Cluster Munitions (Prohibitions) Act 2010 Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Chidgey
Main Page: Lord Chidgey (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Chidgey's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(13 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberI will certainly check out what the noble Lord says. My understanding is that considerable funds are still used to promote the excellent and incredibly valuable work of removing those horrible weapons from various areas where they lie around. I will look at the two items raised by the noble Lord and write to him about them.
I thank my noble friend for the Answers that he gave me in December to Written Questions that I put to him on this very issue. Can he absolutely assure your Lordships that there will be no question ever again of cluster munitions being kept in British territories—offshore British territories, within coastal waters, or whatever? It may well benefit your Lordships if the records of the discussions that must have taken place to provide for the exceptions for the United States are placed in the Library so that we can see exactly what happened.
As my noble friend knows, the one exception was made very properly by the previous Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, Mr Miliband, allowing the US a temporary extension of its right to keep cluster munitions while it went through the process of getting rid of them as part of the running down of cluster munitions stores in UK territory and in the United Kingdom. That is the only exception that has ever been made. For the future, we will consider bringing to Parliament and recording any decisions that may be proposed for temporary extension, and we will do that on a case-by-case basis. I have to say that in a number of instances it could be governed and limited by security considerations.