1st Joint Special Report - UK arms exports during 2016: Government Response to the Committees’ First Joint Report

This is the government's response, published 29 November 2018.

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The government responds to each recommendation in turn, accepting some points, noting others, and disagreeing with or declining several, including routine sharing of confidential information with the Committees and a register of arms brokers.

• On end-use monitoring, the government says it is "unnecessary and unfeasible" on all licences and that its "primary risk assessment process" before licensing will continue, while it will "seek to learn lessons" from other countries.
• It "does not accept" that it should routinely share confidential information with the Committees, citing commercial sensitivity, but will continue to consider requests for disclosure in specific cases "on a case-by-case basis".
• On a pre-licensing register of arms brokers, it "disagrees" with the Committees' assertion that the regimes of the USA and 23 EU member states are significantly more stringent, and does not consider a register would make control more stringent.
• On data presentation, it agrees that published information "does not lend itself to interrogation" and says it "will consider how it might better present data and the resources required", keeping the Committees informed.

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error