§ Mr. ByersTo ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer of 26 January 1996,Official Report, column 423, how many of the newly discovered batch of export licence applications from BMARC did not have full supporting documentation. [14580]
Mr. Oppenhiem[holding answer 9 February 1996]Of the recently recovered BMARC—or Astra Defence Systems—export licence applications which were dealt with under the military list between 1985 and 1990, about 60 per cent. were accompanied by copies of one or more of the type of documents normally recognised as constituting adequate supporting documentation. In around a further quarter of the cases, other supporting information was provided. Less than a tenth of the applications had no supporting documentation or information of any kind. In the remaining cases, the application papers themselves have not been recovered, so it is not possible to say whether supporting documentation or information was provided.