Export Control (Iran) (Amendment) Order 2010

My Lords, we on these Benches express gratitude to the Merits Committee for bringing this to the attention of this House and the other place, and also to the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, for raising it in the debate today. It is an important point. I, too, thank the Minister for coming from the BIS today to answer this debate and hope that he will be able to reassure the House on the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford. As stated in the SI, the power of the Commission is increased not by an enormous amount but at the margin by a moderate amount, which I, on these Benches, would suggest is a practical measure which should not really cause excessive anxieties in the consideration of these matters. I think it is right that the evolution of the Union has been characterised not only by literal treaties and implementation—and Lisbon is the latest—which enable a much greater degree of co-ordination and the extension in majority voting, quite rightly, in many areas, but also pragmatically, with now a much larger number of countries. Obviously common sense must prevail, therefore, in the way in which the sovereign member states, the sovereign countries—fully sovereign, only conceding rights to the collectivity by freewill of the parliamentary and governmental representatives on every occasion—can decide to assign to the Commission this modest increase in powers. We take comfort from paragraph 2 of the SI details which refers to the fact that although the 2007 regulation, for example, was directly applicable in all EU member states, national implementation legislation is and was ""required in relation to licensing, enforcement, offences and penalties"." Furthermore, in the BIS evidence and answers given to the Committee, in Appendix 1 of the report and then in A.4 towards the end, the reassurances are expressed there quite properly and in a satisfactory way, stating that, ""sanctions Regulations often give the Commission some scope for amending Annexes"," It also states that the Commission is now being given a slightly broader power than usual and ""we do not think that this causes problems in practice. This is because the wording of Articles 2(1)(a)(iii) and 3(2) of the 2007 Regulations set out limits for what the Annexes can include (broadly, only items with WMD end-uses can be listed)"." I welcome any reassurance the Minister can give. In conclusion, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell for raising this matter. I would just widen it out into the geo-political implications in the Middle East with the British Government, the European Union and the wider international community being resolutely even-handed in the way in which they deal with these problems that are producing a much darker situation in the Middle East with the threat of war, renewed violence and so on. Because of the failure of the international community in not seeking a proper resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the rage and anger of the Arab man and woman in the street, and in other non-Arab Muslim countries, is on the increase. Whatever the nature of the regime in Tehran— and I think there is ample and justified criticism about the things that the present Ahmadinejad Government are up to—if there is not a balanced policy and a balanced approach by the UK Government and the Union, that rage and anger will continue. Saddam Hussein was rightly expelled from Kuwait after one year of occupation; Israel is still in the occupied territories now after 34 years. This therefore must be solved by the international community, along with Israel, a country which I much admire, and the less powerful but equally needful Palestinians. And on that note I end, hoping the Minister might have time to refer to that if it is not considered to be out of order.