Cluster Munitions (Prohibitions) Act 2010

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

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.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, do we retain some cluster munitions for the right purposes of training personnel in the detection and destruction of such appalling weapons? Do we export any weapons to foreign Governments for the purposes of training their personnel in detection and destruction of those weapons; and, if so, which countries do we export to for those purposes?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

In this country we have destroyed 48 per cent of all cluster munitions weapons and intend to destroy the remaining 52 per cent well within the schedule—by 2013. As for the training and technology associated with their destruction and the necessary designs of equipment to destroy them, that continues. I cannot answer the noble Baroness precisely on whether there are export clients for this technology but if there are this would be a positive area where the more information we have in the rapid destruction of these weapons and the better the training we can press round the world for their destruction, the better off we all are.