Speeches by Bryant.

“To answer the question about how we assess, of course, we are making an assessment on the basis of what the Secretary of State for Defence has advised us, which is precisely the letter that you now have.”

“That then is a matter, I’m afraid, for the Foreign Office.”

“From the very beginning, when the new criteria were laid out by the then Government under Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who was Secretary of State for International Trade in 2021, she clearly stated that the application of the strategic export licensing control is “without prejudice to the application to specific cases of spec…”

“Well, the argument is in the case, but the primary point is that if we were able to dismantle the F-35 programme so as to take our element out of it, it would effectively be dismantling a process that is important to our national security and to international peace and security around the world, because it is part of a…”

“As you know from the skeleton argument that we made to the court in the Al-Haq case, which you have a copy of, we believe that while it is our duty to do everything we possibly can to ensure that any exports that we license are not doing material damage to the people of Gaza given the situation that exists there—becaus…”

“Sorry, because of that exchange, I am not quite sure what you are asking.”

“No, because the work has to be done before we get to that point. I think you are misunderstanding the process.”

“Because our relationship is with the exporter. If there were to be any evidence at any point that that is not where it was ending up, that would be a breach of the licence, and we would be able to revoke.”

“I understand that, but we have to consider all of those because they might move between one and another.”

“The other important thing is that it has to be proportionate to the kind of licence it is. There are licences where the area might be more ambiguous, and those should receive more rigorous and regular reassessment. Then there are others that are still controlled goods, but they are going to journalists and others, for …”

“There has again been a moment in this last week where we have been able to do that, because the new set of Ministers are asking questions about whether we are absolutely certain about these particular licences.”

“I am happy to answer. Most licences last for roughly two years, so there is an end date to every licence and there has to be a process of reapplication. That is why some of the licences that I was referring to earlier, which have been suspended, are still extant, if you see what I mean, but they will come to an end.”

“I should make a correction to what I said to Mr Western earlier. The numbers that he referred to are the maximum value that will be allowed under the licence. It is not necessarily the amount that actually ends up going out under the licence, which may be considerably smaller.”

“It might be best if we go to Rosemary, who is most directly engaged in that.”

“In the broadest possible sense, yes it is. I want to be as open as I possibly can be in the information that we give to the Committee. There do have to be some parameters around that in terms of the commercial sensitivity and security of the individual companies, but within those parameters I am happy to be as open as …”

“I think there is confusion here. As you know, in the UK’s export control arrangements there are two categories of things that have to be subject to an export control licence: the first is military and the second is dual use. Military covers a very wide range of things could be used but may not be used at all in a letha…”

“Yes.”

“That is a perfectly legitimate question that I have asked myself. But the assessment is that the training of an aircraft pilot on such equipment would take so long that they would not be among the people who would now be engaged in fighter combat in Gaza.”

“For instance, in relation to the trainer aircraft that I was talking about, we have made a very clear assessment—we rigorously looked at it, and we have looked at it again this year—of whether any of the equipment in those trainer aircraft could possibly be used in fighter combat, and they cannot be. We can see no way …”

“Again, that is not for me, I’m afraid.”