APPENDIX 3
Letter from the Minister of State, Foreign
and Commonwealth Office to the Chairman regarding Government's
reply
As you know, I will be appearing before the
Committees on 4 May to discuss a number of questions connected
with the Government's Annual Reports on Strategic Export Controls.
One of the subjects which we had hoped to cover
in the evidence session was the Government's official response
to the Committees' Report of 11 February. However, I regret that
despite our best efforts to issue the reponse before the 4th,
we will not now be able to do so. I would emphasise that this
delay does not stem from any unwillingness to co-operate with
the Committees, but rather from our desire to provide detailed
and informative responses to the Report's recommendations. Given
that the Report contained a large number of recommendations for
specific action, many of which raised complex technical as well
as policy questions and were of interest to several Departments,
it has taken longer to formulate a response than would normally
be the case.
Our aim remains to issue the response as quickly
as possible; I hope that this will be fairly soon after my evidence.
You will appreciate however that I will not be in a position to
answer detailed questions on the response at the session on 4
May.
2 May 2000
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