Cluster Munitions

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Clearly, we will give primacy to the gold standard, as I call it, of this convention. If it reassures my noble friend, I confess that we are disappointed with the progress of negotiations so far. We will continue to press the world’s major users and producers to give up more, be more transparent and be more explicit in their commitment to working towards a world free of cluster munitions, which is the aim of all of us.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, the point raised by the noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Hannay, is that in the current approach there is a risk of legitimising the use of modern cluster weapons. Could the Minister respond to that point?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

First, let me say that the previous Government made excellent progress on this. The noble Lord may remember that when I was sitting in his place we supported that, and some brave and bold decisions were taken that we were all very pleased with. The risk is there in the negotiation, but it is a risk that we are determined to avoid. We do not want to legitimise lower standards or undermine or dilute the Convention on Cluster Munitions in any way. That is the approach that we will use in our negotiations. I cannot go into our detailed stance because that would not be very helpful at this stage, but the noble Lord is right that there are risks in this matter, and we are determined to avoid them.