Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I refer to a first step on this aspect of looking at cluster munitions. The aspect has been raised this year. We will have a first report back, which we hope will lead to a negotiating mandate, within a year. While that is not satisfactory for many noble Lords, the Government believe that it is a satisfactory timescale. I am aware that some states want to move directly to a negotiating mandate, but I have to report that, following extensive consultations by our team at the conference, at this stage such a mandate has not gained consensus among the main users of cluster munitions. I shall outline the consequences for our Armed Forces were the Bill to become law. While this Bill prohibits the use, production, acquisition, possession and transfer of cluster munitions, I want to cover here only the prohibition on the use of them, because it seems to me that that is the core element of the Bill. The Bill would prevent our Armed Forces using those munitions that fall within the scope of the draft definition of the Bill, a definition that is more restrictive than that we have used in international discussions and than our understanding of a dumb cluster munition. The prohibition in the Bill would deny our Armed Forces an anti-armour capability and a capability to suppress and neutralise enemy forces. It would create serious capability gaps for the Royal Air Force until planned replacement weapon systems attain full operational readiness in 2010 and capability gaps for the Army out to 2015. But, as I said, we are looking at that timescale. I am sure that this House would not wish to impose serious capability gaps on our Armed Forces that would have detrimental impacts on their overall operational effectiveness, undermine their ability to conduct combat missions in conflict zones and deny them a degree of force protection in combat situations. Noble Lords asked a number of questions, which I shall try to go through as quickly as possible. My noble friend Lord Dubs asked why we do not phase out these munitions before 2015 and why we do not ban them now. I say to him that all our munitions, including cluster munitions, are procured and held to meet a specific capability. We constantly keep that process under review, as technology evolves and as new systems enter service to replace obsolete weapons. In that context, when we replace munitions they are destroyed and put beyond use. However, to attain the necessary operational effectiveness of our Armed Forces and to ensure that they have the systems that they need to conduct the operations that we ask of them, we cannot withdraw extant systems until the replacement ones are declared operational and fit for purpose. However, as I have said three times now, MoD officials are examining the possibility of withdrawing them earlier. My noble friend Lord Dubs and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, asked about a moratorium. We would consider that to have the same effect as a ban. We shall withdraw dumb cluster munitions from service by the middle of the next decade. My noble friend Lord Dubs, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Garden, asked about the military effectiveness of cluster munitions and used the example, as they saw it, that they cannot defeat main battle tank armour. All weapons systems, including cluster munitions, are designed to have certain effects against differing types of target. The cluster munitions that the UK uses remain effective against the target sets that they were designed to deal with. Certain types of target, notably main battle tanks, are particularly difficult to destroy. That may not be necessary, as mobility kills are an effective way to reduce enemy fighting power. Again, the other types of target that we require cluster munitions to attack, including light armoured vehicles, troops and military facilities, remain vulnerable to our current range of cluster munitions. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, asked about an assessment of the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions and about field data evaluating the humanitarian impact. Our Armed Forces recognise the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions, and that is a key element of the ultimate decisions about whether to use them. Post-conflict, our clearance operations collect data about numbers of unexploded ordnance, and in Iraq we have cleared over 1 million items of unexploded ordnance. The UK keeps records of firing data and targets, but we cannot gather data of unexploded ordnance during conflict. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry talked about the morality of using cluster munitions. Morality is implicit in the law of armed conflict, which is based on both humanitarian and moral foundations, and this country uses cluster munitions in compliance with that law. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and other noble Lords asked why we should have only a discussion mandate. We have been through that. We believe that it is an important first step towards a negotiating mandate. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, talked about clearing up the battlefield. That is now an international norm, as he will know, which is enshrined in Protocol V of the CCW. The UK intends, as I said to my noble friend Lord Judd, to ratify Protocol V at the earliest opportunity, and in practice follows its obligations already. The noble Lord, whose intervention was welcomed by everyone, talked about the use of weapons in types of current conflict. Retaining a weapon in the infantry does not imply that it would be used in every deployment; but a range of operations, including war fighting, remain possible, and we need current technology to deal with the battlefield threats that our forces may face in the future. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said that, in her view, smart bombs were not smart. Of course, it is to our advantage militarily to reduce failure rates to the absolute minimum: it means that we use fewer munitions to achieve the desired effect and we do not have the military and humanitarian problems of unexploded ordnance. However, movements are towards more developed cluster munitions, with greater accuracy and reliability. We hope that that will leave fewer unexploded ordnances and reduce the humanitarian risks. A number of other noble Lords have asked questions and I shall of course write to them. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, asked about failure rates and asked me to confirm that we have abandoned all use of airdrop cluster munitions. The Government seek to reduce failure rates, as failures have both military and humanitarian impacts. New weapon systems have more stringent design criteria to reduce those rates. With regard to explosive remnants of war, Protocol V of the CCW will set a legal obligation to reduce failure rates. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, asked me a specific question about cluster-munition stocks, and I will end with that. MoD policy is to replace munitions with ones containing self-destruct mechanisms. As the noble Earl knows, when munitions are phased out, they are put beyond use and are normally destroyed. We do not intend to keep them in store for longer than required, but in some cases we intend to replace them with guided unitary systems where that provides us with the same capability as a cluster munition—that is, with increased reliability and accuracy. In conclusion, the Bill has a humanitarian element at its core, which we applaud, but it does not recognise the arguments of military necessity or the need to equip our Armed Forces to undertake the missions that we ask of them. For those reasons, we believe that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is inconsistent with our current military requirements, and that is why the Government have reservations about it.