HC Deb 15 February 2001 vol 363 cc451-2
9. Mr. Desmond Browne (Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

When the draft Export Control Bill will be published. [149009]

The Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs (Dr. Kim Howells)

Work is continuing to prepare the draft Export Control Bill for publication and the Government will publish the Bill as soon as it is ready. It is not possible at this stage to give a precise date, but we will be in a position to publish the Bill in the spring.

Mr. Browne

I recognise that the Government have done much to improve the transparency and accountability of arms export deals, and that there are potential practical difficulties, such as delay and commercial confidentiality, in their prior parliamentary scrutiny, but does my hon. Friend accept in principle that prior parliamentary scrutiny of arms export deals would improve accountability and transparency?

Dr. Howells

We continue to believe that the best way forward is to strengthen retrospective scrutiny of the Government's export licensing decisions. However, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said that he will look constructively at any further proposals from the quadripartite Committee on this issue.

Mr. Michael Fabricant (Lichfield)

But is it not the case that the Foreign Secretary, when he was in opposition, continually attacked the Conservative Government over the Scott report? The Government have had four years to introduce this legislation. Is it not the case that, as with the electricity trading arrangements and the consumer White Paper, such things are trumpeted but nothing ever happens? There is more trumpeting than in Duke Ellington's orchestra. Is it not the case that the Department, like the rest of this shambles of a Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) would say, is all spin and no delivery?

Dr. Howells

Unlike the Conservative party, the Government are entirely in harmony.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is real urgency about achieving parliamentary scrutiny of arms exports, and that the decisions of the quadripartite Committee are important in that regard? Is not the Government's decision to export arms to Morocco, which can only be used for internal repression against the Polisario front, just one more example of why there should be public parliamentary scrutiny of what happens to arms exported from Britain to countries that are under no threat of external aggression?

Dr. Howells

I do not agree with my hon. Friend. I know the process that resulted in the refurbishment of some guns in Morocco and I understand that that had permission from the United Nations in New York.