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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is not right for the right hon. and learned Member to be interrupted. He must be heard. The House must come to order.
Mr. Howard: I hope that the Secretary of State for Defence will deal with some of the questions that are raised. Will he confirm--not in some private briefing, but on the Floor of the House--that the convention does not prohibit the use of anti-tank mines, even if anti-personnel mines are attached to them? Is it true that some of the most advanced anti-tank mines--such as the US Gator--are prohibited by the treaty, because the explosives contained in the anti-personnel mines associated with them are not attached to the main mine?
What is the position on the use of anti-personnel mines in association with anti-airfield weapons, such as the JP233? What are the Government's intentions on the many thousands of landmines that remain in position in the Falklands? Those are obviously very important questions, and I hope that Ministers will be able to answer them during the debate.
The history of this legislation is, to put it mildly, somewhat murky. The convention was signed last December. The Government made a commitment to ratify it as soon as possible. That was immediately modified to a commitment to ratify it as soon as the parliamentary timetable allowed. By February, no action had been taken to fulfil that major commitment.
In February, in response to a request from the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), I told him that the Opposition would not obstruct the legislation. We are told that work on the text of the Bill then began, but that it was not until 9 June, after comprehensive consultation with interested Whitehall Departments, that instructions were sent to parliamentary counsel. Even then, there was confusion, which was typified by unedifying reports that the blame for the failure to present legislation to ratify the convention was being passed between the Foreign Secretary and the Leader of the House.
At that stage, the Government did what they always do when they are to blame--they tried to transfer the blame to the Opposition. The Leader of the House said that the Government had heard only "very recently" that the Opposition would be willing to help with the progress of the legislation. The Secretary of State for Defence said that one of the reasons for lack of progress was that the Government had been waiting to hear from the Opposition. All that is totally untrue. The Government
were told as long ago as February that the Opposition would co-operate with the passage of the Bill and would not seek to obstruct it. The delay is entirely the Government's fault.
The legislation is now before the House and for the first time we can compare the Bill with the treaty that it is supposed to put into effect. I remind the House that the treaty was signed by the United Kingdom without reservation or amendment. The Foreign Secretary characteristically boasted that the Government were able to play a major part in drafting the treaty. The Prime Minister said:
That is not an academic point, because the other Government with whose forces we are perhaps most likely to enter into joint operations are the Government of the United States, who are not signatories to the Ottawa convention. The effect of clause 5 is that when British forces are engaged in joint operations with the United States or the forces of any country that is not a signatory to the convention, they are given full licence by the legislation to breach the Ottawa convention.
Mr. Howard:
I shall finish the passage and then give way to the Secretary of State.
We may be told that it is important and essential for British troops to be able to operate in that way. That may be true, but it is absolutely and explicitly contrary to the provisions of the Ottawa convention. That has been pointed out not only by me but by numerous spokesmen
on behalf of the campaigning groups that have paid careful attention to the provisions of the legislation and the way in which they differ from the convention.
The Government could have sought to amend the convention. Perhaps they will say whether they attempted to amend it and failed. If that is the case, they are guilty of extreme duplicity. Alternatively, did they simply not notice what the convention would mean? Was it perhaps not until after comprehensive consultations with interested Whitehall Departments, when the legislation was beginning to be drafted, that the difficulty came to light? If that is the case, the Government stand convicted of extreme incompetence. Either way, the Government are asking Parliament to legislate to permit conduct that would be completely contrary to a convention that they signed as recently as December.
Mr. Robin Cook:
I plead with the right hon. and learned Gentleman not to attribute to everybody else the conspiracy under which he operates. Clause 2 faithfully and fully puts the Ottawa convention into British legislation. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not hear me the first time, I say again that it prohibits British troops from using, developing, producing, possessing or transferring landmines or assisting, encouraging or inducing any other person to do so. That provision will be clearly expressed in the rules of engagement for British forces. There will be no licence for British troops.
Clause 5 is purely prudential. It will protect British troops from being criminalised by the actions of American troops who may be taking part in the same operation. I shall put again the example that I gave earlier of a sapper sergeant who builds a bridge in a NATO exercise and, unknown to him, the Americans drive across it a truck containing landmines. We want to make it clear beyond doubt that such a man is not liable to conviction and 14 years in prison. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not willing to remove that doubt, I am beginning to understand why the Conservative party's senior defence spokesman has not turned up for the debate.
Mr. Howard:
It is most unlikely that the conduct that the Foreign Secretary mentions would amount to a breach of the convention in the first place.
Mr. Malcolm Savidge (Aberdeen, North):
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Howard:
No. I am dealing with the Foreign Secretary's point. Clause 5 is not needed to give effect to that situation.
Mr. Howard:
I shall give way when I have finished. Irrespective of whether it is needed to cover that situation, the point to be answered by the Foreign Secretary is that the terms of clause 5 are extremely wide. The only activity that it expressly prohibits in joint operations is the actual laying of a landmine. That is contained in clause 5(2). If what the Foreign Secretary seeks to achieve is his only concern, he could amend clause 5 here or in another place to meet that concern, but clause 5 is widely drawn and is contrary to the convention's language.
Mr. Cook:
Of course clause 5 is widely drawn because its purpose is not to prohibit activities but to provide
Mr. Howard:
That is precisely why I say that if that is the Foreign Secretary's concern--I think that it is an unnecessary concern--it could be met by drafting the Bill narrowly, specifically to cover that point. The Foreign Secretary says that clause 5 does not prohibit activity. Of course he is right; clause 5 permits activity. The point is that clause 5 permits a wide range of activity--everything except laying a landmine--in contravention of the convention itself. We shall press the Government hard for explanations of that in Committee.
"the land mines treaty has done a superb job and we on this side support it thoroughly. Furthermore, it is another initiative in which the new Government played a leading role."--[Official Report, 10 December 1997; Vol. 302, c. 1010.]
In that case, why does the legislation not implement the convention? Why does it permit conduct that the convention expressly prohibits? Why is there such a huge gap between the Bill's provisions and those of the convention, and why are the Government once again saying one thing and doing another? I shall explain. The terms of article 1.1 of the convention are clear:
"Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances:
There is no doubt or ambiguity in that paragraph. It expressly prohibits assisting anyone to engage in any activity that is prohibited by the convention. What does the legislation contain? The relevant part is clause 5, which provides a defence for someone who is otherwise guilty of conduct that is prohibited by the legislation. That defence applies to joint operations conducted overseas with the armed forces of another Government in the course of which
(a) To use anti-personnel mines;
(b) To develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, anti-personnel mines;
(c) To assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention."
"there is or may be some deployment of anti-personnel mines"
by the forces of the other Government who are not signatories to the convention. In those circumstances, according to clause 5, British forces are permitted to do anything other than actually lay anti-personnel mines. They can procure, transfer, modify, adapt or even prime landmines as long as they do not actually lay them.
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