Overseas Aid and Arms Sales (Hansard, 27 January 1994)

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, yes, I can give such an assurance. Our aid is not linked to arms sales.

§ Lord Redesdale
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. I should like to ask him about Oman and Indonesia. Aid to those countries has significantly increased over the past 10 years although they have relatively high incomes per capita. Is it a coincidence that those countries rank third and fourth in the amount of arms that they buy from the United Kingdom?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, I do not accept what the noble Lord is suggesting. The main criteria that we use in allocating aid are sustainable development, good government and need. That is why the United Kingdom's aid programme has been commended for its poverty focus. As regards the analysis produced by the World Development Movement, on which I imagine that the noble Lord is relying, we believe that it is deficient: for example, the statistics on aid to Jordan include aid to refugees during the Gulf War.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us in this House will find it difficult to believe that the Government can give the assurance that they have just given, particularly in the light of the £238 million grant to the Malaysian Government in respect of the dam that was built which 1088 has already been condemned widely and upon the legality of which the Foreign Secretary received adverse advice from his own permanent staff?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, as the noble Lord will know well, we do not comment on advice between officials and Ministers. That is a long-standing convention. We believe that it is right so to do. As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary indicated on 25th January in a Written Answer in another place: During discussions in 1988 about the proposed memorandum of understanding on defence sales, the Malaysians expressed their wish to make a reference to aid. A protocol was signed during the visit to Kuala Lumpur in March 1988 by the then Defence Secretary, my noble Friend, Lord Younger of Prestwick. This set out the Malaysian Government's intention to buy defence equipment from the United Kingdom, with the details to be elaborated in the later memorandum. The protocol included a reference to 'aid in support of non-military aspects under this programme'. After consultation with ministerial colleagues in London, the Secretary of State for Defence wrote to the Malaysian Minister of Finance in June 1988 to say that aid could not be linked to defence sales. As a result the issue was not taken up in the, memorandum of understanding on defence procurement which the British and Malaysian Prime Ministers signed in September 1988, and which did not cover aid".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/1/94; col. 145–6.] I repeat that our aid programme is not linked to arms sales.

§ Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone
My Lords, without questioning in any way the assurance given by my noble friend in his Answer, I should like to ask this question. Will he confirm that Article 51 still stands part of the United Nations Organisation chatter, and as long as it does stand part of the United Nations Organisation charter, it does not necessarily follow that sales of arms are intrinsically immoral?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, my noble and learned friend is quite correct. We do not oppose in principle exports to other countries. Exports to both developed and developing countries make a very large contribution to the success of our own defence industry, which directly and indirectly employs some 560,000 people. I believe that that is a point that we ought to bear in mind.

§ Lord Bonham-Carter
My Lords, is it not the case that the Minister's answer to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, was a classic fudge? Did not the Foreign Secretary admit that there was a link between arms and aid? Is it not the case that that link is in breach of the spirit and the letter of the Overseas Aid Act 1966?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, it is certainly not in breach of the letter of the current Act which provides no proscription against arms sales. I shall not repeat at length my right honourable friend's answer which. I gave earlier; but I refer the noble Lord to the Written Answer that my right honourable friend gave on 25th January in another place.

§ Lord Judd
My Lords, notwithstanding the detailed answer the Minister gave, does he agree that it is extraordinary that the considered professional advice of the Permanent Secretary of the ODA was overridden, and that the only conclusion can be that there were some wider understandings which were being honoured? Will 1089 the Minister give us a categoric assurance that as provided for under the 1966 Act, the Government will never use aid, directly or indirectly, for the promotion of arms sales to any country within the third world?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, I have given the assurance that we do not use aid for the promotion of arms sales. As regards the first point made by the noble Lord, I can only repeat that it is a long-standing convention that we do not disclose discussions between Ministers and their officials, or between Ministers. We believe that that confidentiality is necessary to ensure that all policy options can be considered fully and frankly.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, is the Minister aware that in the new guidelines for conventional arms sales which were agreed by the CSCE in November 1993, among the criteria were that the arms were not likely to be used for internal repression, and that they were required for the legitimate defence of the state concerned against external aggression? Will he consider how those factors apply to Indonesia where there is a substantial military operation against the people of East Timor and where there is no threat from any of its neighbours such as Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, arms sales are another matter. I do not believe that now is the time or this is the place to repeat our policy on arms sales. I am trying to make it clear to the House that we at no point linked aid to arms sales.