Ghana (Hansard, 22 January 2004)

§ Keith Vaz
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to visit Ghana. [148156]

§ Mr. Mullin
Foreign engagements for my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers are kept under constant review. It is not practice to announce such visits until they are firm. Because of the unpredictable nature of world events, final decisions on overseas visits are often not possible until very shortly before the day of travel and occasionally not until they are under way. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister visited Ghana in February 2002 and I visited Accra in 2003.

§ Keith Vaz
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next plans to visit Ghana. [149494]

§ Mr. Mullin
I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave him today.

§ Keith Vaz
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to ensure that the night goggles provided by the EU to Ghana are used in accordance with the country's undertakings. [149496]

§ Mr. Mullin
All EU members are required to assess rigorously all export licence applications on a case-by-case basis against the 1998 EU Code of Conduct on arms exports, taking account of the circumstances prevailing at the time, embargoes and other announced policies. The 1998 EU Code of Conduct on arms exports is available in the Library of the House. The criteria set out the EU's commitment to take account of the risk that exports might be used for either internal repression or external aggression.
The Ghanaian armed forces are professional and well respected. We have no reason to doubt that night vision equipment exported by the EU would be used for any other than legitimate purposes.