CONCLUSION
172. Our first report of the new Parliament recognises
the progress which has been made in improving accountability for
the Government's operation of strategic export controls in the
last few years. Those efforts have been widely commended. Independent
commentators are willing to describe the UK's arrangements as
the most transparent in the world. We, once again, join in that
praise for what the Government has achieved.
173. As ever, greater accountability leads to demands
for more. That is a positive development, indicating that the
Government's work is not wasted—people do care, and care
deeply, that the UK should operate its system of export controls
fairly and in accordance with the highest ethical standards.
174. The basis of the system is that there are publicly
declared criteria against which decisions are being made. Some
will argue with the nature of the criteria, and individual ministerial
decisions will often involve fine, and in the end subjective,
judgements about a particular case.
175. No set of criteria can capture the nuances of
every circumstance, and it would be impossible to envisage circumstances
where no decision of a Minister could be open to criticism. That
is why scrutiny is so important—by examining, reflecting
on and debating what choices have been made, we can hope that
the quality of decision-making will improve.
176. In this report we have concentrated on the application
of the sustainable development criterion and the regional stability
criterion—in future reports, no doubt, events and decisions
will lead us to concentrate on other criteria. The conversation
between the Government and Parliament which this report continues
is part of that "iterative" learning process which the
Foreign Secretary described to us himself. Through that process,
everyone's understanding of the nature of the criteria by which
ministerial decisions are made will be improved and the consensus
on what the criteria mean in practice will, we hope, become more
widely shared.
177. The process of refinement is far from over,
and the eventual implementation of the Export Control Act will
give it new impetus. We will be examining that new statutory framework
closely, and we will continue to probe and dissect the evidence
which the Annual Reports provide of how the export control system
is being operated. We believe that the arrangements for the control
of strategic exports could be made more fair and effective by
a system of accountability which involved some form of prior scrutiny
of licence applications by Parliament. We will continue to work
towards this goal.
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