Scrutiny of Arms Export Controls (2009): UK Strategic Export Controls Annual Report 2007, Quarterly Reports for 2008, licensing policy and review of export control legislation - Business and Enterprise Committee Contents


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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