asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What steps they will take to secure the early ratification and signature of the treaty banning cluster munitions, following the agreement of a text in Dublin last week.

My Lords, as the Prime Minister made clear, we are delighted to have played a leading role in bringing about the new draft convention, which was adopted in Dublin on 30 May. That convention will be open for signature on 3 December in Oslo. We are studying the text to see if legislation is needed before we can ratify. We have taken a significant step towards implementing its norms by withdrawing from service, as of last Friday, all the UK’s cluster munitions. We believe that the new convention will help to make the world a safer place.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his robust and welcome Answer, and I acknowledge the key role that the Government’s diplomatic representatives and, indeed, the Prime Minister have played in bringing about the result in Dublin. The Minister knows that the treaty will not come into force until 30 countries have signed it. In view of that, and of the near certainty that legislation will be needed to enable us to ratify, will the Government arrange business in both Houses of Parliament so that that legislation is taken through in record time, bringing forward the moment when the treaty will begin to save lives?

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and others in this House who have worked so hard for the moment that we face today. I reconfirm that this is an example of where this House, and the Questions that it asks of Ministers, can be so influential in important policy changes.

We ourselves withdrew these weapons as of last Friday, and plan to sign the treaty in Oslo in December. The noble Lord is right that actual ratification will have to wait until both Houses have approved the legal arrangements, but I certainly commit—and I am sure that my noble friend the Leader of the House will agree—to move that forward as speedily as possible.

My Lords, we on these Benches congratulate the Government on signing the treaty, but we understand that there are some problems to be sorted out, both about American cluster weapons stored in bases in this country and about joint actions—in places such as Afghanistan—between British and American forces, whose aircraft will carry cluster bombs. Will the Minister explain how, since the United States has not signed the treaty, those delicate issues will be arranged?

My Lords, the noble Lord is correct that discussions are, indeed, under way with the United States. Those will be at the level of Secretaries of Defence and of Secretaries of State in the coming days, to make sure that we are on the same page. The short answer is that while, in the coming period, the US may if it so wishes continue to keep these weapons in its bases, there is an eight-year period during which they will need to be eliminated. The reading of the treaty indicates that there are overriding political reasons to expect that there will be no such weapons on British territory at the end of that eight-year period. That includes other people’s bases situated on our territory.

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the Government on their decision to ban cluster munitions. I was in Dublin at the time, and I am aware that that decision had a significant influence on some other countries that were wavering a bit. They were persuaded by the robustness of the Government’s decision, and on that day the Prime Minister was the most popular Prime Minister in Dublin. Will the Government continue to keep Parliament and this House informed on the progress made in decommissioning those weapons and in seeking to persuade other countries—those which did not sign, particularly our American friends—to do likewise?

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made it clear in his statement last week that we would seek to persuade all other countries to sign up to this treaty, which we wish to be universal and supported across the country. I have no doubt that he will be delighted to hear of his popularity in Dublin.

My Lords, I join in thanking Ministers, my noble friend Lord Elton and others for their persistence in bringing about this most welcome advance. However, following his comments about the United States, will the Minister explain how its position will affect us directly? I understand there are large stockpiles of US cluster bombs on British soil. Will the US be required to remove those immediately, or will we have to wait until it comes round to signing the treaty? Is there a great transition period ahead about which we have not been told?

My Lords, as I said in answer to an earlier question, all countries which are signatories to the treaty have an eight-year period in which to decommission and destroy these weapons. The assumption is that at the end of that eight-year period, as the treaty reads, even a country such as the US, were it not a signatory, would no longer be able to keep such weapons on UK territory.

My Lords, when the land mines treaty was ratified, the cynics among us quickly realised that cluster bombs had taken their place. Is there any weapon planned to take the place of cluster bombs?

My Lords, I can assure those in the House whose only concern about the decommissioning of this weapon is whether it will leave a hole in the British arsenal that a weapon called the BSFM will provide the same functional purpose in warfare that the cluster bomb was intended to provide—that is, piercing tanks and other heavy armour—without having the same indiscriminate, damaging effect on civilians. Cluster bombs have a large number of submunitions within a single shell—last year we decommissioned one which had 600 submunitions within a single weapon—but the BSFM, which is to replace these weapons, is different in three critical regards and therefore does not meet the Dublin treaty definition. First, it has only two submunitions; secondly, not only does it self-destruct but if it were not to do so, it would deactivate because of a battery mechanism within it; and, thirdly, it is much larger and therefore not a risk to children, who were thought to have picked up the cluster bombs considering them toys. The strong lobby at Dublin is satisfied that the BSFM is a weapon which serves the pure military purpose of protecting against tanks in warfare without damage to civilians.