If a retailer or publican sold alcohol or cigarettes to people under the legal age would their offer to apologise be considered acceptable? As another comparison would a business that sells weapons be allowed to apologise for selling them to a person without a licence? Indeed if there was a long history of someone doing such things, would an apology resolve their “inadvertent” mistakes? According to the Times, Truss apologised to the Court of Appeal last night for two breaches of a government pledge to block new military exports to Saudi Arabia. The MP is our International Trade Secretary and she described both violations as “inadvertent” and said that she had launched an urgent departmental investigation into the errors. Britain suspended arms sales to Riyadh in June after the court ruled that ministers had behaved unlawfully by not assessing whether the weapons could be used against civilians in Yemen. The government gave an undertaking that no new arms export licences for Saudi Arabia would be granted while a review took place. Last night Ms Truss disclosed the two transgressions to the chairman of the parliamentary committee on arms export controls. According to the Parliamentary website the Committee is chaired by Graham Jones who is the MP for Hyndburn and along with him the Committee includes Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Henry Smith so perhaps the two Sussex MPs can call for Parliament to be recalled and demand that Truss makes a statement to the whole of Parliament and is held accountable!