Employment Law (Beecroft Report)

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Mark Prisk

Monday 21st May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Prisk]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am pleased to say that the Ministry of Justice is leading the way in streamlining the process to reduce the costs and remove red tape which, sadly—as he says—existed in the past.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

There is no international evidence of any connection between the weakening of employment protection and growth. We have yet to see the report, but will the Minister tell us whether it contains any evidence to justify its conclusions, or whether it simply contains the author’s opinions?

[Mr Prisk]

As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) pointed out a moment ago, Germany has made important reforms recently, and that has helped. We will look at all the evidence. We have a call for evidence, which will close in June, and I hope that the hon. Lady will contribute.

Arms Export Controls

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Mark Prisk

Thursday 20th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Chair of the Committees on Arms Export Controls on the way in which he has presented the report today. He has said many things that many of us who are members of the Committees fully agree with, and I suspect that many other hon. Members will also be pleased that someone in his position has said those things, because the reality is that Governments of all political persuasions have followed a course whereby they have misjudged the risks that arms being sold by Britain have presented not only under authoritarian regimes in the middle east and Africa, but under many regimes throughout the world.

The reason for that may well be the huge economic benefits that Britain has acquired in the past from the arms trade. I believe that Britain is second only to the United States in terms of the money that it makes from the arms trade. I understand that in response to a freedom of information request by the Campaign Against Arms Trade, it was confirmed that between 2000 and 2009 the UK took $93 billion in defence exports. This is a key debate for us all, because we need to recognise that there is huge economic and political pressure on Governments of all persuasions to allow the trade to continue. It is therefore important that the Committees on Arms Export Controls, which were established by the previous Labour Government, have continued in this Parliament. I welcome the report and today’s debate on it, and I hope that that is a sign that we will have regular debates on this issue and that the Government will listen carefully to what the Committees say.

I am a junior member of the Committees, which I joined fairly recently. When I first joined, one concern was that the Government were perhaps not treating the Committees as seriously as had previously been the case. That was partly because the report that the Government provided the Committees with was far shorter than previous reports, although the Minister will no doubt assure me that it made up for that in quality. The fact that more junior Ministers were sent to give evidence to the Committees also led to concern. I therefore urge the Government to ensure they do not create the impression that the Committees and their work on this issue are not being treated seriously.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

Specifically on that point, and as a junior member of the Government, let me assure the hon. Lady that both Cabinet Ministers I work with on this issue take it very seriously. Indeed, she is right to say that just because a Government report is brief that does not necessarily mean it does not answer the questions, and I hope the subsequent information we provided, which the Chair of the Committee identified, highlights that. I hope she will accept that point.

[Katy Clark]

I thank the Minister for that intervention.

In many ways, successive Administrations have dealt with this issue in a similar fashion, as the report makes clear. In the early days of this Government, however, Ministers seemed keen to promote arms exports from the UK—indeed, that was true before they took office. In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute in February 2010, the former Defence Secretary talked about maximising

“the UK’s share of global defence exports”.

That points to a dilemma and a conflict, given the economic interests of Britain and of many of the companies that produce these weapons up and down the country—as constituency MPs, we are very aware of the job implications of this trade—and the fact that the weapons used by authoritarian, oppressive regimes have been sold under successive British Governments.

As everyone in the Chamber will be aware, it was reported during the Arab spring that authoritarian regimes used British weapons to repress their own people. Weapons sold during 2010 to countries such as Bahrain included CS hand grenades, sniper rifles, shotguns and tear gas—the kinds of weaponry it would be reasonable to expect that authoritarian regimes would use for internal repression. Indeed, Libya was sold crowd-control ammunition, small-arms ammunition and tear gas among other things. In the first eight months of 2010, the weapons sold to Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, among other countries in the region, were all of the type that we would expect regimes to use in internal repression.

This week, Campaign Against Arms Trade reported that although sales to the region dipped in March, they increased from April to June. It also reported that the Government have approved arms exports of about £1.7 billion to Saudi Arabia. It would therefore be useful if the Minister were to confirm whether there has been an increase in the sales of weaponry in recent months, particularly to the middle east and north Africa. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has said, there is always a fear that Governments react only when there is media attention and political focus on an issue. I hope that the fact that there has been a response to the Arab spring and that a review has been announced means that we will start reviewing these issues and look at not only the short term, but the long-term policy.

One issue that I want to focus on, which the Chair of the Committees did not focus strongly on, is the work the Government are doing in the lead-up to the arms trade treaty, which we hope will be in place in 2012. Will the Government give us assurances that they are doing everything possible to ensure that we achieve as robust a treaty as possible and that Britain is at the forefront of work to ensure that the treaty has an impact worldwide?

One issue I have looked at recently is the manufacture of depleted uranium armaments. I would be interested to hear the Minister outline the Government’s position on that and particularly on achieving international regulation of such weaponry. The Committees have been given evidence that some states that have traditionally looked to the UK for leadership are concerned that it is not giving as much political priority to achieving an international arms trade treaty as was the case previously. I would be grateful if the Minister were to assure us that everything is being done to ensure that Britain looks carefully at how our weaponry is used abroad and that we have more robust international legislation, so that we are not alone in trying to ensure that we achieve progress.

Much of the Committees’ report focuses on the use of weaponry for internal repression, but there are, of course, far broader issues associated with the arms trade. It is difficult to know whether it is possible to have an ethical arms trade, but many of us hope that we can move towards a position where Britain is not as reliant on the defence industry and has a more diverse, balanced economy. There has been a lot of debate recently about our dependence on the financial sector, but many of us feel that Britain should be ashamed of our dependence on the defence industry and that we should move towards a position where we are less reliant on it and do not, therefore, feel under such pressure to ensure that the trade in armaments continues with repressive and undemocratic regimes.