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Conventional Weapons

My Lords, the noble Lord knows that the United Kingdom now has two weapons types that are in dispute. One has a self-destruct mechanism built in and we believe that the other type does not meet the definition of a cluster bomb became of the limited number of munitions within it. However, that is a matter of debate, and, as has been observed throughout this debate, as yet there is no acceptable international definition of a cluster bomb. We believe that we have reduced our arsenal in ways that mean that we are not using weapons that do the kind of damage that occurred, for example, in Lebanon, but we recognise that this is not the last word on that. I shall turn first to what has happened on the international side. As a number of noble Lords have mentioned, the CCW third review meeting made some progress last year on several related categories of weapons, but the priority for the UK and our EU partners at this year’s meeting of states parties to the convention on certain conventional weapons, which has just concluded, was, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, observed, to secure a negotiating mandate on cluster munitions as a necessary step towards agreeing additional protocols on cluster munitions. As the noble Lord, Lord, Lord Jay, observed, I do not believe that the difficulty is divisions within the European Union on this. It is more a case of divisions with others who have not raised the quality of their weapons to the UK standard. Let me immediately say that we do not believe that the negotiating mandate that was eventually agreed is anything like as strong as we would have liked. However, as the Prime Minister said, we seek practical action for change. We will work hard with other states parties over the next year to ensure substantial action emerges from the work of the group of governmental experts whose rather leisurely meetings schedule was referred to. We believe that the CCW is still the right place to secure a new instrument because it includes the major users and producers of cluster munitions and an agreement forged there is most likely to bring down the use of these weapons. That is why the United Kingdom has worked very hard over the past 12 months to be a leader in the process in that conference. Let me be clear that, a little bit analogous to the Ottawa process, which reinforced a slow-moving intergovernmental process on landmines, we look at the Oslo process as the vital ginger group that will bring pressure to bear on the CCW. That is why we are participating in it with, at the last count, 83 other states. As many noble Lords are aware, the Oslo negotiations are evolving. At the next Oslo process meeting in Vienna from 5 to 7 December textual elements for a new convention are likely to be discussed. A further conference in Wellington in February 2008 is due to agree definitions and thereby set the conditions for entry into the convention. Whereas progress within the CCW framework may appear glacial in comparison, we still hope that these two processes can ultimately be to each other’s benefit because the final prize is an agreement where the hard-core producers and users accept a convention and a ban and not just a conversation among the like-minded who have already recognised this. Remembering Ottawa and the role it allowed for NGOs and other activist groups such as Landmine Action to bring huge pressure to bear on the intergovernmental process, I hope something similar will be created. The UN Secretary-General said that the Oslo process should be ‘mutually reinforcing and complementary’ to the CCW, and provide inspiration to the states of the CCW to fulfil the aim of a new instrument. I now turn to what has happened here in the UK. I acknowledge the praise this morning for the progress that has been made and for the action of the Secretary of State for Defence. I hardly dare use the word ““dumb”” again; it is a very unfortunate term because of what it suggests about the weapons still commissioned. Nevertheless, we are in the happy situation of being able sharply to reduce these weapons systems. It is largely a response to the important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about the new asymmetric character of warfare where warfare takes place in population centres and indiscriminate weapons of this kind not only cause an unacceptable loss of innocent civilian life but are such a counterproductive weapon in winning hearts and minds, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, observed. I draw the noble Lord’s attention to the remarkable and visionary document produced by General Petraeus, and particularly to the essay in it by Sarah Sewall, the director of the Carr Centre for Human Rights—I am not sure whether Ministers have to declare conflicts of interest, but I was on its board until becoming a Minister. The essay represents a revolution in military thinking and an understanding that these weapons are utterly at odds with the objectives of military action in these new asymmetric conflicts. I caution the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to remember, as I am sure that he does, that although at the moment fighting counterinsurgency operations seem to be the dominant likely conflicts of the future, it is nevertheless the case that there is still a possibility that our Armed Forces will find themselves committed to an operation against an enemy equipped with mass armour, for which certain categories of weapons that we would not want to use in close civilian situations may still be justified in those more old-fashioned battle circumstances. I remind noble Lords that we expected the 2003 action in Iraq to be more of that old character than of the new.