HL Deb 18 January 2005 vol 668 cc642-4

2.45 p.m.

Lord Judd

asked Her Majesty's Government: What are their priorities for the intergovernmental conference to be hosted by Finland and Tanzania in February 2005 to prepare for an international arms trade treaty.

Baroness Crawley

My Lords, the Government are aware that a seminar in relation to a proposed arms trade treaty may be hosted by Tanzania in February. To date, however, we understand that formal invitations and the agenda have yet to be issued. It is therefore not possible now to establish what the probable results of the seminar will be. However, the Government are committed to pursuing the objective of an arms trade treaty, as announced by my right honourable friend Jack Straw on 30 September 2004. If we are invited to attend, we will continue this work at the seminar.

Lord Judd

My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that encouraging reply, does she not agree that uncontrolled arms trafficking in unstable parts of the world is fuelling conflict, undermining human rights and encouraging violent crime? Is it not therefore essential to make an international arms treaty the priority that the Foreign Secretary has suggested it should be? Further, can she assure the House that both at the meeting of the G8 in this country and during our presidency of the European Union, we should put this issue very high on our agenda?

Baroness Crawley

My Lords, I strongly agree with my noble friend's analysis of the terrible destruction that could be brought about by an unbridled arms race. We are the first G8 member, UN Security Council member and large defence exporter to give our committed support to an arms trade treaty. I hope that my noble friend will be encouraged when I say to him that we will use our presidency of the EU and our chair of the G8 this year to ensure that the arms trade treaty is taken up by as many countries as possible, and that negotiations should begin.

Baroness Chalker of Wallasey

My Lords, can the noble Baroness give us an assurance that the Government will pay particular attention to bringing to a stop the sale of weapons and even landmines, still, to very sensitive areas like Aceh in Indonesia, Darfur, the DRC and all other trouble spots around the world? Without such initiatives before the troubles resume, we shall see continuing disruption and disaster. We have the power; will the Government do it?

Baroness Crawley

My Lords, the Government are determined to lend their strongest support to the arms trade treaty. As the noble Baroness knows, only a month after the Government came to office in 1997, we decided to introduce national regulations to cover all applications for arms exports. That was the first time that this country had such regulations. A year later, during our first presidency of the EU, we established an arms treaty negotiation with other member countries based on that original set of national regulations. We are now looking at the arms trade treaty to see what can be done with other member states and with our international partners to make it a reality.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire

My Lords, do the Government perceive this treaty to be one mainly concerned with small arms and light weapons, or one covering the full spectrum of weaponry, given that the Government are concerned about indebtedness in developing countries? We all know that some of those debts have been incurred by previous regimes in the competition to acquire expensive, top-end weapons systems such as missiles and manned aircraft.

Baroness Crawley

My Lords, although we are only at a very early stage of the ATT and therefore unable to go into the detail of what it will contain, we hope that it would be subject to future multilateral negotiations. At the moment there is no blueprint for what the treaty should look like, but in terms of its scope, we are not inclined to limit it to cover small arms and light weapons. So far as we are concerned, it would be preferable for the treaty to be as wide as possible— at least for now.

Lord Howell of Guildford

My Lords, I am sure that we all agree with the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Judd. Obviously small arms kill more people around the world every day than the bigger weapons systems, or weapons of mass destruction even. Exactly what kind of treaty are we working for? Will it include not only full weapons systems and manufactured weapons but also components? I understand that we have loosened our controls on the export of components which go to make up arms. Will the treaty be really comprehensive? Unless it is, of course, it will be about as useful as a water bucket full of holes.

Baroness Crawley

My Lords, we want the treaty to be as comprehensive as possible. I congratulate the noble Lord. I believe it is his birthday today. We want the treaty to be a legally binding set of rules on arms exports, with the objective of reducing, and ultimately eradicating, the irresponsible arms exports which fuel conflict and human rights abuses. As I have said, we do not have a blueprint; we are not going to pre-judge the negotiations with UN and EU countries on this. We are discussing the arms trade treaty with Finland, France, Russia, Germany and the Netherlands, and the Secretary of State will discuss it with China this week. Other countries in favour are Brazil, Cambodia, Mali, Macedonia, Kenya and Costa Rica. It is a very small group, but we shall work very hard this year to increase the list.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, has the EU revised its code of conduct on arms control? If so, what is it?

Baroness Crawley

My Lords, the EU code of conduct is being revised at this moment. The state of play so far is that we would increase the scope of the code—which, as I have said, has been in place since 1989—to cover applications for brokering, transhipment and electronic technology transfer licences. It would also oblige member states to refuse export licences if they consider that there is a clear risk that the items covered by the licence could be used to commit serious violations of international human rights law.