TUESDAY 15 JUNE 1999

MS FIONA WEIR, MR PAUL EAVIS, MS GERALDINE O'CALLAGHAN AND MR ED CAIRNS

  20. I was in Delhi the other day and just happened to visit DfID's office in Delhi. I do not think they have anyone who has the competence to do that on the ground. Their team is all to do with power projects and water projects, there is absolutely no-one with that sort of competence in the country to do that.
  (Mr Cairns) I absolutely agree. This is rather the point that Dr Tonge was making half an hour ago. My understanding is nor do they have the resources or the competence in Victoria Street to do that. I completely agree with both of you if you are arguing that the Department for International Development cannot have the role which the Government seems to want it to have without far greater resources perhaps in Delhi as well as Victoria Street. Let me just say quickly the other two things that kind of application should trigger. Obviously it is the professional advice of the Foreign Office principally to take account of the conflict implications, including there may be cases where there might be a negative impact on development that extraordinary security challenges facing the recipient government outweigh. I accept those criteria have to be balanced against each other. Certainly, and most importantly, it would seem to me that that kind of application, because it is sensitive on more than one criterion, is absolutely the kind of application which should go to a permanent export controls committee in advance for them, rather like the Swedish system, to advise the Government on its merit or otherwise.

  21. Some of your organisations are international. Would the branches of your organisations in, let us say, the United States be involved in the United States exporting to the UK riot shields because of Northern Ireland or race relations problems in inner cities?
  (Mr Cairns) That is not the position of Oxfam America.

  22. It still is a legitimate question to ask.
  (Mr Cairns) It is a legitimate question.
  (Ms Weir) From our perspective we apply our policy straightforwardly and consistently throughout all countries. Where there are concerns that violations may be committed in the UK by equipment exported from other countries to the UK then our sections in other countries would oppose them. We, as the UK section, do not comment on or campaign on or pick up those issues because we are bound by our own country rule that does not enable us to do so for reasons of impartiality and independence from our own Government. If there were such examples in the UK our US section would raise the same concerns.

  23. It would be interesting to find out.
  (Ms Weir) Certainly we are actively working at the moment on a range of US devices, such as electroshock stun belts and their use. We are very actively campaigning on the use of certain equipment in the US at the moment.

  Mr George: In listening to the objects that concern you, a number of them do not appear to be military defence at all but more within the scope of the Home Office. I wonder whether you think our Committee should actually in future contain Members of Parliament from the Home Affairs Select Committee.

  Chairman: Four is hard enough.

  24. Is the Home Office sufficiently involved in this inter-departmental governmental process to allow them and the police to give their input into the ultimate decision making process? Many of the things would not come even within the scope of the police but within the private security industry because they would be manufacturing much of this equipment that you would be very concerned about if it got into the wrong hands in the wrong countries.
  (Mr Eavis) I think that is a very important point. There is just now this new cross-departmental body which meets, I do not know, once every few months which does include people from the Home Office as well as the Foreign Office and DfID and Trade and Industry. I know at the level of civil servants there is now a meeting which does take place where they do exchange views and ideas on policies, mainly relating to the area of small arms and light weapons. So it would seem to make sense that there should at least be some discussion at equivalent levels in parliamentary committees as well, maybe not adding another body to this Committee but certainly to have a discussion on some of those issues, particularly when it comes to the export of firearms for example.

  25. The Chairman has gone pale at the idea. Other Members of the Committee want to pursue matters. There is a bit of too much of an agreement between our witnesses and the Committee at the moment. Sitting back, walking around the DTI administration of all of this, it is quite a substantial "small" bureaucracy now. Are not all your recommendations really going to grind the system into an even greater bureaucracy? Are not the sum total of all your recommendations going to make it even more bureaucratic, slower, more difficult and at the heart of it is almost an instinctive desire not to export any arms?
  (Mr Eavis) There are lots of ways of answering that question, if I could just start off. In terms of a lot of the information which we are asking to be included in an Annual Report in terms of greater detailed information on categories of equipment, details of quantities of equipment of licences granted, on values and on end users, that is all contained in the licence application. That information does exist, both electronically and—

  26. The sum total of all your requests are already in existence?
  (Mr Eavis) Not all of them. We also have additional requests as well but I think there is a great deal which does exist on the computer already which could actually be incorporated into the 1998 Annual Report for example.
  (Ms Weir) Things like HM Customs data which currently throws up a code "data suppressed" when you ask for the information, but it is there. We have asked for some of these broad categories, like PO5001 to be broken down into the sub-categories, PO5001(a) and (b) and (c). Those categories already exist, we are simply asking to see the data sub-categorised in that way rather than to see it aggregated. I think a lot of what we are asking for is pretty straight forward and it ought to be there, particularly in a world where increasingly a lot of this information can be stored and manipulated on IT.

  Chairman: In fact, your evidence has stimulated another round of questioning.

  27. I wonder if you could just explain the categories because some of the categories are so broad that you could be in one category, could you not, exporting anything from a peashooter to a bomb? That evidence of what is contained in the category is primarily what you really want.
  (Ms Weir) Very much so.
  (Mr Eavis) I think they have made some progress in this Report in trying to give summary descriptions on some items. Whereas before you just had an ML1 category, at least now you will be able to see in the description that a machine gun went, a rifle went and a pistol went. There are some categories which are still far too broad, things like spare parts, electronic equipment, communications equipment, and of course there are very many other licences covering, say, dual use items, and the open individual export licences where there are very little even summary descriptions given of those exports. The other area where there is a problem is in actual exports which have taken place because there the Government is using the UN register returns, although not giving as much detail as they actually include in the returns they do give to the UN which seems very strange. Then they lump these other categories, including small arms, into "other categories of equipment". I think it is particularly important that that category is disaggregated so we can actually see what information and what equipment has been exported. I think this leads to just one other general point which perhaps I should have made at the beginning. I think the report has to be judged in terms of its level of transparency, in terms of how accessible it is and we all find it incredibly difficult to do an analysis of what actually has gone to individual countries. You have to look in six different places of the report at the moment to build up a picture of what equipment has actually gone from this country and then there are still other categories of equipment which we know could have gone, it might be surplus equipment, it might be equipment covered under government to government transfers which is not included in any of the information so far in the annual report. I think a very practical step which would be great for the 1998 report would be to organise the information in one place so that you have your country, e.g. Indonesia, you can see which categories of equipment have gone, like ML1, you can then see next to that exactly which types of equipment have gone under that category and then you can see the different types of licences which have gone. Ideally we would like to see that move one step further so you have the end user and the value.

  28. I have got three questions which I would be grateful if each of the four of you would just give a very brief answer to and they relate to the EU code of conduct on arms exports which is now a year old almost to the day. One, in the first year it has been operating have you detected so far amongst the other EU Member States any greater degree of responsibility, particularly in relation to human rights areas, in the export of arms from the rest of the EU? Two, does your organisation monitor arms exports from EU Member States other than the UK, in other words the other 14? Three, if you do monitor this arms export on an EU-wide basis, if you were invited at a subsequent date to give any further evidence to this Committee in relation to a subsequent annual report would you be in a position to give evidence to this Committee orally or in writing on what is the impact in the rest of the EU of the EU code of conduct?
  (Ms Weir) I do not think I could answer the first one about whether we detected greater responsibility because I do not have that information. We do monitor what goes on in other European countries in terms of arms exports and so on. As with any international organisation, it is patchy. Our sections in some countries are very strong and have very good research capability, but others are struggling to take on this area of work. If we were asked to give evidence at a future stage we may be able to. We would have to look at where our data is strong and where it is weak and whether we felt confident we could give you a good enough overview or not.
  (Ms O'Callaghan) In terms of the EU code of conduct, we constantly get the answer "Let's wait and see" because it has been such a short space of time and we are waiting for the annual review which technically should be now but is expected to be at some stage during the end of the Finnish Presidency. Again it is an issue of transparency in terms of the annual report and the information that is exchanged between the governments is expected to be kept confidential between the Member States. So it is very difficult for us to monitor what they are doing when you compare each country one against the other. There is then an issue about trying to get increased transparency at an EU-wide level and high standards of annual reporting across the European Union. In terms of monitoring arms exports, it is on an ad hoc basis, very much so. A lot of us work and rely totally on EU NGO partners throughout the European Union to provide us with that information, but again we are faced with the issue where we are very small organisations, very stretched for resources and so the only information you receive is retrospective on sales that have already gone. There is very little that you can do about it and there is very little opportunity for you to comment on it and that means that people do not monitor it in the detail that they possibly could if we had a prior Parliamentary scrutiny system.

  29. Could you give us further evidence on an EU-wide basis or not?
  (Ms O'Callaghan) We certainly could but only through working with our colleagues.
  (Mr Cairns) Noticing a change, not yet. Monitoring in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands where Oxfam is strong, and giving evidence, yes, for those.

  30. Excellent answers!
  (Mr Eavis) Detecting any change: I think the only thing which we can report on that is that other civil servants from other Member States are saying that the system of notifying each other about denials of a licence is actually prompting a re-assessment on their part, not only about whether they should export similar equipment but actually looking back at related equipment and making re-assessments about whether they should go ahead with those exports, but I have only gathered that through talking to people. The annual report clearly will be a critical opportunity to assess the implementation of the code and there is obviously a critical issue about how public that report is going to be. We understand it is going to be around September of this year. We do work with NGOs from across Europe so we would be able to monitor exports across the European Union. Only two months ago we were giving evidence to the Belgian Parliament, for example, about export policy and we could give evidence in partnership with other NGOs across Europe.

  31. I wanted to go back to this question of the rather vague categories where no one really knows what they contain and which look like a catalogue for the Army & Navy stores when you read through. I think someone suggested earlier that this may be due to the need to protect the commercial interests of various companies. Could anyone explain why it is necessary to protect the commercial interests from the competition of a company who, say, makes leg irons any more than a company who makes men's socks? Is there any point? Am I missing something here?
  (Ms O'Callaghan) I think we would probably say there is no point.

  32. There must be some reason. Is there no reason?
  (Ms O'Callaghan) In the United States, although the companies are not identified, the coding systems are much more detailed and the report I have—I have brought it along just to show you—is the size of a phone book. Their annual report is much more detailed[48]. It does contain monetary values of each—

  (Ms Weir) Do not put the Committee off!
  (Ms O'Callaghan) Obviously they are the largest arms exporter in the world and giving much more detailed and accessible information about what weapons are sold and the monetary value and the quantity of items is contained in this report and it has not affected commercial confidentiality.

  33. It has not affected it?
  (Ms O'Callaghan) They are the largest arms exporter in the world and remain so, so it does not seem to have affected it.
  (Mr Eavis) I think there is always going to be an argument. I think a lot of NGOs, ourselves included, will always say there is not enough information published and that you need to have enough information to be able to monitor the implementation of policy and at the moment you cannot do that with this current annual report. You can do it in some areas. I think when they describe machine guns and rifles that is positive, but you cannot do it in others. There is always going to be industry and the Defence Manufacturing Association saying, "There is enough information out there. We do not want to go any further." We would argue against that quite strongly by saying that when they say that it is breaking commercial confidentiality that is simply not true because a lot of that information which they are talking about you can access in the trade journals. You just need to go and look in some of the trade journals such as Jane's Defence Contracts and you can find out a lot more detail as to what contracts have just been offered.

  34. Could I briefly come back to the question of prior scrutiny which you all emphasise and there is an obvious reason why that is important. It is an opportunity for you to convince the Committee that it can work. I notice in the BASIC submission you talk about the States and Sweden. Sweden is perhaps a closer example. In just reading the summary here what I am slightly worried about is that we are told that the Export Control Council is provided with notification of all principally important arms exports, which begs the question who decides what are principally important arms exports. My question to you is do you believe that in Sweden or anywhere else there is a system of prior scrutiny that really does have an effect, that does bite, that does influence outcomes?
  (Mr Eavis) I think in the choice of applications they look at it is two-way. The people on the committee can request any licence application, so they can say "we are concerned about Indonesia, give us everything you have got on Indonesia" and that would come from the committee. At the same time the way that the National Inspectorate of Strategic Products will be using it in Sweden is they are really going to the committee and saying "these are grey areas, borderline cases, we actually need your opinions" and they seek their opinions. It means they do not get bogged down with hundreds upon hundreds of licence applications, they do focus it, and the way they focus it is from both ends really.

  35. It seems a long time since the Scott Report. Is there still a need for primary legislation in the wake of that? What would be the main points in it, would you say?
  (Ms O'Callaghan) I think there is a general feeling among the NGO community and way beyond the four NGOs here that it is disappointing that in the past two years of the Labour Government we have not seen a realistic move towards actually making parliamentary time for primary legislation on arms control. Having said that, I think we would also like further consultation on what the legislation controls. One of the things we have come back to a number of times is the omissions in this Report reflect the omissions that we expect to see in that legislation on licenced production, on controlling of surplus weapons, on controlling brokers, and very much we want to see that within the framework of the DTI legislation and primary legislation that we hope to see in Parliament as soon as possible.

  36. In this rather specialist area does it make sense to have so many NGOs all complaining that they have too small a team working on this issue? It seems to me it is a very focused issue and you could actually create a serious monitoring organisation and release large numbers of you from having to do it at all.
  (Ms Weir) We work fairly hard to avoid duplication and to co-operate. I think we actually bring quite unique and differing perspectives to the debate. Amnesty has particular research strengths in human rights violations throughout the world, Oxfam has a development perspective. I think we respect each other's strengths and what we bring to the debate and that works very well.

  37. These four are obviously very special but what about all the others? Are there many others? You gave the impression at an earlier stage that the world is full of them?
  (Ms O'Callaghan) There are others. There is the UK Working Group on Arms which is eight organisations including Christian Aid and Save the Children as well[49]. There are also a lot of other organisations that do a lot of valuable work on the arms trade. Those organisations do an awful lot of joint briefings. The UK Working Group do a lot of joint briefings and do work constantly together.

  38. So you are happy that all is well in the best of all possible worlds?
  (Ms O'Callaghan) We could always do with more money!

  Chairman: We should add that, in fact, we have had a number of other written submissions from organisations which we have not brought before us but nevertheless they are equally invaluable. I think this session has demonstrated that first of all we are on a learning curve, as you might have observed. As a Joint Committee we are trying to find our own way of working. I believe that your evidence to us has made an invaluable start to our process. I think the very fact that this Committee exists will be a focus for bringing into the public domain, publicising, highlighting information of the kind and character this session has produced and is itself I hope going to be an addition to the whole process. We intend, however, to pursue the matter. Our immediate objective will be to produce a Special Report, in fact immediately after this meeting. We hope to approve a Special Report, if Members of the Committee agree, which will include the publication of your oral evidence attached to it, which will be submitted to the House and to ministers, hopefully just in time for them to have a final reflection on the character and nature of the 1998 Report. Even if that does not happen the sorts of issues that you have raised and we have raised together this afternoon will be the very issues we can pursue much more forcefully and substantively in the next session when we receive and scrutinise the 1998 Report. I think I speak for all the Committee in thanking you for both the commitment and, indeed, the knowledge that you have brought to our Committee. Thank you very much indeed.

49   The UK Working Group on Arms is made up of the following eight organisations: Amnesty International (International Secretariat), Amnesty International UK, BASIC, Christian Aid, International Alert, Oxfam (GB), Saferworld, and Save the Children. Back