HC Deb 09 January 2002 vol 377 c868W
Mr. Edwards

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what controls she places on the(a) manufacture and (b) export of instruments of torture; and if she will make a statement. [24553]

Nigel Griffiths

The manufacture of electric-shock weapons is regulated by the Firearms Act 1968 as amended.

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply from my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), the then Foreign Secretary, to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Syd Rapson) on 28 July 1997, Official Report, columns 65–66W, which announced a ban on the export or transhipment from the UK of certain specified equipment that has been used for torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.