Committee on arms export controls

That this House notes that in 1998 members of the Foreign Affairs, Trade, Defence and International Development Committees met together to scrutinise the Government's annual report on arms exports; further notes that this arrangement has been repeated annually and gradually became more formalised as the Committees on Arms Exports Controls (CAEC); expresses concern that, at a time when arms exports were an issue of major public interest, the CAEC in the last Parliament, as technically comprising four separate Committees, found it difficult to hold a quorate meeting; and calls for the establishment of a Committee on Arms Export Controls as a full non-departmental Select Committee, as was one of the recommendations from the 2017-19 CAEC, with an elected chair, members dedicated to it and adequate staffing so as to enable it to give effective scrutiny to a major cross-departmental issue.