§ Mr. BerryTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what(a) legal and (b) human rights factors were taken into account before 1998 when his Department considered export licence applications for the (i) E100 series integrated grenade system and (ii) fragmentation grenade E105 incorporated into the trip wire mechanism manufactured by PW Defence. [57169]
§ Mr. BradshawSuch items would have been considered under the criteria applicable to all items on the Military List. From July 1997 onwards those were the UK's national export licensing criteria set out in the answer given by my right hon. Friend the former Foreign Secretary to my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Mr. Timms) on 28 July 1997,Official Report, HC26–29. Under those criteria we were obliged to comply with the UK's commitment not to export all forms of anti-personnel land mines and their component parts. The criteria also made clear that we would not issue licences where there is a clearly identifiable risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression, aggressively against another country, or to assert by force a territorial claim.
The legal basis for controls of integrated grenade systems and fragmentation grenades is entry ML4 in Part III of Schedule 1 of the Export of Control (Goods) Order 1994 as amended.