade (5 November 2018)

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the merits of strengthening the consolidated criteria for the sale of arms products by introducing an end use criteria post sale.

Asked by:
Ian Murray (Labour)

The UK operates one of the most robust export licensing systems in the world. It considers whether the goods might be used in a way which is inconsistent with the Consolidated EU & National Arms Export Licensing Criteria. We also retain powers to revoke licences, once issued, if circumstances or information available to us change. End user certificates are considered as part of the process already.

We believe that our existing system is robust and delivers a high level of assurance. The Government is always looking to see how it can improve its export controls and we are in contact with countries who carry out some limited end use checks to see if there is anything we can learn from their experience.

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Answered by:
Sir Alan Duncan (Conservative)
12 November 2018