Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on introducing this extremely important Bill. I apologise to the House that I may have to leave before the end of the debate for family reasons—it is my wife’s birthday today. In support of my noble friend’s important Bill, I will concentrate on the destructive anti-humanitarian effects of these weapons. Most other speakers are much better qualified than me to look at the technical details of these weapons and their military usefulness or otherwise. I am therefore very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who has just spoken, for his informed discourse on the use of these weapons. My noble friend discussed the status of these weapons under the conventions and protocols of international humanitarian law and said that they are very probably not permitted. He also explained how the Bill can edge forward the growing international movement, initiated by Belgium, to make the use of these weapons illegal, in the same way as the Ottawa convention has effectively ended the use of anti-personnel mines. The effect of cluster weapons is similar to those of anti-personnel mines, in the sense that they continue to cause injury and death long after a military conflict is technically over. The intention may be to use them as battlefield weapons and for all the submunitions to explode on impact, or soon after, but even if no dumb submunitions are intentionally used, 1 to 5 per cent or more—much higher figures have been quoted—do not explode on impact. As each container holds hundreds of submunitions and many containers may be used, there will be a significant number of unexploded submunitions, as my noble friend has explained, even if the percentage of dumb submunitions is low. These will continue to present a hazard to local populations, especially to children and particularly to boys, who are curious about such intriguing objects. They pick them up or, through bravado, poke them and accidentally detonate them. The injuries from cluster bomblets or submunitions are considerably more severe than those from anti-personnel mines and more akin to those caused by anti-tank mines, which is unsurprising because cluster bomblets are intended to penetrate armour or destroy vehicles. I understand, however, that they often fail to destroy or damage heavily armoured modern vehicles, as my noble friend has said. Although anti-personnel mines cause injuries mainly to lower limbs, which may necessitate amputation, cluster bombs are more likely to cause severe internal injuries that may prove fatal even if expert surgical help and a blood transfusion are rapidly available. Usually, they are not. In Kosovo, where some of the most detailed data have been collected under UN auspices by the UN Mine Action co-ordinating centre, the fatality rate of post-conflict anti-personnel mines was 8 per cent in the 210 episodes recorded, but 30 per cent in 142 cluster-bomb episodes reported. Cluster bombs are therefore three or four times as lethal. In that period, a third more children and adolescents were injured or killed by cluster bombs than they were by anti-personnel mines. The reverse was true among adults, among whom there were three times as many casualties due to anti-personnel mines as there were due to cluster submunitions. Cluster bomb explosions were more likely to kill young people, especially boys, as I have said, because they handled the devices or were close onlookers. Older men were more likely to tread on anti-personnel mines while working, especially in agricultural areas. Data from other war zones are not so detailed or accurate because of the problems involved in obtaining accurate information when there is a breakdown in communications and infrastructure and the enforced movement of the population. Some 11,000 episodes have been analysed, and all studies of the problem agree that cluster bomb injuries result in much higher death rates than anti-personnel mines. In Laos, over 25 years, 55 per cent of the 4,800 incidents reported were fatal. I thank Landmine Action and Handicap International for providing the figures that I have quoted. The case for banning these weapons is therefore even stronger than that for anti-personnel mines unless there is an overwhelming military case to be made in their favour. Although the Minister will probably have to argue that there is such a case, the words of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, may cause her to wonder whether the words that she will have to utter are correct.