House of Commons Hansard Debates for 16 Nov 1992

Mr. Hamilton : I have been helped out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and I can now tell the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) what the position is. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department reviewed the applications for visas from that group of refugees this afternoon. He decided that six refugees with family ties in the United Kingdom should be granted visas. The two medical cases are still under review. The rest of the group will be refused visas to the United Kingdom.

Mr. Madden : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I raised this matter with Madam Speaker this afternoon and complained about a number of parliamentary questions that I had tabled for answer on Thursday which have not been answered and to which I have not even received holding replies. I received replies just a few minutes ago and they reveal that the situation is being handled in an extraordinary way. Those men, women and children have applied for visitor visas to visit the United Kingdom. However, for some extraordinary reason, the normal procedure has been hijacked by the Home Office. As we have just heard, the Home Secretary has taken an extremely long time to consider the applications.

I understand from the Minister's mumbled reply that the bulk of the applications have been refused. My point of order which is directly for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is that normally, under an application for a visitor visa, the Foreign Office and entry clearance officers at our post in Vienna will consider the application. Why they have been referred in this case alone to London and to the Home Office I do not know. However, it is disgraceful. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is in the Chamber, should be--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. That is not a point of order for the Chair and I suspect that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that. No doubt Ministers will have taken note of what he said.

Mr. Madden : Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department very conveniently slipped a piece of paper to the Minister of State for the Armed Forces. Will the Minister from the Home Department be able to intervene in the debate to tell us why on this occasion the Home Office has hijacked the normal procedures, thereby denying those men, women and children an opportunity--

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Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that that is not a point of order for the Chair. As I have said, no doubt the Government Front Bench will have heard what he said.

Mr. Hamilton : That is right.

Ms. Liz Lynne (Rochdale) : Further to the other points raised, I understand that the refugee organisation based in Leeds sought advice from the Home Office before it sent the coaches. Two of the coaches were taken from Rochdale to the Austrian-Slovenian border. They have now returned. However, all assurances were sought from the Home Office. The Minister should make a statement to explain why Home Office Ministers said on Thursday in the House that visas will be required, but arrangements were made before Thursday.

Mr. Hamilton : Those questions should really be referred to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. I do not think that I can be expected to answer them. However, I tried to help the House on the matter.

Mr. Winnick : Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Hamilton : No, I must make progress.

Progress is slow and attended by setbacks, as we always knew it would be, but there are encouraging developments. The new constitutional proposals for Bosnia tabled by Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen provide an excellent basis for negotiation. Discussions on a new constitution continue with all the parties in Geneva, despite the initial negative reaction from the Bosnian Serbs. We hope also that the parties will live up to the ceasefire agreement reached on 10 November by the Muslim, Croat and Serb military commanders under the auspices of the Geneva conference mixed military working group, although experience tells us that there are likely to be setbacks. Crucially, the agreements reached at the London conference and being reached, or still to be reached, in Geneva continue to provide benchmarks against which the parties' actions, and their willingness to pursue peace, can be judged.

Where the parties fall short, intense pressure needs to be applied. But that pressure must offer the prospect of an eventual solution, by making the warring sides see where their true interests lie. Military intervention of any kind offers no such prospect. Tighter sanctions if necessary, coupled with the effective enforcement of the arms embargo against the whole of the former Yugoslavia, must continue to be the main vehicle for bringing pressure to bear. Those measures will take time before they are truly effective, but I am confident that, despite sporadic reports of sanctions-busting, the tightening noose of the trade embargo will increasingly threaten any remaining economic and political stability in Serbia. Already shortages of essential materials have resulted in unemployment rising by 60 per cent. and inflation spiralling upwards.

Mr. Calum Macdonald (Western Isles) : If the Minister is confident that those sanctions will have that kind of effect, how does he explain the fact that newspapers have reported today that petrol queues in Belgrade are almost non-existent and that a Community member, Greece, is colluding with sanctions-busting? If that is the case, how can the Minister possibly be so confident that sanctions over time will have any effect on the Serbian Government?

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Mr. Hamilton : Sanctions are already having some effect. They are creating the most immense problems for the Serbian economy and will continue to do that. However, I take the hon. Gentleman's point. They must be made to work more effectively and that is how we must judge them. Measures are being taken to ensure that the sanctions work better.

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South) : I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Minister could help me because I am puzzled. If what my right hon. Friend says is right, all the Serbian people--the good, bad and indifferent--are being slowly strangled to death. Would it not have been better to have done many months ago what many of us wanted and had one or two strikes at military targets within Serbia?

Mr. Hamilton : I shall refer to air strikes. However, the answer to my hon. Friend is that that would not have been right. If there had been strikes, the UN troops of whatever nationality would have been seen to be the enemy. We do not want that. We are not in the business of going to war with the Serbs. We are trying to do what we can to help with humanitarian relief. We do not want there to be a situation in which the only thing upon which the warring factions can agree is that the people in blue berets are the enemy and should be ambushed and shot at at every available opportunity.

Mr. Robert N. Wareing (Liverpool, West Derby) : Is the Minister aware of statements by Lord Owen that the military activity in Bosnia is being conducted not from Serbia, but by the Bosnian Serbs themselves? In fact, intervention on a military scale from Serbia has already ceased. Attacks upon military targets in Serbia would inevitably involve civilian casualties and drive the Serb population more and more into the hands of the extremists in Serbia.

Mr. Hamilton : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That is absolutely true. We do not want to be in conflict with anybody in Serbia, in Bosnia or in any other parts of the former Yugoslavia. We are trying to negotiate humanitarian convoys through and to give protection to our troops who are involved in that. We do not intend to go to war with any of the factions in the former Yugoslavia. Indeed, it would be very regrettable if we got to the stage where we were involved in out-and-out conflict.

Ms. Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) : Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Hamilton : I am sorry, I shall not give way. I must make progress or I shall never finish my speech.

The United Kingdom has taken the lead in providing technical assistance to the neighbouring countries where the sanctions have to be made to bite. The pressures brought to bear by sanctions will need to be increased further if Belgrade does not take action to halt and reverse the expansionist policies of the Bosnian Serbs in accordance with the commitments made at the London conference. We shall ensure that this is kept firmly on the agenda.

It is self-evident that an end to the fighting in Bosnia cannot be brought about by military intervention, given the nature of the conflict.

Mr. Cormack : My right hon. Friend the Minister is contradicting himself. A few moments ago, in response to

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an intervention, he agreed that the Bosnian Serbs are no longer being egged on by the Serbs in Serbia. He now says that they are, which I believe to be the case. It cannot be both.

Mr. Hamilton : I was agreeing with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) that we do not want to become involved in conflict or fighting with any of the factions in Bosnia. I was not particularly agreeing with his point about the Bosnian Serbs, but we are not in the business of air strikes or getting involved in military action against any of the warring factions there.

Ms. Hoey : Does the Minister agree that, if any arms embargo is to work, it must start with a level playing field? Any arms embargo when Bosnians do not have arms and the Serbians do must mean that those who already have arms will use them to massacre the minority of the people in Bosnia who have no arms and who have not been allowed to acquire them by the international community.

Mr. Hamilton : I am not suggesting that we should supply arms to the Bosnian Muslims to even the playing field. I do not think that many people would sympathise with that. It would merely lead to an arms build-up right across the former Yugoslavia, which would not help anybody.

There is no single aggressor and no single front line. In Bosnia we are dealing with Serb against Croat, Muslim against Serb, and Croat against Muslim, not just within one country but within districts, towns and villages, within streets and even mixed blocks of flats. A massive armed intervention might suppress the violence for a time, but it would achieve no permanent result. It could not force people to live together in peace ; its withdrawal would be the signal for a resumption of the conflict.

I do not believe that any hon. Member here today espouses that course of action. We could not achieve our lasting aim, and we would run the risk of launching our troops into a bloody civil war, from which withdrawal would be much easier said than done.

A lesser intervention would be unlikely to suppress the violence even temporarily. Domination of Bosnia airspace, a suggestion put forward in the motion and raised by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell), would achieve little. The fighting in Bosnia is taking place on the ground, by small groups and individuals who live and operate among civilians--the very people whom we are trying to assist and who would be most at risk from an aerial offensive. Indeed, many of those fighting are civilians who have taken up arms.

Even if the use of air power against the warring factions seemed justified, targets would be very hard to identify, both because of the mountainous heavily wooded terrain and because much of the fighting is done with small, highly mobile weapons such as rifles and machine guns, mortars, hand-held rocket launchers and air-defence weapons. Air strikes against such targets would be likely to add to the casualties without stopping the fighting. And, of course, it would put an immediate end to the humanitarian activities of the Red Cross and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They could not continue to operate convoys under such conditions, nor could our troops continue to provide protection for them. We would no longer be regarded as impartial.

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Sir Russell Johnston (Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber) : Is the Minister saying that the heavy artillery tanks and guns which ring Sarajevo, for example, cannot be targeted?

Mr. Hamilton : I am saying that they can very easily be moved at night and put into areas where there are schools, convents and so on. If one tried to take them out from the air, one would cause enormous civilian casualties. I think that we have learnt that lesson from previous conflicts.

But of course we cannot stand by and watch the appalling suffering which is already manifest in Bosnia and threatens to engulf the republic as winter approaches. Britain is playing a leading role in international efforts to bring relief to the civilian populations. We have given our full support to the extension of the mandate of the UN protection force--UNPROFOR--in the former Yugoslavia so that the force can provide protective support for humanitarian convoys throughout Bosnia. As the House knows, a British battalion group has been deployed for that purpose. Together with battalions from France, Canada and Spain, and support units from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, the United States of America and Portugal, it will form part of a new Bosnia command under Major General Philippe Morillon. Their task will be, as we have described earlier, to escort relief convoys, on the basis of negotiated passage, to where they are needed. I am glad to have this opportunity to inform the House about progress with the deployment.

I should like to take up the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East about the delay. The reason was that it took time to get the ships to take out the Warrior armoured personnel carriers and it took time for reconnaissances to be made of the area before the troops arrived there.

The last of the battalion group arrived in theatre today and will shortly be operational. The deployment has been a phased one involving 10 ships, including Royal Fleet Auxiliaries and merchant shipping, transporting vehicles and equipment, and 55 flights transporting personnel. That has been a substantial and complex undertaking which has been achieved smoothly and promptly with the professionalism that we rightly expect from the armed forces. We have been most grateful to the United States Government for their assistance in this process through the provision of the entire airlift for our troops.

The total number of British personnel being deployed is about 2,400 initially, including headquarters troops. The reconnaissance confirmed our earlier planning figure of 1,800 personnel for the battalion group, but there will still be a short term need for some 400 extra men and women, mainly Royal Engineers, to provide support services in the initial stages of the deployment, such as accommodation and sanitation, electricity and water, reflecting the physical damage which has been sustained by so much of the fabric of Bosnia during the past months of conflict.

Following further examination of the medical support for the battalion, we have decided to provide a helicopter casualty evacuation capability in theatre, and have deployed four Royal Navy Sea King aircraft for this purpose. They will operate initially from Royal Fleet Auxiliary Argus off Split, transferring to a base ashore when conditions permit. The provision of that capability involves 100 personnel, excluding the Argus crew. The helicopters will be used for casualty evacuation when that is judged to be preferable to evacuation by road.

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The United Kingdom contingent will be operating in central and north-east Bosnia, with its headquarters at Vitez and logistic bases at Split, Tomislavgrad and Gorni Vakuf. That represents a change from the UN's earlier plan for our battalion, when it was envisaged that aid might be escorted into north-east Bosnia from Serbia in the east. The reconnaissance showed that that would involve the need to cross too many front lines. It was decided that the delivery of aid would need to go with the ethnic grain to the greatest possible extent, not against it. The French and Canadian battalions reached similar conclusions in their own reconnaissances.

We shall be contributing about 65 personnel to the two-star headquarters and about 180 to the national one-star headquarters in Split. Both are providing an essential contribution to the overall UN operation.

The battalion is well equipped for its role, with personal weapons carried by individual service men, and the Warrior and Scimitar armoured vehicles with their 30 mm Rarden cannon. Ninety-six such vehicles have been deployed. The battalion has its integral mortars and anti-tank weapons readily available should the need arise. Our assessment is that those equipments will be sufficient to meet the battalion's needs. And our troops will have the right to defend themselves as well as the means to do so. I can confirm that they will be operating under what are effectively British rules of engagement. I hope that that answers the point that was raised by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East. If anyone were in any doubt as to the effectiveness of those rules, I would draw his attention to an incident which occurred on Saturday 7 November, when a British reconnaissance party travelling in four Land Rovers from Vitez towards Tuzla returned fire when it came under small-arms and, possibly, mortar fire from unidentified assailants.

But we must also remember that the battalion's task is not a projection of force. This is a humanitarian mission and it is no part of the plan for the force to fight its way through opposition in order to deliver its aid. There will be no tanks, artillery or combat air support. That would profoundly alter the essence of the operation. Our troops are there to help bring relief to the suffering, not to add to the fighting. Their rules of engagement allow them to fire in self-defence. Retaliation is expressly forbidden.

Mr. Menzies Campbell : In the event that British troops find themselves in circumstances in which, for their own protection, it is the view of the senior commander that air strikes are necessary, will they be available to him to call down?

Mr. Hamilton : No, they will not. I had hoped to make that clear. That sort of asset will not be available. If the troops find themselves under heavy attack they must use their weapons of self-defence to fight their way out. They must retreat from their positions, or drive through using their self-protection weapons. If they find themselves in this position, that will mean that their negotiated passage has failed--the parties to some agreement have reneged on that agreement. It will mean in effect that the negotiated agreements have come apart. If the troops cannot get an agreement from the warring factions, they will not start out in the first place.

Though the battalion's relief operation is only now about to begin in earnest, with the arrival of the main contingent of the Cheshires, the Royal Irish and the

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Lancers and their armoured vehicles, the advance parties of the British contingent have been active in preparing for the task, reconnoitring and preparing routes, establishing bases and getting round the table with local people to ensure that, so far as possible, our contingent gains the co-operation, understanding and respect of all the parties. They have also made a start on the humanitarian task. Over the weekend of 31 October to 1 November they escorted a UNHCR convoy carrying 86 pallets of relief supplies from Split to Vitez, in the aftermath of the fall to the Serbs of the town of Jajce, and the consequent flow of tens of thousands of refugees towards Travnik.

RAF participation in the relief flights to Sarajevo resumed on 10 October, in the light of assurances by the parties about the safety of humanitarian flights. Since the start of the operation in July, the RAF Hercules have flown 205 missions to Sarajevo and have delivered 2,812.5 tonnes of aid. An RN ship is taking part in the NATO and WEU naval monitoring operations in the Adriatic, which are monitoring compliance with the arms embargo against the whole of the former Yugoslavia and the trade sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro. We are also taking part in the operation by the NATO airborne early warning force to support the naval monitoring forces and to monitor compliance with the no-fly zone in Bosnia imposed in Security Council resolution 781.

As well as providing a battalion group, Britain is contributing to the humanitarian effort in many other forms. Our financial contribution is substantial : over £70 million so far, some £41 million of which has been channelled through the European Community and the remainder through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other international and British relief agencies. All our assistance is carried out in co-operation with international agencies working throughout the area --in particular UNHCR, which is co-ordinating the international community's response to the crisis. Our immediate priority is to provide food and shelter for refugees over this winter. The items for which our funds have been used include 43 trucks and support vehicles and staff operating as part of the UNHCR road delivery operation, running two or three convoys a week to Sarajevo and other areas ; £2.6 million worth of medical supplies provided to the World Health Organisation and UNHCR ; the provision of specialist personnel, such as medical advisers, logisticians to help plan and operate road convoys and manage the airlift, road engineers and radio operators, and mining and power teams. Our funds have also provided £3 million for the restoration of nine centres to provide winter shelter for up to 20,000 people in the Vitez-Travnik-Zenica area, where the number of refugees has increased following recent fighting.

We are also playing an active part, as president of the EC, in creating a European Community task force for the former Yugoslavia, and have provided and paid for the head of the task force and three other key staff.

Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West) : What action are the Government taking to ensure that the almost 2 million refugees who are being driven out of their homes by massacres and ethnic cleansing and who are still in parts of former Yugoslavia will be able to return home? Have the Government finally abandoned their idea of safe havens? There are none inside Bosnia- Herzegovina. If so, what

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alternative plans do the Government have to ensure that at least most of those people can eventually return home, bearing in mind that the Government are unwilling to enforce any of their humanitarian efforts against Serbian military attack?

Mr. Hamilton : That is a matter of great concern to the United Nations, and it has been discussed in Geneva. The United Nations has always taken the view that it is much better to try to provide a safe haven in the areas from which people originally come than to remove them from the country. Some areas of Bosnia are certainly much safer than others. Our troops will try to remove people from the areas where their lives are most threatened to areas which are relatively safer. The United Nations has always taken this view so that people can return whence they came when the fighting is, as we hope, finally over.

Mr. Meacher : The Minister's answer is manifestly unsatisfactory. I recently spent a week in Yugoslavia. The only area that is "safe" for the 43 per cent. of the population who are Muslims--they form the largest group --is the central corridor, whose size is rapidly being diminished with every day's fighting--as witness the significant recent fall of Jajce. The only other safe part is the tiny pocket of north-west Bosnia known as Bihac.

The Minister must get himself better briefed, because what he is saying does not relate to what is happening on the ground.

Mr. Hamilton : If the hon. Gentleman is trying to persuade the House that there is some simple solution to finding safe havens for 2 million refugees, he is misleading the House. This is an intractable problem, but everything possible will be done to try to help these people reach areas safer than the ones from which they are fleeing. I do not pretend that there is a straightforward solution ; nor should the hon. Gentleman.

Finally, though the Government continue to believe that the solution to the refugee problem does not lie in the dispersal of refugees across Europe, we have made clear our commitment to take into this country a share of the highest priority cases. We have already responded to a request of this nature from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

These are the concrete actions that the British Government are taking to help the people of Bosnia, both in the immediate future and for the longer term. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and I welcome the opportunity to restate our policy to the House tonight.

7.58 pm

Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda) : I am sure that all hon. Members have been appalled by some of the answers given by the Minister of State tonight. I should like to deal with some of the questions to which he seemed unable to provide the answers.

The main purpose of any action that we take is to bring the fighting to an end and to get food to the civilian population, both in their homes and in the refugee camps and concentration camps. Some of the Minister's answers leave much to be desired.

The Minister has not dealt with the issue of our acceptance, or non- acceptance, of refugees and the Government seem to be confused about their policy on refugees. That was highlighted recently by the tragic case

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mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), of the eight-month-old baby who desperately requires emergency surgery, in which the Foreign Office and the Home Office seem to have their lines crossed. Surely we can ask Ministers to consider urgently the possibility of establishing some form of hotline to enable people who are most in need of urgent medical treatment to receive it.

The Minister was asked whether a decision had been made about the refugees who are waiting in buses to come to this country. He gave the shameful answer that six have been allowed in. He tried to redress that shameful statement by saying that we must accept that there are 40,000 Yugoslavs in this country already. They have probably been here since the last war.

Mr. Archie Hamilton : I meant that 40,000 refugees had been brought in to the United Kingdom since the conflict began.

Mr. Rogers : I am prepared to be corrected on that, but the Minister should have made it more clear. Whether we accept large numbers or not, we are adopting a shameful role. It is all right for the Minister to argue that it is better to keep people as close to their homes as possible, both partially to negate the aim of ethnic cleansing and to allow for a return when conditions allow. However, that argument was based on the assumption-- highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher)-- that the refugees will return to their homes fairly quickly. The likelihood of a quick return is rapidly fading and we must tackle the problem in that context and not the one in which it was originally set.

Sir John Wheeler (Westminster, North) : Does the hon. Gentleman recall that, on the two most successful occasions on which large numbers from Mozambique camped in Malawi and when people from Afghanistan camped in northern Pakistan, the refugees remained in those camps for many years with international and medical support but returned to their homelands with the conclusion of the internal conflicts? Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that that is the most successful way to deal with large numbers of refugees and that that might prove to be the best way to deal with them on this occasion?

Mr. Rogers : The cases that the hon. Gentleman illustrated were completely different from the situation in Yugoslavia. He was talking about two simple political conflicts : once the political situation was resolved, people were able to return. We are talking about an area where ethnic divisions run deep and have been exacerbated during the past few months. No one in his right mind can think that all the refugees--there are about 700,000 in Croatia--are likely to return to Bosnia in the medium term at least. We ought to agree that we cannot allow those people--they are mainly women and children--to live for ever in a limbo or never-never land of camp existence. It is shameful for a civilised country to turn its back on such a problem. Shame on the Government for not dealing with it properly.

If it were felt that we could not accept large numbers of refugees, surely we should increase financial help for countries that are prepared to shoulder their burdens.

Mr. Winnick : Opposition Members at least agree with my hon. Friend. Does he accept that the announcement

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regarding those 180 refugees was totally unsatisfactory? The Minister is not connected with the Home Office, and he was must reluctant to answer questions on the issues. Should not the Home Secretary come to the House on Tuesday to explain why his Department, and presumably he himself, have taken such a decision? There is mounting concern. Although the war cannot be helped, it does not alter the fact that a relatively small group of people have been caught in a diplomatic battle about whether Austria or Britain will accept them. Many of them are children and are very young and they are living in buses in an isolated place. Surely the least we could do is accept them, instead of which apparently only eight are to be allowed into this country.

Mr. Rogers : I understood that it was only six. I agree, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will press that matter with the Home Secretary.

Mr. Madden : Before my hon. Friend leaves that subject, can he cast any light on why the Foreign Office should abdicate its responsibility on this occasion? In other countries where visa arrangements are in force, entry clearance officers at British overseas posts consider visa applications. Why on earth did not the British post in Vienna decide to issue visit visas to that wretched group of people, who are seeking only to visit the United Kingdom? They are not seeking political asylum or refuge, but merely a six-month stay.

Mr. Rogers : I agree. Perhaps, after the debate, the Minister will be shamed into dealing with that problem urgently tomorrow. One of the most crucial and agonising decisions to be taken at United Nations, European and local levels is whether we should deploy more military force in the former Yugoslavia. When we contemplate the increase in suffering for the civilian population during the next few months, the decision becomes more acute. As my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) said on 25 September :

"We support the deployment of British troops under UN auspices."--[ Official Report, 25 September 1992 ; Vol. 212, c. 132.]

However, we have consistently argued about the precise role of the British troops in Bosnia, and the rules of engagement under which they will operate, as was highlighted by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North- East (Mr. Campbell) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark), the Opposition defence spokesman, in the debate on 25 September.

That role has not been clearly explained to the House, although I was encouraged by the remarks of the Minister of State for the Armed Forces-- the first time that I have been encouraged in four years of shadowing him in the defence team--to the Select Committee on Defence, when he said :

"If ever we are going to commit our young servicemen into these situations we must be sure that they have not only the necessary equipment to defend themselves but also allow them to use that equipment."

I am disappointed in the Minister's reply to the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East, who asked whether commanders could call up air strikes. He said, "No, they couldn't." The other part of his answer was more significant : he said, "We don't have the capability."

Mr. Archie Hamilton : No.

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Mr. Rogers : If the Minister looks at the record, he will see that he said, "They did not have them available anyhow". I presume that he meant that the commanders do not have the capability.

Mr. Hamilton : I have to put the record straight, as I have heard enough rubbish from the hon. Gentleman so far. I said that they would not have that capability in theatre, not that they would not have it at all. I want to make it clear that the capability to launch air strikes will not be available to our troops in Bosnia.

Mr. Rogers : I am used to the right hon. Gentleman's personal insults. Other hon. Members will recall that three years ago I accused him, during defence debates, of being part of the conspiracy to export arms to Iraq. I was told that I was making poisonous accusations--not by the Minister, but by Mr. Alan Clark. I was told that I was talking complete nonsense. I am probably one of the few Members of Parliament who can say tonight, with absolute certainty, "I told you so." Even the right hon. Gentleman's insults will not prevent me from speaking the truth.

To return to the issue of troops in Yugoslavia, British troops will be exposed and if the capability is not in the theatre, is it not about time the Minister of State for the Armed Forces put it there? Mr. Hamilton indicated dissent.

Mr. Rogers : If the Minister is prepared to say that if young British service men come under attack from overwhelming forces he will allow Harriers and Tornados to sit there unused, that will not go down well outside the House. I accept that we do not want to use excessive force ; but surely in such a critical situation it should be considered, at least as an option. The Minister shuts his mind to the problem, as he so often does.

Mr. Menzies Campbell : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the mere fact that the capability was available and could be called on could be a considerable deterrent?

Mr. Rogers : Indeed ; I am glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman points that out. For years, the Government have said that deterrence is the basis of their military philosophy, but now deterrence goes out of the window. Perhaps that is because they are under so much pressure that they cannot think straight.

If we are to increase military intervention in the area, it must be done on the basis that the only way to obtain peace is to separate the warring factions by deploying a superior ground force or using air power to take out Serbian heavy weapons, thus creating a more level playing field, as the Bosnians have requested.

The decision on whether those options are feasible could be left to the generals--as a politician, I should hate to interfere in such a decision-- but there seems to be an enormous difference even between the generals. Some say that two or three divisions, amounting to 30, 000 to 40,000 men, combined with maritime air cover, would be needed and others say that some 500,000 or even more men would be necessary to maintain peace. The opinion on the required force levels seems to depend on whether one supports intervention.

We should be under no illusion because, as soon as either of those enhanced force options is used, the humanitarian assistance presently deployed will go out of

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the window. I agree with that part of the Minister's speech. If it reaches the point where we are involved in a war, it could have the opposite effect of what we are trying to do in other respects. No one could believe that the Serbs would sit back and accept that form of intervention. Whatever intervention is used, whether air strikes or ground forces, the present suffering among the civilian population will be as nothing compared to the direct and indirect suffering that will result from aggressive military intervention.

Even assuming that such intervention is feasible and effective, what happens next? Are we prepared to maintain a standing army in the area indefinitely? As soon as we pull it out, we all know that the fighting will start again.

For some people, military intervention may be morally desirable at this stage, but I doubt whether it is a solution to the complex problems, which, as the Minister rightly said, can only be resolved politically.

Mr. Mike O'Brien (Warwickshire, North) : Will my hon. Friend comment on the Minister's reference to safe havens, which seems to be his only practical suggestion to deal with the refugee problem? Is not the basis of any idea of safe havens that they be safe? They cannot be safe in Bosnia if they are protected only by Bosnians who are not well armed, so if safe havens are to be a policy, should not that policy be safeguarded by United Nations troops?

Mr. Rogers : I must confess that I cannot give an expert opinion on the safe havens issue, which was dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West. I understand from my hon. Friend that the geographical location of safe havens will be extremely difficult in Bosnia and they may not be available as an option to save lives. Apart from using large-scale military force, only one other practical measure is available to us-- sanctions. That is why I welcome, in the Government amendment, the reference to sanctions and the Minister's statement that the Government will at last tighten up on them. They are supposed to have been in place for months and the Minister has virtually acknowledged that they have not been maintained.

In the past few weeks, I have heard people say that sanctions do not work. Normally, they say that as a preface to arguing for armed intervention. They are absolutely right--sanctions do not work if they are not enforced. We are seeing a flagrant breach of sanctions that were first agreed by the European Community and then reinforced by resolution 713 and subsequent resolutions of the UN Security Council. The bans on trade and the supply of weapons have been continually ignored. Mandatory sanctions have not been taken seriously and there is ample evidence that convoys of barges are using the Danube to take strategic materials into Serbia, as well as using land routes from the south and east.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) said in an intervention, today's Financial Times contains an article by Laura Sibler on how sanctions are being busted and strategic materials are getting through to Serbia. It is no good thinking that we are not involved in or responsible for that matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) raised that matter with the Department of Trade and Industry and was told that import-export trade statistics for the Yugoslav republics were not even available. I understood that we were at least monitoring trade, even if we were doing

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