Export Licences: High Court Judgment — House of Lords, 2019-06-20
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement made in another place. I recognise that it is a complex area for which he may not have the full briefing at his fingertips, and I shall not be pressing him too hard on some its more exotic elements, including the question of whether or not the Ruggie principles have been adapted and successfully applied in this case The Statement ends with a rather interesting point: "The Court of Appeal judgment does not undermine the UK’s overall framework for export controls as set out in the", EU consolidated criteria. These criteria have been there for some time and are, "shared by EU member states" I put it to the Minister that that cannot be quite correct, because I understand from reading press reports that Germany and Denmark, which are both members of the EU, have in fact decided to withdraw sales of arms to Saudi Arabia. So, in a sense, different decisions have already been reached; this is not a universal position. Does he have any thoughts on that Secondly, as the Minister rightly points out, this is a judicial review. It is not a test of whether or not the policy adopted by Her Majesty’s Government is correct. We follow entirely on that point of view, but it leads to roughly the same position, which is that the Government have been given a pretty severe blow to their current workings. Errors in the process, to the legal mind at least, have been pointed out and will need to be looked at again. I am glad to hear that the granting of export licences has now been cancelled until such time as this is resolved. The issue of course will be uncertain until such time as any appeal is launched and heard. Could the Minister say a bit more about that? It is being reviewed, but this will obviously affect how things go forward, so does he think that it is likely The key factor in the finding is that the Government, "made no concluded assessments of whether the Saudi-led coalition had committed violations of international humanitarian law in the past, during the Yemen conflict, and made no attempt to do so" Irrespective of whether or not the end result would be the same, the fact that the Government have no concluded assessments is the reason why the judgment has been overturned in the Appeal Court. In a sense, that is probably all that needs to be said on that, except that there is a question of whether it raises any issues about the broader context in which these decisions are reached We had a number of amendments down in Committee and on Report for the Trade Bill when it recently passed through your Lordships’ House which probed some of the issues being raised in the judgment today. It is, as the Minister said, a complex situation involving the Ministry of Defence, the Department for International Trade and the Foreign Office—it has recently been revamped following the formation of the separate department DfIT; previously BEIS was the lead body on the trade element. We received assurances that this was not only a very efficient and effective system but that it was effectively best in class in comparison with the rest of the world. Could the Minister confirm that that is still the view of Her Majesty’s Government on this issue, irrespective of the judgment, and that he is content that the present arrangements are robust and reliable Turning to the actual impact of the judgment, I have touched on the question of whether or not arms sales should be suspended if they are likely to be used in the Yemen conflict. The Minister has confirmed that that has happened. Therefore, could he follow up, given that that is the situation and there is an issue at stake here, on whether it might be appropriate to establish a public inquiry so that we can better understand the issues and make sure that lessons are learned? Will he comment on that My third point is a more complex one, and I will fully understand if the Minister does not have the information with him; he may wish to write to me. In press reports there is wide evidence of air strikes on non-military targets in Yemen. I refer to a recent Guardian article—it may not be his regular reading, but it is available on the web. It says that the British Government have in recent years, "deployed RAF personnel to work as engineers, and to train Saudi pilots and targeteers—while an even larger role is played by", the private company, "BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest arms company, which the government has subcontracted to provide weapons, maintenance and engineers inside Saudi Arabia". There is also a quote from the Channel 4 programme "Dispatches", in which a BAE employee said: "If we weren’t there, in seven to 14 days there wouldn’t be a jet in the sky" We are clearly supplying matériel not just to Saudi Arabia for the use of the coalition in the battles in Yemen; we are also supplying it to individuals, who are performing acts which might be considered to be in support of the work which has now been found to be illegal by the Court of Appeal. If that is the case and there are British personnel actively carrying out this work, is there not a danger that they might be prosecuted for what they are doing in the International Criminal Court? If so, could he confirm what Her Majesty’s Government’s position on that would be?