HC Deb 08 March 2001 vol 364 cc288-9W
Mr. Baker

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the companies which supplied artillery equipment to both Iran and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. [151854]

Dr. Howells

[holding answer 6 March 2001]: Licences to export arms and other goods whose export is controlled for strategic reason; have been issued by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and his predecessors acting through the export licensing authority (current13 the Export Control Organisation) within the Department of Trade and Industry since before the Iran-Iraq conflict started in 1980.

In his report entitled "Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq" Sir Richard Scott included details of export licence applications to Iraq in the period 1984–90. The report also breaks down into categories the goods licensed to Iraq in that period, one of which is "1A: Arms and military equipment", which would include artillery equipment. It is not possible to establish precisely which of these entries covered artillery equipment without searching the relevant paper files which would entail disproportionate cost. Also as the report notes, records of licence applications did not go back beyond 1985. We do not therefore have records from the start of the Iran-Iraq war.

It would also entail disproportionate cost to search through the paper records to establish which licences issued to Iran between 1985 and the end of the war in 1988 covered the export of artillery equipment.

Moreover, information about whom particular export licences were granted to is commercial in confidence, and the companies concerned would therefore need to be approached to establish whether they objected to the disclosure of such information.

While the Department of Trade and Industry maintains records of licence applications, it does not compile records of licensed exports. Some licences are only used 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.