Noble Lords will wish to be aware of the outcome of the Plenary of the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies which took place in Vienna on 10 to 12 December 2003.The Arrangement is the only multilateral export control forum dealing with conventional arms. Its purpose is to prevent destabilising accumulations of conventional weapons in sensitive parts of the world by promoting transparency and responsibility in transfers of arms and dual-use goods. The Government believe the Arrangement has an important role to play in improving arms exporting practices amongst its current participating states, and can help to spread good practice to other countries.The plenary meeting concluded a year-long review of the Arrangement, which has agreed a number of important changes to its operations, including: enhanced controls on conventional arms with special emphasis on strengthening capabilities of participating states to combat the threat of terrorism; increased transparency with the addition of mandatory reporting for all small arms and light weapons (SALW) exports, strict controls on Man-Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS) transfers; guidelines on arms brokering; and adopting end-use oriented controls encouraging member governments to impose export controls on certain unlisted items when necessary to support the United Nations arms embargoes. The question of admission of new participating states was discussed, although no decisions in this area were taken at the plenary. The plenary also agreed on the importance of work to explain the Arrangement's merits to non-participating states.A Ministerial Statement was agreed in the name of Ministers from all WA states and released at the end of the plenary. The purpose of this statement was to reaffirm the importance participating states attach to the Wassenaar Arrangement as a forum for the promotion of peace and stability, as well as to raise the Arrangement's public profile. It reads as follows:

In December it was announced that, subject to the European Parliamentary and Local Elections Pilot Bill achieving Royal Assent, the north-east and East Midlands regions would pilot all postal voting at the combined European parliamentary and local elections in June 2004. My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, Mr Christopher Leslie can today announce that it is our intention that two further regions will also hold all-postal pilots. These regions will be Yorkshire and the Humber and the north-west.My honourable friend is pleased to be able to announce these further regions so that the important work of preparing for the pilot elections can begin in earnest. We have identified Yorkshire and the Humber and the north-west after discussion with electoral administrators and look forward to those regions, alongside the north-east and East Midlands, helping us to progress our electoral modernisation agenda.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has today announced that Her Majesty the Queen has been graciously pleased to approve his recommendation that a commemorative crown should be issued in 2004 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France.Collector versions of the coin will be released at a premium above face value and, during the course of the year, the coin will also become available at its face value of five pounds from banks and post offices.

My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health (Miss Johnson) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.I am pleased to announce that, after a two-year period of consultation and consideration, we propose to seek Parliament's approval for regulations, under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, to enable people conceived by donated sperm, eggs or embryos in future to know the identity of their donor.We propose that donors who donate from 1 April 2005 will do so on the understanding that any child born as a result of their donation will be able to obtain from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority identifying details about them when the child reaches the age of 18. This will not apply to people who have donated before that time. It means that the first donor-conceived people to receive identifying information about their donors would do so in 2023.I must stress that removal of anonymity will not lead to the donor having any responsibility, parental, financial or otherwise, for the child.In addition, as we announced on 28 January 2003, the regulations will provide for non-identifying information about donors to be given, on request, to donor-conceived people who were born after the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's register came into effect in 1991. This will be available to 18 year-olds in 2010. The non-identifying information will be standardised so that, from 2022, all donor-conceived people who request it will be able to receive the same categories of information.The decision that it is right to remove donor anonymity has been informed by a public consultation on the provision of information to donor-conceived people; a programme of work with clinics and donors; consideration of the position in other countries; and a comparison with the information available to adopted people. We have also listened to the voices of donor-conceived people. Our conclusion is that the interests of the child are paramount, and that the position of donor-conceived people should be aligned more closely with that of adopted people, with access to identifying information about their donor when they reach age 18.We intend to use the opportunity of the removal of anonymity to encourage a change in the culture of sperm, egg and embryo donation. By bringing more openness to it, we want to see wider recognition of the value and importance of such donations, and greater public appreciation of the dramatic difference that the donors can make to lives and families. To support the transition to identifiable donors, we will raise consciousness of the need for donors and the contribution they make to our society through a campaign for public awareness.The regulations will be laid before Parliament as soon as possible.We have also considered developments that are taking place more widely in the assisted reproduction area. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act has been in force since 1991. It was landmark legislation at the time, setting up the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and introducing the first regulatory regime in the world specifically for the newly developing field of assisted reproduction. Since then, over 73, 000 babies have been born in the UK as a result of treatment procedures regulated under the Act.Bearing in mind the speed at which new technologies in the fertility field develop, and the complex ethical issues often associated with them, the Act has stood the test of time remarkably well.However, any cutting-edge legislation, no matter how successful, at some stage needs to be reconsidered and any necessary readjustments made to ensure that it continues to be effective. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act is no exception. Developments in new technologies, changes in public perception of ethical issues, and the effect of international developments ail have an impact and need to be considered.I have concluded, therefore, that it is time to review the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The review will begin in 2004 and will include a full public consultation exercise in 2005. The review will be carried out by the department, and will include taking account of the work of the Science and Technology Committee, which is considering human reproductive technologies and the law and plans to report later this year. We welcome the work of the committee.The review will be wide-ranging, but will exclude certain issues such as embryo research, stem cells and cloning which have been extensively and conclusively debated in Parliament in recent years. The issues that we envisage the review addressing include the range of procedures covered by the Act, checking the safety and efficacy of techniques, ethical considerations and effective regulation.The Act has been very successful landmark legislation. We believe that it is right to review it to ensure that it continues to be effective in the 21st century.

My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ivor Caplin) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.As part of the Government's commitment to investigate Gulf veterans' illnesses openly and honestly, data on mortality of veterans of the 1990–91 Gulf conflict are regularly published. The most recent figures, for the period 1 April 1991 to 31 December 2003, were published on 15 January 2004. The key tables from that publication are set out below. Table 1 gives the causes of death to UK Gulf veterans over that period; table 2 shows the deaths due to malignant neoplasms among UK Gulf veterans. As with previous information, the data for Gulf veterans are compared to that of a control group, known as the Era cohort, which is made up of Armed Forces personnel of a similar age, gender, service, regular/reservist status and rank who were not deployed.