Speeches by Bryant.

“Yes to all of that. My only question is that I could not work out from the Spanish legislation whether it covers just goods—”

“It might be worth saying something about other countries. Spain, for instance, has a system that is similar to our secondary legislation, whereby basically the Cabinet makes a pronouncement and then it has to go to both Houses within 30 days. There has been a bit of a dispute within the European Union about whether ind…”

“It might just be worthwhile underlining that there is a difference between the licensing regime that we have for military and dual-use material, and the conversation that we have just had, which is not about licensing in that regard at all. The figures we released on 20 April show that we have 395 extant licences in re…”

“They are very specific. It is trainer aircraft, missile defence systems, components for submarines, and then F-35 licences. Those are the ones that are actually going to the state of Israel. There are other licences, including a very big licence for cystic fibrosis and stuff worth £68 million, which of course would not…”

“Can we go now, then?”

“You have heard me correctly.”

“To Mr Cooper’s question earlier, we do not want to damage our trade with green-line—to use his term—legitimate Israel, or for that matter Palestinian businesses. We want to make sure that we get all that right.”

“I knew that was where he was going to go! I am not going to give you a timetable, I am afraid, not least because who knows who will be making these decisions in a week’s time? I do not have a timeline to give you, but we are working on it with some urgency and determination. We want to make sure that we get this right.…”

“Don’t go any further, Stephen!”

“That is really Stephen’s answer to give, but yes.”

“It is one of the complexities and one of the granular details that we have to work through.”

“It is data for the first quarter of 2027. We have some legacy issues in relation to some licences that we have to sort out, and I do not want to over-promise. That would be the worst outcome of all.”

“I believe so. If I have that wrong, I will write to you.”

“That is a very hypothetical question to which I do not have an answer, I am afraid. I cannot give you a timeline, but maybe Stephen can.”

“I want to issue everything with a slight caveat: this is not easy. Again, I do not want to bore you with the reasons, but many of our licences, such as an open general licence, only show the maximum amount that somebody is allowed to export. You want to know what the actual amount is that is exported and, as I say, tha…”

“Is it worth—”

“This is the question about Watchkeeper drones, yes? We have investigated all these reports, as you would expect us to do. We understand that they are delayed, but we assess the risk of diversion to the IDF—the central question that is being asked—as very low. They are delayed, but we believe that they are still going t…”

“Yes, of course. Just to be absolutely clear, the Government of Israel are not a party to this licence in any shape or form, so it would be a fundamental breach. If the company ever wanted to do business with us again, it would be in a very difficult place.”

“Yes. Obviously it will be for others to decide, because there will be a continuation or a new Government—however you want to interpret it—next week. However, we have been doing work on precisely how this would work. I just want to underline that there is a very strong moral argument for all this. There is probably also…”

“I was only going to say that something that we have already instituted is the open general export licence changes that were brought in in June. We have had a system of dual-use OGELs previously for EU members and a couple of others, and we have now extended that to some other countries where we reckon that there is a l…”