Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Friday 10 July 1998

The House met at half-past Nine o'clock

Prayers

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Orders Of The Day

Landmines Bill

Order for Second Reading read.—[Queen's consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]

9.34 am

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

In the time that it will take us to complete the Second Reading of the Bill, five people, somewhere in the world, will become casualties of landmines. Two of them will be killed; the other three are likely to be maimed for life. It is likely that they will be civilian and poor, and they will have already endured the terror and the destruction of war. One among them may well be a child, who will never run again because of a moment of tragedy at play. Their story is told across the world hundreds of times every week. About 60 million landmines lie scattered in 70 countries. They remain long after the fighting has stopped, and cause suffering out of all proportion to their possible military value. Hundreds of thousands of refugees cannot return to their homes because of landmines, and people cannot farm their land without risking death. Many are forced to take that risk simply to feed their families or to gather water and firewood to keep their families alive. After the trauma of war, landmines pollute the peace.

When the Government came to power, one of our first acts was to ban landmines unilaterally. We said that there was to be no more trade, no more transfer or production of landmines and a moratorium on their use. We said that stocks of landmines held by the British military would be destroyed and that we would do everything that we could to work for a wider ban. We have kept those promises: we have destroyed half the stockpile of the 1 million landmines that we inherited from the previous Government. By the end of this year, we shall have destroyed three quarters of that stockpile.

As far as we are aware, no other nation has done as much to destroy its stock of landmines. We played a leading role in the negotiations that led to the Ottawa convention, and we signed it at the first opportunity. Britain helped to draft the Ottawa convention, so it is entirely fitting that we should help to bring it into force. That is why the House is sitting today: if we pass the Bill, Britain will be among the first 40 countries to ratify the convention and to bring it into legal force.

I say to the House and to the Opposition that the Bill gives full effect to the terms of the Ottawa convention. Clause 2 prohibits British service men, or any other British citizen, from using, developing, producing, possessing or exporting a landmine. It also prevents them from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone else to do those things. Nor is this a token offence; conviction under clause 2 brings with it liability to a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) has been expressing concern about the provisions of clause 5. Let me help him by explaining its limited purpose. Clause 5 does not provide British service men with any loophole to take part in the deployment of landmines. British forces will be instructed in their rules of engagement for any exercise or operation that they must not use, possess, transport or handle landmines. Clause 5 provides British service men with a shield against unreasonable prosecution because they took part in a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation exercise in which American forces deployed landmines. Without clause 5, any British Army officer present at a NATO planning meeting who heard that American forces taking part may possess landmines would be obliged to say that he must leave the meeting, or would render himself liable to a prison sentence of 14 years. I cannot believe that the right hon. and learned Gentleman wants to put our service men in that position. If he presses that point, he will effectively be arguing that it is impossible for Britain to implement the Ottawa convention without withdrawing from the NATO integrated command.

To avoid any doubt, let me make it clear that that is not the Opposition's position. We are saying that clause 5 is inconsistent with the convention. If the Foreign Secretary had woken up earlier to the need for provisions such as clause 5, he would have amended the convention accordingly. Did he make any attempt to do so?

Clause 5 is wholly consistent with the Ottawa convention. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman wants proof, I can tell him that our provision for British service men is similar to that made by the Government of Canada, who were the driving force behind the convention and who would certainly do nothing to undermine it. It is humbug that the Conservatives who, in power, kept their distance from the convention, should now complain that the Bill does not go far enough. If, in government, they had taken the line that we took at the general election, the Ottawa convention might have been completed earlier. The Opposition have promised us their help in passing the Bill. It would be warmly welcomed if we could fulfil what we understood to be an agreement between both Front Benches to achieve our shared commitment that Britain should be among the first 40 countries to ratify the convention.

The Government will have the help of the Liberal Democrats in ensuring that the Bill passes all necessary stages today.

The Attorney-General, who often intervenes on matters of this sort, not for the Government, but for the guidance of the whole House, is present today. Is the Secretary of State telling us that the Attorney-General advised him that the mere presence of a British officer at a NATO planning meeting could be a contravention of the Bill's criminal law provisions?

I am grateful for the hon. and learned Gentleman's assistance. I can assure him that the Law Officers concurred with everything in the Bill. The particular point to which he referred has had considerable discussion. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General will make his own position clear if he wishes to do so, but I speak with the full authority of the Government, and with the full support of the Law Officers.

I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend.

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend—[Laughter.] My hon. Friends encourage me to give way more often to such interventions.

Our discussion of clause 5 highlights the serious problem of ensuring that every country bans landmines. The convention is not yet a global ban. There are countries that have not signed it, including some of the largest producers and exporters of landmines. We are working hard to bring those countries on board. A global ban must be exactly that. We are working in forums such as the conference on disarmament in Geneva to bring in others step by step. A limited, but useful, first step would be to have every country sign up to a ban on the export of landmines.

By passing the Bill today, the House will send a clear message from Britain to countries yet to join the international crusade against landmines. The House will send a clear message, too, to all who live with the threat of landmines. The Ottawa convention does not just ban production and use of landmines, but mandates signatories to help remove landmines, and to look after victims of landmines not removed in time.

A landmine costs only a few pounds to produce, but on average, the same landmine will cost several hundred pounds to clear. Britain is helping the worst-affected countries to clear landmines. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has committed Britain to doubling its annual expenditure on demining. The British Army's mine and training information centre has trained more than 2,000 workers from countries in which landmines have been laid. It has also trained workers from British non-governmental organisations that work in those countries. The House will wish to record its appreciation of the courage and dedication of our soldiers, and of the staff of NGOs, such as the Red Cross, who have worked hard so that the people of other countries may be freed from fear of landmines.

Our century has taught us many lessons. We have learnt that humanity can be capable of the most evil and cruel acts. We have learnt, too, that humanity can look away from suffering. However, we have also learnt that humanity can rise above cruelty and blindness. Sometimes, humanity can decide that something is wrong, and can demand action to stop it. It has done so in the case of landmines.

Many people and many organisations have played a part in awakening the conscience of the world to the casualties of landmines. The Nobel peace prize given to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was a well-deserved recognition of its determination. All hon. Members will be aware from their postbags of the immense contribution made by Diana, Princess of Wales to bringing home to many of our constituents the human costs of landmines. The best way in which to record our appreciation of her work, and the work of NGOs that have campaigned against landmines, is to pass the Bill, and to pave the way towards a global ban on landmines.

9.46 am

I join the Secretary of State in his condemnation of indiscriminate use of anti-personnel landmines and the suffering that they cause around the world. We have all been moved by the plight of the victims, and we are all aware of the arbitrary and cruel manner in which innocent civilians have been killed or maimed. We are all conscious of the horror of weapons that remain in the ground long after the conflict that caused them to be put there has ceased.

I also join the Secretary of State in praising the work done by many campaigners and non-governmental organisations to raise the issue of a total ban in the public consciousness. They include the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Halo Trust and the Mines Advisory Group. Each has made a unique and important contribution. I should mention in particular the Nobel prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which brought together more than 100 different organisations.

Individuals, too, have played a crucial role. The Foreign Secretary rightly paid tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, whose work was invaluable. In many ways, the progress made on a landmines ban is a worthier memorial to her than some of the other projects that have received so much recent attention. I want to pay particular tribute, too, to my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Deedes, who has campaigned on the matter for many years and who took it up long before it became a fashionable cause. His work merits special acknowledgement.

The role of British forces in providing mine clearance advice and support should not be underestimated. The Royal Engineers and the Royal Ordnance Corps have been crucial to the success of demining operations. Retired members of the British armed forces have continued their work by joining such groups as the Halo Trust and the Mines Advisory Group, to teach people in countries littered with anti-personnel mines how to remove them safely. Their work is not over. In areas such as Bosnia, demining remains a task vital to helping the country to return to something resembling what we call normality. We should pay tribute to the many people who do that dangerous job across the world, and to the companies—often British based—that are at the forefront of the demining effort.

I assure the Secretary of State that the official Opposition are committed to a meaningful ban on the sale and use of landmines. We support the spirit of the Ottawa convention, and made it clear as long ago as February that we would not obstruct the legislation, which was needed to allow the convention to be ratified. Like the Government, we look forward to the eradication of existing mines and the threat to life that they represent.

The road to the abolition of landmines is long, and we have not yet reached its end. It is also a road down which the United Kingdom had travelled a great distance before 1 May 1997. In April 1996, the previous Government announced that the United Kingdom would work actively towards a total worldwide ban on anti-personnel mines. They made it clear that, should such a ban be agreed, the United Kingdom would give up our anti-personnel landmine capability, and would destroy our stocks accordingly. The previous Government introduced an export moratorium and invested in mine clearance measures around the world. They announced their intention to destroy half our existing stocks of mines as soon as practicable, and to destroy the remainder when the international ban was agreed or viable alternatives became available. Severe restrictions on their deployment were also announced.

The Lyon G8 summit in 1996 included a declaration calling on all countries to make every effort to secure a global ban on the proliferation and indiscriminate use of anti-personnel landmines. The declaration also welcomed the bans already adopted by some countries, including the United Kingdom, on the production, use and export of those weapons.

By October 1996, the European Union was ready, with British backing, to declare a common moratorium on the export of anti-personnel landmines. The European Union also took action to prevent the issuing of licences for the transfer of mine technology. That initiative was presented to the Ottawa conference and the United Nations General Assembly.

As always, I have listened carefully to what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has to say. It is academic now, but why did the previous Government refuse to introduce legislation on the matter?

Simply because the Ottawa convention had not been agreed or signed. This legislation is designed to implement that convention, and this is the appropriate time to bring it forward.

By January 1997, Britain was ready to table a mandate to set up a committee at the conference on disarmament in Geneva to negotiate a global ban on anti-personnel landmines. During that time, some £22 million had been spent by the previous Government on mine clearance programmes across the world. The previous Government lived up to their promises, and did not promise what they could not deliver.

When the present Government came to office after the election, the Foreign Secretary made an early statement about their policy on landmines. Characteristically, it was accompanied by the usual hype—he has been at it again today. It was presented as an early example of the Government's so-called ethical foreign policy. It was presented as if it were a great change from the policy of the previous Government. In fact, the two were virtually indistinguishable. In an article in the February edition of the journal of the Royal United Services Institute, Dr. Paul Bowers and Mr. Tom Dodd said:

"A possible irony is that until the Ottawa Convention enters force or 2005, whichever comes earlier, the essence of the Labour Government's policy on APMs, an export ban and use only in exceptional circumstances, is not altogether different from that reached by the Conservative Government in April 1996."

It is true that, since then, matters have moved on somewhat. [Interruption.] Of course, that is true. In December 1997, the Government signed the Ottawa convention, which the legislation before the House today is designed to implement. We should concentrate on the convention, the legislation and the relationship between the two.

The Opposition support the spirit of the convention, which is why we shall not oppose the Bill. However, the limitations of the convention should be recognised. The United States of America, Russia, China and many other powerful and significant countries are not signatories. The convention will not introduce a worldwide ban.

The legislation raises many important issues, which we shall not be able to explore fully today. So reluctant are the Government to allow proper debate to take place—[Interruption.]—so nervous are they of proper scrutiny, that they have made it clear that they are not prepared to move a business motion to extend today's sitting beyond its normal time. I want to put on record the fact that the official Opposition asked for that extension. [Interruption.] We wanted to give the Bill the proper scrutiny that it deserves. The Government's attitude was that, unless we finish at 2.30 pm today, the Bill will fall. [Interruption.]

Order. The right hon. and learned Gentleman must be heard.

That is the extent to which the Government hold this place in contempt. We were not prepared to see the Bill fall.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you allow the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) to look round and see how many of his hon. Friends are present to support him?

Three.

That is not a matter for the Chair.

If the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) thinks that numbers are the sole criterion by which to judge the proper scrutiny of a Bill, he has a great deal to learn about the way in which legislation can be scrutinised.

We were not prepared to see the Bill fall today, so we have reluctantly accepted the timetable imposed on us by the Government. I strongly hope that the Bill will receive in the other place the careful scrutiny that we shall inevitably be unable to give it here.

In particular, we shall be unable to explore in sufficient detail the many questions that arise on the scope of the convention.

May I ask the shadow Foreign Secretary two brief questions? Yesterday, he was offered a briefing on the technical details of the Bill. Why did he turn down that offer? As the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, who is noticeably not present for the Second Reading, were given the Bill last week, why, in all that time and given his legal training, has be tabled only one amendment?

Because the amendment is sufficient to enable me to make the points that I can make within the time that the Government are prepared to make available today. [Interruption.] I am answering the Secretary of State's question. I am concerned to use the time available to me to deal with the relationship between the convention and the legislation. The particular point that I want to make is about the scope of clause 5. The briefing was not by the Foreign Office, which is responsible for the convention, but by the Secretary of State for Defence, and it did not deal with that matter. That is why the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), who represents the Liberal Democrat party, and I did not accept that offer of a briefing yesterday. [Interruption.] That is the reason. Perhaps we can continue the debate.

Order. It is not right for the right hon. and learned Member to be interrupted. He must be heard. The House must come to order.

I hope that the Secretary of State for Defence will deal with some of the questions that are raised. Will he confirm—not in some private briefing, but on the Floor of the House—that the convention does not prohibit the use of anti-tank mines, even if anti-personnel mines are attached to them? Is it true that some of the most advanced anti-tank mines—such as the US Gator—are prohibited by the treaty, because the explosives contained in the anti-personnel mines associated with them are not attached to the main mine?

What is the position on the use of anti-personnel mines in association with anti-airfield weapons, such as the JP233? What are the Government's intentions on the many thousands of landmines that remain in position in the Falklands? Those are obviously very important questions, and I hope that Ministers will be able to answer them during the debate.

The history of this legislation is, to put it mildly, somewhat murky. The convention was signed last December. The Government made a commitment to ratify it as soon as possible. That was immediately modified to a commitment to ratify it as soon as the parliamentary timetable allowed. By February, no action had been taken to fulfil that major commitment.

In February, in response to a request from the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), I told him that the Opposition would not obstruct the legislation. We are told that work on the text of the Bill then began, but that it was not until 9 June, after comprehensive consultation with interested Whitehall Departments, that instructions were sent to parliamentary counsel. Even then, there was confusion, which was typified by unedifying reports that the blame for the failure to present legislation to ratify the convention was being passed between the Foreign Secretary and the Leader of the House.

At that stage, the Government did what they always do when they are to blame—they tried to transfer the blame to the Opposition. The Leader of the House said that the Government had heard only "very recently" that the Opposition would be willing to help with the progress of the legislation. The Secretary of State for Defence said that one of the reasons for lack of progress was that the Government had been waiting to hear from the Opposition. All that is totally untrue. The Government were told as long ago as February that the Opposition would co-operate with the passage of the Bill and would not seek to obstruct it. The delay is entirely the Government's fault.

The legislation is now before the House and for the first time we can compare the Bill with the treaty that it is supposed to put into effect. I remind the House that the treaty was signed by the United Kingdom without reservation or amendment. The Foreign Secretary characteristically boasted that the Government were able to play a major part in drafting the treaty. The Prime Minister said:

"the land mines treaty has done a superb job and we on this side support it thoroughly. Furthermore, it is another initiative in which the new Government played a leading role."—[Official Report, 10 December 1997; Vol. 302, c. 1010.]

In that case, why does the legislation not implement the convention? Why does it permit conduct that the convention expressly prohibits? Why is there such a huge gap between the Bill's provisions and those of the convention, and why are the Government once again saying one thing and doing another? I shall explain. The terms of article 1.1 of the convention are clear:

"Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances:
(a) To use anti-personnel mines;
(b) To develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, anti-personnel mines;
(c) To assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention."

There is no doubt or ambiguity in that paragraph. It expressly prohibits assisting anyone to engage in any activity that is prohibited by the convention. What does the legislation contain? The relevant part is clause 5, which provides a defence for someone who is otherwise guilty of conduct that is prohibited by the legislation. That defence applies to joint operations conducted overseas with the armed forces of another Government in the course of which

"there is or may be some deployment of anti-personnel mines"

by the forces of the other Government who are not signatories to the convention. In those circumstances, according to clause 5, British forces are permitted to do anything other than actually lay anti-personnel mines. They can procure, transfer, modify, adapt or even prime landmines as long as they do not actually lay them.

That is not an academic point, because the other Government with whose forces we are perhaps most likely to enter into joint operations are the Government of the United States, who are not signatories to the Ottawa convention. The effect of clause 5 is that when British forces are engaged in joint operations with the United States or the forces of any country that is not a signatory to the convention, they are given full licence by the legislation to breach the Ottawa convention.

rose—

I shall finish the passage and then give way to the Secretary of State.

We may be told that it is important and essential for British troops to be able to operate in that way. That may be true, but it is absolutely and explicitly contrary to the provisions of the Ottawa convention. That has been pointed out not only by me but by numerous spokesmen on behalf of the campaigning groups that have paid careful attention to the provisions of the legislation and the way in which they differ from the convention.

The Government could have sought to amend the convention. Perhaps they will say whether they attempted to amend it and failed. If that is the case, they are guilty of extreme duplicity. Alternatively, did they simply not notice what the convention would mean? Was it perhaps not until after comprehensive consultations with interested Whitehall Departments, when the legislation was beginning to be drafted, that the difficulty came to light? If that is the case, the Government stand convicted of extreme incompetence. Either way, the Government are asking Parliament to legislate to permit conduct that would be completely contrary to a convention that they signed as recently as December.

I plead with the right hon. and learned Gentleman not to attribute to everybody else the conspiracy under which he operates. Clause 2 faithfully and fully puts the Ottawa convention into British legislation. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not hear me the first time, I say again that it prohibits British troops from using, developing, producing, possessing or transferring landmines or assisting, encouraging or inducing any other person to do so. That provision will be clearly expressed in the rules of engagement for British forces. There will be no licence for British troops.

Clause 5 is purely prudential. It will protect British troops from being criminalised by the actions of American troops who may be taking part in the same operation. I shall put again the example that I gave earlier of a sapper sergeant who builds a bridge in a NATO exercise and, unknown to him, the Americans drive across it a truck containing landmines. We want to make it clear beyond doubt that such a man is not liable to conviction and 14 years in prison. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not willing to remove that doubt, I am beginning to understand why the Conservative party's senior defence spokesman has not turned up for the debate.

It is most unlikely that the conduct that the Foreign Secretary mentions would amount to a breach of the convention in the first place.

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

No. I am dealing with the Foreign Secretary's point. Clause 5 is not needed to give effect to that situation.

rose—

I shall give way when I have finished. Irrespective of whether it is needed to cover that situation, the point to be answered by the Foreign Secretary is that the terms of clause 5 are extremely wide. The only activity that it expressly prohibits in joint operations is the actual laying of a landmine. That is contained in clause 5(2). If what the Foreign Secretary seeks to achieve is his only concern, he could amend clause 5 here or in another place to meet that concern, but clause 5 is widely drawn and is contrary to the convention's language.

Of course clause 5 is widely drawn because its purpose is not to prohibit activities but to provide protection for British forces. The word "unlikely" will not do. The sapper sergeant may ask, "If I build this bridge, will I be liable to 14 years' imprisonment?" The answer that that is "unlikely" will not be sufficient. We want to put the matter beyond doubt. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman now put it beyond doubt?

That is precisely why I say that if that is the Foreign Secretary's concern—I think that it is an unnecessary concern—it could be met by drafting the Bill narrowly, specifically to cover that point. The Foreign Secretary says that clause 5 does not prohibit activity. Of course he is right; clause 5 permits activity. The point is that clause 5 permits a wide range of activity—everything except laying a landmine—in contravention of the convention itself. We shall press the Government hard for explanations of that in Committee.

I hope that we shall hear more from the Government about the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Bill. Can the Government offer any estimate of the costs that they expect to arise from the need to examine and procure alternative technologies to meet the military capability previously provided by anti-personnel mines? Have they any idea of the costs of destroying the stocks of anti-personnel mines? If so, why are they not included in the memorandum? Is there any estimate of the costs of cancelling any support contracts, which are referred to in the memorandum? Those are important matters.

In February, the Opposition gave an undertaking not to obstruct the passage of the legislation. We shall honour that undertaking. We shall not in any sense seek to obstruct the Bill's passage, but the Bill is an imperfect animal. It merits the closest scrutiny. As a result of the Government's contemptuous attitude to the time to be made available for its scrutiny in the House, there is very little that we shall be able to do, but I hope that those deficiencies will, at least to some extent, be remedied when the Bill reaches another place.

10.11 am

I am delighted that, today, in one fell swoop, the Bill will complete all its House of Commons stages and be passed unanimously by the House. There is no conceivable reason why any hon. Member should vote against it.

I congratulate my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for Defence, the Secretary of State for International Development and all their ministerial colleagues on all their efforts in the campaign against landmines and on their desire to ratify the Ottawa convention. It is another manifesto promise on which the Labour Government have delivered and will continue to deliver as we destroy the United Kingdom's stockpile of landmines.

Compare the record of the Labour Government with that of the last Tory Government and the miserable, shabby, weasel words of the shadow Foreign Secretary this morning. My only slight regret is that we did not introduce this legislation some weeks ago while the UK still held the presidency of the European Union, because it would have been one of the highlights of that presidency.

As chairman of the British group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, I am proud of the role that the IPU and our group have played in the international campaign over the past four years. I pay tribute to my predecessor, Dame Jill Knight, now Baroness Knight, who campaigned vigorously in support of the resolution that was eventually carried unanimously by the IPU conference of some 130 nations, which called for a global ban on the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines. I am proud to have played a part in supporting that campaign at successive IPU conferences.

The Government have been one of the world leaders in the campaign, and the UK was one of the first nations to sign the Ottawa convention last December. We must all honour Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his Government for their initiative in introducing the Ottawa convention. I also thank all my colleagues who have signed my early-day motion 1387, which calls for this very legislation.

The Bill enables our Government to ratify the Ottawa convention, which comes into effect only when 40 nations have done so. Why do we need to ratify the convention? We need to do so because there can be no more flagrant example of man's inhumanity to man in the modern world than the barbaric practice of planting anti-personnel mines, which kill 800 people and maim another 1,200 every month of every year. Since 1975, more than 1 million people have been killed or injured and, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said, many of them were women and children, the most vulnerable members of society.

Estimates may vary, but one is that more than 100 million landmines are scattered indiscriminately throughout 62 countries, adversely affecting the economies of many of the poorest nations; preventing or delaying the development of agriculture and industry, the growing of food and much needed construction of good clean water supplies; and killing valuable livestock.

Expensive and scarce medical supplies are used up, and all civilians, including volunteer aid workers, are at risk. They will continue to be so as long as one landmine exists anywhere in the world. Those weapons will be capable of destruction for as long as they are there. Enormous sums of aid money that could be used for much more positive purposes have to be diverted to mine clearance. That is another worrying aspect of the situation.

I strongly suggest that all hon. Members read the report by the International Committee of the Red Cross entitled "The Worldwide Epidemic of Landmine Injuries", which graphically describes the horrific effect of blast and fragment mines. They will then realise only too well why we need this Bill. It is not only limbs that are blown off. Genitalia are destroyed and people are horrifically maimed. Reading that report would bring tears to hon. Members' eyes. I commend it to the House. Again, I praise the Government for all the humanitarian aid and assistance that they provide to people in need. I appeal to the Government to do more as soon as they can.

The Ottawa convention is not the end of the matter—nor is it perfect. It is only one step forward. Ratifying it and bringing it into the national law of each country as soon as possible is essential. Our Government have a vital role to play in persuading China, India, Russia and the United States to sign and ratify the convention.

Other nations such as Turkey and several African states refuse to support the convention. Perhaps the giving of political co-operation and aid should be linked to the recipient ratifying the convention. I ask my right hon. Friends to consider adopting such a policy, so taking another step forward.

Does my hon. Friend recognise the valuable role played by the North Atlantic Assembly in trying to convince some of those member states of the need to ratify the Ottawa convention?

I am only too happy to do so, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on his activities in the campaign.

I congratulate all those countries, organisations and individuals who are making financial and physical contributions to the anti-landmines effort. An especially welcome new initiative is the movement towards partnership arrangements between Governments, private companies, organisations and wealthy individuals to raise extra funds for the campaign. I hope that those will be given every encouragement.

The treaty will need to be rigidly enforced and must be properly monitored. In addition, it will need to be reviewed from time to time to tighten any loopholes, to expand its aims, and to persuade even more countries to sign and ratify it.

It is not possible to have such a debate without paying tribute to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. More than anyone else in the world, she raised the profile of the campaign against landmines. It was fitting that the Prime Minister announced the legislation on 1 July, which would have been her 37th birthday, and I hope that it will become law before the first anniversary of her death on 31 August. There can be no greater tribute to her memory than that we all work together to ensure that there is a concentrated, co-ordinated and cohesive worldwide campaign, involving the utmost co-operation between Governments, aid agencies and citizens, to achieve an effective and total global ban on landmines. That must be our ultimate aim. If we do that, we can look forward to the day when people can live without fear of their next step being their last.

10.18 am

I commend the Government for having found the means and time by which to offer the House the opportunity to ratify the Ottawa convention—or, perhaps more correctly, to pass the legislation that is necessary in order that the Government may ratify it. Although I share some of the reservations that have been expressed by the shadow Foreign Secretary about the consequences of clause 5—to which we shall come in due course—I do not share his view that there is inadequate time. If the House approaches this matter sensibly and reasonably, the Bill can pass all its stages in this House today and can be sent post haste to the other place, in the hope that it can then pass quickly into our law.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I like to think that the consistent pressure and support that some of my right hon. and hon. Friends have directed towards the Government has encouraged them to proceed. Although I do not subscribe to the "We thought of it first" school of politics—well, not much—it is right to put it on record that it was at a Liberal Democrat conference on 20 December 1995 that we first passed a motion calling for a ban in almost exactly the same terms as those of the convention.

The purpose of the legislation is clear and unambiguous, and it has the overwhelming support of the House. It allows us to play our part in the elimination of a scourge on the lives of innocent civilians, who are often among the poorest people in the world, by prohibiting a military procedure that is now largely discredited.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) referred to the late Princess of Wales. One could say that she lent the campaign her humanity and even her style to great effect, but others must be mentioned, too. I am thinking of, for example, Colonel Mitchell of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, one of the guiding lights behind the Halo Trust. He was responsible for an occasion in Aden which demonstrated the robustness of the Scottish regiments, but, in later life, he appreciated the horror of landmines and spent a great deal of time and effort seeking to advance the cause with which the Bill is associated. Also, as the shadow Foreign Secretary said, long before this was a fashionable issue, Lord Deedes had taken it up and sought to prosecute it with great vigour and robustness.

Someone else who must be mentioned, but who has not yet been referred to, is the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook). He is not in his place today, but I believe he is absent on parliamentary business. For hon. Members who do not know this—although they should—over the past three or four years at the North Atlantic Assembly the hon. Gentleman has been a consistent advocate of the need to ratify the Ottawa convention. His contribution to the debate and his efforts to persuade politicians of other countries, not necessarily as sympathetic as those Members of the House here today, have been very considerable. It is right and proper that we should recognise his contribution on this occasion.

As the hon. and learned Gentleman is spraying compliments around, he might like to mention Peter Truscott, a Member of the European Parliament, whom many of us remember holding a landmine at the Labour party conference four years ago and urging that the ban be part of Labour policy as soon as we formed a Government.

I am really willing to offer congratulations only to those people I know personally. As the hon. Gentleman is in congratulatory mode, he may seek to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

As the purpose of the Bill is clear, and is one for which there is universal support, the public will expect the House to proceed with dispatch. In a moment or two, I should like to remind the House of the scale of the problem, but let me deal first with clause 5, about which there is a genuine difference of legal interpretation. It might be the Attorney-General's view that mere presence at a discussion about the possibility of laying landmines might constitute an offence, but, in my legal experience, that is a somewhat novel proposition. I do not want to explore this issue in too much detail before we reach the appropriate stage of our proceedings, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but mere presence has never previously been regarded as sufficient to constitute a criminal offence.

The Foreign Secretary gave the example of the sapper. Someone who does not display what is called mens rea—a guilty intention—cannot be guilty of a crime. In the example that the right hon. Gentleman gave, the sapper clearly could not be guilty of a crime. The right hon. Gentleman said that the rules of engagement would be clear, and that British forces would know what was expected of them through the chain of command. What concerns us is that clause 5 provides a defence—that is its purpose—but that that defence is too wide. [Interruption.]

Order. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has been holding a conversation since he entered the Chamber. It is extremely unfair on any hon. Member who is speaking.

I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it is something that most of us have become used to.

The hon. and learned Gentleman is talking about a sapper building a bridge, and referring to what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said about the possibility of that sapper being involved in damages or court action arising out of his involvement with another country that was laying mines. The hon. and learned Gentleman talks about mens rea and so on. Is he trying to tell the House that in the middle of those activities, the sapper is going to have a copy of mens rea in his back pocket so that he knows what the law is? Get a life—join the real world! What my right hon. Friend is trying to do—although the hon. and learned Gentleman is a failed lawyer and cannot understand it—is to ensure that people are protected in law. That is the reason for clause 5.

I was always taught that the personal attack was pretty well an admission of the inadequacy of the merits of the case being made. There is a serious foreign affairs issue here. The Foreign Secretary referred to the possibility of British troops engaged in operations with United States troops. The only place where the United States deploys large numbers of landmines at present is the Korean peninsula. That leads to the interesting question whether we are seeking to pass the Bill as proposed in order to ensure that British troops might be protected, as the Government urge, in relation to operations on the Korean peninsula. That would be a very interesting foreign policy development which the Government have not made plain.

I said that I should like to deal to some extent with the scale of the problem. There are 100 million landmines currently deployed in 70 of the poorest countries. For every mine cleared, it is estimated that another 20 are laid. There is one landmine for every 16 children in the world, and one for every 48 adults. Angola and Cambodia have more than one mine per member of the population, and British-laid mines dating from the second world war still pose a problem in Saharan Africa.

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

No, I must make progress.

In Angola, one in every 334 people is a mine-related amputee. World wide, there are approximately 250,000 landmine amputees. The cost of treatment for such people is prohibitive. A child's prosthetic limb must be replaced every six months, and an adult's every three to five years. Over a 50-year lifespan, that equates to about 25 new prostheses. At around $125 each, that means a lifetime cost of well over $3,000. In countries where the monthly per capita income is about $20, that is unaffordable. Most victims face a lifetime on crutches.

The hon. Member for Shettleston referred to the economic cost. Livestock is killed as readily as people; agricultural land is rendered unusable, which leads to malnutrition and starvation; and the development of roads, railways, bridges and other elements of infrastructure is inhibited. It has been estimated that, without landmines, Afghanistan and Cambodia could increase agricultural production by up to 200 per cent.

I understand that the United Kingdom is to double its contribution to the demining effort. Our present level of support for that is of the order of £10 million a year; £20 million a year is clearly progress, but when we consider that Canada provides £45 million, Japan £50 million and Norway £75 million, it seems that we could try to be a little more generous.

I come to the Government's attitude on whether the laying of landmines should be a war crime. I agree that that is an issue, and would not readily leap to the position, as some have, of suggesting that the Government are behaving inappropriately or unreasonably in questioning the issue, which is clearly one of some importance. I hope that the Government will soon be able to tell us their thinking on the matter.

I have some reservations about the notion of extending the category of war crime on what is almost a request basis. War crimes are special and terrible crimes, and should be dealt with in a specific and serious manner. If we make every activity of which we disapprove a war crime, the consequence may be to reduce the significance of war crimes and the special way in which they should be dealt with.

As I said, I have some reservations about clause 5, which I hope to explore in due course. However, I have no doubt about the need for the United Kingdom to ratify the treaty. I have no doubt also that it is essential that the Bill should today pass through all its stages in our House.

10.30 am

I am very proud that a Labour Government are acting so swiftly to rid the world of landmines. Years before the Ottawa convention, people in the Labour party were always in the front-line of the battle to get rid of landmines. It is not a new issue for us. Even before it was party policy, many Labour Members who are today in the Chamber were fighting hard to rid the world of those horrible weapons. I started taking a special interest in the subject when I went to Cambodia, in 1987, and saw for myself the victims of landmines planted there.

I noted with interest the shadow Foreign Secretary's quibbling about various of the Bill's provisions, which he thinks do not quite hold together. It was interesting also that he did not mention one of the Ottawa's convention's most important flaws—that only a quarter of the world's states have signed up to it. The fact that three quarters of countries have not signed up to the convention is one of the biggest flaws in the whole process. I hope that, now that the United Kingdom is to ratify the convention, we will encourage many Commonwealth members also to ratify it.

I assure the hon. Lady that I share her concerns on that point. I mentioned those concerns in my speech.

I should like to take as an example Cambodia, with which I have been very involved over the years. It has 41,000 landmine victims—the highest ratio of mine amputees to population in the entire world. An estimated 5 million to 7 million mines were planted in Cambodia, which is about the same size as Britain.

Although I am sorry to introduce this note into the debate, I think that we should examine the history. In the 1980s, to our eternal shame, the United Kingdom Government were partly responsible for training the non-communist resistance in Cambodia—which included the Khmer Rouge—to lay landmines. We should not forget that, between 1983 and 1987, Britain's forces assisted in showing those forces how to maim innocent men, women and children. We therefore have a special responsibility in investing more money in demining, and also in leading the world in banning landmine use.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the previous Government's policy was not as stated by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who said that it was very similar to the current Government's policy? For several years, I worked on a landmines campaign with a non-governmental organisation—Oxfam—and remember very distinctly that the previous Government's policy was very much one of trying to ban the export rather than the production and stockpiling of landmines. Neither was their policy one of trying to ban the training or paraphernalia associated with landmine use. The previous Government's landmine policy was neither in line with the current Government's actions nor something on which they should be congratulated.

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who gained considerable experience when she worked with an aid agency on those very matters.

In 1989, I saw for myself the children, women and men who were injured by landmines in Cambodia. Some of them were begging pathetically in the dirty streets of Phnom Penh; others hobbled on one limb in dusty lanes in villages.

Some years later, a young Cambodian man called Tun Channareth, who was a civilian, spoke movingly at a London press conference—at which I am sure some of my hon. Friends were present. He spoke of the threat to his own people posed by the legacy of landmines in Cambodia left in the 1980s and before. He did not stand up to speak, as both his legs had been blown off by a landmine some years before. He said:

"Cambodia has no factories producing landmines, yet my country is full of them. How many more people have to lose limbs or their lives before the world wakes up to the need to ban landmines? I beg you again to ban these mines."

Whether a device was "dumb" or "smart" would have been completely irrelevant to Tun Channareth, as it would to the many hundreds of thousands of other landmine amputees in the world's former battle zones. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said, landmines are grotesque weapons. In all those countries, innocent victims—often small children—and not the military are principally the ones who are hurt by landmines.

Many hon. Members have mentioned Lord Deedes, and I am pleased to do the same. He said:

"I take the view that anti-personnel mines are a crime against humanity, which civilised nations should not touch with a barge pole."

John Pilger, in his book "Distant Voices", described some of the landmine victims he met:

"They are usually civilians, such as 23 year old Rong, a beautiful young woman lying in the hospital at Kompang Spen with her 3 year old infant beside her. When she stepped on a mine she fell into water and lay for three hours bleeding. When her father found her, he applied a tourniquet, carried her to the road and flagged down a motorcycle taxi. He took her to a 1st aid post; it was 7 hours before she got to hospital.

The mine that Rong stepped on had driven dirt and bacteria deep into the wound, causing infection to spread fast. The blood vessels had coagulated, and there was thrombosis high up in her leg. Had she been able to get into hospital quickly, her leg might have been saved.

'I knew there were mines around', she said. 'Every day I was in fear of them. But the work has to be done.'"

Her story is like so many others in countries infested with landmines.

Asia Watch described the after effects of amputation:

"Nearly every aspect of a Cambodian's life is set to the rhythm of rice cultivation—the flooding, the planting, the re-planting and harvesting. It is very labour intensive—and a person who is physically disabled can become a burden.

Female amputees are less desirable as wives because they cannot work in the fields and male amputees are now allowed to become Buddhist monks. Many amputees drift to Phnom Penh and become beggars or petty criminals."

In September 1991, Asia Watch, in its report "Land Mines in Cambodia—the Coward's War", noted that Cambodia has

"the highest percentage of mine amputees of any country—the highest percentage of physically disabled inhabitants of any country in the world…for every victim who makes it to hospital another will die in the fields.

These grim statistics mean that the Cambodian war may be the first in history in which landmines have gained more victims than any other weapon."

The Red Cross recently said that landmines are

"fighters that never miss, strike blindly, do not carry weapons openly and go on killing long after hostilities are ended."

In short, mines are the greatest violators of international humanitarian law. They are the most ruthless terrorists.

When Diana, Princess of Wales went to Angola last January, she gave the Red Cross campaign an enormous boost. The pictures of the princess wearing body armour and a helmet with a visor learning how to demine caught the world's attention. While she was in Angola, she was criticised by certain Conservative Members. I have been campaigning against the use of landmines for many years and I have written three reports on the subject. I was so angry that the princess was being criticised for making a humanitarian gesture that I tabled the following early-day motion:

"That this House congratulates Diana, Princess of Wales, for effectively highlighting the tragic humanitarian consequences of Her Majesty's Government's refusal to completely ban the production and use of landmines; and notes with dismay the reported churlish response from Government Ministers on her efforts."

It was signed by 73 right hon. and hon. Members in the previous Parliament.

I sent the princess a copy of the early-day motion and one day I was sitting in my office when I received a telephone call from Kensington palace inviting me to have coffee with her. I spent an hour and a half with her at Kensington palace. She said how pleased she was that so many hon. Members had signed the early-day motion. When I said that she had done more than anyone else to highlight the importance of the landmines issue, she smiled shyly and said, "I will go anywhere if I can do some good." She was self-deprecating as she laughed at herself and said, "Have passport, will travel."

Originally, the princess had wanted to go to Cambodia, but the Foreign Office had told her that it was unsafe. I said that I had been there twice with Oxfam and she said that she was keen to go there as soon as possible. We discussed the role that Britain had played in planting some of the mines in Cambodia and the attitude of various countries towards landmines. She said with some disgust that our ambassador in Angola did not even know what a landmine looked like and that she thought that the briefing she had been given was not very good. I was impressed by her knowledge, intelligence, friendliness and capacity for self-deprecation. We talked about going to northern Iraq and the possibility of her coming to the House to meet hon. Members with a common interest in landmines. Hon. Members will be aware that she made an attempt to come here and talk about landmines, but, because of the attitude of the Conservative party, she cancelled her visit. That was a great pity, and Conservative Members should feel extremely guilty about it.

Finally, many of us who have campaigned for a long time on the issue feel that we are making an important start. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and all his ministerial colleagues who have been so active in achieving agreement on the Ottawa convention and have been at the forefront of the campaign. I hope that they will continue to do so until the scourge of landmines, which has claimed the lives of so many ordinary people throughout the world, is finally eliminated.

10.43 am

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). We agree on a surprising number of issues and I pay tribute to the way in which she highlighted many atrocities throughout the world. Today, she has highlighted the atrocities that landmines indiscriminately inflict on innocent civilians.

The House is united in that none of us likes anti-personnel mines. I would be astonished if anyone did, as it would be rather like saying that one liked the devil. However, when the House is united, logic does not come into play as much as it might. I should like to give something of a soldier's perspective on landmines and the Bill.

I remember sitting in a vehicle in a minefield in the Gulf. Indeed, a successor of mine as company commander in the Coldstream Guards had the wheel of his trailer blown off by an anti-personnel mine. Someone sitting in a minefield is not tempted to get out and walk and if they are in a vehicle they must follow very closely in the tracks of the vehicle in front. It is very unpleasant—it is designed to be.

At least two of the 16 fatalities in the Gulf resulted from anti-personnel mines. They did not involve front-line soldiers but lorry drivers who got out of their lorries and trod on mines. In Bosnia, about six soldiers have been killed by anti-personnel mines.

I have seen the effects elsewhere. I remember seeing a mujaheddin on a pony coming down a pass from the Afghan border. I was with a Swiss doctor from the International Committee of the Red Cross. It was amazing that the victim managed to survive and travel by pony to the nearest hospital, which was about 50 miles away. I hope that he survived when he got there. I visited a refugee camp in Peshawar and saw the poor civilians who had escaped from Afghanistan without limbs. When I was with the Swiss doctor I attended an operation on a landmine victim who had gangrene. It was extremely unpleasant.

In the Falklands, I was the staff officer responsible for the small Royal Engineers detachment that supervises the mines left over from the war of 1982. They gave up clearing the mines in about 1984 because several soldiers had lost their legs. The Falklands are pretty empty and it was thought better to let the mines drift around in the peat and sand rather than risk people's lives by clearing them—and that is quite right. A device has been developed that I think is called the Red Eye. It is a little wheelbarrow-type machine that is operated by remote control and burns the plastic mines that are undetectable with mine detectors. They go puff as the explosive burns. Some areas in the Falkland islands will be closed for ever unless they have to be cleared because we have ratified the convention.

In the Army, I was trained in the tactical use of anti-personnel mines. It is important for the House to understand why many soldiers value them. Quite simply, they protect the forces. Most armies use them only in defensive positions, when they are extremely useful, especially when they are outnumbered. We have heard about the the Americans in Korea. If the Soviet hordes had crossed the inner German border we would have used anti-personnel mines extensively. They are a valued weapon and, until now, they have always been considered legitimate. The British doctrine is always to cover obstacles such as anti-personnel mines; otherwise, someone can quite easily breach them. They have been part of our defensive armoury and our tactics. The Secretary of State for Defence may say that senior Army officers now say that they can survive quite happily without them, but, if there were to be another major conflict, we might feel the lack of them.

Landmines certainly have drawbacks from a military point of view. They deny the ground not only to the enemy but to one's own troops. If they get thrown off a position, they can end up stuck in their own minefield, which is pretty unpleasant. Furthermore, landmines are not failsafe. In 1945, in the dash to Berlin, the Soviet Union marched its penal battalions in front of its other troops and I believe that it lost 10,000 people to landmines in the month before reaching Berlin.

I have also seen the inner German border and the Berlin wall before the iron curtain was lifted. It was covered with landmines—not to keep us out, but to keep people who did not like socialism in. We should remember that.

We have heard about the problem, so I will not dwell on it, but it is not a British problem, notwithstanding what the hon. Member for Cynon Valley said. The problem is the indiscriminate use of landmines. The United Kingdom has not exported landmines since 1982. They do not threaten civilians in Angola and elsewhere if they are sitting in a bunker somewhere in Aldershot. No British anti-personnel mines are sitting in the ground threatening civilians anywhere.

The hon. and learned Member who spoke for the Liberals referred to landmines in the Sahara. I think that they are all anti-tank mines, although I may be wrong. They are certainly metal mines. Furthermore, British troops have been taught, as I was, to mark minefields. That is part of international law. We want to clear them because we want the land back if we are in a defensive position.

The Halo Trust has been mentioned by several hon. Members. One should remember that it was formed by a former Conservative Member of Parliament, Colin Mitchell.

I mentioned him.

The hon. and learned Gentleman did not mention his party. I once had an interview with Colin Mitchell about going out to Kabul to work for the Halo Trust, where it has done immensely good work. I have many friends who have worked for it. However, we should be under no doubt that the Halo Trust—I have spoken to it—has never found one British anti-personnel mine in its clearing of hundreds of thousands. It may have missed them, but not one has been found.

As hon. Members may know, in the Afghan conflict the Soviet Union went up and down the border with Pakistan to stop the mujaheddin getting in. It threw out from helicopters between 4 million and 5 million butterfly mines, which arm as they go down. They are all plastic, so they cannot be found. They look rather pretty, so children like them. Not many can have been cleared, so 4 million to 5 million must be left. I should point out that it is not possible to mark a minefield from a helicopter.

In Cambodia, Bosnia and Angola, millions of mines have been laid indiscriminately. The vast majority come from Russia, the former eastern bloc and China. Russia and China are not ratifying the convention. Furthermore, many landmines, especially in Bosnia, are home made, as hon. Members may have seen. One can make landmines in a workshop in the garden or in the kitchen. All that is needed is a string, a trigger, a box and a bit of plastic explosive.

Laying landmines is a favourite tactic of what some people call freedom fighters. The Viet Cong specialised in the use of booby traps, as does the IRA. I have had friends killed by home-made anti-personnel devices in Northern Ireland. So how will the Bill enforce the ban in, for example, Northern Ireland? I would love to see IRA criminals put on war crimes trials, but the House has just passed a measure that will let people convicted of such crimes out of prison within the next couple of years. We should look at that dichotomy.

Well, the hon. Gentleman voted for it.

The hon. Gentleman, voluble as always, bangs on saying that I voted for it. I did not.

Everyone did.

Order.

So what is the point of the Bill? Is it to set a good example? We are all for that, but who will follow our example? Not, I suspect, UNITA or the Khmer Rouge, if it still exists, or the Taliban or the IRA. So what are we doing in the Bill? In my opinion, we shall be withdrawing a legitimate means of protecting our soldiers, who, to my knowledge, have not misused anti-personnel mines within my lifetime in the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] We hear a lot of barracking from the Labour Benches, but three quarters of countries do not consider that the Bill is a sensible move because they have not ratified the convention. If everyone ratified the convention, it would be marvellous, but many other countries are not considering doing so at the moment. Perhaps they will, following our example.

I fear that we may expose our public servants to danger. In every defence debate, Labour Members extol our public servants in the armed forces and say how well they work for us. One day, our public servants may value anti-personnel mines to protect them.

The hon. Gentleman raises from his military experience some interesting points. Clearly this is a matter of great relevance to the armed forces. How does he react to the fact that the shadow Secretary of State for Defence has not even bothered to turn up today?

My hon. Friend must speak for himself, but I can only assume that he has a long-standing constituency engagement that he was unable to break. The Secretary of State will note that the House is not packed on either side. Out of 400-odd Labour Members, only about 20 are present, so the Secretary of State's argument is not particularly good.

I should say to the Secretary of State, as he intervened, that I just hope that there is never an occasion on which British soldiers are left exposed and die because they do not have anti-personnel mines in their armoury. Only on Wednesday, the Secretary of State made a very good riposte to one of his hon. Friends who argued that Britain should ban nuclear weapons to set a good example. He said that it was fine to set good examples, but not much good following them. It seems to me that that argument could be used in this debate.

Hon. Members may have read a letter from the director of the Halo Trust in The Daily Telegraph. He said that it was marvellous that anti-personnel mines might be banned. He said that there were conferences here, there and everywhere, but he wished that, instead of spending money on air tickets, people would spend it on mine clearance. I pay tribute to the Government for increasing the amount of money that is being spent on clearance. Money is the core of the problem.

I am not against the Bill, but some things need to be aired. We need to look at the matter from all angles. It is worrying when the House is united. If there is not discussion of all the arguments, we sometimes pass extraordinary measures. In my limited experience of six years, I have seen one or two, and I know that others who have been here longer have seen one or two others. The Child Support Agency floats immediately to the top of the pile.

The problem that the world faces is clearing the mines. The hon. and learned Member for Invernesshire—

North-East Fife. Inverness is about two hundred miles away.

Geography was never my strong point. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that 20 mines were laid for every mine that was cleared. Yes, we have to stop mines being laid, but we have to do more clearance.

I do not believe that the Bill will help civilians throughout the world who are being killed. I do not believe that it will encourage China, Russia or others whose mines are being used to stop producing them. I would welcome a world without landmines and nuclear weapons, but I am not entirely sure that the Bill will further that aim.

10.57 am

With the leave of the House, I should like simply to say how sorry I am that we have not had time for more Second Reading speeches from the Back Benches. We have had two notable speeches—from the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and from my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan)—and it is a shame that there was not time for more. I make it plain again that the official Opposition support the spirit of the Ottawa convention and will not obstruct the passage of the Bill, but we will continue to explore, during the Committee stage, the inconsistency between the Bill and the convention.

10.58 am

With the leave of the House, I shall reply briefly to the debate. To respond to the point that the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) has just made, I am sure that, in the remaining three and a half hours, there will be adequate time for the three Conservative Back Benchers in the Chamber to speak.

Perhaps I may respond to the questions that the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked in his opening speech to which I have not already responded in our exchanges. It is the case that the Ottawa convention and therefore the Bill bans all anti-personnel mines, whether or not they are associated with anti-tank mines. The JP233 and the Gator mine are caught by the Ottawa convention.

The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) touched on the serious problems of lifting mines that we face in the Falklands. Work was suspended because it was judged that the casualties were too high for the game. Nevertheless, we are seeking a feasibility study on how we can proceed with the best available technology to lift those mines.

Will the Secretary of State give way?

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, we have an agreement to finish by four minutes past 11, and I have a few points to make.

The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe asked about the cost of destroying our stockpile. The Government, as a matter of policy, are carrying that out in any case, so it is not a cost that arises directly from the Bill. However, for the record, the cost of destroying Britain's stockpile of landmines will be some £5 million. I hope that that helps to answer the right hon. and learned Gentleman's question. I could of course say that if he had accepted our offer of a technical briefing yesterday, some of his questions could have been answered then.

The House has already heard extensive arguments about clause 5, but what I have listened to leads me to expect that it is about to hear them again. The only point that I now make in response to that debate is that several hon. Members have rightly mentioned the extreme courage and dedication shown by members of the British Army when they carry out operations to lift landmines. I do not think that we can praise them for showing that courage and dedication and then leave them in any doubt about whether they may be liable for a prison sentence, not because they have deployed landmines but because they have taken part in an exercise in which someone else has deployed landmines. The least that we owe to those whom we ask to put their lives at risk is that we will not put their liberty at risk.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Very briefly.

If a British soldier comes before a court for being in breach of the convention, will it be a civil court, a criminal court, a court martial or an international court?

I am advised by my right hon. and hon. Friends that in the event of British soldiers being brought to trial for any offence under the statute, there would be a court martial.

A number of hon. Members have taken part in the debate, but I cannot say with immense confidence that every one them supported the Bill; I have reservations about making such an assertion simply because I was not quite clear on which side the hon. Member for Blaby came down at the end of his speech. I hope that the hon. Gentleman managed to persuade himself to support the Bill.

The others who took part in the debate fully and strongly supported the Bill. I entirely accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) about the fact that the most urgent priority now is to widen the signatories and those who have ratified the Ottawa convention so that it embraces not only the 126 countries that have already signed but the remaining countries, especially those who are large producers and exporters of landmines.

I agreed with many of the points made by the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell). Among other things, he asked whether the laying of landmines should be included as a war crime within the scope of the international criminal court. I understand why some people argue for that. In principle, it would not necessarily cause Britain great problems—but Britain is also one of the leading advocates of the international criminal court and is in the front rank of those trying to secure progress towards that court at the current conference in Rome. I do not think that it would be helpful in persuading other countries, especially America, to sign up to the international criminal court if we wrapped that up with this controversy too.

rose—

I shall give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman on this occasion, as I have mentioned him, but this must be the last time I give way.

I am most grateful to the Secretary of State for responding so positively to my point. In the same context, may I say that I support and greatly admire the robust stance that the Government are taking with regard to the independence of the prosecutor for an international criminal court?

I am glad that I gave way to the hon. and learned Gentleman so that he could put that point on the record.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) spoke eloquently and movingly, and rightly drew attention to the immense contribution made on this issue, and to the campaigns associated with it, by Diana, Princess of Wales. Like my hon. Friend, I wish that Princess Diana's bold statements had been as welcome on both sides of the House while she was alive, and not only when she died.

We can all be proud of Britain's record on this issue. In one year, we have halved our stockpile of landmines and doubled the contribution that we make to lifting landmines throughout the world. Britain played a leading part in the negotiations on the Ottawa convention: we signed it on the first day it was open for signature and we now have the opportunity to be among the first 40 countries to bring it into legal force. The way to do that is to give the Bill a Second Reading and to complete its remaining stages today. I commend that task to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills),

That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Pope.]

Question agreed to.

Further proceedings postponed, pursuant to Order [3 July].

Landmines Bill Money

Queen's recommendation having been signified—

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a),

That, for the purpose of any Act resulting from the Landmines Bill, it is expedient to authorise—
(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenses of the Secretary of State incurred in consequence of the Act;
(2) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of sums received by the Secretary of State in consequence of the Act.—[Mr. Pope.]

Question agreed to.

Landmines Bill

Considered in Committee.

[MR. MICHAEL J. MARTIN in the Chair]

Clause 1

Mines And Components To Which Act Applies

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

11.4 am

As we have now moved into Committee, we shall have some opportunity to scrutinise the Bill more closely, although, in the restricted time available, it may not be possible to explore exhaustively matters that deserve detailed attention. Indeed, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) has expressed the wish, which I endorse, that those matters be pursued in greater depth in another place—not least because of the significance of what we are doing today, not only to those who have campaigned so vigorously for the abolition of anti-personnel mines, but for our own forces, who rely on weapons to preserve both life and liberty.

It would not be a fitting tribute to those campaigners, including Diana, Princess of Wales, if we produced poor legislation in an attempt, however well intentioned, to rush the Bill through.

If ever there was a case for a pre-legislative hearing, this Bill presents one. As a member of the Defence Select Committee, I regret that that Committee did not have time to examine the minutiae—although I take the opportunity to congratulate the Library on the speed with which it managed to produce a briefing note on the subject. With a measure such as this, where there is a conflict between the heart and the head, it is vital to consider the military implications, so I regret the fact that the Defence Select Committee did not have the opportunity to consider the matter before the Bill was brought forward.

My hon. Friend's remarks speak for themselves, and I support what he said about the Library. I hope that when I raise issues under clause 1, the Minister will not tell me that things would be better if I had attended the briefing session. Like many other hon. Members on both sides of the House, I believe that it is important for such matters to be discussed as a matter of record, in the open, rather than dealt with behind closed doors.

The Minister will appreciate the fact that we have not tabled amendments to the clause, but in the stand part debate I hope to give him the opportunity to explore a little of the thinking behind the definitions in the clause and to clarify what is included within the parameters of the legislation. It is important to everyone who is closely observing the passage of the Bill that we establish beyond doubt what is covered and what is not. That need has been illustrated by some of the discussions on Second Reading.

The definitions in the clause draw on the definitions in article 2 of the Ottawa convention, but they are not identical, and go beyond the convention. Will the Minister tell us why he considered it necessary to improve on the provisions of the convention, and whether these improvements are likely to be incorporated by other signatories to the convention?

I understand that the Government are not proceeding with the future anti-personnel scatterable mine project; I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that that is the case. However, given that the Government are supposed to be procuring 29 vehicle-launched scatterable anti-tank mine systems known as Shielder, manufactured by Alliant Techsystems, will the Minister first confirm that procurement, and secondly, clarify the status of those systems in relation to the Bill?

The variety of scatterable mines produced by Alliant Techsystems is comprehensive, and includes those used in the Gator system, which has already been referred to, the m128 vehicle-towed mine dispenser—the GEMSS system—the Volcano multiple delivery system and several others. Those mines contain similar fusing, arming and functioning mechanisms and have interchangeable and compatible components. They all belong to the family of scatterable mines or FASCAM.

The same company that produces those mines also produces the Shielder mine, and the technology is obviously similar. Can the Minister confirm the status of the Shielder mines under the Bill, and tell me whether any components could fall foul of the provisions, or whether he is satisfied that nothing in the Bill prohibits the use of those mines? Can the Minister further clarify the issue and say whether an anti-disturbance fuse will be fitted to those mines? If an anti-handling device is fitted, surely that achieves the effect of turning the device into an anti-personnel mine? An explanation would assist me, the House and those who have raised the matter with me.

Command-detonated mines such as the M18A1 Claymore mine are currently exempt from the landmine ban, as they are command-detonated by electrical means. However, I understand that the Army, under ministerial clearance, could fit those mines with trip-wire booby trap switches. That could be authorised at a time of war by Government and almost any booby trap switch could be fitted to those mines.

Can the Minister tell me how he perceives the Claymore mines and whether he intends to alter the discretionary ministerial powers in any way, or to retain them for the sake of the efficacy of our armed services? In other words, can he confirm that nothing in the Bill will prevent a Minister from authorising the conversion of those mines into anti-personnel mines?

I do not want to detain the House, but it would be helpful to observers if the Minister could answer those questions. Perhaps he would also consider producing for the House a list of mines currently held in the United Kingdom or in the process of being procured, and identify whether they are banned by the legislation or excluded and, if the latter, the reason for that exclusion. That would go some way towards clarifying the definitions in clause 1.

I add my support for the Bill to the support of my right hon. and hon. Friends, but I hope that the Minister will amplify those points, which will help with the interpretation of the Bill.

I was a little surprised at the mean-spirited way in which the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) introduced her remarks. In view of the consensus on the need to introduce the Bill, it is a shame that an offer to brief the shadow Foreign and Defence Secretaries and their teams should be treated as an attempt to lull the Opposition into a false sense of security.

My voice is failing, as I have a very sore throat, but I have never been called mean-spirited from the Dispatch Box in the House of Commons. I was being extremely open. I welcome the provisions of the Bill, but, like every observer of the Bill, including Labour Members, I believe that the details deserve proper and open discussion in the forum of the House. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his remark, as I am not being mean-spirited in any sense.

Order. My concern is that the Committee should concentrate on clause 1.

Urged by you to make haste, Mr. Martin, I shall pass beyond the hon. Lady's exhortations.

Matters of definition are of the utmost importance, and there is an explicit distinction in the Ottawa convention between anti-personnel landmines and anti-tank mines. That is also clear in the Government's approach.

Some of the hon. Lady's questions about definition could properly have been answered at the technical briefing. It is equally proper to raise technical questions on the Floor of the House. There is no contradiction, as I hope the House will accept.

The Shielder system is not caught by the provisions of the treaty or of our own legislation, so it is effectively exempt. Inevitably, component parts would also be exempt under the Bill, as they would be components not of an anti-personnel landmine, but of an anti-tank mine. I hope that provides the reassurance that the hon. Lady seeks.

11.15 am

The United Kingdom does not have, and will not acquire, the Gator system. The Gator system is not part of the Shielder system, so the question does not arise whether Gator is a component part and whether it is legal under the Bill.

That illustrates the problems that the House faces. The Shielder system may be designed to blow up vehicles, but in practice it will blow up people. It has a highly sensitive magnetic fuse, which can easily be set off by a person walking close to it. If the Government are to spend £62 million buying those weapons, we should be clear that they will not suddenly be deemed to be illegal under the convention.

The hon. Gentleman is technically wrong. Anti-handling devices—anti-tamper devices—are not operable in the same way as an anti-personnel landmine, by simple contact. Significantly more than that is required. It is not the sensitive device that the hon. Gentleman describes, but a much more robust system, which gives a different type of protection. It is important for the House to understand that there is not just a clear conceptual distinction, but a clear practical difference between the two. For those reasons, anti-handling devices on anti-tank mines do not fall within the remit of the Bill or the Ottawa convention.

I am happy to give way to the hon. Lady if I have not responded to all her questions, but I hope that I have demonstrated that technical queries can be fully answered on the Floor of the House. There is no reason to suggest that we are making slow progress, although we may be about to enter such a phase.

One of the reasons why we are anxious to take the matter on the Floor of the House is that many technical experts who are involved in charities, such as the Mines Advisory Group, have asked the Ministry of Defence for technical details of the fusing mechanisms, to ascertain whether an anti-disturbance fuse is fitted, and that information has been denied to them on the ground that it is classified.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that we should make classified information available. Consistent with the need to protect our defence systems, the Ministry of Defence will make technical information available to the various interest groups, and has already done so.

indicated assent.

My right hon. Friend confirms that, so there can be no suggestion of an attempt to obstruct the progress of the Bill or to stifle national debate by failing to provide such information.

The Ministry of Defence makes classified material available to the Defence Select Committee, which reinforces the argument for a pre-legislative inquiry into the matter. When the measure reaches the other place, I hope that a Select Committee will take evidence from experts—particularly regarding the military matters mentioned in the discussion—rather than plunging headlong into debates on the Floor of the Chamber without the necessary technical back-up.

I have sought confirmation from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence who, like all members of the Cabinet, is more than willing to attend meetings of the various Select Committees. Hon. Members may recall that that was a matter of debate across the House when my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made clear the pleasure that he derives from appearing before Select Committees. The Secretary of State for Defence is happy to make information available to the Select Committee, but he informs me that no such invitation has been received.

We are now many months into the debate on anti-personnel landmines. It is not a new issue, and the types of systems that we are discussing this morning are not new. These technical questions could have been asked, but they were not. My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary offered to give precisely that sort of technical briefing to the Opposition. That would have been a sensible way to proceed, but I record once again the fact that that invitation was not accepted.

Will the Minister confirm that he is now offering to provide an answer to my question about the anti-disturbance fuse on the Shielder mines and will give such information to the Select Committee? The Mines Advisory Group has not received a reply to that question, and the Minister has not clarified the issue in his remarks this morning.

I have answered the hon. Lady already. However, for the sake of simplicity and so that there is no misunderstanding on her part, I shall try again.

The Shielder system will not detonate if merely touched inadvertently. That information is available to the Committee this morning. My right hon. and hon. Friends in the Ministry of Defence sent two long letters about that issue to precisely the sort of groups that the hon. Lady claims have not received any answers. The information is already in the public domain, but I shall put it on the record again this morning. Far from the Government's attempting to hide information from the Committee or the public, there has been a remarkable lack of interest on the part of Opposition Members regarding those technical questions. Nevertheless, we are happy to have spent 11 minutes answering the full range of technical questions posed by Opposition Members.

I cannot believe that the Minister has sat down; I fully expected him to speak for longer. He has singularly failed to answer my questions. He has not even mentioned Claymore mines or booby traps, and he has not responded to my request as to whether a list could be produced in order to clarify the situation for outside organisations. It is one of the most unsatisfactory responses that I have received from a Minister at the Dispatch Box. The Minister has failed to brief himself about this issue. He has been taking copious verbal briefings from his colleagues on the Front Bench, and the record will show that he has failed to answer the questions posed very reasonably from this side of the Chamber.

I am seeking information, not just for myself and the Committee, but for observers outside who will be disappointed by the Minister's reply. I shall give the Minister an opportunity to study my remarks and to write to me before the Bill reaches the other place.

Mean-spirited.

I am not being mean-spirited; it is not in my nature. However, those matters must be answered fully and I hope that the Minister will write to me. He may not be fully briefed in these areas and the matters are technical and complex, as my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Mr. Colvin) pointed out. However, we owe the observers of these proceedings the details that I have requested.

On 9 July, the Mines Advisory Group wrote to the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples), and said:

"MAG has asked the MOD for technical details of the fusing mechanism to ascertain whether an Anti-Disturbance fuse is fitted. This has been denied to us under the title of 'classified information'. We have assurances that no Anti-Personnel mines will be procured with the new Shielder System but an Anti-Handling device will achieve that effect anyway."

I am only as good as the briefings that I get, but that is pretty unambiguous. I hope that the Minister will address that issue in a letter to me, as he could not do so verbally on the Floor of the Chamber.

Some moments ago, I invited the hon. Lady to intervene if she believed that I had not answered her questions. As she did not take up my offer at the time, I was rather surprised when she rose to say that I had not answered her questions.

It is important to establish several points exactly. The Defence Select Committee sent a list of detailed questions to the Ministry of Defence, and it received proper answers. The Mines Advisory Group received two long and detailed replies from the Ministry of Defence in answer to its questions. As the hon. Lady said, she is only as good as the briefings that she receives. However, if she had accepted the briefing offered by my hon. Friends, she would have received the information that is already in the public domain and which was provided to the Mines Advisory Group.

The Claymore system—this seems to be the last of the hon. Lady's preoccupations—is exempt because it is a command control system, and therefore is not detonated by physical contact. I shall undertake to examine the record and, if any questions have not been answered, I shall almost certainly write to the hon. Lady well before proceedings in another place. If the hon. Lady prefers to put down parliamentary questions, I or my hon. Friends will ensure that the information is available. The hon. Lady seems to be preoccupied with the private briefing that she has already rejected, but most of the information is already in the public domain.

I have a certain sympathy with the Minister, and I direct this question to him and the Foreign Secretary. Is it not about time that arms control matters were handled by the Ministry of Defence rather than by the Foreign Office, because the Minister is receiving all his answers this morning from the Secretary of State for Defence?

That is a quite astonishing proposition for several reasons.

Order. That matter is far too wide of the clause that we are considering.

I shall not explain my astonishment, but it may assist the Committee if I were to assure hon. Members that Ministers in the Defence team will participate in the Committee's proceedings. I assure hon. Members that they have been closely involved in the deliberations in the run-up to Britain's acceptance of the Ottawa convention and in the detailed work that has been done since then. The idea that the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence should work separately on such issues would command little support elsewhere. With that, I trust that I have answered the questions. It has taken a little longer than I originally suggested. It has now taken about 18 minutes to answer the Opposition's detailed questions on all the technical aspects of these matters. I think that that shows that the detailed examination of the Bill that they want has now been achieved.

What about the matter of ministerial clearance for booby trapping the mines that I raised?

I have already undertaken to ensure that all outstanding matters will be answered either by myself or by Defence Ministers. Those answers can be placed in the public domain. That is a perfectly reasonable answer to the hon. Lady, to the House of Commons and to the wider world. I trust that with that we can now make progress.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Prohibited Conduct

11.30 am

I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 2, line 8, leave out 'to' and insert ', 4 and'.

With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 3, in clause 5, page 4, line 31, leave out from 'to' to 'the' in line 32 and insert

'active assistance in any activity prohibited under'.

Amendment No. 4, in page 4, line 37, leave out

'was not the laying of an anti-personnel mine'

and insert

'did not involve active assistance in any activity prohibited under the Ottawa Convention'.

Amendment No. 5, in page 5, line 7, leave out from 'Convention' to end of line 8.

Clause 5 stand part.

I shall begin by disposing of one of the red herrings which the Foreign Secretary, who I am sorry to say has left us, attempted to put into our path during our earlier discussions. It is an instructive red herring. The right hon. Gentleman sought to imply that clause 5 was in some way associated with the ability of British service men to undertake operations that would have the effect of destroying, clearing or dismantling landmines. Clause 5 has absolutely nothing to do with that. There is a separate exemption in the Bill for those operations, which is to be found in clause 4. We have absolutely no problem with clause 4. Indeed, that clause matches and mirrors article 3 of the Ottawa convention. That is precisely what one would expect to find in this legislation—a match between the provisions of the Bill and the provisions of the convention.

The trouble with clause 5 is that it is not matched or mirrored in any way by anything in the convention. I shall make it clear for the avoidance of any doubt that the amendment, together with amendment No. 3 to clause 5, has been tabled so that we can debate the hole at the heart of the legislation. We do not say that there is no military argument to justify the exemption from the provisions of the convention that clause 5 seeks to provide. It may be interesting and illustrative that the impression I gain from those on the Government Front Bench is that the debate will be replied to by a Defence Minister and not a Foreign Office Minister.

We say, and our charge is, that it has always been the practice of Her Majesty's Government to honour the provisions of treaties and conventions that they have signed. We say that if the Government now find compelling the military arguments that we shall no doubt hear from the Secretary of State for Defence or the Minister for the Armed Forces, which have led them to insert clause 5, they should have found them compelling when they came to sign up to the convention in December 1997. It is the contradictions between the convention and the Bill's provisions on which we seek to focus attention, and they are the thrust of the debate.

On Second Reading, I read out the provisions of the convention. I do not intend to read out article 1.1 again. The effect of article 1.1 is absolutely clear, unequivocal and explicit. It permits no assistance to be given to any party that is not a signatory to the convention when the forces of that country are taking part in activities that are prohibited by the convention. According to article 1.1, if troops of Britain find themselves together in military operations with troops of the United States or of Turkey—a fellow member of NATO—or any other country that is not a signatory to the convention, they are not permitted to assist those forces in the activities that are prohibited by the convention—that is, anything to do with the laying of landmines. That is what the convention provides.

Clause 5 seeks to permit certain activities that would otherwise constitute an offence. In other words, it purports to permit activities that are contrary to the convention. Let us consider the relevant provisions in clause 5. The relevant part of the clause is subsection (2), which reads:

"In proceedings for a section 2 offence in respect of any conduct"—

that is, any conduct that would otherwise be prohibited by this legislation—

"it is a defence for the accused to prove that…the conduct was in the course of, or for the purposes of, a military operation or the planning of a military operation".

We have no problem with that. The subsection continues by providing that

"the conduct was not the laying of an anti-personnel mine".

That is the only specific conduct that is prohibited by the clause. The subsection continues by providing that

"at the time of the conduct he believed, on reasonable grounds, that the operation was or would be an operation to which this section applies; and he did not suspect, and had no grounds for suspecting, that the conduct related to the laying of anti-personnel mines in contravention of the Ottawa convention."

That is what subsection (2) states. It is made clear elsewhere in the clause that if the activity is by forces of a country that is not a signatory to the convention, according to the Bill, that is not activity in contravention of the convention.

What does all that mean? It means that a range of activity expressly prohibited under the Ottawa convention is permitted under the terms of the Bill. It means that if British forces were engaged in joint operations with a non-signatory state such as the United States, clause 5 would enable British service men to procure a landmine, to transfer it to the battlefield, to transport it to the precise spot where they thought that it should be laid and to point to that very spot before handing the object over to the Americans and asking them to place the object in the ground. British forces could then modify or adapt the landmine. They could even prime it. That is what clause 5 would permit. The only activity that is prohibited in the course of those joint operations by clause 5 is the actual laying of the landmine itself, which is identified in clause 5(2).

There may be military justification to permit such activities. However, it is absolutely clear that those acts would be in complete contravention of article 1 of the Ottawa convention. It is—[Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the Secretary of State for Defence talks about rules of engagement. That is completely beside the point. We are talking not about rules of engagement but about legislation. It may well be that the Government will issue rules of engagement that will prohibit the activities to which I have referred. The point is that the legislation before us would permit them to make entirely different rules of engagement. It is no answer to my argument that the Government intend to make rules of engagement that have a different effect. We must consider the legislation that is before the House of Commons, and that legislation would enable all the activities to which I have referred to take place.

It is no use Ministers saying either that they will not permit those activities according to rules of engagement or that there is a powerful military justification for those activities. If that is the case, they should have thought of that military justification when the convention was negotiated and should, if they felt it necessary, have put forward amendments to the convention. I hope that we shall be told during the debate whether the Government sought to table any amendments to the convention to give effect to clause 5, which would permit activity that is completely in breach of the convention.

British forces throughout the world will be listening with great interest to what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is saying. The rules of engagement, which this or any other Government would lay down, do not force soldiers to do anything; they permit. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is implying that, despite the Government's signing the convention, passing the Bill and laying down rules of engagement, the honour of British forces would be impugned by activities in which they would be willing to engage in breach of all those things. That is a scurrilous and disgraceful implication and I hope that he withdraws it immediately.

That is a disgraceful intervention. It is the honour of the Government that is at stake, not the honour of British forces. I would never do anything to impugn the honour of British forces.

It is a disgraceful allegation—[Interruption.]

Order. Hon. Members must calm down. We have the ability to debate these matters in a reasonable manner. I cannot allow arguments across the Floor of the Committee.

The Minister's intervention shows how little he understands about the Bill's provisions. We are concerned about the legislation.

If the Government say that they would never issue rules of engagement that would take advantage of clause 5, why is it in the Bill? Why on earth do the provisions in the Bill not match what the Government say they will set out in the rules of engagement? The Government cannot have it all ways. They must match the provisions of the Bill to those of the convention.

If the Bill is passed unamended, what would be the nature of the instrument of ratification lodged by the British Government in respect of the convention? Would that instrument of ratification have to contain some reservation or condition in the light of clause 5?

The hon. and learned Gentleman makes an excellent point. I intended to raise it later in my remarks, but I am content to adopt it because I do not want to prolong my speech. It is a pertinent question and I hope that it will be answered during the debate.

I remind the Committee of the provisions of article 9 of the convention, which states:

"Each State Party shall take all appropriate legal, administrative and other measures, including the imposition of penal sanctions, to prevent and suppress any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention undertaken by persons or on territory under its jurisdiction or control."

I assume that the Bill is the means by which the Government seek to give effect to article 9. It is the way in which the Government seek to prohibit by British forces activity that is prohibited by the convention. That is why the Government are in breach of their duties under the convention and are putting before the House legislation that is at variance with the terms of the convention.

11.45 am

When did the Government first become aware of the arguments that led them to insert clause 5? Was the Ministry of Defence consulted before the Government signed the convention? Did not the Ministry of Defence then make clear its reservations about joint operations with countries that did not sign the convention? Were those reservations simply ignored by the Foreign Office when it came to negotiate the convention, or did it try to amend the convention to reflect the concerns of the Ministry of Defence? Did it fail? Those questions lie at the heart of the inconsistency with which the Government are approaching the matter, and we must have answers to them.

It is a matter of deep regret that the Attorney-General is no longer with us—

Where is the shadow Attorney-General?

The shadow Attorney-General is undertaking a series of long-standing engagements today. His deputy is in the House and will actively participate in our scrutiny of the Bill.

Let us get down to the issues that really matter. The Attorney-General intervened earlier in the debate, but in a most general and unhelpful way. He expressed himself in agreement with a proposition put by the Foreign Secretary, but did so in the most general terms and did not approach the detailed interpretation of the Bill, which is relevant to the consideration of these matters. If the Attorney-General were here now, I am confident that he would be able to confirm that clause 5 will permit all the activities that I identified earlier in my remarks.

The hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) asked how the Government seek to ratify the Bill and whether they intend to propose a declaration when the time comes. I hope that we shall be told in what circumstances it may be possible for the Government to be taken to the International Court of Human Rights at The Hague, so that its interpretation of the convention may be put to the test.

Reference was made in the debate on Second Reading to the precedent adopted by the Government of Canada. The Foreign Secretary said, if my recollection is correct, that the Government's attitude was similar to that taken by the Government of Canada, but that is far from the case. I have the legislation passed by the Canadian Government before me and it is in very different terms from those of the Bill. It contains an express distinction between what is termed "active assistance" and passive assistance. It is accompanied by a declaration of understanding, which the Canadian Government have entered to the Ottawa convention. The Canadian legislation provides that participation in military operations is to be regarded as permissible so long as that does not amount to active assistance with prohibited activity.

The Secretary of State nods. There are no words to that effect in the Bill. The Government are not following the precedent set by the Canadian Government. The Bill is miles away from the Canadian precedent.

It is not.

Perhaps the Minister of State could refer me to the language in the Bill that mirrors the language to which I have just pointed in the Canadian legislation. It simply is not there.

It is the same pattern and process, not the same subject of detail. The interpretive declaration was put in at the time of ratification.

I have no idea what that intervention means and I doubt whether any other hon. Member does—[Interruption.]

Order. Ministers and others on the Government Front Bench must be quiet. I have called the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) to speak, and he is the only person who should be speaking.

This is not a matter that requires a technical briefing from the Ministry of Defence. It is a matter for the Foreign Office. It is not the Ministry of Defence's view with which we take issue; we take issue with the Foreign Office's view. If the Ministry of Defence, for good reason, wanted to insert something like clause 5 in the Bill—there may be good reason for doing so—we have no argument with that. However, if that is the view taken by the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office should have reflected that view when it negotiated the convention. The problem is not whether clause 5 is needed; it is that it is absolutely inconsistent with the convention. Nothing in the convention would give rise to an exception that comes anywhere near the provisions of the clause. That is the mess that the Government have got into, and, because they have got into that mess, they are asking hon. Members to agree to a Bill that would contravene the Ottawa convention, put this country in breach of its obligations under that convention and make our country depart from its long-standing tradition of honouring, ratifying and implementing in every detail the treaties and conventions that it has signed.

I promise not to get too exercised if my old friend the Minister for the Armed Forces displays his customary zeal in defending the armed services. He has a long tradition of doing that, as a shadow Minister and from the Treasury Bench, and I understand his anxiety to ensure that they are properly protected. He will know that I do not seek to reflect on the honour of the armed services; I never served, but at least one member of my wife's family did, with great distinction. I am as conscious as he is of the importance of ensuring that the armed services are properly instructed and are not laid open unnecessarily to the possibility of conviction, and that we provide a proper legislative framework.

If clause 5 is, as the Minister for the Armed Forces describes it, the "heat of the battle" clause, I should make this point to him. He had reservations about my introduction of the concept of mens rea, or guilty intention, although they were not quite as robust as those of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who has left the Chamber. Every soldier who fights on the battlefield has to obey the Geneva convention. So long as his actions are in accordance with it—or even if they are not, and he has not displayed any guilty intention—he would not be guilty of an offence. The notion of guilty intent is already in the international legal framework by which we determine the actions of soldiers, sailors and airmen when they are engaged in operations on our behalf.

The shadow Foreign Secretary and I share a view about clause 5, but we do not share precisely the same view about the solution. If he were to press clause 5 stand part to a vote, the clause could be taken out of the Bill altogether

I sought to make it clear at the outset that I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote and that I do not seek to remove clause 5 from the Bill. The purpose of our amendment is to demonstrate the inconsistency between clause 5 and the convention, so there is nothing between the hon. and learned Gentleman and me on that point.

It may be that I can persuade the right hon. and learned Gentleman of the merits of our amendments. There is need for a form of what is in clause 5 and for a defence for soldiers engaged on the battlefield. There is not only a need; they are entitled to such a defence. He and I join forces on the fact that that defence should be consistent with the Ottawa convention and not apparently contradictory of it.

It is important to remind ourselves that article 1 of the convention contains a blanket prohibition, the terms of which we are all now familiar with, but only one exception to that is allowed—article 3, which allows for

"the retention…of a number of anti-personnel mines for the development of and training in mine detection, mine clearance, or mine destruction".

There is an issue there, because I understand that Italy has said that it intends to maintain 200,000 anti-personnel landmines for those purposes. Some people might think that 200,000 was a rather generous margin, and there may be a question about the strength of the language in respect of numbers.

It is understandable, and even desirable, that there should be a defence of the kind that clause 5 creates, but the difficulty is that clause 5(1) further defines the offence created by clause 2. It goes on to provide what is essentially a defence, at subsection (2). The effect of taking the two together is that a person charged with contravention of clause 2 could not be convicted if the conduct that had been complained of did not relate to the laying of anti-personnel mines in contravention of the Ottawa convention.

Likewise, under subsection (2), if proceedings were taken against such a person, it would be a valid defence to say that the conduct took place in the course of, or was for the purposes of, a military operation or the planning of such an operation, and was not the laying of any anti-personnel mines. The effect of that is that conduct up to, but not including, the laying of anti-personnel mines would not be struck at by the criminal provisions.

Our amendments are designed to make the position even clearer than it would be under clause 5 as it stands. We propose in amendment No. 3 the deletion of the words:

"the laying of anti-personnel mines in contravention of the Ottawa Convention"

and the substitution of the words:

"active assistance in any activity prohibited under"

the Ottawa convention. In amendment No. 4, we propose the deletion of the words:

"was not the laying of an anti-personnel mine"

and the substitution of the words:

"did not involve active assistance in any activity prohibited under the Ottawa Convention".

For my money, that is much more specific than the current provisions, which operate as much by implication as by express provision. It is right that any British soldier engaged in an international operation should have a valid defence, so long as he or she did not actively assist in any activity prohibited under the Ottawa convention, as those are defined in article 1 of the convention, and so long as his or her conduct did not involve active assistance in any activity prohibited under the convention.

By adopting a formula such as that which I have suggested, one would make the terms of the convention and of the statutory provision virtually identical; indeed, one would be adopting by reference the terms of the convention into the statutory provision. That deals with the point that we should have legislation consistent with the convention; it also has the advantage that it spells out in the clearest possible detail to the soldier in the heat of the battlefield that, so long as he or she does not do something amounting to active assistance, he or she cannot be the subject of criminal proceedings. If such people became the subject of criminal proceedings, they would be entitled to pray in aid the defence in subsection (2).

I am trying to follow the gist of what the hon. and learned Gentleman is saying, and what was said by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), our Front-Bench spokesman. When two lawyers get to work, it is sometimes difficult for the rest of us to keep up. I was under the impression that clause 5, which allows for exemptions and reservations, could not be law under the convention. I understood that article 19 of the Ottawa convention ruled out any reservations, so how can we pass the Bill as it stands and honour the convention?

We can pass the Bill in any form we choose. The House is not bound to pass the Bill in a form prescribed by the convention, although the form in which we pass it may have consequences for whether we are able to ratify the convention, and whether the instrument of ratification is credible and valid. The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point about article 19, but my amendments would meet it by making it plain that so long as the individual concerned was not giving active assistance in any activity prohibited under the convention, he or she would have a valid defence. That would be a much clearer statement of affairs.

Because the laying of anti-personnel mines is specifically referred to, conduct up to, but not including, the laying of mines, would, by implication, be excused. It would be better, and it would be consistent with the convention, to adopt the formula of active assistance. That would make clause 5 consistent with the convention while avoiding any need to enter any reservation when the Government lodge the instrument of ratification. That can only be in our interests, and I hope that the Committee will consider the amendment sympathetically.

Clause 5(2)(d) provides a defence for British military personnel whose conduct is

"related to the laying of anti-personnel mines".

If the defence is that laying an anti-personnel mine requires the other prerequisites given for the transfer or transport of landmines, how widely can the net be thrown? It is obvious that we need a defence for British personnel, but British forces will not be allowed to use, possess, transfer or transport mines, or to assist others in doing so. Is this not an adequate defence?

12 noon

If, in the parallel universe occasionally raised by the Opposition today—I mean no disrespect by that, but I worked in Nicaragua in 1986 and saw the effects of landmines—clause 5 allowed any loophole, which I do not believe it does, will my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary undertake to review the legislation? Clause 5 hinges on the need for members of NATO and international allies to sign the Ottawa convention, particularly the United States. It is often said that we are five years behind the USA; let us hope that America will not be five years behind us in this case.

I did not intend to speak today, but the opening speeches left me concerned that political divisions sometimes prevent us from scrutinising the details of criminal legislation. At times, people are forced away from accepting reasonable words, such as those of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) on how to improve clause 5. We should seek consistency, particularly in criminal legislation. When we dealt with the Crime and Disorder Bill, the Government felt it right to draw the criminal net widely, saying that we need not worry about its drawing in people who should not be drawn in because those who implement the law will use regulations to avoid that. Today, they have flipped that logic the other way, arguing that exceptions should be drawn widely, so that people will not be brought into the net who should be drawn in under the convention.

The purpose of the House is to draft Bills and scrutinise them. It is perfectly in order for a Committee to amend a Bill, or to say that amendments can be made in the other place to tighten and improve the Bill. That is the purpose of the Committee stage. I hope that the Government will consider the arguments carefully and seek to bring the Bill more closely in line with the treaty.

I welcome the Bill and the fact that we have set aside special time in which to pass it. However, whenever the House passes legislation relatively quickly, there is a risk that we may inadvertently draft the Bill badly and end up with something that is not quite what we intended. There may be such a risk in the drafting of clause 5.

There is another way of looking at clause 5. It seems odd that people who thought that during the election I was completely outrageous to campaign for the Labour party's position on anti-personnel mines have hinted that clause 5 is designed to enable Britain enthusiastically to participate in joint operations with countries, such as the USA, which are not signatories to the convention, and that we want to slide under the wire the fact that that may involve us in doing things that are wrong, immoral and are prohibited by the convention. I do not believe that that is the Government's intention.

During the progress of the Bill, it may be necessary to consider ways in which we can refine the wording to ensure that it is clear that we are on all fours with the convention, but that, in the circumstances described by the Foreign Secretary and others that are, as it were, closer to the border, the ordinary soldier is not criminalised by the Bill. That is not the intention, and it is absolutely essential that we should make that clear. I am sure that it is possible to draft the Bill in such a way as to achieve that.

I hope that the Minister for the Armed Forces will be able to assure me that the drafting in no way puts us at risk of being outside parts of the convention, as I am worried that it may do so. I am also anxious that, as we have so much business in the other place, if we spend ages considering this matter, other important Government business will disappear. Many of us who have been enthusiastic to get the Bill through have faced that argument. We are in a cleft stick.

I hope that the Minister will reassure us that the intention of clause 5 is merely to ensure that we do not criminalise officers of Her Majesty's forces who are doing their duty, who are working beside other forces that do not have our same international commitments and who unknowingly—that word is significant—participate in activities that may contravene the convention. I am confident that any necessary detailed wording changes can be considered after this debate. I should be grateful for some assurance about the fundamental intention of the clause.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) on making that point. Many people are worried about clause 5, because they feel that it allows us to cop out of the Ottawa treaty. It enables us to say, "Oh well, it wasn't us. It was the Americans in NATO who said that we were to participate in this action. We weren't there at the time, guv." I hope that that element of clause 5 was not intended, but the feeling is that it provides an excuse.

I am not a military person, and I know nothing of military matters. If we are operating as part of NATO and an American NATO commander gives an order to lay landmines, what is the position of our troops? How does this legislation work in a military exercise? Do our troops become conscientious objectors, and are they sent to peel the spuds? Perhaps the Minister will answer those questions.

It is too late to table further amendments, but I cannot understand why the body of the clause cannot be more explicit. Clause 5 is entitled, "International military operations", but its wording throughout omits the word "international". I hope that the Bill will get its Third Reading, but, in the time between the proceedings in this House and in the other place, the Government should consider inserting in clause 5 the word "international", which would make the meaning of the body of the clause far easier for people like me and the world outside to understand.

I shall start, I hope usefully, by dealing with the issues that were raised by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge). She spoke about the Government's motivation; the armed forces, presumably as instruments of the Government's will; and her fears about clause 5 and our troops being given orders within alliances by a commander of a state that had not ratified the convention. I shall deal with those matters in turn.

The hon. Member recognised the balance that we had to consider when we were framing clause 5. Our troops would not carry out such an order because, for them, it would be an illegal order. On motivation, the hon. Lady need not fear that a Government who were prepared to ratify the convention, pass law, take a lead on these matters and lead the world in many ways within days of coming to office should somehow all along have wished to avoid the consequences of their actions. That would be a bizarre interpretation of motivation. I impugn the honour of no hon. Member, and for anyone to imply that not only the Government but British troops would wish to conduct themselves in that way impugns the honour of our troops. That was one of the reasons that I gave, perhaps too robustly, for rejecting the claims made by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard).

I am surprised that many who have spoken in the debates, not only on clause 5 but on the Bill as a whole, seemed to question the Government's commitment to the Ottawa principles and the global elimination of anti-personnel landmines. Clause 5 has been portrayed as some kind of betrayal of the Ottawa convention. Such a claim is extraordinary, especially in view of the identity of some of the accusers: the previous Government were hardly distinguished by the urgency of their commitment to abolish anti-personnel landmines.

I had hoped that, whatever the past contained, the Government and the Opposition would be able to proceed, in the name of the nation, on one of the great humane moves of the 1990s and possibly of the century while protecting the honour and lives of British troops and reducing the practical risks to them. Motivation has featured in the debate. The Government took the lead on this issue, not only in the United Kingdom but throughout the world. Within days of the new Government's coming to office, I was called to the office of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, whose prime responsibility is to balance the great issues of humanity, civilisation, law and liberty. The unique tasks that we discharge through our troops means asking them to act not in rooms in which liberal lawyers have discussions but on the world's battlefields where life and limb are put at risk. On the issue of landmines, there was no question about the side of the fence on which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence came down. The same applies to the Chief of the Defence Staff. The British troops were involved in that discussion, as was the Foreign Office.

Apart from taking that lead, and apart from early ratification, we have already introduced an export ban. A moratorium on use has been in place almost since the day that we came into office. Our stockpiles are being destroyed even more rapidly than we anticipated in that first week that they would. We have destroyed 46 per cent. of them—almost 500,000 landmines—since we came into office.

In addition, of the many thousands of mines in the Falkland Islands that have now been located, only one is British. Even though they are not our mines, however, demining of the Falklands is actively being considered. Work on putting appropriate verification arrangements in place is well advanced and we are assisting others in meeting their obligations under the convention.

In addition, we have created the humanitarian mine action section of the Ministry of Defence, as well as the mine information and training centre, which is run by the Royal Engineers with the specific aim of helping non-governmental organisations and others to deal with the blight of anti-personnel landmines that have already been laid throughout the world.

12.15 pm

Before today, I did not think that even the Government's worst enemy would suggest that, rather than leading the campaign to eliminate global landmines, we had somehow been devoting our energies all along to thwarting the campaign—I counted without the shadow Foreign Secretary.

I hope that the Minister will recognise that many of us do not doubt the motivation. We are trying to ensure that the wording is accurately drafted in Committee.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has reminded me of part of my job. Another part of it is to respond to the points that have been raised by hon. Members, and one of them was the motivation question, raised by his colleague, the hon. Member for Richmond Park. It deserved a response because it underlies some of the suspicions, fears and implied criticisms that are being engendered by the shadow Foreign Secretary. However, I maintain that the Government's commitment is not in doubt.

Our motivation is not in question because, in contrast to the previous Government, our actions and practical moves have spoken louder than our words—and the people of Britain know that—but we did not and do not interpret the Ottawa convention to mean that coherent and effective joint operations that are carried out alongside non-signatory, non-ratifying allies should risk criminalising United Kingdom service men and women; our service personnel should not risk prison because of the acts of others. We did not and will not countenance putting our service men and women in that position.

That reading would not only call into question the future cohesion and effectiveness of NATO but would have serious implications for coalition action anywhere in the world, as well as for our service men and women. The important distinctions and nuances of legal interpretation that we are discussing are important, but nothing would give Saddam Hussein, or future Saddam Husseins, greater pleasure than the realisation that the Ottawa convention could be taken to prevent this country from playing an effective role in coalitions that might otherwise repel aggression or enforce peace. I will explain the practical implications of some of that.

I am listening to the Minister's arguments carefully and I agree entirely: we must ensure that our troops are in no doubt whatever about their ability to participate in joint operations. However, will he reflect on the answer that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge)? On the hypothetical position of a non-ratifying country commander giving an order to a British soldier, the Minister said that the soldier could rightly say that it was illegal to lay a mine, but does he not accept that, under clause 5, that soldier could not give the same reply if he were ordered to assist in laying a mine? As a protection for our troops, would it not be better if the Bill were absolutely explicit, so that no ambiguity existed?

I am coming to that very point and to the Liberal Democrat amendments. At the moment, I am dealing with the more general objection enshrined in the amendment tabled by the shadow Foreign Secretary, which would delete the whole of clause 5 and leave our troops without any legal defence whatever. That is different from the amendments tabled by the Liberal Democrats.

I repeat what I have said at least twice today. The amendment was tabled as a peg for a debate on a very important question about which disquiet has been expressed in all quarters of the House—the relationship between clause 5 and the Ottawa convention. I made it plain from the outset that I was not going to press the amendment to a vote, and that it was simply a peg for debate.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is a learned and prestigious Queen's counsel, I think; I am just a common 5' 8". He has had a week in which to table a reasoned amendment and to offer a different legal interpretation, but he has chosen to table an amendment that would delete the whole of clause 5 which provides a defence for British troops. I was merely observing that that is somewhat different from the amendments tabled by the other Queen's counsel, the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell). I made that distinction in response to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath).

It may help the hon. Gentleman to deal with the points that I have raised if I say why I tabled the amendment in the form that I did. The problem that the Minister has to address is whether it is possible to retain clause 5 in any form and still adhere to the Ottawa convention. The view that I reached—which is why I did not table a different amendment—is that it was not possible to retain any part of clause 5 and subscribe to the convention. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point. The solution may not be to get rid of clause 5, which he may well seek to justify for good military reasons, but to amend the Ottawa convention. That is at the heart of the dilemma.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is now going to extraordinary lengths. I think he is saying that, as it is not possible to amend the convention, we should not ratify it. Not only does he wish us to remove the clause that protects British troops, on the basis that it is incompatible with the convention but he is now urging us not to ratify the convention, which I find even more extraordinary. Added to the fact that he keeps assuring us that he wants the Bill passed quickly so that the convention can be ratified, I think it shows that the confusion lies not with the Government but with the Opposition.

It is the Government who have caused the confusion. They drafted the Bill and they signed the convention. It is for them to explain, but so far we have not heard a word of explanation in response to the disquiet expressed in all quarters about to how clause 5 can be reconciled with the convention. That is the dilemma at the heart of the debate, and it is what the Government have to explain.

It has already been explained to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the Bill is consistent with the convention. He heard it this morning, not only from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary but from the Attorney-General, who expressed his full agreement. The right hon. and learned Gentleman should know that we cannot amend the convention, but he had the opportunity to try to amend clause 5. If he is so keen to protect our service men and women—as we are doing in the clause—he had a chance over the past week, either in a private briefing by the Ministry of Defence or by publicly tabling an amendment, to make proposals on protecting our troops. However, at the end of that week—with all his learning and experience, and with his obviously strong views on the matter—his suggestion is that we delete clause 5, thereby taking away any protection for our troops.

I should move on, as I wonder whether Opposition Members who so loudly criticise the Bill really intend either that we should leave our troops defenceless if the activities of others are deemed to be criminal or that we should have to avoid multinational operations. Is the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe aware, for example, that it is a fact—it is regrettable, but nevertheless a fact—that neither Kuwait nor Saudi Arabia has so far signed the convention? Does he think that that strategic reality should simply be ignored if the United Kingdom has again to take up arms against a dictator?

Clause 5 is the Government's reconciliation of our duty of care to our troops and our adherence to Ottawa principles. We take both those matters very seriously indeed. We balance—as the hon. Member for Richmond Park asked us to do—those two considerations. Moreover, we will not be the first to enter an interpretive declaration—which is not an amendment or reservation, as the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife suggested—making it clear that the convention was not intended to make coalition operations with non-signatories impossible. The Canadians led the way on such a provision.

We have given a great deal of thought to the wording of clause 5. Its purpose is to ensure that members of our armed forces cannot be prosecuted for the circumstances of planning and operating alongside troops from states for which the use of anti-personnel landmines remains legal. The clause provides a defence for personnel involved in an international operation alongside troops of a state not party to the Ottawa convention which may use anti-personnel mines.

United Kingdom personnel could not themselves use such mines or give any assistance whatever to a state party to the convention which planned to use such mines in contravention of its international obligations. The clause enables United Kingdom service men and women to engage closely in the planning and conduct of an operation with those who may, lawfully for them, use anti-personnel mines. Without such a provision, United Kingdom service men and women, if they were in some way indirectly implicated in use of anti-personnel mines by the forces of a state that is not party to the convention, would potentially be at risk of prosecution and imprisonment for up to 14 years. We cannot place the men and women of our armed forces in that invidious position.

It has been said that the clause is a licence. It is not a licence but a shield. It is a shield that has to be large enough to protect the men and women of our services in serving a country that has led the world in banning landmines and has absolutely no intention—in ratifying the convention, in passing the Bill or in the action of our troops—of doing anything other than adhering to the principles in which we have led the way.

rose—

I am coming to the hon. and learned Gentleman's main point.

In the practical circumstances—far from the comfortable surroundings in which we debate the matter—in the fog and heat of battle, in the planning and conduct of hostilities, we will be asking young men and women to make decisions. Their lives already depend on those decisions and, should they survive, we should not ask them to countenance the possibility of unwittingly facing criminal proceedings and penalties despite their sacrifices and the courage they have shown.

Let me give one or two practical examples. Without the clause, if non-ratifying states' vehicles, which could contain anti-personnel landmines, refuelled during hostilities at a United Kingdom refuelling facility, our service men and women could be laid open to criminalisation, criminal charges and penal servitude. Other examples were given earlier. Suppose that a non-ratifying state's forces equipped with anti-personnel landmines crossed United Kingdom-controlled areas of the battlefield, or that our forces were deemed to have benefited in some way from the activities involved in landmine laying by a non-ratifying state or, to use the example given by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, that a non-ratifying state's forces were to run a lorry full of anti-personnel landmines across a bridge built by our engineers. Without clause 5, all those possibilities could lay our service men and women open to criminal charges. I do not believe that is the will of the House and, more important, I cannot believe that it is the will of the British people. They want landmines removed from the globe and they do not want the reputation or the careers of our service men and women impugned in the course of achieving that aim.

12.30 pm

Do I understand from what the Minister has said with some passion in the past four or five minutes that, on the battlefield, in the circumstances that he has described, clause 5 would permit British service men and women to do things that they would not be able to do if the operation were being conducted only by the United Kingdom or within the United Kingdom?

No. That is not the understanding. There is a balance to be struck. We believe that we have it right, and that is why I am asking the hon. and learned Gentleman not to press his amendment.

I now come to the hon. and learned Member's main point, which relates to active and passive assistance. He could reasonably say that none of my examples would be considered active assistance and that they would all be passive or unknowing assistance.

I wonder whether the Minister can help me, because I am confused by the answer that he has just given the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell). Clause 5(3)(a)makes it clear that the clause applies only to military operations outside the United Kingdom; paragraph (b) makes it clear that it applies only if

"it involves the participation both of members of Her Majesty's armed forces and of members of the armed forces of a State other than the United Kingdom";

and paragraph (c) makes it clear that it applies only if that other state is not a signatory to the convention. Therefore, is not the position exactly as the hon. and learned Gentleman put it to the Minister—that the clause permits actions to be taken under circumstances that would be illegal if they were taken in the United Kingdom and not in the context of such joint operations? If that is not right, why not?

I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is a lawyer and not a military man. The hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife asked not whether the clause permitted something, but whether troops would be permitted to act in a different fashion. That was the question I was asked, as we will find if we check Hansard. The clause and the Bill cannot be taken as if we were discussing the matter in the abstract; it applies in the context of the rules of engagement, which are part of what a soldier, in the activity on a battlefield, will have to curtail his operations. The rules of engagement will be partly informed by the Bill. Thus, the answer to the hon. and learned Gentleman's question is no, there will not be different circumstances. He has raised a more important point, which is the question of active and passive assistance. The Government take the view that the distinction is an unsafe and imprecise basis for United Kingdom legislation.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State used the example of a British sapper building a bridge. What could be more active than building a bridge? The building of a bridge might assist a United States unit deploying landmines over the bridge. The sapper would not be able to rely on any mine rea defence under the Bill if he was capable of suspecting that the bridge might be used by a United States mine-laying unit. To put people in the position in the heat of battle of having to make those decisions would be a dereliction of our duty to protect our troops. So we have another defence that clearly covers that conduct, and it is enshrined in clause 5. We do that because we do not believe that we should put our soldiers, especially in a life-and-death situation, through the further agonies of worrying whether the action that they take will later be argued by lawyers to constitute a violation of the convention, for which they could face up to 14 years in prison.

The hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife made the point that the Geneva convention already implies that soldiers' actions can constitute a violation. I am sure that he accepts that the Geneva convention is of long standing and is not, like the Bill, a new piece of legislation, which we in the House of Commons, with legal minds surrounding us, have disputed. The Geneva convention has clarity, and we have experience of it which is of such long standing that it cannot be compared to the questions posed by the Bill for soldiers in the battlefield. We do not want them to be faced with those awful prospects. It would be a dereliction of duty to allow them to be so. I do not go as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). I do not suggest that the hon. and learned Gentleman quaintly depicts British soldiers wandering through battlefields with a gun in one hand and "Archbold" criminal pleadings in the other, but it is reasonable to say to him under these circumstances that the Government have an obligation to clarify matters with regard to the soldiers' intent. The one thing that they can be absolutely clear about is when they are or are not laying mines. For that reason, that is all that we expressly cover in the offence. Beyond that, beyond the Bill, beyond our intentions and beyond our public statements, we have ways other than the criminal law of controlling the actions of our troops.

We have the most professional Army in the world. The House can be assured that Her Majesty's armed forces will fully comply with the spirit of the convention, but they should not be subjected to the suspicion that there may be legal nit-picking after the event in addition to the other burdens that we place upon them.

I hope that the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife will see the merit in what I am saying and the sense of not pressing amendments Nos. 3 and 4. I am sure that it was never his intention that amendment No. 5 should remove an effective part of the implementation of the convention, but the purpose of the words that he seeks to remove is to ensure that if a military operation involving co-signatories to the convention included in its formal plans the use of anti-personnel landmines, the legal defence provided by the Bill would no longer be available to our personnel.

We would not want to condone any breach of the convention, even by allies who are also signatories. That is the purpose of the words that the hon. and learned Gentleman seeks to remove. If I understand him correctly, that would do the opposite of what he intends to do, and I am sure that he would not wish that to be the result, so I beg him not to press amendment No. 5.

The Government have taken a lead in the campaign for a global ban on landmines. We have done so through every instrument at the disposal of the state—through diplomacy, through government, through our contacts in the wider community and through our informal representations. We have also done so through our armed forces, which are an enduring source of national pride to this country.

Our armed forces undertake duties far beyond those required for the defence of the nation. They not only defend our rights: they are an instrument for the discharge of our wider moral responsibilities in the world, and they carry out that role not only in the interests of this country but in the wider interests of humanity. They work alongside parties from all over the planet, some of whom have not signed and will not ratify the Ottawa convention.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence made it clear on Wednesday, such overseas deployments will be an increasing feature of life for our armed forces. It would be morally wrong for them to be exposed to the risk of prosecution simply for carrying out their duties in trying to meet military objectives, often in the most horrendous conditions, and as a result of anti-personnel mines laid by the forces of a state that is not party to the Ottawa convention.

The people of this country would expect the Government and the House to have a duty of care to our forces and to ensure that they are not exposed to such risks—just as we have a duty to discharge in terms of wider international obligations, to rid the world of landmines. We take both those duties seriously, and we will discharge both of them.

With the leave of the Committee, Mr. Martin, I shall return briefly to the question and answer that we heard a moment or two ago about the scope of the defence. As the Minister knows, and as I went out of my way to say, I think it desirable that there should be a defence to deal with the heat of the battlefield.

However, as I understand the position, the defence available applies when operations take place wholly or mainly outside the United Kingdom, involve the participation of the armed forces of a state other than the United Kingdom, and may involve some deployment of anti-personnel landmines.

If the defence is available in those defined circumstances, that must mean that it would not be available if those circumstances were not present. That therefore means that we are giving a defence in certain circumstances, which would not be available if the United Kingdom were acting alone—as in the Falklands war, for example—or if the United Kingdom were conducting a defence of the mainland of the United Kingdom against any invader.

We are giving a defence in relation to actions that would otherwise be illegal in either of the alternative scenarios that I have depicted. It is important to test the extent of the defence against those factors.

I hope that the Minister will not regard me as unduly facetious if I say that if his exemplary sapper were ever charged, I would volunteer to defend him myself, for nothing.

That is quite a good offer.

Indeed it is—but subject to the qualification that the trial would have to be north of the border.

The example of the sapper is not one in which a prosecution would ever arise—or if one did, the defence that my amendments seek to add to the Bill would, in my view, be more than adequate.

The Minister said that when there was even a reason to suspect the use of the bridge, that might constitute a contravention of the criminal law. In my respectful view, a reason to suspect could not in any circumstances constitute the necessary guilty intention in relation to a defence that proceeded on the need to establish that there had been active assistance in activities prohibited under the Ottawa convention.

I do not propose to press my amendments to a Division. Technically, I should have to ask your permission, Mr. Lord, for a separate vote. However, I am not yet satisfied by the Government's responses. If they are worried about a plethora of lawyers in this place, they had better get their tin hats on before they go to the other place, where there are legions of lawyers who are much more experienced than me or the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). I predict that clause 5 will be as much a focus of attention there as it has been in our proceedings so far.

12.45 pm

I agree with the points made by the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell). I do not agree with the terms of his amendments—which he invited me to support, before he said that he would not press them to a Division—because I am not persuaded that those amendments provide a satisfactory way of solving the dilemma at the heart of the debate: how to reconcile the terms of the convention with the entirely legitimate and understandable desire, expressed at some length by the Minister of State, to provide proper protection for British troops in the heat of battle.

I am waiting for an explanation of how that dilemma can be resolved, consistent with the terms of the convention. I am not persuaded that the route provided by the Liberal Democrat amendments would work, but we have not yet had an answer to the dilemma from the Government. Disquiet has been expressed about the dilemma in all quarters of the Committee, and it is the function of this place to subject legislation to proper scrutiny. It will not do for Ministers to try to deflect that scrutiny by talking about distinctions and nuances of legal interpretation and to contrast them with real-life situations.

The purpose of our consideration of the Bill is to try to ensure that, in its detailed provisions, it matches real-life circumstances, provides a defence where it should do so and yet matches the obligations to which the Government have signed up by way of treaty and convention. That is the purpose of parliamentary scrutiny, which involves detailed examination of the clauses.

No immunity from that examination is provided by the high moral tone adopted by the Minister of State in the early part of his speech. We have become accustomed to the Government's attempts to wrap themselves in a cloak of moral sententiousness, telling us that they are so pure and impeccable that we do not need to look at the details of what they are doing, and that if we do look at those details we are impugning their high moral tone and standards of virtue. We will not be deflected from our duty of scrutinising the Bill by such considerations.

There seems to be a contradiction between what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says about scrutinising the Bill and getting the detail right, and the aim of his amendment. He said that the amendment did not seek to correct the detail, but was a general, explosive, amendment. That runs side by side with the hypocrisy that he has shown in the matter.

As I have made plain on at least three occasions so far, the purpose of the amendment is to provide a peg on which to hang precisely the kind of detailed scrutiny, analysis and consideration that it is the duty of Parliament to undertake.

The Minister said a good deal about the military justification for clause 5. As I have said, I have some sympathy with his comments, but he touched on the heart of the dilemma when he said that the purpose of the clause is to provide a defence for British forces when they might be at risk of committing a criminal offence. British forces would be at risk of committing a criminal offence only if their conduct were in breach of the convention. That is the point at the heart of the dilemma. If British service men were to find themselves at risk of committing a criminal offence in circumstances when the Secretary of State for Defence thinks they should not be, the fault would lie with the convention. If that is so—that is the dilemma about which we have been seeking enlightenment, but we have yet to find it—proper representations should have been made when the convention was signed.

The Minister of State devoted a good deal of time to clause 5 and to his attempts to justify it. He spent a great deal less time on the provisions of the convention. That is not surprising, and I sympathise with him on that count also. The Foreign Office negotiated the convention, and a Foreign Office Minister should have replied to this group of amendments. However, a simple question must be answered. It relates to article 1.1 of the Ottawa convention, which makes clear that never, under any circumstances, is any assistance to be given to anyone—whether or not they are a party to the convention—who engages in any activity that is prohibited to a state party under the convention.

The thrust of the Minister's contribution is that there may be all sorts of circumstances in which British forces might want to provide some assistance to parties who are not signatories to the convention. British forces might want to engage in activities that are in breach of the convention. That is the dilemma, and that is the problem facing the Committee today. We have not only not received an answer to that question; we have not come within miles of receiving such an answer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Mr. Colvin) was absolutely correct to draw attention to article 19 of the convention, which provides that the convention should not be subject to any reservations. The Minister told us—for the first time, as far as I am aware—that the Government intend to make some kind of declaration of interpretation when they ratify the convention. If that is the case, it would assist the Committee greatly if we could see the text of any such declaration so that we can consider it and determine whether it amounts to a reservation from the convention—which, as my hon. Friend pointed out, would be contrary to article 19—or constitutes some ingenious way of resolving this dilemma.

We have not seen the text of any such declaration and, if we do not see it today, I certainly hope that it will be available before the Bill is considered in another place, where those to whom the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife referred—and I concur in every detail with his description of them—will put it under close scrutiny.

I hope that, before we conclude our consideration of the amendments, we shall have an answer from the Minister to the simple point that I have made. The conduct for which, understandably, he wants to provide a protection for British troops would constitute a criminal offence only if it were contrary to the convention. If the Minister seeks to escape the provisions of the convention through clause 5, will he please show the Committee where in the convention there is any authority for that course?

I put to the Minister article 1.1 of the convention. It is unequivocal, explicit and clear. I put to him also article 19, which says that there should be no reservations. Will he please identify where in the convention there is any authority for the course of action that the Government are taking, as embodied in clause 5?

I shall respond, first, to the points raised by the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), who asked about international and national operations. Clause 5 applies only to international military operations. I think that we are clear on that. The hon. and learned Gentleman contrasted that with other operations. We do not need a defence when acting alone. We do not need the clause when acting alone because the problem of anti-personnel landmines does not arise when we are acting alone. Therefore, we need a defence only in terms of multinational operations.

The difference between active and passive has been discussed. The hon. and learned Gentleman has given us his interpretation. I am grateful for his offer but I do not think that I would be thanked by the massed ranks of the British armed forces if I were to say, "We decided to ditch clause 5, which relates to your defence, but I know a guy who will do your defence for nothing." However, I am entirely grateful for the hon. and learned Gentleman's offer. Two great moves forward have been taken today in the context of world events. One of them, I hope, is a move forward on landmines; the second is finding a lawyer who is prepared to offer his services for nothing. I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for that.

I do not know how to respond to the shadow Foreign Secretary without repeating the points that I have already made—because the right hon. and learned Gentleman merely repeated his points. He has been told by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, by the Ministry of Defence and by the Law Officers today that the Bill is completely consistent with the convention; the right hon. and learned Gentleman's asserting that it is not does not make it otherwise. However, we listen to what he says.

Secondly, clause 5 is not in the Bill as a licence or as a prompt to action but as a shield for our service men and women lest they be at any stage after the event deemed to be subject to criminality—deemed to be or potentially subject to criminality—because of the actions of others. We believe that the clause is completely compatible with the convention and essential if we are to ask our service men and women to engage in multinational operations where there may be alongside them a party or a state that is not a signatory or ratifying state to the convention.

The United Kingdom Government do not believe that the convention was intended to make international co-operation impossible. Article 1 must be read in that context and not in a vacuum. We have been as clear as anyone could possibly wish in clauses 1 and 2, and we are also clear in our intention in the practical application of the Bill and in the signal that we send to service men and women: that in seeking one great goal, as we do—indeed, in leading in the pursuit of one great goal, as the Government have done—we shall not inadvertently fail to discharge our duty to protect our service men and women from the possibility of being accused of criminality because of the acts of others. These are duties that we shall discharge.

The Minister says that he has explained why clause 5 is not inconsistent with the convention and that I have merely asserted why it is. The precise opposite is the truth. I have explained at length and in detail precisely why clause 5 is inconsistent with the convention, whereas the Government have simply repeated assertions that that is not the case and offered no explanation to support those assertions. The situation remains as unsatisfactory as it was when we started the debate.

As I have repeatedly said, I tabled the amendments to provide a peg on which the debate could be hung. I made it plain from the outset that I would not press them to a vote. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

1 pm

I beg to move amendment No. 9, in page 2, line 37, leave out from `for' to end of line 38 and insert 'life'.

The amendment provides for the maximum penalty for the laying of landmines to become life imprisonment. I want the use of anti-personnel mines to be punishable on the same level as war crimes. Negotiations for an international criminal court are currently going on in Rome and have included a discussion on whether the use of indiscriminate weapons such as landmines should be classed as a war crime. I think that it should, and I should like to discover the Government's view on that and on the setting up of an international criminal court.

I listened to the view expressed by the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) in a debate earlier today. I have great respect for him. He talks a lot of sense in the House and in the Defence Committee, of which I am also a member, but on this issue I disagree with him. I think that the laying of a landmine should be classed as a war crime. It is an indiscriminate act and, as we have seen, the target is invariably civilians. Indeed, it makes normal civilian life, long after a war is over, near impossible. The former UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros Ghali, called landmines weapons of mass destruction in slow motion.

One has only to look at countries such as Bosnia or Cambodia, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) spoke earlier, to see that landmines are laid by war criminals. That is part and parcel of their genocide.

I should not like the hon. Gentleman to have the impression that I have closed my mind entirely to whether the indiscriminate laying of landmines should become a war crime. However, I have a number of reservations. For example, would one have to lay 5,000 landmines or just one or two before the act qualifies as a war crime? There are problems of definition, and I am anxious to ensure that the importance of the category of war crime is not diminished by the addition of actions that do not appear naturally to fall within the definition. I repeat that my mind is not closed on the topic.

I am grateful for the hon. and learned Gentleman's intervention. My view is that laying any landmines should be deemed to be a war crime and should be punishable by life imprisonment.

The laying of these weapons is abhorrent behaviour and by providing life imprisonment—the greatest punishment under British law—as a maximum, this country would send a clear signal that such behaviour is unacceptable. Life imprisonment is a maximum sentence, at the discretion of a judge. As with punishments for war crimes and other crimes, judges are likely to set a lower sentence, but the amendment is about signalling what is the maximum.

The laying of anti-personnel mines is an intention to murder. A minefield is nothing more or less than a death trap, and it must be clear in the mind of a British subject who uses anti-personnel mines that deaths may well be the result. Can we allow, under British law, a conviction for arson to be punished with a life sentence when the use of anti-personnel mines carries a maximum of only 14 years' imprisonment? Under section 3 of the Explosive Substances Act 1883, which is still in force, the making or keeping of explosives with an intent to endanger life is punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment—and possession of explosives includes possession of landmines. Under the Genocide Act 1969, the maximum sentence is life imprisonment.

My amendment would place the penalties for laying landmines on a par with those for arson, for possession of explosive substances, for genocide and for war crimes. My strong view is that the laying of landmines is a war crime. I hope that the Government will endorse that position in the negotiations to agree the remit of the international criminal court.

My hon. Friend has raised two separable issues and I shall treat them as separate, if he will allow me. The first is the penalty available under the Bill for those who are found guilty. Let us establish at the outset that, whether 14 years in prison or life, the penalty will be severe and exemplary, which is right and proper for the crimes prescribed under the Bill. We must give clear signals: in what I hope would prove to be the unlikely event of people being prosecuted under our national legislation for such crimes, they would be dealt with in the most serious fashion by the courts. There is no dispute among hon. Members about the need for tough and exemplary sentences to be available and put into operation, should that be necessary.

We could argue almost endlessly about what precise level of penalty would be sufficient to act as a deterrent and to show the full gravity with which our society condemns such crimes. Precisely because the Bill does not seek to erode other parts of the criminal law, some activities consequent on the placing of landmines could, of themselves, attract higher penalties. Murder is murder, irrespective of how it is caused, so there can be no suggestion that we are not on all fours with some of the other heinous crimes mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen).

Under section 4 of the Explosive Substances Act 1883, the making or possession of explosives in suspicious circumstances carries a maximum penalty of 14 years. That was a reference point for the Bill. The Committee could have an interesting debate about the penalty that should apply to making or possessing explosives, but, after the terrorist outrages in London and Manchester, the location of one of the last IRA bombs, none of us treats those crimes as trivial. We are not being inconsistent by using as a reference point a crime that we judge to be heinous and requiring exemplary sentences.

While we can always argue about what precise measures should apply, I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that in the event of contravention of the Bill leading to death or serious injury, other criminal offences would apply, along with the relevant penalties. The reference point is consistent with the 1883 Act, so we are not far from making serious and exemplary sentences available to the courts. We are telling the world and our own people that exemplary punishments would be available if the Bill were contravened.

The more important part of my hon. Friend's remarks concerned whether use or possession of landmines should be a war crime. There is a serious debate about the nature of war crimes. As we speak, the conference in Rome on an international criminal court continues. I hope that the Committee supports the Government's wish to see that conference succeed. The hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife graciously said that he supports us; I hope that I can welcome his consistent support with just as much grace.

We are determined to help to bring the Rome conference to a successful conclusion. Agreement must not affect only a narrow group of states. We need an international court that can bear down on the serious and horrendous crimes that have disfigured the planet in recent times. In Europe, we have the example of Yugoslavia, and there is the prospect that the spectre of war crimes will haunt that region again. I have been to Arusha, where the tribunal on Rwanda is taking place, and to Rwanda itself where war crimes certainly happened. We must have an international criminal court that can deal with matters that need international sanctions or where the weight of international opinion is needed to ratify not just justice, but justice as part of reconciliation.

We can achieve wide agreement around the world on the need to criminalise activities such as genocide. It is easy to say, as Britain does strongly, that activities such as forcing children or young people into armed forces should be criminalised internationally. The crime of rape as part of the prosecution of war—I use that phrase although it is a contradiction—should be made a criminal offence under the statutes of the international criminal court.

Those matters are so important that we are insisting on a workable court that can bear down on those who commit such offences and can give a signal to the whole world that the international community is not prepared to allow them to go unpunished. The would-be perpetrators should know that their actions will lead to prosecution. The mechanism of the international criminal court would provide justice.

1.15 pm

My hon. Friend wants the use of landmines to be a war crime. My right hon. Friend said that he, as an individual, and, more important, as the Foreign Secretary, would have no difficulty accepting that the use of landmines and the other activities referred to in the Bill should be included in the definition of a war crime. However, I give my hon. Friend an important warning. Significant members of the international community have not signed up to the Ottawa process and are not yet ready to sign up to an alternative agreement, possibly through the conference on disarmament or wherever we pursue the establishment of a universal ban on landmines. In that climate, the setting up of an international criminal court is not more, but less, certain.

I caution my hon. Friend that, although I can offer him genuine sympathy for his ambitions and can reassure him that this matter does not cause the Government any problems, it would create real and practical problems if we were to pursue it at an international level. At least in the short term, it would make our ambition—which I know my hon. Friend shares—to establish the international criminal court less likely. In those circumstances, although I can offer him sympathy, I cannot offer him a way forward.

I hope that I have responded to my hon. Friend's remarks and that he accepts that the intentions that he wants to serve are either not achievable through his amendment or have already been achieved. The need to give the court real power and the ability to pass exemplary sentences has already been accepted, so I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.

I accept the points made by the Minister, although I am disappointed at the conclusion he reaches. He said that the Explosive Substances Act 1883 was the benchmark for the 14-year maximum sentence. He referred to the carrying of explosive substances, but other aspects of the 1883 Act carry a life sentence.

My key point is about making the laying of landmines a war crime and for it to be within the international criminal court's remit. I favour the establishment of an international criminal court and I want it to deal with the issues to which the Minister referred. It clearly must cover genocide, rape of women as an act of war and the use of children in war. It must take action against the perpetrators of a holocaust. The use of landmines is a holocaust: it is a holocaust by drip. Individual after individual suffers. As Boutros Boutros Ghali said, landmines are a weapon of mass destruction in slow motion.

I hope that the Government will not lose sight of that point. Although they feel the need to give the international criminal court a more limited remit, I hope that they will, in the future, reconsider this matter and make the laying of landmines a war crime, which is what I favour. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 3 to 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13

Rights Of Entry Etc For Fact-Finding Missions

I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 11, line 29, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.

Article 8.14 of the Ottawa convention states that any state party that is subject to a fact-finding mission "shall" grant access. However, the Bill states that the Secretary of State "may" authorise access for such a mission. That allows the possibility of may not, but "shall" allows no such negative. The implementing legislation should contain the same word as the convention. Can the Minister assure the House that there are no circumstances in which authorisation would not be given to a fact-finding mission in the United Kingdom?

Fact-finding verification missions are important, and I would not want the Government to block them or to encourage a formula that would enable other Governments to block them by claiming a UK precedent. The amendment is simple and I hope that it will be accepted.

I should like to raise a point on behalf of the Halo Trust. It was approached by a Canadian human rights organisation which demanded minefield information on current tactical minefields between two countries. When the trust suggested that that was not an appropriate inquiry, the organisation quoted the Ottawa convention with veiled threats. The Halo Trust is not sure whether the rules for fact-finding missions and information and records apply only to fact-finding missions between states under article 8 of the convention or whether it also applies to humanitarian organisations. Furthermore, the trust is not sure whether the rules also apply to missions whose representatives speak to UK nationals working overseas. Some paragraphs suggest that that applies only in the United Kingdom.

The Halo Trust has raised the point because if missions visit humanitarian mine-clearance programmes overseas and demand minefield information, UK demining staff—for example those working for the Halo Trust—would perhaps by law have to hand over the information, even if it were privileged. For example, it could have come from local military commanders as a result of trust being built up between Halo Trust staff and local commanders in countries that had not signed up to the ban. If those commanders thought that non-governmental organisation workers were passing privileged information to the UK, they might not allow any access by international humanitarian staff. Therefore, the Bill's effect might be to reduce humanitarian mine clearance, which I am sure is not the intention. In some mined countries that are emerging from civil war, the distribution of privileged information about mines by international NGO workers could be considered even as espionage.

This is a slightly difficult area and the Minister of State may not be able to respond to it immediately, but I should be grateful if he could perhaps respond by letter, so that we can pursue the matter—[Interruption.] I am delighted that he says that he can do it now.

I support the amendment that was tabled by the hon. Member for—

Leyton and Wanstead.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I was thinking Leytonstone. I listened carefully to him, as I always do, particularly with the news that his lineage has been carefully researched over the past few weeks and the news of the bearers of his surname. He demands even greater respect.

It seems an odd anomaly that the word "may" is used in this context. Surely, Britain would always wish, under any circumstances, to co-operate with a fact-finding mission under the convention. When I say that, I do not question the Government's motives, and I do not want to hear the claim that we had earlier that we are undermining a positive move towards ratification of the Ottawa convention and everything that goes with it. However, the fact remains that a future Government may not be so well disposed. A future Secretary of State may have some scintilla of doubt about the application of the convention. In drafting the legislation, we must leave no area of ambiguity.

Curiously, reading further on in the clause, the word "shall" is used on a number of occasions. Once the Secretary of State, under subsection (1), has decided to issue an authorisation, the content of that authorisation is no longer a matter for his consideration, because the word "shall" appears in subsequent subsections, including, incidentally, the subsection on the overriding of the control functions of constables, which provides that they shall provide assistance. That is wholly welcome.

I am curious—perhaps the Minister of State can help me on this—whether the same provision applies to Customs and Excise officers and to the security services. I assume that, when he responds, he will say that the provision is analagous to that of other Acts that provide similar international obligations. However, perhaps he will explain why this word "may" is used, or do something better than that: accept the amendment, so that we have no doubt as to the position of not only this Government, but any future British Government in respect of the Ottawa convention.

I have no intention of rushing to the defence that this is an attempt to subvert the Bill. The amendment is a different proposition from the clear wrecking amendment that the Opposition tabled under clause 5. I accept that the motivation of the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) and the hon. Member for Frome—

Somerton and Frome.

I want to give the hon. Gentleman the Frome and not the Somerton. I accept that he, the hon. Member for Salisbury and my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) genuinely want to serve the purpose of the Bill.

The clause provides the power under which the Secretary of State can allow fact-finding missions to take place; it is not the manner in which the Secretary of State finds himself placed under a duty to make facilities available for such a fact-finding mission. The distinction is not unimportant. Under domestic law, clearly, it is necessary to give the Secretary of State the power by which he can facilitate fact-finding missions. That is sensible, and it is right and proper that it should be in the Bill. Once we ratify the convention, under international law, there will be a duty on the Secretary of State to allow for those fact-finding missions to enter this country. There is therefore no ambiguity about the intent. The duty will exist at the point of ratification and when the convention comes into force.

I understand the Minister's point, but if he were to change the word "may" to "shall", he would combine the duty with the power and incorporate both into British law, which seems a more satisfactory solution.

1.30 pm

I am certainly not a lawyer—indeed, it is many years since I ceased to pretend to be a logician—but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying that although I understand what he says, it simply is not necessary to do as he suggests. The shadow Foreign Secretary failed to grasp the fact that the Bill is not the only way in which the Ottawa convention will be brought into operation. His inability to grasp the simple arguments made by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces was the source of his confusion. The law and the other procedures that bring the convention into operation already exist in other fields, or will exist under international law on ratification of the treaty.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) rightly asked about parallels. The convention on chemical weapons, for example, uses exactly the same form of words in respect of fact-finding missions. In respect of the convention on chemical weapons or the landmine legislation, it is inconceivable that any British Secretary of State would seek to place himself outwith the spirit or, more important, the letter of international law. I hope that I have reassured my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome that what is in the Bill is sufficient. We could go beyond that, but I assure the Committee that it is not necessary.

I refer the hon. Member for Salisbury to clause 27, which defines a fact-finding mission as

"a fact-finding mission under Article 8 of the Ottawa Convention".

That is important because a fact-finding mission under this part of the Bill is restricted to the Ottawa convention definition, which is agreed by states that are party to the convention. It could not lead to the problems mentioned today. I hope that I have managed to reassure the hon. Gentleman and those who asked him to express their concerns. If that reassurance is not adequate—although it seems that the hon. Member for Salisbury is indicating that it is—I invite him and those who raised matters with him to come back to me. I shall then attempt to set their minds at rest. However, I assure the Committee that it is not necessary to pursue the amendment, and that all the concerns expressed are covered in the Bill.

The Minister says that what is in the Bill is sufficient. Verification is important, and there must be freedom of access if the treaty is to work and if there is to be confidence that it will work.

I note what the Minister said about the Bill's provisions being in addition to a duty to allow access under the Ottawa convention. In that case, I do not understand why he cannot accept the amendment. However. I assume from his comments that there would be no circumstances in which a Secretary of State would not allow access under the treaty—I see that he is nodding. He used the word "inconceivable" in that context so, on that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave withdrawn.

Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 14 to 29 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without amendment.

Order for Third Reading read.

1.34 pm

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Last year, one of the first visits I made as the new Secretary of State for Defence was to Bosnia, to visit our troops in multinational division south-west. I do not think that it was an accident that my Ministry decided that that should be my first visit. I have graphic memories not only of the service men and women who were serving there and of the dedicated and risky job that they do for us, but of Bosnia's physical and political scenery. That scenery has improved considerably since my visit, providing great testimony of the necessity both of that intervention and of the subsequent role played by our armed services—in stopping the fighting, killing, concentration camps, mass rape and torture occurring on our own continent, in rebuilding shattered communities and in allowing the Bosnian people the breathing space to grow their own new democratic institutions.

Flying over some parts of Bosnia in a British Army helicopter, one's breath was taken away by the physical beauty of the countryside. Flying over Glamoc, for example, one saw dazzling scenery of green spaces and tiny villages. One could not help being attracted to that country. However, one could not land in a helicopter or walk round Glamoc, as it had been riddled and contaminated by the thousands of anti-personnel landmines that were left behind by the warring factions as a legacy—which will continue for many years—to the conflict.

Seeing Glamoc brought home to me the depth of the problem, even more so than when I stood in a minefield outside Mostar, dressed in the cumbersome equipment—of which I am continually reminded by the replay of embarrassing pictures—that is required to enter a minefield. People continue to live and daily to risk their lives and limbs in Glamoc, as its surrounding countryside is covered with undetected mines.

There is therefore an unfinished mission that—for people living in Bosnia and in so many other countries around the world—is not only political or visionary but real and practical. That is why this debate, the Bill and our ratification of the convention are all so important, not only for us and the United Kingdom's credibility but for all humanity. I feel a burning sense of duty to ensure that the campaign continues, not only to ratify the Ottawa convention ourselves but to persuade countries that have not yet signed it and are still manufacturing, exporting and sowing anti-personnel landmines to stop those activities.

Although the House will pass the Landmines Bill in only one day, we have had a full and vigorous debate. The Opposition have highlighted some points of interest, contention and debate. However, they have taken themselves to a logically ludicrous position, essentially telling us that we should not ratify the treaty. They appear to be saying that only by amending the treaty—and that is impossible—can we give our armed forces safety and security. I do not find that a particularly practical position, but they have retreated from opposing the Bill, and I welcome their co-operation in taking the Bill so quickly and at such short notice.

Our success in dealing with the measure in one day demonstrates the strength of feeling on the issue in the House, and that must be welcome. It is also a fitting tribute to the enduring memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the work that she did, more than so many others, to draw attention to the evil effect of anti-personnel landmines.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) made a moving speech, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen). My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) referred to the parallel universe that the Opposition appear to inhabit in respect of this subject. My hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King) and the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) also made powerful speeches. The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), who is not in his place, used his Army experience to some effect. He articulated a practical view that will be recognised by many soldiers, including the vast majority who now believe that anti-personnel landmines are a form of warfare which must be abandoned and outlawed for ever.

The debate has underlined the fact that the Government's policy on anti-personnel landmines that we adopted last year has been the right one. I am glad that we have been able to fulfil the pledge that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I made 13 months ago when we came to power and took instant action on the issue. When it comes into force, the Bill will ensure that no British soldier will ever use an anti-personnel landmine again; no British company will be allowed to manufacture anti-personnel landmines; no one anywhere will ever be able to acquire anti-personnel landmines from a British source; and our operational stockpiles of anti-personnel landmines will be eliminated.

We have also ensured that members of our armed forces cannot be prosecuted for planning and operating alongside those from states for which the use of anti-personnel landmines remains legal. That is the right thing to do, and I welcome the recognition that the House has now given that today. Of course, any such protection for our armed forces will become increasingly unnecessary as more states sign and ratify the Ottawa convention. In that context, I welcome the announcement by the United States Government of their intention, at least in principle, to sign the Ottawa convention by 2006. That will provide a big boost towards our final goal. It also shows the inexorable public pressure that is now rightly exerted on all Governments.

There is still a long way to go. No country can measure its achievements merely by reference to its own efforts. The problem of anti-personnel landmines is a global one which requires a global effort. Achieving complete elimination of anti-personnel landmines remains a key objective for the Government, and we will use all our influence and endeavours in the international scene to exactly that effort.

Regrettably, some states do not feel ready or able to sign the convention. For those that have not, the quoted reasons are primarily connected with national security and the need to develop alternative capabilities. However, a comprehensive ban must be exactly that; the Ottawa convention provides a goal to which we have to encourage all states in the world to aspire. That means working closely with those states, recognising their security concerns while persuading them not to rely on such weapons, but to seek alternative and better means of providing their security. It may cost money; it may cause apprehension; but what is that compared with the human costs that are otherwise involved?

We must continue our efforts to demine the world. My Department will continue to play a significant role in that. I am pleased to inform the House that the mine information and training centre that I announced last October is now fully operational. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said, it is running mine awareness courses on a large scale. Some 2,000 students have already completed its expert courses. It continues to look for ways to help NGOs with mine clearance. The Defence Evaluation and Research Agency also plays a valuable role in developing new techniques, and will continue to do so.

So our work does not end here today with this legislation. There is still much to do, and we will do it. I commend the Bill to the House, and wish it a smooth passage through the Lords.

1.44 pm

Last October, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) and I, on behalf of the Opposition, welcomed the signing of the Oslo agreement. We pointed out that it was severely weakened because it did not include major manufacturers of landmines such as China, Russia and Pakistan. We said that the debate on landmines had rightly focused on negotiations for a future ban, but that the problem required a dual approach—working towards a ban and removing existing mines. We offered consensus on the issue of anti-personnel landmines. We recognised that mines had had a military purpose, and that we should work to encourage the development of alternatives that could achieve that purpose without the appalling risk to civilians. We continue to support the Government's resourcing of mine clearance operations whether directly or through agencies as the Halo Trust.

Television pictures bring into our homes the horrors of wars in far-off lands and the horrendous impact that indiscriminate use of anti-personnel landmines have on innocent civilians. We all remember the scenes of the visit to Angola by Diana, Princess of Wales, which gave such global momentum to the cause of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Within our own continent, some of us here have visited Bosnia and seen the devastating impact of mines on that country and its people.

On Friday 13 May 1955, which happened to be in the middle of a general election campaign, when I was just 10 years old, a British anti-personnel landmine laid on Swanage beach to defend against wartime invaders was uncovered by a party of schoolchildren of whom I was one. By a stroke of fate, I and a friend got bored and returned to our sandcastle at the water's edge. A few minutes later, the explosion killed five of my friends. British children killed by a British mine. I believe that I am the luckiest man alive in the House today. I know how children and their parents feel in such traumatic circumstances, so it is with a real sense of pride that I stand at this Dispatch Box today giving a fair wind to the Bill.

It is also true that my military constituency in Salisbury has ensured that I understand why our service men continue to feel the need for battlefield protection by anti-personnel landmines. They are usually the very same people who are motivated to extremes of bravery when they put their lives at risk in mining operations both during their service and when they have retired. We must all recognise that ratification of the Ottawa convention will mean that our armed forces lose a significant military capacity, and that defensive landmines are effective in redressing the balance in favour of the user in the face of an assault by superior forces.

I agree with the Secretary of State that this is not the end. Today is the beginning of a new era. The Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues will, I know, address the question of how British soldiers will continue to have effective defensive protection. In 1996, the previous Government asked DERA to conduct studies of non-lethal obstacles for peacekeeping operations. I look forward to hearing what progress has been made.

There are viable alternatives to anti-personnel landmines. They may make static defence systems such as minefields increasingly irrelevant. I wonder how far the Ministry of Defence has got with remote surveillance methods such as electronic sensory devices, real-time satellite intelligence, drone aircraft with infra red and photographic capabilities and so on. How advanced are replacement technologies, ranging from non-lethal devices such as entanglement nets, slippery agents, foam and obscurants to Claymore-type mines that are activated by command through remote surveillance methods that automatically activate other forms of ordnance?

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) said, the Bill is a very imperfect animal. There is much unfinished business here. It must receive close scrutiny in another place, but we have made a start today and we give the Bill a fair wind.

1.48 pm

In the cockpit of frenetic exchange today, it has sometimes been easy to forget the purpose for which we are here. We pass lots of legislation in the House, but there can rarely have been—

It being a quarter of an hour after the commencement of proceedings on Third Reading of the Bill, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order [9 July], put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Asylum Seekers

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Pope.]

1.49 pm

I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce an Adjournment debate on the specific issue of asylum seekers and the role of local authorities in the associated funding. I see that the Minister has not yet arrived to respond to my debate, so I shall make my remarks as slowly as possible, to give her a chance to catch up—[Interruption.]

Order. Will hon. Members leaving please do so quickly and quietly?

I shall preface my remarks with a couple of introductory comments explaining the context within which I chose the debate. Most Adjournment debates stem from essentially local problems, and this one is no exception. My borough, like many other London boroughs, has had to cope with the financial and practical implications of an influx of asylum seekers, including, in our case, unaccompanied children.

I state at the outset my recognition that although we have genuine problems, they are not on the same scale as those of other London boroughs, especially those in the inner city. The Minister—I am glad to say that she has now arrived—represents an inner-city London borough, and I know that she is well aware of the magnitude of the problem. I would not want to exaggerate the difficulties that we have in our corner of London.

However, the fact that a borough with a relatively small number of asylum seekers still has a serious problem illustrates the magnitude of the problem in general. To put the numbers in context, we have about 242 asylum seekers at present, among whom particular problems surround a group of either 17 or 22—depending on how the numbers are measured—unaccompanied children. Hillingdon has almost 150 unaccompanied children, and, in terms of aggregate numbers, we are talking in terms of 2,000 or 3,000 in areas such as Southwark, Haringey and elsewhere. Although my borough's problems are relatively minor, they illustrate the broader issues.

Secondly, I realise that the Government inherited extremely offensive and unsatisfactory legislation, and that they have been battling with the problem ever since they came into office. The Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 and the Housing Act 1996 created a morass of problems, which the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), who is, I believe, the lead Minister in the matter, called a "shambles within a shambles". That is an accurate description. We have a combination of highly defective and pernicious legislation and subsequent court action; that has created the problem that the Government now have.

I also recognise that the Government have given assurances that they will introduce new measures soon, and that the Minister may be inhibited by the spending announcements due next week. None the less, I feel that there are ways in which we could take matters a little further forward in this discussion. A particular question that I wish to pursue—we can pursue it in qualitative terms even if the numbers are not open for discussion—is whether there will be a role for local authorities in the new measures that the Government envisage, and if so, what kind of role that will be. I hope that I shall be able to press the Minister on that question.

My third introductory point is the fact that, when we talk about asylum seekers, Members of Parliament have a responsibility not to whip up xenophobia, racism and other such feelings in their areas. It is easy for such matters to get out of control. In my borough, which I emphasise is not one of the most affected areas, there were reports a few weeks ago of "floods of asylum seekers", but, when the story was investigated, it turned out to involve only seven people. By then, however, local opinions had become thoroughly inflamed. We have a duty to represent our areas and to express their concerns, but also a duty not to inflame public opinion.

Long before I became a Member of Parliament, I was involved in immigration issues, and fought and argued hard for the rights of people to have access to the United Kingdom—for example, in the context of the problems associated with the Asians from east Africa. I strongly support the position taken by my party leader on the rights of people from Hong Kong. I support a liberal and humane approach to asylum and immigration. If we are to sustain that argument, we must deal with the problems faced by local authorities. That is the spirit in which I present this debate.

As most of us know, a substantial number of asylum seekers remain ineligible for benefits under the legislation introduced by the previous Government. Three categories present problems in different degrees for local authorities.

First, there are the single people, of whom there are about 10,000 in London, according to the Hammersmith figures, which are the common statistical basis. Those 10,000 people are all pushing for bed-and-breakfast accommodation, in a city where such accommodation is extremely difficult to get. Because of recent court rulings, they cannot share with other families, so the problem has been fragmented and the demand for accommodation is even greater than it otherwise would be. There is a disparity between the funding that the Government are making available for single people once costs are deducted, and the costs that local authorities have to pay. The estimate that I have been given is that London boroughs as a whole are paying out of their own resources £6 million for this category.

The second group are the families. Under the Government's complicated funding structure, local authorities must pass a threshold of spending—£80,000, I think—before they can begin to claim back some of those expenses. In order to accommodate about 13,000 people, London boroughs must pay out of their own resources about £13 million.

The third category is unaccompanied children. I shall speak in more detail about this group because, although it is relatively small in number, it presents particular problems under the asylum rules and procedures. There are 890 unaccompanied children in London as a whole. Hillingdon is the worst-affected borough, and possibly also Westminster. My borough has a smaller number. Estimates over the past week have risen from 17 to 22.

Accommodating children is extremely expensive, at £1,000 a week. It is very difficult for the local authorities to access the funding that is available from Government. They must spend £200,000 before they can claim anything back. The restrictive nature of the procedures in the Children Act 1989, under which local authorities are acting, means that services for vulnerable children in the local area are being cut to finance those costs.

I am told that if my local council had been more imaginative in the use of creative accounting, the problem would not have arisen, but councils should not be forced into that position. A literal interpretation of the Children Act 1989 would imply that the interests of vulnerable children are being placed against those of asylum seekers. That is wrong.

We often hear that many asylum seekers are bogus. I tend to take such stories with a pinch of salt. No doubt some are bogus, but surely no one would argue that children were bogus asylum seekers. Most of them are entirely genuine and incapable of dissimulating, as fraudsters would. The current influx of children is from Kosovo, and no one would dispute that that is a war-torn area where ethnic cleansing is being practised, and that there are genuine victims. The particular needs of children and the way in which those impact on local authorities is an issue to which we should give specific attention.

Why is the current practice fundamentally unacceptable? I should not need to speak at length about this point, as Labour, in government and in opposition, has acknowledged why the present situation is fundamentally unsound and unsatisfactory. It is unsound for local authorities because they must pick up a large bill—I believe that the figure is about £26 million for the whole of London. That burden is imposed on local authorities that have stretched financial services and capping limits. It appears to local residents that asylum seekers are being financed at the expense of other services.

The current system is bad for asylum seekers because the payments in kind that they receive under national assistance legislation are barely adequate. Asylum seekers receive food, but cannot get money for travel, which they need in order to pursue asylum appeals. The current payment mechanisms are totally unsatisfactory, and asylum seekers are often introduced to a dependency trap from which they may never escape. The situation is bad for the authorities, for asylum seekers and, almost certainly, for the Government who, at the end of the day, must pay large sums to supply asylum seekers through inefficient mechanisms. That would not occur if there were a properly integrated national programme. Worst of all, the present situation is bad for race relations. As a result of the immediate juxtaposition of asylum seekers and reduced Government services in local areas, people's feelings are inflamed unnecessarily.

The present situation is thoroughly unsatisfactory, but what can the Government do about it? I recognise that announcements are imminent and that perhaps the Government cannot reveal the details of their proposals. However, if the Government are moving towards a national system of asylum benefits that is qualified by the provision of documentation—I believe that that is the proposal on offer—where will it leave local authorities? Will they still be responsible for undocumented cases, particularly children, who are most unlikely to be carrying documents? What role will local authorities play? How will they be reimbursed according to the new proposals under consideration?

I hope that we can make some headway on the issue of transitional arrangements until the Government's new procedures come into effect. The situation is urgent in many cases, and local authorities must receive some relief—for example, we should remove the threshold regarding the amount of money that must be spent before local authorities qualify for reimbursement. Last year, the number of unaccompanied children reached double figures in 16 London authorities. However, only three local authorities had sufficient numbers of unaccompanied children to be able to claim Government money. That is the sort of anomaly for which the Minister's Department is responsible, and I hope that the Government will address that problem without prejudicing their overall expenditure targets, which will be announced next week.

Although the Minister is not responsible for the Home Office, we must put in context the way in which the Home Office is managing the asylum seeker issue. Many Members of Parliament deal with asylum seekers' cases, some of which have been around for years. The delays are appalling. I understand that the problem was inherited from the previous Government, but it is totally unclear why a substantial number of civil servants have not been drafted in to deal with the problem much more expeditiously. That is very strange, and it is quite wrong that the solution to an enormous human and financial problem should be obstructed by bureaucratic difficulties in the Home Office. I hope that the Minister will provide an assurance that proper priority is being given to that issue.

I hope that, in defining their approach to asylum seekers and local councils, the Government will adopt a much more holistic approach. At present, the response to the problem is fragmented: various Government Departments do different things, and local authorities do their own thing. Some of them act adequately and heroically, while others pass the buck to other local authorities. We need a co-ordinated approach that is led from the centre.

There have been examples of when the Government of the day, Conservative or Labour, have faced up to the difficulties presented by immigration problems. The country's response to the Ugandan Asians crisis, for example, ultimately reflected credit on most of those concerned. We had a concerted national response to the problem of the boat people, which was led by the Government of the day. I realise that the asylum seekers issue is much more complex than either of those two examples. However, we need Government leadership, which must be integrated and co-ordinated. That is what most of us are seeking from the Government.

2.4 pm

I begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) for raising this important issue. The House will know that asylum seekers who claim asylum at the point of arrival are entitled to social security benefits that cover their needs for housing, food and other necessities while their applications are considered. Local authorities have become responsible for supporting asylum seekers under the National Assistance Act 1948 and the Children Act 1989 as a consequence of the previous Government's removal of entitlement to benefit for people who claimed asylum after entering the country or whose initial application had been turned down.

We recognise that the current arrangements have placed an undue burden on local authorities and, quite inappropriately, on social services departments. Local authorities are in a difficult position in having to meet an open-ended commitment without having any control over the number of people approaching them for assistance. The point was well made by the hon. Gentleman. Staff and other resources that should have been used for community care services are being diverted, to the detriment of other service users.

The current support arrangements are a mess, and we are having to consider a way of relieving the burden on local authorities, but we still need them to play a role given their access to and expertise in this area. As a matter of priority we initiated a wide-ranging interdepartmental study to examine the asylum process from beginning to end, including the present arrangements for welfare support. It is unacceptable that any asylum seeker should be left destitute, but, equally, we are conscious that a balance must be struck between reducing the benefit incentive for economic migrants to make unfounded asylum applications and the need to support asylum seekers while their applications are considered.

The study team has now completed its work, and we are considering its findings carefully across government. We shall carefully examine all the options before deciding what to do, and we shall announce the way ahead as soon as we are able to do so. I am fully aware of the sense of urgency with which our announcement is awaited. The Government's policy on asylum seekers is that we should deal with their cases quickly and fairly so that genuine refugees receive the protection to which they are entitled and those who seek to abuse the asylum process are given no opportunity to play the system by pursuing appeals that have no chance of success.

Our aim is to put in place a strategy for dealing with asylum issues that is responsible, properly thought out, comprehensive and enduring. We intend to implement a clear, coherent and comprehensive policy across the board. In the meantime, it is our responsibility to operate the law as it stands. The removal of benefits in 1996 and subsequent court judgments have had severe consequences for many social services authorities, especially in London. The local authorities for the boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark, in which my constituents live, are facing precisely the sort of pressure that the hon. Gentleman referred to. I know that that pressure is shared by other hon. Members and by my hon. Friends, especially those who represent London constituencies.

A new duty has been imposed on many social services authorities to support adults for whom they have never before had to provide services and for which they do not have funding. Although there is no new duty in respect of families with children and unaccompanied children, the numbers are very high and the burden on local authorities is therefore substantial.

At 29 June, just over 10,000 adults were being accommodated by London authorities and a further 1,000 were being accommodated in the rest of Great Britain. In addition, almost 6,500 families and some 900 unaccompanied children were being accommodated by London authorities alone.

My hon. Friend will be aware that my constituency includes Heathrow. Other hon. Members present today will testify to the scale of the problem of unaccompanied children. Although it is a problem that we welcome because we want to stand by our humanitarian concerns and uphold people's right to live in peace and security, the scale of the problem is placing an increasing burden on our local authority and diverting resources from the local community.

We have two desperate requirements: first, additional financial resources and, secondly, assistance with and a review of practice at ground level to ensure that the services that we provide are appropriate and adequately supported by both the local authority and the local voluntary sector. I urge the Government to deal with those issues as rapidly as possible.

I thank my hon. Friend for the two important points that he has raised, which will no doubt be relevant to, and supported by, other hon. Members.

One of the tests of the new measures that will be announced as a result of the review will be the capacity to deal with the pressures being faced by local authorities such as that of the hon. Member for Twickenham. I wish to underline the fact that some of the most distressing asylum cases involve unaccompanied children who have no source of support or nurture other than that provided by the local authority. In many cases, there is intolerable tension between meeting the demand in terms of cost and responding in a humanitarian way, which none of us would want local authorities to avoid. My hon. Friend has highlighted the tensions and I hope that the review will meet those points.

We recognise that it is not right that a financial burden on the scale that this issue represents should be imposed on council tax payers, or that community care services for local people should suffer. We have continued to make available to local authorities three special grants to alleviate the burden imposed on them. Last year, the Department of Health paid local authorities almost £40 million to support adult asylum seekers. The majority of claims by local authorities for reimbursement of expenditure on adult asylum seekers was fully met in 1997–98. However, we have listened carefully to what local authorities and local authority associations have been saying about the costs of supporting asylum seekers and we have therefore undertaken to increase the adult grant by some 18 per cent., subject to parliamentary approval, to £165 a week per adult asylum seeker accommodated in 1998–99.

With regard to local authority support for asylum seeking families, under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 local authorities have a general duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are in need within their area and, so far as is consistent with that duty, to promote the upbringing of such children by their families by providing a range and level of services appropriate to those needs. Section 17 duties are for children under the age of 18. The Government paid £28.4 million for that grant in 1997–98 to target compensatory funds to local authorities with significant numbers of asylum seekers with children.

Will the Minister acknowledge that one of the difficulties for local authorities is that there is a threshold above which they receive compensation from the Government? They are juggling with a few tens of thousands of pounds within the tight finances that apply to local government to try to stretch the money over the services. That is causing huge difficulty, especially in areas where money to support asylum-seeking children has to come directly out of the children department.

My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), whose constituency shares a borough with mine, has pointed out that that is causing huge stresses and tensions in the boroughs, because parents of vulnerable children and children in need are being asked to give way for asylum-seeking children. We want to cater adequately for both categories, but the threshold often prevents us from doing that.

I entirely accept that some local authorities have difficulties. The hon. Lady will be aware that the grant is not intended to meet the full costs of care for children, but is focused on local authorities that deal with the largest number of children. Whatever formula is settled on, it is extremely important that it is administratively simple and gets the resources to where they are most needed.

The purpose of the children's grant is to provide compensation to local authorities for unforeseen additional expenditure in carrying out their duties under sections 17 and 18 of the Children Act 1989, rather than the reimbursement of the full costs. The grant is to support children in need, and their families, through support for the whole family, or to support children of 16 or 17 who are without a family and are not already being looked after by social services, which are affected by changes in social security benefits and housing legislation for asylum seekers. The grant is intended to keep the family together.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health is seeking resources of a commensurate level for the current financial year. The number of families with children being supported by local authorities has been rising steadily, and the Government recognise that local authorities will need resources to reflect that increasing demand. For unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, we currently have a grant of up to £3 million a year, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) said, to help meet local authorities' costs in respect of them. As she suggested, authorities qualify for the grant if they spend more than 5 per cent. of the children block standard spending assessment on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

We introduced that threshold because many authorities deal with only a handful of unaccompanied children seeking asylum and the amounts of money involved do not justify the administrative costs that would be incurred in paying grant to them. We are, however, reviewing the arrangements for the grant and have taken on board the views expressed by some local authorities about the threshold.

We intend to continue to support local authorities for as long as the current arrangements exist. The courts imposed a new duty on local authorities for supporting adult asylum seekers for which there was no personal social services funding. The families with children grant and the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children grant recognise that local authorities already had a duty to those groups under the Children Act 1989, and they are considered to be a contribution to the increased costs that local authorities face. We have listened carefully to representations from local authorities and local authority associations about the conditions of various grants. We have undertaken to reconsider the grants and we will put proposals and special grant reports for 1998 and 1999 before the House in due course.

The hon. Member for Twickenham made a very important point about the needs of asylum seekers. We need holistic solutions that transcend the boundaries between Departments, and that is a test of our capacity for joined-up government. The awful circumstances facing many asylum seekers are evident from our constituency surgeries every week. That experience underlines the importance of conducting procedures fairly, transparently and speedily. We must ensure that local authorities have the capacity to respond to difficult demands.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes past Two o'clock.

Volume 315: debated on Friday 10 July 1998

House Of Commons

Prayers

Orders Of The Day

Landmines Bill

Landmines Bill Money

Landmines Bill

Clause 1

Mines And Components To Which Act Applies

Clause 2

Prohibited Conduct

Clause 13

Rights Of Entry Etc For Fact-Finding Missions

Asylum Seekers