**The government must do more to ensure arms exports are not being used against civilians in war zones, a joint report by four select committees says.**The committees on arms export control welcomed Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s decision earlier this year to revoke export licenses to Israel.
But there are concerns arms exported from the UK had been used against civilians in Sri Lanka’s civil war.
Britain is one of the world’s biggest arms exporters.
But it has repeatedly been criticised by MPs for failing to live up to its own policy of ensuring arms exports are not used to abuse human rights.
Britain and other EU countries are reported to have sold equipment to the Sri Lankan government in the final three years of its conflict with the Tamil Tigers.
Ceasefire
According to the Times, Britain approved more than £13.6m of equipment including armoured vehicles, machine gun components and semi-automatic pistols, although it is not known whether the equipment was delivered or used, as no records of this information are published.
“The UK has a responsibility to ensure that its arms export industry, and individual UK citizens, working overseas are not engaging in the illegal arms trade”
Roger Berry,
Committees on arms export control chairman
In their annual report, the committees on arms export controls say they are concerned weapons and equipment exported to Sri Lanka during a ceasefire may have been used against the civilian population when hostilities escalated in 2006.
The committees say they welcomed the review of export licences to Israel but questioned what implications the revocation of licences would have on the UK’s defence relationships with the US and Israel, and on the operational capability of the UK’s armed forces.
The revoked licences are reported to cover spare parts for Israeli boats which reportedly fired missiles and artillery shells into Palestinian territory during its invasion of Gaza last year.
The committees say applications for licences for arms exports to Israel and Sri Lanka should continue to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
And they call for a review of all existing licences relating to Sri Lanka and recommend that the government attempts to find out which weapons used by Sri Lankan government forces against the Tamil Tigers were supplied by the UK.
Register
Labour MP Roger Berry, chairman of the committees on arms export controls, said: "Sri Lanka highlights the need for the UK government to monitor closely the situation in countries recently engaged in armed conflict.
“It must assess more carefully the risk that UK arms exports might be used by those countries in the future in a way that breaches our licensing criteria.”
The committees repeat their recommendation from last year’s report that the government set up a register of UK arms dealers and extend some of its domestic trade restrictions to cover the activities of UK citizens anywhere in the world.
Mr Berry added: “The UK has a responsibility to ensure that its arms export industry, and individual UK citizens working overseas, are not engaging in the illegal arms trade.”
Since December 2008, Britain has been subject to an EU-wide legally binding code of conduct on arms exports but campaigners say it needs to be tightened up.
The government is also involved in efforts to create a global arms trade treaty, although critics say this would be ineffective as it would be enforced by individual governments.
The committees on arms export controls was set up in 1999 and is made up of members of four different select committees: business and enterprise, defence, foreign affairs and international development.