Examination of Witness (Questions 92-99)
MR DAVID
HAYES, MR
NIGEL KNOWLES
AND MS
BERNADETTE PEERS
11 MARCH 2009
Q92 Chairman: Good morning. For the record,
David, would you mind introducing yourself and your colleagues?
Mr Hayes: Thank you. I am David
Hayes of David Hayes Export Controls and the Chairman of the Export
Group for Aerospace and Defence. To my left is Bernadette Peers
of Strategic Shipping, to my right is Nigel Knowles of Chemring
Countermeasures.
Chairman: Thank you again for your written
submissions, they have been very helpful, and we will pursue some
of those issues now. Fabian.
Q93 Mr Hamilton: Thank you Chairman.
Can I move straight into the issue of Sri Lanka? There have been
calls for an arms embargo on Sri Lanka given the current eruption
of violence there again, certainly starting in January. You have
put forward strong economic arguments as to why arms exports should
continue to Israel; can you make out a similar case for Sri Lanka?
Mr Hayes: The distinction I would
make between Israel and Sri Lanka is partly the distinction that
the NGOs made in so much as Israel has its own very well developed
defence industry, so the difference between the two is to some
extent that a lot of the exports to Israel are actually for equipment
that is not ultimately going to be used in Israel or by the Israeli
defence forces; in some cases in fact the end user is our own
Ministry of Defence. That is not true of Sri Lanka. I do not think
there is a level of comparison economically between the two as
defence markets although I do not know what the figures are in
terms of licensing within the annual report.
Q94 Mike Gapes: Can I take this further?
That is a very important point because it means that the international
community could have a level of leverage on the Sri Lankan Government
that it does not have with regard to the Israelis. Given the appalling
scenes that are coming out of Sri Lanka, the bombing of schools
and other incidents that have happened—that does not justify
what the Tamil Tigers have done but nevertheless it could be argued
that the international community one way or another, or those
countries that do export to Sri Lanka, are actually giving the
green light politically in a symbolic way. I know this is not
a matter for you to decide, it is a policy issue for Government,
but nevertheless the British Government does refuse large numbers
of exports to Sri Lanka if you go through the list, as I did the
other day. Nevertheless, there would not be much further to do
except to make a political statement which would symbolically
be very important, I think, to send signals to the Sri Lankan
Government about their behaviour by adopting such an approach.
It would not have the offset problem that you have referred to
in the sense of the differences between Israel and Sri Lanka.
Would you like to comment on that?
Mr Hayes: At the risk of answering
your question with part of the question, whether or not to impose
an embargo on a particular country is a matter for Government,
not for industry.
Q95 Mike Gapes: But you would agree
that there is less likelihood of the Sri Lankan Government being
able to manufacture its own components or its own weapons systems
and being able to fill the gap except by importing from another
country.
Mr Knowles: That would be an important
consideration to take account of. If the Western democracies were
to place embargos on countries like Sri Lanka they may, because
they do not have an indigenous production, go elsewhere and they
may go and become influenced by nation states that we would not
otherwise wish them to be influenced by.
Q96 Mike Gapes: Assuming they are
influenced by us, when the Government appoints an envoy to Sri
Lanka we are told that we cannot send that envoy there, so we
do not seem to have much influence at the moment.
Mr Knowles: It is very important
for the Western democratic peoples to make friends and sometimes
you have to take a little grief in order to keep a friendship.
Q97 John Battle: I completely accept
that it is government policy whether there is an arms embargo
or not but I would be rather more encouraged if I thought you
were interested in, as well as the size of the market, monitoring
the end use so that you know what happens to the goods you sell.
Why I say that is that in Sri Lanka at the moment there is a lot
in the North East, 200,000 or more people displaced and it is
now spreading to a curfew in Colombo. Given that the media have
been excluded from Sri Lanka, in a way that they were not from
Israel—to draw a comparison with my colleagues—even
during the present conflict; there were embedded journalists able
to watch what happened to the gear. That cannot happen in Sri
Lanka; does that make a difference to your judgment of whether
it is the proper place to sell arms to?
Mr Hayes: It makes a difference
to the ability to make the judgment reliably because of the lack
of availability of information, so to that extent, yes, it is
a concern in that we do not have the level of transparency that
we do with Israel.
Q98 Mr Borrow: Going on to Israel
itself, which we referred to in the previous session, I understand
your opposition to an embargo but that then begs the question
as to whether or not the existing controls are working. Are you
satisfied that the existing system is effectively controlling
the use of UK components within military equipment used in Israel?
Mr Hayes: Like the NGOs I cannot
cite a specific case of any UK offensive weapon or component having
been exported to that destination in contravention of UK policy,
so in that sense it is an impossible question to answer. I am
not aware of any particular violation of the current government
policy or arms export criteria.
Q99 Mr Borrow: If I am right part
of the thrust of your opposition to a blanket arms embargo as
far as Israel is concerned is because of our defence relationships
in terms of military equipment. Does that mean that there are
components built in Israel that are used in UK equipment that
cannot be sourced anywhere else other than Israel?
Mr Hayes: Only the companies who
are manufacturing the equipment and only certain people within
those companies with technical expertise will be in a position
to answer the question.
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