§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will initiate a departmental investigation into the commercial sales by the now defunct Allivane Company of Cumbernauld, Glasgow, of artillery fuses to Iraq in contravention of the export control restrictions;
(2) what assessment his Department has made of the sale of militarily sensitive materials to Iraq by the Aero Technologies Company of Glasgow;
(3) what assessment his Department has made of the commercial sales agreements between the Allivane Company of Cumbernauld, Glasgow, and the Space Research Corporation of Belgium in regard to provision of militarily useful materials to Iraq.
§ Sir John CopeInvestigation and related assessment of possible export licensing offences are matters for the Commissioners of Customs and Excise. They carry out their inquiries thoroughly and expeditiously. It would not be appropriate for information relating to any particular investigation or related assessment to be made public other than in the course of court proceedings.
§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what categories of information requested by the Customs and Excise authorities from Government departments relating to the illegal commercial dealing by British-based or owned companies and Iraq, either directly or indirectly, have not been supplied to those authorities; and what are the reasons in each case.
§ Sir John CopeThere is frequent liaison between Customs and Excise and other Government Departments about exports from the United Kingdom to Iraq and, indeed, other countries. The nature of any information requested by or passed to Customs for the conduct of their statutory enforcement responsibilities is clearly a matter of investigative and commercial confidentiality and I can give no details.