To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps the Government plans to take to encourage the international community to support the ban of cluster munitions. (191469)

In his Guildhall speech on 12 November 2007, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister stated the Government were working

“internationally for a ban on the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of those cluster munitions which cause unacceptable harm to civilians.”

We will continue our efforts both in the Oslo Process and in the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which includes users and producers of cluster munitions who have remained outside the Oslo Process, to ensure that the humanitarian objective we and many others share is fulfilled. The next CCW meeting will take place in Geneva from 7-11 April and the next Oslo Process meeting will take place in Dublin from 19-30 May.