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Cluster Munitions (Prohibitions) Bill [Lords]

Absolutely. Some people are not familiar with and simply do not know about the St. Malo agreement and the structure of the extremely detailed operational framework that has been created—I invite them to examine it when this debate is over—whereby commanders come from different countries and orders are given by people to others from different nationalities. We must also consider the south Mediterranean military framework. The bottom line here is that on a raft of matters serious interaction takes place between different nationalities, in terms not merely of alliances with separate lines of command, but of the interaction and integration of operational activities involving the line of command of a military operation. As clause 9 states,""'military operation' includes any naval or air force operation."" Thus, we are dealing with all the services, with all the different nationalities and with different criminal criteria, which apply in different countries under the convention, yet the convention itself is interactive with the European Union. I have mentioned the European arrest warrant as but one relevant example, and I simply make the point that it is extremely important to bear certain things in mind. The Minister does not listen to the arguments because he has made up his mind that this is going to go through anyway—that is his problem. Although he happens to be rather a nice Minister, he is very assertive about the things in which he believes passionately. The very mention of the word "Europe", or any slight indication that there might be something awry in the drafting of a Bill for which he is responsible and that suggests that there might be something amiss with the European dimension of it, is enough to send him into a spasm. There are problems on this issue. I have made my point. I simply repeat that this stand part debate has raised important questions and these things will come home to roost. I do not think that we have yet been given an answer—