Committees on Arms ExportsLetter to the Chair of the Committees from Alistair Burt MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

We spoke this morning about export licence applications for Somalia and I agreed to follow up in writing.

Whilst preparing the responses to the Committees’ questions on Q2 2011, it came to our attention that there had been a potential breach of UN sanctions relating to a licence issued for Somalia. The goods in question were body armour for a humanitarian demining organisation. When assessing the application the export had been considered as temporary when it should have been considered as permanent. As a result the incorrect exemption under the arms embargo was applied and the Sanctions Committee were not notified of the proposed export. A review of all Somalia applications identified a further two cases where the Sanctions Committee should have been notified. Both of these were for licences in 2009 authorising the export of armoured vehicles for the protection of UNICEF staff.

We have carried out a review of applications for a number of other embargoed countries from 1 January 2009 onwards. I am satisfied that these three cases were isolated administrative errors and there is no wider systemic failure in our handling of export licence applications for embargoed countries.

Licences for humanitarian or protective equipment are routinely approved by the UN Sanctions Committee. The Committee is being notified of these cases today, with an assurance of the importance that the UK attaches to our obligations under the UN arms embargo. In the meantime, the humanitarian organisation due to receive the protective equipment has agreed to delay any further exports until the exemption is formally granted by the UN Sanctions Committee.

We are fully aware of the need to ensure that this error is not repeated and all applications for Somalia will continue to receive very careful scrutiny against the terms of the embargo.

6 February 2012