HC Deb 22 November 1994 vol 250 cc456-7
6. Mrs. Roche

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the export of anti-personnel land mines.

Mr. Freeman

The United Kingdom has not produced or exported anti-personnel land mines for some years.

Mrs. Roche

I thank the Minister for that answer. Will he confirm that that also includes anti-personnel land mines that contain a self-destruct mechanism? Is it not correct that the United Kingdom is still exporting them?

Mr. Freeman

No. The United Kingdom has never possessed such anti-personnel land mines, never had them manufactured and never owned them; therefore, the question is hypothetical. We do not have them and therefore cannot export them. We have in place a unilateral moratorium on the export of land mines that we do possess, which are those that do not have a self-destruct mechanism.

Mr. Robathan

Is my hon. Friend aware of the work of an organisation called the HALO trust, which clears mines in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Angola and, I believe, Mozambique and which has done work for the United Nations? Is he aware that, during its work, it has never found one anti-personnel mine of British origin? Does he not think it rather sad, therefore, that Opposition Members should try to make political capital out of anti-personnel mines and the frightful work that they do in some countries, and blame their own Government, when the blame should be laid at the feet of, for instance, the former Soviet Union?

Mr. Freeman

The Opposition totally ignore the need to have our own armed forces properly equipped to defend our country. I agree with both my hon. and learned Friend and the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), who asked the original question, in the sense that I have seen with my own eyes the problem in the Falkland Islands, where mines were strewn indiscriminately by the Argentine armed forces. Those mines will be on the beaches for many years to come.

Dr. Reid

The Minister must know that it is not a question of Opposition Members in any way undermining the capacity of the British armed forces to have the resources that they wish to have. [Interruption.] Some of his hon. Friends at the back are jeering, but they may not have seen the consequences. There are some 800 deaths a month and thousands more are injured because of the estimated 120 million bombs and land mines that are strewn throughout the world. Most of those people are civilians, most of them innocent and many of them children.

If there is no economic interest in the export of mines from this country, why will the Minister not express a Government policy and join President Clinton in calling for a total moratorium on the export of all land mines, including the so-called "self-destruct" land mines? He must know that more than 10 per cent. of them do not self-destruct, and contribute towards the horror and the maiming of innocent civilians throughout the world.

Mr. Freeman

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who appears to accept the rationale for Great Britain to possess land mines and, by definition, self-destruct anti-personnel land mines.

Dr. Reid

What about the export of mines?

Mr. Freeman

I am about to deal with that. No Defence Minister can rule out future possession of that weapon by the United Kingdom's armed forces, which do not possess it at present. As for the United States, I share the hon. Gentleman's view; the United Kingdom Government will work very closely with the United States to establish whether we can negotiate for the world community a ban on trade in, and export of, mines.