Speeches by Doughty.

“The Export Control Act 2002, which you will be familiar with, requires Ministers to give guidance about the general principles to be followed when exercising licensing powers. The current guidance, of course, is the SEL criteria, which were announced in 2001. Obviously, criterion 2c, which we have spoken about already,…”

“Well, we consider a whole series of issues, as I set out earlier. As I said, particularly the review highlighted concerns and breaches in the areas of humanitarian access and the treatment of detainees—these were the two specific areas. That obviously led to a question about wider commitment to acting in line with inte…”

“It was the information that we had available, Chair. Obviously, I do not have access to information that previous Governments had. We took into account events that took place since we came into office.”

“Well, we get access to a lot of information, but I do not have the exact details of all the decisions they made. Maybe Stephen could speak on the previous information.”

“I should point out, Chair, that this was a process the Foreign Secretary announced as soon as we came into office. He wanted to consider all that evidence, including any new information that had come into place, and make sure that was considered properly in line with our export licensing criteria. He then provided the …”

“It is all the information together. Obviously, new events had occurred, and there was also an assessment of what had gone before. The Foreign Secretary then reviewed that very carefully, taking that process incredibly seriously, and then gave the advice to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade.”

“Well, we have suspended licences to Israel for items that we believe might be used in carrying out or facilitating IDF military operations in the Gaza conflict. There are a number of export licences we have assessed that are not for military use in the current conflict and therefore do not require suspension. This is a…”

“Yes, absolutely. For example, there are some export licences relating to civilian use that cover a range of products: food testing, chemicals, telecoms and data equipment. There are a number of licences that would not fall within the kind of items that drew us to concern about how they might be used in violation of IHL…”

“Yes, this was a consideration of those specifically, but obviously we consider all export licences in the round in relation to the criteria. We consider all the criteria against them all. Obviously, there are some things that naturally do not fit within grounds for either a refusal in the first place, or a suspension a…”

“There are currently no extant licences that we assess might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

“That is subject to the specific measures set out in Parliament excluding exports to the global F-35 programme from the scope of the suspension.”

“Not for military use, no.”

“Not in a way that is risking a lack of compliance with IHL. That is our understanding of the current assessment. There is a current assessment going on and this is a rolling process—we are constantly keeping this under review. That is not just in relation to Gaza, of course, but in relation to all our export licences a…”

“Not for military use.”

“In essence, it is that the SELC produced the evidence, it considered all those points that I raised previously, and the Foreign Secretary was then given a submission that set out the assessment of the risk—the level of belief that there was a risk. He then took a judgment on that and wrote to the Secretary of State for…”

“Yes.”

“That is correct but, as I said, those two decisions about the detainees and humanitarian access obviously give rise to a wider concern about Israel’s willingness to comply with international humanitarian law. Therefore, that decision and the wider approach that is taken influences them, and in effect it would have led …”

“Yes, it is a clearer and more definitive process.”

“Just to correct, it is not a partial suspension of licences. There are some licences that have been suspended and some that have not, and that is based on an assessment of each individual licence.”

“We are very clear on the scale of destruction that you describe. The level of civilian deaths is appalling—it is completely unacceptable. That was exactly why we called for an immediate ceasefire as one of the first things that the Foreign Secretary did, and he has consistently raised—along with other ministerial colle…”