Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to the UN Secretary-General’s report on Children and Armed Conflict, published in April 2016, if the Government will suspend arms export licences and reject new applications for arms exports while there is a risk that they could be used in contravention of international humanitarian and human rights laws.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

All UK 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 available relevant information at the time of the application. A licence will not be issued if doing so would be inconsistent with any provision of the mandatory Criteria, including the UK’s international obligations and its commitments to enforce UN, OSCE and EU arms embargoes, and where it is assessed there is a clear risk that the items might be used for internal repression or in the commission of a serious violation of international humanitarian law. As part of its assessment under Criterion 2, the Government is required to take account of the risk the items might be used to commit gender-based violence or serious violence against women or children.

We do not agree that it is right to prohibit all sales of arms to all the countries named in the UN’s annual reports on Children and Armed Conflict, especially as the violations may be carried out by non-state actors. We take our arms export responsibilities very seriously, and operate a robust arms export control regime with every country.