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Debate on the Address

My Lords, I will say a little about cluster munitions and wind up by talking about the European Union. I welcome the changes in the Government’s policy on cluster munitions, as announced earlier this year by the Secretary of State, who said that the Government would ban the use of dumb cluster munitions. Your Lordships will be aware that each cluster munition or cluster bomb may have anything from 50 to several hundred bomblets. The problem is that they do not all explode when they hit the ground. Those with a high failure rate have been called ““dumb”” and those with a low failure rate have been called ““smart””. The trouble is that that distinction does not work in practice. Most of the smart cluster munitions or cluster bombs are also dumb. Recently, Chris Clark, programme manager of Mine Action Co-ordination Centre South Lebanon, said that although several military users maintain that the M85—one of the cluster munitions with a self-destruct mechanism—has a failure rate of less than 1 per cent, the evidence on the ground in south Lebanon is that the weapon has a failure rate of between 5 and 10 per cent. The International Committee of the Red Cross has said that there is no basis for believing that improving the reliability of cluster munition fuses or adding a self-destruct feature can be the sole or primary solution to the cluster munition problem. Nearer to home, the Select Committee of the House of Commons has said that, even for submunitions with self-destruct mechanisms, the potential to inflict death or injury on innocent non-combatants entering the field after engagement is substantial. Two Select Committees in the Commons challenged the Government’s premise that the failure rate of the M85 is 2.3 per cent and called for them to acknowledge that the failure rate could be as high as 10 per cent. I saw some of those unexploded cluster munitions when I visited the Lebanon earlier this year. Clearly, if cluster munitions are being tested in non-battle conditions and they land on hard ground, they are more liable to explode, because of the impact with concrete or whatever. But it is not like that in the real world. Some land on soft ground and some have their fall slowed down by vegetation—trees, olive groves and so on. The result is that there can be a very high failure rate. In the Lebanon, some landed on hard surfaces, but even there the failure rate was higher than in test conditions. Certainly there is a failure rate. Given all that, is there any military use for cluster munitions? I am bound to say that the evidence is that there is no proper military use for them. Perhaps in the middle of the Cold War, with visions of 2 million Soviet troops massed for an attack, cluster bombs or munitions theoretically might have had an effect. But that is not the world we are in, as most military people would agree. Perhaps I may speculate a little on what is happening within the Government about this. I suspect that there are different opinions. I know that the Government officially speak with one voice, but we know that there can be different opinions. From the little that has come out, I think that DfID and the FCO would like to see these wretched, terrible weapons banned. The problem is that in the MoD there are differences of view. Among those in your Lordships’ House with a great deal of senior military experience, it seems that there is little support for cluster munitions. I have talked to colleagues who say that. This is partly to do with the munitions’ doubtful military effectiveness and the fact that they kill civilians long after the conflict has ceased. Civilians—farmers going about their business, children playing or whoever—step on them. These people are liable to have their legs blown off or to be killed. That is not calculated to win hearts and minds. Most military thinking these days is about winning hearts and minds when the conflict has moved on. I very much hope that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will see his way to banning all cluster munitions in the near future. I am delighted that we have two very able Ministers on the Front Bench. My noble friend Lord Malloch-Brown in his previous career had a very senior position at the UN and before that at UNDP. I shall not quote him against himself, except to say that I know where his sympathies lie. I suspect that I also know where the sympathies lie of my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton, in her new job today. But I know the line that we will get, because it is still official government policy while it is being considered. I hope very much that the Government are considering this matter hard. On the EU, a lot of the arguments about the reform treaty were ably put better than I could put them by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I do not want to go over that, except to say that I just cannot think that the argument for a referendum has been made. Unless we are going to become a plebiscitary democracy as opposed to a parliamentary democracy, I do not believe that there is enough substance in the reform treaty to justify a referendum. It is not that sort of change. I very much hope that the Government will stay firm on that. However, it is important that the Government argue their case harder than they have been doing. There has been too much silence on EU matters from successive Governments, with the result that there is a vacuum which is filled by the Eurosceptics. The British public have the right to be better informed and the Government have a real responsibility to play their part in saying what is going on and what the key issues are. The amount of misunderstanding on this is manifest. The Government should argue better or more passionately the case for EU enlargement. Accession of further countries that meet EU standards is good not only for those countries but also for Britain. The role of the media is an important factor. I believe passionately in a free press, but there is something not quite healthy when four of our most important national newspapers are owned and controlled by one person who neither lives in Britain nor is British. Surely Rupert Murdoch has too much power and influence on British policy on the EU, especially on the referendum. Unless the Government speak much more loudly to counter this, he will persuade more people of his views. Of course, he has the right to own British newspapers. I do not argue against foreign ownership. I just wonder whether there is too much ownership of newspapers in one person when they are being used in a blatantly propagandist way on some of the issues to do with the EU, the treaty and the referendum. I very much hope that the Government will continue their policy of supporting the accession of Turkey. Of course, Turkey has a long way to go, but those of us who met the Turkish Prime Minister when he was in Westminster last week will surely have been impressed by his positive views on Turkey moving forward and his views on Turkey’s relationships with the EU and with Britain. I appreciate that there is a problem concerning Cyprus which has to be resolved, but I believe that Turkey’s membership, in the fullness of time when it meets our standards, would be only of benefit. Let me say finally and briefly that I visited Moldova a few weeks ago. It is the poorest country in Europe and obviously its interests are to move closer to the EU. That will be a long way ahead, but it has been much damaged by Romania joining the EU, so that the EU border now lies between Romania and it. I hope very much that the Government will accept that Moldova has a strong case for sympathetic support in its bid to get closer to the EU.