Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200
- 217)
MONDAY 19 MAY 2008
MR MALCOLM
WICKS MP, MR
JOHN DODDRELL
AND MS
JAYNE CARPENTER
Q200 Sir John Stanley: Could you
not confirm that the only grounds for a criminal prosecution at
the moment would be in relation to individuals who are presently
resident in the UK and knowingly have participated or assisted
in this particular breach of trafficking and brokering regulations?
(Pause)
Q201 Chairman: May I help? As I understand
it, this is an EU embargo so it is covered in terms of UK persons
under existing legislation. If a UK person was not directly involved
but it was a company that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a British
company and it is subsidiaries we are talking about. If the current
legislation automatically caught subsidiaries, we would not need
to have this conversation. As we are having the conversation I
am assuming it does not. If it is true that a British subsidiary
is transferring these arms to Mugabe, I assume the Government
will want to look at ways of trying to prevent this from happening
again.
Mr Wicks: I will investigate very
quickly and write to you as Chairman of this Committee within
a week.[11]
If that is a holding letter because we need to make further enquiries,
then it will be a holding letter. I will come back to you as soon
as I can.
Chairman: Sir John tells me that I have
misinterpreted his question.
Q202 Sir John Stanley: Ultimately
criminal prosecutions are against individuals unless you are into
something like corporate manslaughter. The question I put to you,
Minister, or to your officials, is can you confirm that the only
basis for making a prosecution at the moment under criminal law,
as it now stands, would be against an individual resident in the
UK and present in the UK who knowingly had connived or participated
or assisted in this particular breach of an arms embargo and the
existing criminal law would not extend to any such person who
was outside the territory of the UK when these offences were being
committed?
Ms Carpenter: If there was a UK
person involved, and these were military goods going to Zimbabwe,
it would be a criminal offence whether the person was in the UK
or outside the UK.
Mr Wicks: I will investigate further
and will write to you.
Q203 Sir John Stanley: It is a very
complicated area and it would be very helpful if you would like
to write further to the Committee in response to the questions
we have been putting to you on this point.
Mr Wicks: Yes, I have said that
I will write. It may not be a full letter but I will tell you
where I am with this within a week.
Q204 Linda Gilroy: What a lot of
these questions show is just how complicated it is to do what
I think we all agree we want to do and the UK Working Group on
Arms has drawn attention to the single action catch-all clause
used in Germany—I am not even going to try and pronounce
it. Under this provision, even without a licensing requirement
or prohibition, any border crossing, international action or illegal
act can be prohibited or prevented. As I understand it, that can
include in particular export or transit if the security of the
Federal Republic of Germany, the peaceful co-existence of nations
or the external relations of Germany are threatened. Has the Government
made an assessment of the "single action" catch-all
clause used in Germany?
Mr Wicks: Yes, we have. The advantage
of it is that the German approach obviously gives the German authorities
significant flexibility. The other side of the story, however,
is that it gives virtually no certainty to exporters about what
is and what is not controlled. What we would like to do is to
negotiate an approach through the European Union and that is what
we are seeking to do. It is difficult to assess timescales on
this for the usual reasons. It includes a level of support within
the Commission and the role of Presidency and other Member States,
but that would be our preferred approach. However, we are still
considering the case of enhancing military end-use control and
we aim to clarify our position in a further response later this
year.
Q205 Linda Gilroy: Later this year
you will be in a position to let us know more precisely what changes
you would like to see and how long they will take to secure. In
all of that will you be weighing up the other downside for industry
which you have mentioned—the one that comes along with the
German approach—but it seems to me that with the UK approach,
as we have just been discussing, we go down the path of increasing
complexity and, as you have mentioned, the German approach does
have the advantage of simplicity. Will you be weighing those two
things up as you proceed to estimate what further military end-use
controls through the EU might achieve?
Mr Wicks: Yes and other factors
will be weighed up too. You mentioned complexity—not this
Committee, but I am always struck that the politician is sometimes
asked for more controls and simplicity at the same time. They
are two other things that we need to balance.
Q206 Linda Gilroy: What I am trying
to say here is you have got on the one hand the German approach
which does have an element of simplicity to it; no doubt it may
bring its own complexities but it does seem to have some aspects
of simplicity that could be an advantage, whereas with all of
the things we have just been discussing it does take us down the
path in our endeavour to meet the objectives we have of increasing
regulation and controls, which is always a path which has burdens
for industry in it. I am sure that they too will want to weigh
up the relative pros and cons of that. A key component of end-use
controls would be an obligation on government to monitor the use
to which exported items are put and to alert exporters to use
of concern and we have discussed that already. Is the Government
not just willing but also capable of running such a system?
Mr Wicks: It would certainly be
a tough system.
Ms Carpenter: Could I ask you
to clarify the question?
Q207 Linda Gilroy: We have already
discussed this to some extent but is the Government not just willing
but capable of running a system which monitors end-use controls?
That is the path that we feel we need to go down and we have discussed
it already in earlier questions, but we have also discussed the
capacity issue on what that would do. I am really asking as well
as being potentially willing to improve on these aspects of it,
is the Government capable and can it develop the capacity?
Ms Carpenter: To run another end-use
control?
Q208 Linda Gilroy: Yes.
Ms Carpenter: It is a good question.
We do have some experience of running end-use controls. We know
that they do present some difficult issues and they can be quite
complex, but they do offer a very effective approach in areas
where you want to target the controls quite closely. As Dr Berry
said, end use is the most important issue in these cases.
Q209 Linda Gilroy: Do you have the
capability to monitor that? We have just seen some examples in
earlier questions of how difficult it is. It is back to the quid
pro quo thing in terms of the comparison with the German approach—which
is the better of two? The one which gives you flexibility in circumstances
where you determine it is needed, or one where you try to dot
all the I's and cross all the T's? Does it bring certainty? I
am not sure that it does?
Chairman: Part of the review of the legislation
and everything is about the balance between control simplicity
and sourcing, et cetera.
Mr Wicks: I have said that we
will clarify our position.
Q210 Mr Borrow: On the idea that
has been floated of a single export control agency, EGAD and the
UK Working Group on Arms have both come up with this suggestion.
I know there is some hesitancy within government. I just wondered
whether ministers would be prepared to commission a study into
the viability of merging those bits into a single agency just
to see whether there is a possibility that it would be better
than the existing system?
Mr Wicks: Our position at the
moment is that we do not see the case for it. We think there could
be considerable extra overheads associated with it. My own experience
is that it is often tempting in any area which cuts across departmental
or agency boundaries to say why not bring it all together, would
it not be more sensible? I am not sure that it would. I think
there are issues to be explored as to whether, for example, licensing
and enforcement should be in the same agency. I can see arguments
why that probably would not be a sensible thing. We do not see
this as a priority or even as a desirable move.
Q211 Mr Jenkin: Can you say precisely
what the transfer of DESO[12]
from the MoD[13]
to UKTI[14]
was intended to achieve?
Mr Doddrell: My understanding
was that it was to enable the defence industry to take more advantage
of the very wide network that UKTI has available right across
the world, including the expert staff in overseas posts who have
a good knowledge of the local market conditions which make this
whole infrastructure available to the defence sector as well.
Q212 Mr Jenkin: I think this is more
a policy question for the Minister.
Mr Wicks: The DTI, as it was,
is the Department of Trade and Industry. We have very considerable
expertise in both inward investment and outer investment.
Q213 Mr Jenkin: But industry was
not actually clamouring for this change; on the contrary, industry
was dismayed when this change was announced.
Mr Wicks: I hear what you say.
I have not looked at all the views of industry on this one but
I think there must be considerable arguments to be had for bringing
this aspect of defence into the department, UKTI, which has a
considerable reputation in assisting companies and exporters.
I have seen this myself in bioscience and in the energy sector.
Q214 Mr Jenkin: This is nothing to
do with some sort of perceived internal conflict within the Ministry
of Defence that somehow it was not right for the Ministry of Defence
to be promoting defence exports? It was not a sort of scruples
thing?
Mr Wicks: I am not aware of that
but I have seen it more from the DTI Department of Business and
Enterprise point of view.
Q215 Mr Jenkin: Would it be possible
for you to do a customer satisfaction survey, say after a year
of this? We are now more than a year after this change. Could
you ask your business customers/defence industry customers whether
they are satisfied with the change or whether they would like
it to be changed back?
Mr Wicks: I do not immediately
see that as a priority for taxpayers' money.
Q216 Mr Jenkin: It need not be very
expensive. I would just invite them to write to you with their
views.
Mr Wicks: My concern is more select
committee satisfaction and I am not sure I am doing terribly well
most of the time.
Q217 Mr Jenkin: The advice the select
committee receive from, for example, Jane's Defence Weekly—I
will not bore you with reading the excoriating article that was
written, they describe that previously it had been a centre of
excellence—I do not want to detain the Committee unnecessarily
but there was widespread dismay in the defence industries at this
change. Should we not check that they are going to be happy with
the new arrangements? Could he set out perhaps in a letter what
improvements the defence industry is actually hoping to see?
Mr Wicks: I think it is best that
we make a success of the new arrangements. The Department of Business
Enterprise, formerly the DTI, is a centre of excellence when it
comes to trade and I think it will bed down very well.
Chairman: We will have to call time,
I am afraid. Minister, I thank you and your colleagues very much
indeed for all you do and for this afternoon. It has been a very
useful session. We have had productively rather more discussion
than simply a question and answer session. It has been very helpful
to the Committee and we greatly appreciate it.
11 Ev 68 Back
12
The Defence Exports Sales Organisation Back
13
The Ministry of Defence Back
14
UK Trade and Investment Back
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