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Arms Export Controls

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) on his typically detailed and forceful presentation of the position adopted by the Committees on Arms Export Controls. I have served on the Committees on and off for almost 15 years; I served on them as a member of the Select Committee on Defence, I served on them in the previous Parliament and I am serving on them again in this Parliament. I have to say, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely assiduous in his relentless pursuit of officials and Ministers. When he issues officials in a Department with a gentle warning, they need to heed it; if they do not, they will get many more communications in the long run than if they had heeded it quickly. I want to begin by referring to last week's written ministerial statement by the Foreign Secretary. Tucked away in the back of it is a paragraph about how the Government can also consider how we can"““strengthen our decision making when we provide security and justice assistance overseas.””" Those issues are linked, because there are countries to which we export weaponry, where we also provide training and engage in intelligence co-operation, and give help to the civil power on such things as counter-narcotics. It is in that context that I want to talk about two countries; and in doing so I want to raise a wider question about lack of transparency on relevant questions. Our Committee receives detailed information, some of it confidential, about arms exports. We receive detailed breakdowns of the value and general scope of the categories of weaponry, and we know which categories exports are in—general or specific. We have information about those that are refused and revoked. However, unfortunately, similar information is not available about some other areas. I could give numerous examples, but will quote just a few. The British Government do not sell significant quantities of weaponry to Colombia. That country has had a very difficult human rights legacy: an insurgency, drug cartels, and assassinations and murders of politicians, trade unionists and human rights activists. It is thought that it is still the country with the largest number of murders of trade unionists. However, we have had—and this goes back to the Labour Government—a period of systematic co-operation on counter-narcotics with the Colombian Government and their forces. Yet successive parliamentary questions have been put to Ministers over the years, and we never receive any detail. In November 2010 such a question received the answer:"““Our counter-narcotics work in Colombia is scrupulously monitored to ensure it cannot contribute to any human rights abuses. We do not discuss the detail of this narcotics work publicly as doing so risks putting UK and Colombian lives in danger.””—[Official Report, 29 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 551W.]" A similar answer, received in July 2010, was:"““The only military aid we provide to Colombia is for the ongoing programme of counter-narcotics assistance. It would not be appropriate to provide details about this programme, as to do ""so would prejudice the capability, effectiveness or security of the armed forces.””—[Official Report, 12 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 446W.]" To go back to the time of the previous Government—I am criticising the general approach, not the present Government—this answer was given in December 2009:"““We do not disclose the value of our counter-narcotics assistance to Colombia. To do so would put British and Colombian lives at risk. This decision has been upheld by the parliamentary ombudsman.””—[Official Report, 3 November 2009; Vol. 498, c. 935W.]" There is a problem, and a serious question of accountability to Parliament. We are told by Ministers that the human rights situation in Colombia is not as bad as many critics say. We are told by the Colombian Government that the situation is improving, and that things are not as difficult or bad as they were. They accept that there were terrible things in the past, but they are doing their best. However, there is no transparency, and if the Government are to deal with the deep concerns that we have, they should provide more detailed information. We get information about arms exports, but not about military support or training support for counter-narcotics work in Colombia.