Stephen Doughty – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Doughty on 2016-05-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will suspend the sale of arms to countries of the Saudi Arabian-led military coalition following the coalition’s alleged use of cluster munitions in the Yemen conflict.

Anna Soubry

The UK Government takes its export control responsibilities very seriously. All export licence applications are carefully assessed on a case by case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria. A licence will not be issued if to do so would be inconsistent with any provision of the Criteria.

The suspension of licences will be considered by my Rt hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in circumstances where in the light of new evidence and information it would be considered that a proper risk assessment against the Consolidated Criteria would be difficult. At this time he considers that he does have sufficient information from a range of sources for a proper risk assessment to be made against the Criteria.

The UK ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 4 May 2010 and does not licence the export of these weapons.