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Mr. Tony Lloyd: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Government should not fight terrorism, or is he saying that, if they do, they should have no recourse to international law? In either case, the Government disagree fundamentally with the position of Her Majesty's Opposition.
Mr. Faber: Of course I am not saying that; I am saying exactly the opposite. I entirely agree that, in many
instances, it is necessary to sell such arms. As the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife pointed out, many countries have traditionally used that as an excuse, and will continue to do so. However, there is no instrument in the draft code of conduct to enforce the code, as such. Contrary to what the Minister says, it does not represent a step forward in terms of enforcement from the EU common criteria agreed in Luxembourg and Lisbon. The final statement that
- "non-adherence should not preclude countries from receiving arms"
Ms Tess Kingham (Gloucester): In debating the international arms trade, it is important not to engage in sterile discussions about profit and loss statements, balance sheets and technicalities. We should consider not the recipients of arms--the military--but the civilians--the ordinary women, men and children who are most touched by the arms trade. Some 84 per cent. of all casualties are civilians, and they are the people on whom I should like the debate to focus.
I should make it clear at once that I am not a pacifist. I believe in a country's legitimate right to self-defence, and I have no difficulty with countries purchasing arms for such use. The area in which my constituency is situated relies greatly on the defence industry. I stress "defence industry". Before being elected to Parliament, I worked for 10 years for international aid agencies. Much of the work centred on areas in conflict, and I witnessed, or was told about, weapons that were sold by European countries and used not for defence but to wreak havoc and terror on civilian populations.
With War on Want in Mozambique, I saw people with their noses and lips cut off by the Renamo rebels who had shot, raped and looted, using weapons that had been supplied through South Africa and Europe. With Oxfam in El Salvador, I spoke to survivors of the Rio Sul Lempa massacre. That was a horrendous atrocity in which more than 200 women, children and old men, with nowhere to flee, were massacred on the banks of a river. I am told that, on that day, the water ran red. The El Salvador army was implicated in that massacre, and the previous British Government had given it military assistance. I was ashamed. European countries have continued to supply arms to Morocco, which illegally occupied Western Sahara in 1974 and used napalm on its people, attracting the condemnation of the international court and a UN resolution against the occupation. Those experiences motivated me to become involved in politics and today's debate is close to my heart.
I am well aware of the role of European countries and their arms export policies in conflicts such as those that I have outlined. In my work before I came to Parliament, I came to realise that, as the Minister has said, small arms do much damage throughout the world and cause much instability. The small arms industry is not of major economic significance to Europe. It has a low value and few jobs depend on it, but small arms cause devastation. I was in Albania for last year's elections, and at that time a rifle could be bought for $15. The proliferation of small arms makes that country volatile. I have recently returned from Rwanda. During the outbreak of genocide in 1994, people were killed with machetes and hoes but small arms were used to corral people, to contain them, before they were killed. It was mechanised, systematic murder.
It is estimated that 6,500 people a week are killed by small arms, and I welcome the Minister's statement about their control. There is no doubt that the irresponsible sale of arms to unscrupulous regimes costs civilian lives. It also takes a vast amount of public money to clear up the mess that is left by conflicts. There are currently more than 30 conflicts in the world, and the resulting damage consumes billions in international aid, and the donors include Britain. Such money is used for emergency relief, post-conflict reconstruction and peacekeeping. In 1995, the estimated cost of that was £2 billion.
There is no doubt that stricter controls on arms transfers are long overdue. That is why I am proud to be a Labour Member. My Government took action on this issue soon after they came to power. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary announced an ethical code for arms sales in July, just two months after Labour came to power. Our new ethical code is to staunch the flow of weapons to countries that use them for internal repression or external aggression. The Government are also committed to an EU code of conduct on arms transfers. The Minister outlined much of that code, which I welcome, but I want to make sure that it has teeth. I am reassured by the Minister's statement, but several areas must be addressed and tightened up if the code is to have an impact.
The first issue is parliamentary scrutiny. As we have heard, the Scott report concluded that, if exports to Iraq had been subject to such scrutiny, they would not have been approved. European Union countries should produce annual reports on arms sales, and we should press for a comprehensive EU register of arms.
Ms Julia Drown (South Swindon):
Should annual reports cover just strategic arms exports or should they cover all arms exports? Furthermore, in examining such annual reports, should we not assess the whole cost of arms, including public investment in research and matters such as export credits and offsets, because the absence of such costs makes arms and defence appear much cheaper than they are?
Ms Kingham:
I welcome my hon. Friend's intervention. Annual reports should be comprehensive, but I am sure that the Minister will respond to that. Perhaps we should look at those matters in more detail. I should like to see such reports and a register of arms being debated in the House, but Parliament should at least be notified of proposed exports to sensitive countries. As we have heard, that happens in Sweden and it does not seem to cause much difficulty in the parliamentary process there. Perhaps the matter could be investigated under freedom of information proposals.
The second area of major concern relates to end use and brokering. There is a major loophole and an urgent need for arms brokers to be subjected to national and European Union scrutiny. EU countries could establish a central database of arms brokers with all proposed transactions subject to licensing. The EU should also have a common system of legally binding procedures on end use. There are too many loopholes, some of which are to be found in the Channel Islands, and they must be closed.
Many arms deals by companies and individuals in the EU involve the transfer of arms via third countries. The weapons never pass through the EU. In 1994, the company Mil Tec in the Isle of Man sent arms from Israel and Albania to Rwanda. That was in defiance of a UN arms embargo and those weapons were used at a time of genocide when up to 1 million people were butchered. There was blatant contravention of the embargo. There must be an EU agreement on a standard mechanism for implementing EU, Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and United Nations arms embargoes because, at the moment, there is no such mechanism.
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