§ Mrs. GillanTo ask the President of the Board of Trade how many export licence applications were refused by the Export Control Organisation during each of the four-week periods used by her Department from 6 March to date. [48225]
§ Mrs. Roche[holding answer 30 June 1998]: The Export Control Organisation's computer databases have been interrogated and numbers of applications for Standard Individual Export Licences and Open Individual Export Licences refused in full for each period are as follows:
Period Standard individual export licences Open individual export licences 7 March 1998 to 3 April 1998 4 1 4 April 1998 to 1 May 1998 8 0 2 May 1998 to 29 May 1998 8 0 This information should be considered in light of my answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) on 30 October 1997, Official Report, columns 870–71.
§ Mrs. GillanTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will list the average times taken to process export licence applications in the periods(a) 1 May 1996 to 1 May 1997 and (b) 1 May 1997 to 1 May 1998. [48226]
§ Mrs. Roche[holding answer 30 June 1998]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) on 23 February 1998, Official Report, column 103.
§ Mrs. GillanTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will list the total number of export licence applications processed by the Export Control Organisation in each of the four-week periods used by her Department 633W from 6 March to date broken down into (a) those circulated to other Government departments and (b) those not circulated. [48224]
§ Mrs. Roche[holding answer 30 June 1998]: The information, beginning with the four-week period nearest to the date specified, is as follows:
Period Applications circulated to other departments according to their policy requirements and completed during the period Applications not circulated to other departments and completed during the period 7 March 1998 to 3 April 1998 1,039 111 4 April 1998 to 1 May 1998 704 145 2 May 1998 to 29 May 1998 710 94 This information was taken from the Export Control Organisation's management data which are compiled in order to monitor performance at processing applications for Standard Individual Export Licences. The performance measures do not apply to applications for Open Individual Export Licences (due to the very wide variations between goods and country coverage of such licences) or licences covering Iran or Iraq or exports which are subject to control solely because of United Nations Sanctions.
§ Mrs. GillanTo ask the President of the Board of Trade how many export licence applications waited more than 20 days for a decision in each of the periods(a) 1 May 1996 to 1 May 1997 and (b) 1 May 1997 to 1 May 1998. [48230]
§ Mrs. Roche[holding answer 30 June 1998]: The Export Control Organisation (ECO) measures its performance against two aims:
to provide a substantive response to an application within 20 working days of receipt for applications that need to be circulated to other Government Departments according to their policy requirements ("circulated cases"), andto provide such a response within 10 working days of receipt for applications dealt with by DTI itself ("non-circulated" cases).The ECO's management data on the processing of licence applications are compiled on the basis of four-week periods. For the period 1 May 1996 to 2 May 1997, 3,661 applications which were circulated to other Government Departments according to their policy requirements did not meet the performance target.
For the period 3 May 1997 to 1 May 1998, 5,174 applications which were circulated to other Departments did not meet the performance target.
Records are not kept in such a way as to be able to identify non-circulated cases which took more than 20 working days to complete.