Scale of UK arms exports 'surprising' - Sir John Stanley

The scale of the UK's arms exports to countries which it believes have questionable records on human rights has been described as "surprising" by the chairman of the House of Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls.

Sir John Stanley told the BBC that he was so astonished by the figures involved for Israel in particular - £7.7bn in licences for cryptographic equipment - that he questioned the number with the Foreign Office.

In total, the committee discovered that the UK government has approved more than 3,000 such export licences, including significant sales to China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.