Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-09-06.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they made of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, and its role in Yemen, before announcing that the UK would continue to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The UK Government takes its arms export responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust arms export control regimes in the world. All export licence applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria, taking account of all relevant factors at the time of the application.
Risks around human rights violations are a key part of our assessment against the Consolidated Criteria. We do not export equipment where we assess there is a clear risk that it might be used for internal repression, or would provoke or prolong conflict within a country, or where we assess there is a clear risk that the intended recipient would use the items aggressively against another country. Export licensing requires us to consider how the equipment will be used by the end-user. This is done by reference to all currently available and relevant information at the time of application. A licence will not be issued, for any country, if to do so would be inconsistent with any provision of the mandatory Criteria, including where we assess there is a clear risk that it might be used in the commission of a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law.
