§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the applications for exports to Iraq submitted in the last year which have been blocked in the 661 UN Committee by(a) Her Majesty's Government's representative and (b) other members of the Committee; and if he will indicate the value of the exports concerned. [145430]
§ Mr. HainThe UK currently has on hold less than 2 per cent. of contracts, worth $595 million, circulated to the UN Iraq Sanctions Committee We only put contracts on hold where there are serious concerns that the goods could be used in Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction programmes. Holds are generally placed temporarily until assurances have been received about the end-use or in-country monitoring of these goods. By comparison, at the end of October 2000, Iraq's bureaucracy was holding back the delivery of US$1.1 billion worth of goods already approved by the Sanctions Committee.
As for holds placed by other members of the Sanctions Committee I would refer my hon. Friend to the detailed information on contracts processing which can be found on the Office For Iraq Programme's website: http://www.un.org/Departments/oip/.