§ Dr. TongeTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what preparations his Department is making for the July 2003 Biennial Meeting on national, regional and global implementation of the UN Programme of Action on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons. [100007]
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienWe are committed to a successful and productive first Biennial Meeting on the implementation of the Programme of Action (PoA) of the 2001 United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in all its respects. The formal meeting in July is limited to looking at work that has been undertaken in the last two years in implementation of the PoA. It is not a negotiating meeting. The UK has an excellent track record in initiatives to curb the proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), and we will be preparing a report that details its active work, including its use of the £20 million we have committed (2001–04) to this work.
But we will also be taking advantage of the Biennial Meeting to take forward the work we started at Lancaster House on strengthening export controls on small arms on 14 to 15 January 2003. The Conference itself is a major part of the UK's preparation for the meeting, and we will widen that contribution to include states that did not attend. We are currently preparing the ground for that work.