Strategic Export Controls (Breach of Embargo) (Hansard, 24 May 2000)

§ Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the involvement of British subjects and companies and other persons under United Kingdom jurisdiction in the supply of armaments and associated items to countries to which arms embargoes apply. The Bill's aim is simply to prevent British subjects anywhere in the world from supplying weapons and related equipment whose export would be prohibited if it took place directly from the United Kingdom.

I originally thought of tabling a ten-minute Bill on corporate responsibility in cases in which companies' actions had caused death, but because other Members—including my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay), who is sitting next to me—have raised that in Bills recently, and because the Government are taking notice, I decided to raise the subject of arms trading, which could be described as corporate killing at its most extreme.

The existing British law on arms exports contains three major loopholes, relating to brokering, licensing and direct sales from British people based overseas. Brokering is a difficult concept, but is basically the transfer of arms from one country to another that is organised from a third. For example, the company Sandline organised from Britain the transfer of weapons from Bulgaria to Sierra Leone, and before that Mil Tec organised from the Isle of Man the transfer of arms from Albania and Israel to Rwanda. As the arms never enter the United Kingdom, they are not under the control of our law. The law relating to brokering needs to be clarified and tightened, and, when such brokering is used to get around embargoes, it needs to be criminalised.

Licensing is the arrangement for production in another country, outside UK jurisdiction. Arms can then be used in that country, or exported, without any reference to British law. When it breaches embargoes, that too needs to be stopped. My Bill would prohibit brokering and licensing by both individuals and companies based in the United Kingdom and dependent territories. Direct sales take place when British citizens are involved in the supply of arms while operating outside the United Kingdom.

The proposal for such a widening of UK jurisdiction is not new. In the main, British law covers breaches of embargoes mandated by United Nations Security Council resolutions. My Bill would expand that cover to other embargoes, such as those called for by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the European Union, as well as those declared on a unilateral basis by Her Majesty's Government—for example, the current embargo on arms and arms-related sales to Zimbabwe.

The Government's White Paper on strategic export controls, published in July 1998, said that it would be right in principle to control the involvement of persons in the UK or UK persons abroad in trafficking and brokering…to countries subject to other types of embargo. Unfortunately, we have seen no progress on that.

970 In February 1999, in its report on the Sandline affair and Sierra Leone, the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs recommended that legislation to control brokering be introduced no later than the next parliamentary Session—that is, the current Session. Obviously, that has not happened. There has been plenty of discussion, but more than four years after the publication of the Scott report, we still have no legislation.

The strategic export controls sub-committee has said: We support a more stringent policy on brokering and trafficking, which could act as a spur to international action. We look to the 1999 Annual Report to make some specific reference to the Government's view of the way forward on this issue. I accept that legislation to cover all aspects of brokering and licensing will be complicated and that that has contributed to the delay in introducing legislation. However, the simple proposals in my Bill are a minimum requirement to control brokering and licensing of arms, and could be implemented quickly and easily. That would not remove the requirement for more detailed legislation later, but it would close some of the worst loopholes that facilitate arms trafficking.

There is another reason for looking at that particular part of the arms trade. It resonates with one of the key themes of the Government: rights and responsibilities. One of the reasons why so many people are wandering the globe seeking asylum is that the arms trade makes some parts of the world extremely dangerous. In countries where dispute turns to violence, that violence is made significantly worse by the influx of arms from outside: Sierra Leone is an example. On CNN last night, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the United States envoy, put the troubles down to diamond smuggling, the drug trade and gun running. The same was the case in Rwanda with Mil Tec, which, as I have said, was based in the Isle of Man.

British subjects overseas rightly expect the protection that a British passport can offer. We can be rightly proud that British Governments of all political persuasions have come to the assistance of British passport holders overseas. However, carrying a British passport must carry obligations as well as benefits. It is wrong for a British passport holder to be involved in activities that displace and weaken the vulnerable—so that they are forced to become refugees and seek asylum in another country—without being subject to British law.

Some may say that the British Government should not have control of British citizens overseas, but precedents have already been set. Examples include legislation on sex tourism and the controls on land mines. Yesterday, The Guardian reported that, following our ratification of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development anti-bribery convention, the Government are considering extra-territorial laws to make it an offence for British citizens to offer bribes for business contracts anywhere in the world, so there is that precedent for extra-territorial law. It needs to apply to arms trafficking.

My Bill is just one small step in pushing forward the debate on how strategic export controls are to be implemented in this country following the Scott report and the activities of the Joint Select Committee on Strategic Export Controls, of which I am a member, but my Bill has a wider purpose. One of the major political issues of today is refugees, yet almost all the public debate is focused on what to do with refugees when they have fled from their home countries. Very little attention has been paid to why people become refugees and what could be done to reduce the numbers at source.

971 Armed conflicts are fuelled by arms. It remains a scandal that there are such lax controls. For example, several hundred arms brokers in London are not required to register activity and are subject to no regulation whatever. We need to make them subject to United Kingdom laws—especially in the case of agreed embargoes—whether they are operating in this country or abroad. That is what the Bill seeks to do. If enacted, it would contribute to making the world a safer place.