Schedule - Purposes for making orders under section 1(1) or 2(1)
Export Control Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Richard Page (South West Hertfordshire, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 42, in page 9, line 36, after `effect', insert
``damaging to the interests or security of the United Kingdom''.
I am speaking to my amendment a little earlier than I anticipated. It is self-explanatory. None of us would want anything to happen that would damage the interests or security of the United Kingdom. The point of the amendment is that the export of arms or technology should be prohibited if the interests of the United Kingdom and its allies might be damaged, but that they should not be prohibited if hostile or potentially hostile powers were fuelling regional or local conflicts to the detriment of British interests. The British Government should be free to export arms to parties or countries engaged in such conflicts. That should be possible without the prohibitions that the Government have made it possible to ignore, despite appearing to have embraced them. The amendment focuses on the Government's obligations.
What would happen if the European Union expressed a view contrary to the view that this country wanted to act on? The Minister worried my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) earlier, when he referred to the possibility that EU direction could prohibit us from certain courses of action. Could the European Union block the consequences of the relevant provisions of the schedule, regardless of the course that the United Kingdom wanted to take?
On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot spoke about the number of jobs in our arms manufacturing business, the skills and expertise involved in it and its importance to the country's exports. I know that a number of hon. Members are concerned about the focus and direction of armaments sold overseas. However, we should have a strong armament business for the country's security.