Memorandum from the Department for Business,
Enterprise & Regulatory Reform
Please see the attached Statutory Instrument
(SI) that was laid before Parliament, and accompanying guidance
that was published today. The legislation will come into force
on 1 October 2008.
The only significant difference between this
Order and the draft that I sent to the Committee on 30 May
is the addition of extra text to define cluster munitions for
the purpose of including them in Category A of the new trade control
structure, and thus applying the most stringent controls to them.
I explained in my last letter, that we had to do some late work
to make sure that this legislation reflected the commitments made
in the Dublin negotiations, but I am pleased to report that we
have been able to do so, thus applying Category A status to all
cluster munitions as defined in Dublin.
We have also changed the drafting style of the
SI by moving the amendments to the Trade in Goods (Control) Order
2003 to a schedule.
On the guidance side, there have been a few
changes of detail to deal with issues raised by other stakeholders;
principally to clarify what we classify as the giving of "consideration",
and what supporting end user documentation is acceptable for trade
control purposes.
9 July 2008
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