Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support the international community's commitment to the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty.
Answered by Alan Duncan
As one of its founding signatories, the UK strongly supports the international community's commitment to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (known as the Ottawa Convention). As well as working to meet our own convention-based commitments to clear our sovereign territory in the Falkland Islands of anti-personnel mines, the UK is committed to the global efforts to tackle the scourge of anti-personnel mines through our international mine action programmes. As a demonstration of the UK's commitment, the Secretary of State for the Department for International Development announced on 4 April 2017 that the UK would triple its spending on mine action in developing countries, taking UK expenditure to £100million over the three years to March 2020. The UK also regularly encourages states who have not signed the Convention to do so, most recently fully supporting Austria, as the outgoing President of the Convention, in urging all non-States Parties to join without delay, as well as encouraging signatory states to fulfil their obligations.