Libya
Lord Judd Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, we share the transitional Government’s desire for a stable, prosperous and united Libya. This will be most effectively achieved if all groups are represented and have a voice. We look forward to elections in June, which provide an opportunity to achieve this goal. As in any democratic process, we expect groupings to be represented on a variety of themes. This may include tribal factors, but also regional, ethnic, gender and other political factors.
Lord Judd
I thank the Minister for that Answer. Does he agree that this underlines the imperative of being certain that, when intervention is made abroad, there is the most thorough study of the history and underlying social structural realities of the country concerned? In this context, what have we learnt from Iraq and Afghanistan that is of relevance to the situation in Libya?
Lord Howell of Guildford
Policy-makers seek to learn at all times, but against the noble Lord’s experienced comment I must put the rival comment that circumstances differ enormously in different situations, events, times of history, and as a result of the different histories and past of the countries concerned. We faced in Libya a unique situation: a country that had been in tyranny, had visited terrible crimes on this country, and that was on the verge of further massacres. We should be glad of and applaud the courage of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and other Ministers when they decided to support from the air the opposition in Libya at the time. It has brought a much happier Libya, as all the statistics show, and it has defied all the so-called experts, who a year ago said that nothing would work and that it would be a stalemate and a disaster. It is nothing of the kind.
EU: Recent Developments
Lord Judd Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Judd
My Lords, it has been very good to hear these inspiring words and we are glad that the noble Lord, Lord Bates, has had a successful return from his fascinating walk. In a sense, my remarks follow on quite naturally, because I am a bit disappointed about this debate so far in that I wish we had found time to send a stronger message of solidarity to the people of Greece. Whatever the misdemeanours and misguided policies of their leaders in the past, it is the innocent people of Greece who are going through the agony and the pain now. They need friends and solidarity, and I wish we could send that message.
I feel this particularly strongly because, as I have told the House before, I had the privilege of being the director of Oxfam. I do not think that many people know that Oxfam started in the library of the University Church in Oxford in the darkest years of the war in 1942. It was the famine in Greece that started Oxfam, as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. The prospect of these people going through agony again, in less than 100 years, is not a good sign. Look at the turmoil that followed in Greece after the experiences of the war. What are we going to encounter if Greece collapses economically? Strategically, it is intensely important on that wing of Europe, and there will be consequences for the world.
I come from the school that says the first reality of life is total global interdependence. I had my 15 year-old grandson to lunch here yesterday. I was looking at him and thinking about his future. We talked about it a bit in a good, cheerful way. I cannot think of a single major issue that is going to affect him and his contemporaries in his life that can be solved in a national context. They all demand international co-operation and international solutions. That is true of economics, the environment and climate change, and it is certainly true of security. Europe will be judged by the contribution that it makes to that global reality. Is it an effective instrument for meeting the global challenges that exist? Of course the rise of China and, even if we do not like to face it, the recovery of Russia are significant in this context.
Back in the 1970s, I was Minister of State in the Foreign Office with responsibility for Europe. We had not long been in Europe at that stage, and I remember that there was still quite a real intellectual debate about which was the better road. Were we ultimately going to have a stronger Europe by increased harmonisation operating from Brussels, or were we going to have a stronger Europe on the basis of the co-operation of nation states? There was a debate about the European Assembly, as it then was: should it be a parliament or a representative assembly of parliamentarians from the member countries? Might that not bring a more real and significant political presence to the affairs of Europe? These were real debates.
I was quite certain that once we decided to go into Europe there was only one course to take, and to me it was blindingly clear: we had to be second to no one in our commitment to Europe. That was how we would bring influence and how we could play a real part in shaping Europe. Over and again, under successive Governments, we have not done that; we have been the reluctant partner. So often, the name of the game for Ministers—let us be honest about the nitty-gritty of what happens—is to come out of some deliberation and say how well you have done for Britain, how well you have held this reality at bay and how you have defended the British people, instead of coming out of the meeting and saying, “This is what we’ve been able to contribute to the long-term well-being of the British people by what we’ve been able to do together in Europe”. Are we surprised that we now find these tensions coming home to roost?
It is clear to me—I just do not know why we go on agonising over this—that for the eurozone to work it will need a unified fiscal and monetary approach. I happen to think that we were right not to become part of that. We were not ready to be part of it or to play the role that was necessary. It was not just that we were anxious about our own selfish needs. It did not make sense and it would not make sense now. But that is the logic and I suspect that the membership that comes out of this grim experience will be smaller than it is now.
What are we learning from this experience? It is being driven by the concept of single markets. We have heard a great deal about how we want to preserve a single market on our terms. My political experience, and I urge noble Lords to believe that I have never regarded myself as an ideologue, leads me to believe that we are discovering that single markets are just not enough. For stability and security we have to have social agendas and a social programme. Without social justice and fairness in society as a whole, how on earth are we going to hold this economic monster together? It therefore seems to me that we need to reassert the importance of the social agenda in the future of Europe.
If Portugal and Spain follow Greece into the kind of grave calamity that has come about there, I am quite certain that the argument about the kind of Europe that we want will begin to re-emerge. Do we want a confederal Europe or a unified Europe? We have to be open to the argument that the stronger, most realistic kind of Europe, meeting all the objectives about which the noble Lord, Lord Bates, spoke so warmly, would be one that had the full-hearted support of the nations. Nations are made up of people. If there is anyone in this House who is stupid enough to believe that there is not a real issue here about the democratic deficit in the functioning of Europe, they are blind to themselves and everybody else. The reality is that Europe has been seen as remote, run by technocrats, and not part of the real life and political experience of ordinary people. We have to address that problem.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, was absolutely right to urge us to speak more often about the positive things that are coming out of Europe in spite of everything else. One thing has been pretty central to my life; I have talked about my time with Oxfam. The European Union is the world’s biggest multilateral donor—bigger than the World Bank—with an annual aid budget in 2010 of around €12 billion. This size and the presence of the 130 EU delegations, recently upgraded to represent the whole of the EU around the world, allow the European Union to implement development programmes on a scale which bilateral donors simply cannot match and, in places, cannot reach. For the UK, for example, aid channelled through the European Union is supporting countries across west Africa, some of the poorest in the world, which are currently experiencing a critical food crisis where DfID does not have significant bilateral programming. Specifically in the context of the current, emerging food crisis in west Africa, the EU has so far played an important role in drawing attention to the crisis and the need for an early response. It has been swift to provide funds—an extra €10 million was committed in November 2011—and it is playing an important diplomatic role in encouraging other donors to start unlocking funds.
The millennium development goal contracts launched by the European Union in eight countries in 2008 are an example of very well designed aid. They link delivery of aid to results in a way that helps developing countries reach the millennium development goals. They provide general budget support to developing-country Governments over a six-year period, with at least 15 per cent of the finance linked to the country’s performance in meeting a series of MDG-related targets, which are assessed midway through the agreement. The approach is arguably a win-win for donors and recipients. It allows developing-country Governments a substantial degree of predictable up-front financing directly to their budgets, which is vital to enable scaling up in the provision of much needed basic services such as health and education. It also provides an incentive for good performance by withholding sums of money until results have been delivered.
As we debate, proposals are under way within the European Union for a financial transaction tax to be adopted in Europe in some form. While there were hopes that this would be an EU-wide tax, the fact that the UK will certainly veto this means that many countries are now pushing for a proposal that can be taken up by the majority of EU countries, without everyone within the EU. Nine countries recently wrote to the Commission calling for this process to be speeded up. Those countries were France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Portugal and Spain. A recent report by distinguished academics has brought home that there is far more reason to be positive about the prospects of this financial transaction tax than has sometimes been assumed. One very authentic report recently calculated that the benefit to the European Union would be, initially, at least 0.25 per cent. I simply do not understand the Government’s intransigence on this. It is a small tax which spread across could have huge results and benefits for Europe and the wider world. I hope we will hear something about the Government’s deeper thinking on this when the Minister comes to reply.
West Bank and Gaza
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, we are examining closely the agreement of 6 February between Hamas and Fatah on what is described as a technocratic Government of consensus. It is important that any new Palestinian authority be composed of independent figures, commit itself to non-violence and a negotiated two-state solution and accept previous agreements of the PLO. We have been consistently clear that we will engage with any Palestinian Government who show through their words and actions that they are committed to those principles.
Lord Judd
Would the Minister not agree that the action by Israelis in arresting so many politicians from Gaza is hardly helpful to the process? As we debated last night, we all have to be careful about counterproductivity, which makes the achievement of serious negotiations more difficult. Is it not therefore essential to bring home to our American colleagues—and, indeed, very much to Israel—that if we are serious about negotiations, nothing must be done to undermine the momentum that will be necessary, and too many preconditions will not help. The best commitments, as we saw in Northern Ireland, arise out of the process of negotiations in which common agreement is forged through argument and persuasion.
Lord Howell of Guildford
Yes, to the noble Lord’s second observation. As to his first, about arresting MPs, we are concerned about the recent arrests of the Speaker and other Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. EU heads of mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah issued a statement on 28 January outlining their concern. We have also instructed our embassy in Tel Aviv to raise this with the Israeli authorities, and we continue to monitor that situation closely. It is a matter of concern.
Libya
Lord Judd Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, United Kingdom Ministers have regularly raised concerns over the treatment of detainees since the liberation of Libya. Following recent reports, my honourable friends and fellow Foreign Office Ministers Mr Jeremy Browne and Mr Alistair Burt have raised the issue with the Libyan Interior Minister, Mr Abdilal, and the Deputy Foreign Minister. We welcome the Libyan Deputy Prime Minister’s recent commitment to investigate all violations of human rights and to bring all detainees under central government control.
Lord Judd
My Lords, does not the noble Lord agree that it is going to take more than words to deal with this situation? Does he not also agree that, just as our highly effective and professional armed services played such a key part in bringing about the downfall of Gaddafi and his regime, we must be as rigorous in our resolve to secure the standards of justice, human rights and freedom which were the rationalisation and reason for the rebellion against the existing regime?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I would certainly agree with that, and it is reflected in the discussions that Ministers have had in reiterating these concerns. The Libyan Interior Minister is actually visiting this country at this moment and Ministers are in close touch with him. Our ambassador in Tripoli has raised the matter with members of the transitional Government. The noble Lord is absolutely right: words are not enough; actions are required to gain control of the very disparate bodies and groups on the Libyan scene, which is the first problem, and to establish an orderly path towards a strong and democratic system of governance. All this is part of the pattern of tackling what is completely unacceptable behaviour.
Colombia
Lord Judd Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford
As I just told the noble Baroness, officials in our embassy meet regularly with indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. Additionally, the embassy is funding a project in Colombia aimed at developing the role of organisations in protecting the rights to the territories. We are also providing technical assistance to the Colombian Government to work towards effective implementation of the new land and victims law, which aims to return land to huge numbers of displaced people and compensate victims. We are also funding projects to support access to justice and protection of human rights defenders, and we will continue to provide support for the Colombian Government wherever possible.
Lord Judd
Is it not the case that in situations like Colombia the absence of human rights leads to further instability and alienation and that it is absolutely essential, not only in Colombia but across the world and, indeed, within the United Kingdom itself, to recognise that stability and security require people to be able to fulfil their potential in a situation founded on the belief in and conviction of human rights?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord, who has campaigned endlessly and bravely in these many areas, is absolutely right; human rights and human responsibilities—closely associated with the necessary degree of trust and investment—produce higher living standards. The whole package goes together nowadays in this increasingly transparent world; it cannot be avoided. Governments around the world will have to face it. We shall do our best here, both to face our own conditions and indeed to encourage others.
European Union Bill
Lord Judd Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Judd
My Lords, the noble Lord knows by now that I have unlimited respect for his consistent contribution on European matters. This peroration of his is very powerful. Would he not agree that the trouble with this wretched piece of legislation is that it could not be better designed to undermine our influence on the mainland of Europe?
European Union Bill
Lord Judd Excerpts(13 years ago)
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When I intervened at an earlier stage in our deliberations on this Bill, I talked about the lack of vision behind this legislation. Having listened to this debate, I am frankly more concerned about that than ever. I really believe that we are losing sight of the wood for the trees. Of course I respect the legal arguments and niceties but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, is absolutely right to say that if only our energy, thought and deliberations were going into how we strengthen international institutions rather than how we preserve a traditional view of our national interests, it would be a great thing for British politics.
I believe we have to look at the significance of this Bill in the real world in which we are living. We know that part of the political drive behind the Bill is to reassure the British people that they have a Government who are not going to allow this international institution to start running their affairs in any greater dimension that it does already. This is such a wrong concept of the interests of the British people. The whole challenge is how we strengthen this institution in protecting their interests, together with those of our fellow citizens in Europe and more widely.
I feel strongly that we must also recognise how the media will play these deliberations. We know that a great deal of the popular media will say to the British people, “This is a fight against British interests and the European Union”. We have talked in this debate about Brussels and the European Union as though it were separate from us, just as over the years we talked about the United Nations as though it were separate from us. They are us; they have no being other than us, together with our colleagues in Europe. Our challenge is how we should work and co-operate with others in Europe to make them strong and effective. There is a problem of the leadership within the European Union—the drive within its practicalities—having got ahead of and lost contact with the British people. There is a huge job to be done there in re-establishing political leadership and in understanding what is at stake and why certain measures are necessary or not. Most disturbing of all is the reality that if we pursue this Bill to its conclusion, the message that will go to our European partners is that our membership of the European Union is not a full-blooded commitment but conditional.
All of us who have participated in government and been through such issues in the past know that if there was something of such significance that the view of the British people should be tested, any responsible British Government would be prepared on an ad hoc, specific basis to consider a referendum. However, to build into legislation the concept of conditionality is not the way to enhance and strengthen our role within the European Union. From that standpoint, I believe very much that the amendment put forward by my noble friend on the Front Bench and the other amendment, which in all practical respects reflects it, are the right amendments. We shall otherwise be making an historic choice in our deliberations: to go down the road of Little Englandism, as distinct from a role of real leadership and real participation in the international community, where the interests of our people can best be protected.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, although I oppose both Amendments 61 and 63 for attempting to kill the Bill before its effect can be seen in practice, I have some sympathy with Amendment 62. Over the eight days that this Committee has sat, many noble Lords have expressed concern from both the pro and the anti-European perspectives about detail that is often not in the Bill itself, as the Bill is not about policy but very much about a legislative route and framework. As a new member of this House, I have found it somewhat bemusing that we have ended up debating policy issues—particularly dead-fish catches—when the Bill seems really to focus on the framework. That is not surprising given the strength of feeling on all sides about Europe, and I recognise that it is unlikely that we will ever reach unanimity; obviously, much of the concern is about that. Indeed, that was expressed in the coalition agreement—that we would be working from different policy perspectives but trying to find a route where we could work together, better to engage with the British public.
I have some sympathy with Amendment 62, on the grounds that it proposes a range of actions available for a future Parliament, and a future Secretary of State and his or her Government. However, there is one fundamental flaw with Amendment 62, in that it proposes that Part 1 and Schedule 1 expire at the end of this Parliament. The Government have said that they do not expect any referendums during this Parliament, because it is not expected that there will be any transfers of powers or competences during this Parliament. As an aside, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, is conflating the “policy versus law” argument that I made earlier, because the Government have announced that they are taking the logic of this and turning it into law for the framework, not tackling policy issues.
That is why I hope that the arguments made in Amendment 64, to which I have added my name, will find favour with the Committee. It is a probing amendment that tries to find a pragmatic route through the current impasse in the House. In the amendment, we propose a sunset clause for half way through the next Parliament, which will give time to see how the referendum lock would work in practice. Importantly, it also provides for the opportunity to revive the order, should a future Secretary of State so will it; of course the correct instruments would go through both Houses. This gives a future Parliament the means to let the Act expire or to revive it by order, without having to schedule large amounts of time in both Houses at the beginning of a new Parliament. Amendment 64 therefore offers a neat solution for those on all sides of the argument, and I commend it to the House.
European Union Bill
Lord Judd Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Deben
That would mean that we had no common trade policy. Every country could say that this decision was contrary to their national interest. The French have managed to make the sale of Orangina contrary to their national interest. What the noble Baroness suggests would destroy any possibility of the scheme. It would not touch their sovereignty. They would not have to use the electricity. All that they would have to do was not prevent someone else using the electricity. It is otherwise a curious definition of national sovereignty.
Secondly, if we do not do that, my national sovereignty is being infringed, because my climate is being changed. Unless we find ways of using non-fossil fuels, my climate will be changed. This is a question on which we have to accept that our national sovereignties are all imperilled—but I do not want to go further down that road, or someone will suggest that I am not keeping to the amendments.
There is a whole series of issues here where the Government are making it more difficult to stand up for Britain's interests within the European Union by setting this entirely unnecessary and manufactured way to enable them to say to the rest of the world, “We are not going to be pushed around”. I think that the Government are perfectly capable of not being pushed around without the Bill. I think that my noble friend is quite wrong to apply Canute to a bit of the Bill. The whole Bill is a Canute Bill. It suggests that you can in some way stop the necessity of the nations of Europe working together by setting in train a system which makes Britain uniquely unable to play its part in the European Union. It is all right saying that other people have all sorts of methods, and the rest of it, but they have been much more careful in writing their legislation, and they do not have a situation where even the simplified system is called into question, which is the way that this legislation operates.
I want to say just two more things. The first is that if ever there were a policy that needs change, it is the common fisheries policy. It is hugely important, and it is based on a European competence, but there are some things on which the European Union does not have competence. For example, it does not have competence to enter member states’ ports with European inspectors, but there is no way to have a sensible common fisheries policy without that. Who has been against that? We do not want people entering our ports. I cannot understand why, because we try to keep the law, but evidently we will not allow that. If we were to do that, we might do something about the very policy which is, for most of us, the least satisfactory of European policies. That is why, given the environment, it will be very important. Evidently, we are not going to do that unless we have a referendum asking people whether they are prepared for French inspectors to come into English ports. Of course, they will say no to that, because the question does not say what I want it to say: are we prepared for British inspectors to go into French ports? They would say yes to that. It depends what the question is. That again comes back to the danger of having referendums.
My last point is that the trouble with this bit of the Bill, unless it is amended as we suggest, is that, as the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, rightly said, it gives the opportunity for anybody who does not like the European Union, who has an obsessive belief that somehow it is the epitome of evil instead of being our most exciting and remarkable peacetime achievement, to find any change, any aspect that is altered, any suspicion or scintilla of alteration proof positive that there should have been a referendum. Therefore, instead of doing what the Government think will happen under the Bill, instead of ensuring that people feel happier about the European Union, it will give endless opportunities for the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, and others to suspect that there is something much deeper, much worse, much more wicked. Frankly, it is like the Jehovah's Witnesses. It is a perversion of the realities and the truths. Once you have caught it, you cannot see the realities and the truth except through that prism. The Bill helps that. The bit which does not allow the European Union to take proper steps to strengthen its effectiveness in mitigating the effects of climate change and pollution is particularly damaging, and it is especially damaging for the nation that leads in these matters—Britain. I want Britain to lead in these things and not to say to the rest of Europe, “Frightfully sorry, old boy, we can’t manage this because it means a referendum and we’re within two years of an election”.
Lord Judd
The noble Lord is absolutely right. That was a powerful argument, well put, and one with which I found myself completely in agreement. These amendments go to the centre of what is wrong with this lamentable piece of legislation. It is not just a question of a lack of vision; it is a matter of selling the British people short. If there is one fundamental reality in relevant politics, it is that we live in a totally interdependent world. The job of government is to help the British people to find a place within the reality of that interdependence and to work out how the interdependence can best be handled. That should be central to our education system and to the whole message of politics.
The trouble with the Bill, as we said powerfully at Second Reading, is that it does not provide any flexibility. Here I slightly differ from my noble friend Lord Liddle, who is doing a formidable job on the Bill and makes me very proud to come from the same county in England. However, it is not simply flexibility that we are talking about but leadership of the British people in meeting the realities that confront us. The trouble with the Bill—and we all know it—is that it is an effort to reassure the British people that government will protect them against the European Union. Instead of asking how we can strengthen the well-being of the British people through the part that we play in Europe, and instead of coming out of negotiations and saying, “My God, look at what we have achieved for the people of Europe and therefore for ourselves in this context”, we come out saying, “Look at what we’ve managed to hold off in looking after British interests”. That kind of argument is all tactical and totally lacks strategy. From that standpoint, it seems to me that these amendments are central. Not one issue is mentioned in them that can possibly be carried forward on behalf of the British people within the context of the nation state alone. They require international solutions.
In responding to my noble friend’s very important intervention on piracy, kidnapping and ransom, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, seemed to suggest that these are matters of international law. Of course they are, and they are absolutely central to the future of my children and grandchildren. Of course we have to get the international and global policies right, but surely the noble Lord does not want to align himself with the argument that establishing firmly in the European Community a stepping stone towards making that wider international policy effective is somehow unnecessary. It is vital, and we have done it with, for example, arms exports. It was in the context of the whole issue of arms exports and the damage they could do that we saw the establishment of the European code on arms exports. A lot of work is still to be done on it but it is a starting point. It illustrates to the world what can be done and it enables us to move forward practically to a wider, more successful policy within the United Nations.
The issue that we must come back to is that these amendments are vital because they try to ensure that we bring home to the British people that their interests lie in strong collective action at the international level. I repeat that the trouble with the Bill is that it faces in the opposite direction. It is saying, “We will make some concessions to Europe where necessary, but we do not see our future in international co-operation and effective international instruments: we see these as something that reluctantly we have to concede from time to time—and, my God, we will insist on the opportunity always to test public opinion if we are asked to take an obviously sensible step”.
These amendments deal with the heart of the Bill. It is a sad day in British history when we have this wretched piece of legislation before us.
Arms Trade
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, the United Kingdom continues to take a leading role in negotiations for an arms trade treaty and actively participated in the recent UN arms trade treaty preparatory committee meeting. It is important for us to learn lessons from recent events. On 16 March, my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary announced a review of the sale to Middle East countries of weapons that could be used for internal repression.
Lord Judd
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply and underline that the British delegation played a lead role in the discussions in New York last week. Does the noble Lord not agree that, while significant progress was made in the realm of conventional weapons, equipment and ammunition, there is still a glaring gap in the area of police equipment and internal security equipment? What arrangements are the Government making to address this key issue, which has obviously become very significant in the context of recent events?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right that we are making progress, but that there are still some gaps. The next preparatory meeting is in July, when we will address these issues closely. It is of course our broader aim to see smaller weapons more effectively included and embraced in the arms trade treaty, including the categories that the noble Lord mentioned. These are matters to which we are giving close attention.
Arms Trade: Libya and North Africa
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Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint
My Lords, I think the whole House shares the instinct that lies behind the noble Lord’s questions. It is absolutely imperative that we conduct our defence and security sales business on the basis of high standards and under strict controls. Those controls are in place, but we always need to make sure that we take account of new experience. As for the proposal on the re-export of arms and control of that, the difficulty is that it is always the case that once arms have passed from this country to the buying country, there is no jurisdiction for any law passed in this country. We therefore remain concerned that any such Act would remain effectively null and void. We should continue to base our approach on careful pre-licensing scrutiny of export sales.
An arms trade treaty is a priority of the Government. We are committed to agreeing a strong and comprehensive arms trade treaty. We have a unit in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that provides official support. We are working with key partners, such as the European Union, the United States and the co-authors of the treaty proposal—Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan and Kenya.
Lord Judd
Does the Minister agree that the real issue of concern is the underlying drive in policy? Armaments should never be another useful export unless there is some specific reason for not exporting them. Surely the culture in the unstable world in which we are living, with all the recent experience, should be that arms are an extremely dangerous export to promote, and should be exported only when there is a specific strategic purpose that can be monitored and held to account in the context of our relationship with the people who are receiving those arms. At the moment, we need to bring the emphasis in that direction, instead of the one that has prevailed.
Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for that question. It is important to keep a balance. Every country has a right to self-defence. We live in an imperfect world; if it were a perfect world we would have no need of defence industries, needless to say. It is clearly extremely important that sales of defence and security equipment are conducted to the highest possible standards, and that we work with recipient Governments to ensure the proper use of such equipment and services. We must also make sure that we learn from experience. We would all acknowledge that we have some things to learn from the terrible events in Libya.