Arms Exports (Hansard, 7 May 1998)

§ Ann Clwyd
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she intends to insert information on the number of small arms and other military, security and police equipment contained within each export licence granted into the Annual report. [40385]

§ Mrs. Roche
I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given on 8 April 1998,Official Report, column 321, by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock).

§ Mr. Hancock
To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many items of each type of defence equipment were exported to(a) Malaysia, (b) Thailand, (c) Indonesia and (d) Singapore over the last six years. [29162]
476W
The following table gives details of (i) the name of the software package used by each Health Board for their call-recall system (ii) the name of the company which provides the package (iii) the company responsible for maintaining the package and (iv) the date on which the software went through a formal test cycle independent of the software developers, prior to release of the updated system:

§ Mrs. Roche
Licences to export arms and other goods where export is controlled for strategic reasons are issued by the President of the Board of Trade, and the Export Control Organisation of the Department of Trade and Industry is the licensing authority. All relevant individual licence applications are circulated by the DTI to other Government Departments with an interest, as determined by them in line with their policy responsibilities. These include the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence, and the Department for International Development. While the Export Control Organisation maintains records of licence applications, it does not compile records of licensed exports. Some licences are used only in part, while others may not be used at all. The extent to which the exports permitted by a licence are made is dependent on various factors, for example the customer's requirements may be less than originally expected or the expected contract may simply not materialise.