1 Introduction
1. The four House of Commons Select Committees that
comprise the Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC)[1]
are: the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, the
Defence Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the International
Development Committee. All members of the four Select Committees
are entitled to attend committee meetings of the CAEC, although
for practical purposes each of the four Committees usually nominates
four members to serve on the CAEC.
2. The CAEC's task throughout the year is to scrutinise
the UK Government's arms export control procedures and legislation,
individual arms export licence decisions, arms export policies,
and the UK's role in international arms control agreements. To
achieve this, the Committees have scrutinised in unprecedented
detail the Government's United Kingdom Strategic Export Controls
Annual Report 2010 (HC 1402)[2]
presented to the House of Commons in July 2011 by the four Secretaries
of State. The Committees questions on the Annual Report and the
Government's answers are reproduced in full in Annex 11. The Committees
have also scrutinised in detail the Government's all important
information placed quarterly on the website of the Department
for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) on individual arms export
licence decisions; the Committees questions on those decisions
and the Government's answers for the period Q3 2010 until Q3 2011
are reproduced in full in Annex 1. The Committees were, in addition,
able to scrutinise the Government policies and performance on
arms export controls as a result of information received in the
Committees' informal meetings and from a range of other sources
and reports. We were grateful to those who submitted formal written
evidence to our latest inquiry; these memoranda are reproduced
in full in the evidence to this Report at Ev 33-62. A great deal
of important written Ministerial evidence was also submitted in
the course of the inquiry, mostly in response to questions from
the Committees. This is listed at Annex 10 and reproduced in full
in the evidence to this Report at Ev 62-183. A debate on the CAEC's
last Report was held in the House of Commons on 20 October 2011
during which a number of key issues were raised.[3]
3. The Committees' scrutiny for this Report culminated
with two Oral evidence sessions held first with the UK Working
Group on Arms (UKWG)[4]
and the Export Group for Aerospace and Defence (EGAD)[5];
and, second, with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation
and Skills, Vince Cable and the Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs (FCO), William Hague. The complete texts
of the Committees' questions and the witnesses' answers in the
Oral evidence sessions can be found in the evidence to this Report
at Ev 1-32.
4. The Committees
recommend that, given the far-reaching significance of arms export
and arms control decisions for the Government's trade, defence,
foreign and international development polices, Oral evidence should
continue to be given to the Committees on Arms Export Controls
by the Secretaries of State.
1 From April 1999 until March 2008 the Committees were
known as the "Quadripartite Committee" Back
2
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Department for
International Development, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and
Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom Strategic Export Controls
Annual Report 2010, HC 1402, 18 July 2011 Back
3
HC Deb, 20 October 2011, cols 337-370WH Back
4
The UK Working Group on Arms comprises Action on Armed Violence,
Amnesty UK, Article 36, Omega Research Foundation, Oxfam and Saferworld Back
5
EGAD are representatives from defence and aerospace industries Back
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