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Conventional Weapons

My Lords, I join all who have congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on obtaining time for this important debate. I thank him for his tireless humanitarian work on cluster munitions. I immediately acknowledge his seductive, even seditious, suggestion that I ignore the cautious advice of officials and go further than my brief allows. I reassure him that my brief will allow me—in that crab-wise motion described by the noble Lord, Lord Jay—to move this issue forward at least some way. While this is the second debate on this subject this year, I would welcome many more. Pressure in a Chamber such as this moves the issue forward. Across the Government, and in the Prime Minister’s reference to cluster munitions earlier this week, there is a clear recognition that the use of large numbers of explosive submunitions over large areas presents a serious risk of civilian casualties. Cluster munitions have long and potentially deadly consequences for civilians when their submunitions fail to explode as intended, and become dangerous explosive remnants of war, visiting a terrible toll upon subsequent generations. We agree that the use of cluster munitions was brought into sharp focus by the conflict in Lebanon last summer. In describing what we have done in Government, I shall look at this in two groups: first, what is happening on the international side and progress towards the banning of these weapons, and secondly, what is happening internally in our own use of weapons. It has already been noted that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in his speech earlier this week: "““We want to work internationally for a ban on … those cluster munitions which cause unacceptable harm to civilians.””" I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Astor, whether that amounts to a change of policy. At this stage, it does not because the Government believe that they have already banned the so-called dumb weapons, but I recognise that there is a debate about whether that goes far enough.