To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 11 March 1998, Official Report, column 195, on export licences, how many applications in each of the stated four week periods his Department recommended for refusal. [36737]

Licences to export strategic goods are issued by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and the Export Control Organisation of the DTI is the licensing authority. All relevant individual licence applications are circulated by DTI to other Government departments with an interest, as determined by them in line with their policy responsibilities. These include the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development. The advice given by these departments to the DTI falls into the category of internal discussion and advice, the disclosure of which would harm the frankness and candour of internal discussion and which is being withheld under Exemption number 2 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.