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Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The amendment seeks to add a number of detailed matters to the Bill. In particular, it requires orders to make provision for a prescribed form of licence application; a time within which any additional information must be sought by the licensing authority; a time after which a licence would be deemed to have been granted unless refused; written reasons for the refusal of a licence application which should be sufficient to enable the applicant to make an appeal; and prescribing an appeals procedure. Proposed subsections (4)(c) and (5) would, in effect, require the Secretary of State to issue a licence by default if a decision has not been made within a prescribed timescale. These various provisions concern procedures, or, in the case of licensing by default, a fundamentally different approach to export licensing.

The Government set out their views about what are essentially procedural matters in the White Paper on Strategic Export Controls, published in 1998. I shall return shortly to the substantive arguments against the approach represented by these amendments. A more general point that I should make is that the

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Government consider that such detailed matters do not need to be set out in primary legislation and that, therefore, this amendment is unnecessary.

As noble Lords may be aware, the matters covered by the Bill have already been the subject of a long and detailed process of consultation. Many of the issues raised by this amendment have already been consulted upon and considered carefully by the Government, with our conclusions about them included in last year's further consultation on the draft Bill.

The Government's 1998 White Paper on Strategic Export Controls, which paved the way for the Bill currently before the Committee, addressed the issue of procedures in detail. It stated:

"The Government considers that there could be merit in setting out the basic elements of the licensing process in primary legislation but not the detailed procedures. The latter are, in the Government's view, best included either in secondary legislation, or in guidance material as at present, or a mixture of the two".

We consider that Clause 6 as it stands does indeed provide the basic power to deal with the necessary procedural matters. The Government consider that the issues included in the amendment are detailed procedures. Therefore, we would reiterate the point made in the White Paper that such details do not belong in primary legislation.

I shall now comment on the substance of what the amendment is seeking to do. The White Paper also dealt with the question of licensing by default, giving written reasons for refusing export licences and appeals—all matters covered in the amendment. Here again, the Government would reiterate the views expressed in the White Paper. On the question of licensing by default, the White Paper stated:

"The Government has considered this issue carefully and has concluded that licensing by default should not be adopted as it would introduce a risk of licences being granted that were contrary to the UK's international obligations or the Government's own policy".

That remains our position. A further point is that the previous Conservative government, in responding to the inquiry of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, commented on the question of prescribing time limits, as proposed in subsection (4)(c) of this amendment, as follows:

"Prescribed time limits for the consideration of licence applications could be particularly difficult given the complexity of the issues raised by some applications and would, in practice, be likely to result in an increase in refusals in borderline cases".

We agree that an increase in the number of refusals in borderline cases is the only responsible approach where time limits apply. That does not seem to be a desirable outcome, particularly from industry's perspective.

On giving written reasons for refusing a licence application, the White Paper also explained that we already give such reasons that are as full as possible. However, in some cases a broad explanation only can be given for reasons of national security, as acknowledged in subsection (4)(d) of the amendment.

As to appeals, the Government have said that they intend to set out procedures in secondary legislation. Appeals procedures were in fact included in the

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dummy draft orders made available to Parliament last October. In particular, Article 14 of the dummy draft order on the Export of Goods, Transfer of Technology and Provision of Technical Assistance, and Article 8 of that on Trade in Controlled Goods, dealt with appeals.

Subsection (4)(a) and (b) of the amendment underlines the general point that I have made about it not being appropriate to include powers to prescribe detailed matters in the Bill. Prescribing the form of the application is essentially an administrative matter, but for EU-derived controls is also a matter of compliance with the EU form of application. Applications will remain relatively unchanged over time, but may need to be updated occasionally. It seems unnecessary to specify such a power in the Bill. The time allowed to seek further information from licence applicants is also essentially an administrative matter and one that will vary in individual cases, depending on the complexity of the proposed export or transfer. Because of the nature of the export control process with regard to strategic items applications, the further information supplied has to be circulated to all other interested departments. There must, therefore, be no constraints on the Government's ability to require information about a proposed export or transfer. The Government aim to deal with all applications expeditiously, but sometime delays can occur, especially if a number of requests need to be made and the applicant is slow to respond.

As far as concerns the performance of the Department of Trade and Industry, we are working hard to reduce processing times for licence applications. In 2000, 57 per cent of standard individual export licence applications were processed within the target. So far, the figure for 2001 is 60 per cent. Of course, unfortunately, a small proportion of cases raise especially difficult issues, and they may take longer to process. All long-standing cases are regularly reviewed by officials to ensure that they are progressed. It is not right—as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, would have it—that we should in such cases allow people to have the export licence by default. Equally, I am not certain that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that they should be turned down by default. They are difficult decisions, and the most important thing is that they are properly considered. That may take more time than is ideal, but the important thing is that such important decisions are given proper scrutiny.

The Bill contains all the powers necessary to modernise our existing export control regime. It would be a mistake to encumber it with a multiplicity of specific procedural duties and deal with matters that are best left either to the existing order-making powers in the Bill or to guidance. I therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Miller of Hendon: I shall withdraw the amendment this evening, but I cannot promise the Minister that I will not bring it back. It would convince me not to bring it back if the Minister were to consider some of the points that I raised and if he were to come

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up with an amendment that would satisfy me just a little more. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Judd. Although it was flattering to be told by him that I was seductive, clearly I was not seductive enough, or he would not have said that he disagreed with absolutely everything that I said except for one point about the title.

The important point that I was making to the Minister and to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, was that I, too, do not want to see arms sent to all the wrong places and that I, too, believe in licences and controls. That is why we support the Bill; there is no question about that. We think that it is excellent. However, I differ a little from the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and am on the side of the Minister, in that I think that a balance must be struck. There is no question but that we rely a lot on our defence industry. It is important that suppliers who are doing the job properly and correctly should be able to get on with their business.

I was making the point that the advisory bodies to the Department of Trade and Industry—for example, the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office—will, in many cases, go through things carefully with a fine-tooth comb and come to the conclusion that the licences ought to be granted. The matter then goes back to the Department of Trade and Industry, which is where the delay comes in. As a result, our companies lose the business, but the arms are still exported; it is just that they are exported by another company, probably not in this country. That is a pity. We must strike a balance. I felt that my amendment would do that, because it followed the recommendations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote.

Having said that, I am sure that the officials in the DTI could examine the process and see which parts they could help to expedite, where it was necessary and safe to do so. In that case, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment although I hope that the matter will be discussed later, perhaps in a different form.

10.15 p.m.

Lord Judd: Before the noble Baroness resumes her seat, I must obviously be a little more careful with my language. I wanted to ask her whether I could tempt her to go a little further. However, the noble Baroness seemed to indicate that she agreed with me that there should be a presumption in the interests of peace and international security that arms were not exported unless there was a good reason for exporting them. If she can confirm that that is the position of the Opposition, it will be immensely encouraging.

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