§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy to make it a condition of granting an export licence for any application for arms or military equipment that the recipient country provide complete details of all its military imports and exports to the United Nations register of arms transfers.
§ Mr. Douglas HoggNo. The United Nations register of conventional arms is a voluntary confidence-building measure with which we encourage all United Nations member states to comply. We do not consider that it constitutes an adequate basis on which to assess export licence applications for military goods.