| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Ingram: I shall deal with that question later, and I am sure that other hon. Members will deal with some of those issues.
I have heard that part of the reason for the delay was the insistence of the previous President of the Board of Trade, the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). His antipathy to any form of regulation of industry, even in weapons control, determined the delay in the publication of the Bill.
The Minister said that it was unusual for him to introduce the Bill because he was known as a deregulator, yet here he is arguing for regulation. Perhaps the Minister has given us the key to why the Department of Trade and Industry delayed the measure, and that is why I believe there is some substance to the argument that the former President of the Board of Trade refused to allow the Bill to come forward while he was in charge of the Department. In refusing, he ignored the international community; he ignored the experts on arms control and chemical weapons; and he ignored the wishes of the
British people, who want to see those weapons of mass destruction disposed of once and for all, and removed from the international stage. He even appeared to ignore the wishes of his ministerial colleagues in the Foreign Office and in the Ministry of Defence. In doing so, he has embarrassed the United Kingdom at international level because we shall ratify the convention long after many of our European partners.
The European Parliament passed a resolution on 17 November which specifically expressed deep concern that the United Kingdom had not yet ratified the convention. There is something wrong when this country, which was one of the earliest signatories and has long had a reputation of campaigning on this front, was so late introducing the Bill. It gives new meaning to the concept of just-in-time management. If the Government had fallen and we were in an election period now, it is possible that we would not have been one of the 65 nation states. That would have been a serious problem for British trading relations.
The Bill has been delayed long enough and the Opposition do not want to cause it any further unnecessary delay. It is important, however, that what we produce from our deliberations is the best possible legislation, and I hope that the Government will be positively responsive to those who are urging that the Bill needs more transparency and accountability measures.
Before moving on to those points in detail, I should like to deal with Department of Trade and Industry as the national authority responsible for the monitoring and implementation of the convention. One of the key elements of the convention document is the need for each signatory state to establish a national authority. That is contained within section VII.4 of the convention. It could be argued that what was required was a stand-alone agency reporting to Parliament through the Department of Trade and Industry. Such an agency would, of itself, have immediately improved the transparency and accountability of the monitoring process.
Will the Minister tell the House whether the Government have considered at any time the establishment of a separate agency and, if not, why not?
Will the Minister explain why the words "national authority" do not appear in the Bill? It is probably too late in the day to seek substantial amendment to establish such an agency.
Mr. Oppenheim:
We believe that the Department of Trade and Industry is the best organisation to carry this out. If the hon. Gentleman thinks this through seriously, he will see that there are significant national security implications, which would cause problems if the body were to be totally independent. The best assurance of the effectiveness of the body is that, ultimately, it will be responsible to Parliament and Parliament will be the final arbiter. That is the best guarantee of the independence of the body. I think that we have made the best decision, bearing in mind the security implications that must be considered by anyone in government. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that we are wrong, that is fine. We think that we are right. We want to go ahead with the Bill. The hon. Gentleman can give a commitment that if his party is elected, it will change things.
I want to make one further gentle point to the hon. Gentleman. The consultation document was issued last January--almost a year ago. The draft legislation was
issued in July. I have no record of any senior Opposition Member or Front-Bench spokesman writing to us, contacting us or coming to us saying that there should be a totally independent body rather than the Department of Trade and Industry. We all want to get the Bill through as quickly as possible. I should have thought that, if this were a serious concern, the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would have taken advantage of the lengthy consultation period.
Mr. Ingram:
The Minister has extended my point a wee bit. I did not use the phrase "totally independent body". I used the phrase "stand-alone body". I have no objection to it being a next steps agency. That could have been set up quite easily. It would then have had a management structure and reporting mechanisms, which would have been helpful to the monitoring in a whole range of ways. Please do not put words into my mouth; I did not argue for an independent body. As I have said, it is probably too late in the day for us to seek the establishment of such a national authority.
If the process that the Government set in force does not work or does not seem to be in the best interests of national security or in the national or public interest, an incoming Labour Government would consider the best method of monitoring. Any Government would do that. If something does not work, it needs to be fixed.
I am not criticising the civil servants, but we shall end up with seven anonymous members of staff working in the Department of Trade and Industry. That hardly adds up to a genuine attempt by the Government to implement the full spirit of the convention's articles.
Leaving aside that criticism, there are other ways of ensuring that what the Department of Trade and Industry does as a United Kingdom national authority is properly monitored. The Department will be charged with ensuring full compliance of this legislation within the United Kingdom. It will have the responsibility of guarding against any wrongdoing on the part of producers and users of specified chemicals, but that raises the question of who guards the guards. How will we ensure that the public interest is properly protected?
One of the main changes that people have campaigned for since the first and second draft of the Bill were published is a commitment from the Government to produce an annual report. Why wait until the last moment, when we are dealing with the Bill in Parliament, to make that commitment? After all the time that we have had to consider the legislation, why has the Minister waited until tonight to announce that there will be an annual report?
He has not specified what the annual report will contain. Will he give us some details?
The public and Parliament should be told for each reporting period the number of companies providing information, the number of chemicals of concern, the details of the chemicals involved, the quantities of chemicals involved and the compliance of companies, that is, how good or otherwise is the information provided by them. The report should detail the number of prosecutions for violations, the number of routine inspections of premises, the number of challenge inspections and an audit of the outcome of inspection of premises. Rather than simply saying that he will produce an annual report, the Minister should specify exactly what the report will contain.
Mr. Robert Key (Salisbury):
Give him a chance.
Mr. Ingram:
The Government have had almost three years. That is chance enough to consider the issues. The points that I have raised have been argued not only by the Opposition but by those who have given advice to the Department.
Mr. Gapes:
My hon. Friend talks about who guards the guards. I draw his attention to clauses 22 and 23, on which I would have questioned the Minister if I had had the opportunity. Is it not true that those clauses include some draconian powers, including the power to impose imprisonment for two years, serious fines and various other punishments? While those powers may be necessary, it is important that we avoid abuses, such as those that are being investigated by the Scott inquiry, and the use of public interest immunity certificates in ways that could affect innocent people in academic research establishments or industry doing nothing wrong. They could be put into a difficult position by some civil servant or Minister who does not want proper accountability. Can we have an assurance from the Minister on that? Will my hon. Friend comment on the issue?
Mr. Ingram:
That is a good point. I was going to comment on that. My hon. Friend has made his own point very well. No Opposition Member would dissent from his analysis of those two clauses. My hon. Friend will recall that the Minister asked me earlier to suggest changes if we thought that anything in the Bill needed to be changed. We are already suggesting changes. We shall see in the Minister's reply whether he is responsive to those suggestions.
Further to my point about greater accountability and transparency in relation to the annual report, I contend that procedures should be put in place to allow Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise the work of the DTI as the national authority. Once it has ratified the convention, the United Kingdom will be required to produce a confidential annual report to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague. I see no reason why the document should not be screened for commercial confidentiality and then presented for consideration to an appropriate scrutiny Committee of the House, such as the Trade and Industry Select Committee. That could be done at the same time as publication of the annual report, to which the Minister referred earlier. Such scrutiny by the House would not place national security at risk. It would show that the United Kingdom was acting in the best way possible to ensure that the convention was properly applied and monitored within the confines of our territory.
Another way of improving transparency would be to set up an advisory body outside the DTI to offer advice on the implementation of the legislation. Such a body would provide a better point of contact for industry, academics and concerned members of the public than civil servants buried away in the deep recesses of the DTI. Such a body already exists for pesticide control. The Advisory Committee on Pesticides is an independent body, the remit of which is to advise Ministers on a range of topics related to pesticide use within the framework of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985.
In its fifth report in the 1994-95 Session of Parliament, the Agriculture Select Committee commented favourably on the working of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides. If it is deemed necessary to have such a committee to
oversee pesticide use, there is an even greater case for setting up a similar committee to oversee the production and use of potentially dangerous chemicals.
As I understand it, advisory bodies exist to work alongside the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment at Porton Down. Will the Minister give consideration to building on the role of those advisory bodies and setting up a similar advisory structure to interface with the DTI as the national authority?
I should like to examine the role of the CBDE a little further. As my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) says, the work of Porton Down is vital to the nation. We have been involved in chemical defence since 1916. For the past four years, the CBDE at Porton has published an excellent annual report about its anti-chemical protection work. Article X.4 of the convention requires that each state party provide information about the nature of its protective work against chemical warfare. The article says:
I should like the Minister to elaborate on the envisaged relationship between the CBDE and the Department of Trade and Industry on the implementation of the legislation. As others have said, the establishment at Porton Down is a national asset. It should be used effectively. Will the Minister describe the nature of the advice that the Government will seek from that valuable source in monitoring the DTI's role?
I draw the Minister's attention to the recent annual report of Porton Down. It refers to issues of concern in hazard assessment relating to chemicals and disclosures by scientists in the former Soviet Union--Dr. Mirzayanov and Dr. Uglev. The first disclosure related to a Soviet nerve agent declared as VX. They said that the former Soviet Union had developed and weaponised in binary form a close analogue of VX, code-numbered compound 33. The compound had the same empirical formula as VX, but differed in the substituents around the central phosphorus atom. Historical data on the compound suggest that its properties are broadly comparable to those of VX. The precursors required for its production should fall within the generic structures in the schedules of controlled chemicals in the annexe to the chemical weapons convention.
The second and third disclosures were more disturbing. They related to the development of two novel organophosphorus nerve agents. One was described as being five to eight times more effective than VX as a battlefield agent. The other, an analogue of the second, was said to have been developed as a binary weapon which could be made from industrially available precursors not listed in the chemical weapons convention schedules. I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that the anxiety raised in the Porton Down annual report has been taken into account and say whether those chemicals are included in the schedule of the Bill that we are considering tonight.
The matter to which I have referred is just one aspect of a detailed report. It highlights the importance of the work undertaken at Porton Down. It also makes the case
for comprehensive annual reports rather than merely something to assuage the criticisms of the Government because of the Minister's non-response to the request for an annual report.
On another point of detail, the Bill gives the Secretary of State significant powers to make regulations to enable his Department to ensure that it complies with the convention. We need to examine how the regulation process will work in practice. Fears have been raised with me by the scientific community about the issue of licences for the use of certain chemicals. Whole families of chemicals--thousands of different compounds--are covered by schedule 1. It is extremely likely that many of them will be regularly used in small quantities in research laboratories. That point has been raised in interventions. Will individual researchers have to apply for a licence each time they use a listed substance? I am not presenting an argument for or against, but I think that it is important that we reach an understanding on how people in research will be expected to respond to the legislation. Will it be the case instead that a research establishment or company will be able to obtain a blanket licence to cover all occasions on which certain chemicals are used?
Clarification would be helpful.
There is another concern. How will the appeal procedure work if an organisation or individual fails to obtain a licence for the use or development of a particular chemical substance? A clarification of that issue today would set at rest some of the doubts prevailing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Gapes) mentioned clause 23, which states:
Like my hon. Friends, I am concerned that those all-embracing regulations that the Bill empowers the Secretary of State to make will be introduced via a negative statutory instrument, as specified in clause 23. Surely, given the extent of the powers that will be vested in the Secretary of State as a result of that clause, it would be more appropriate if the relevant regulations were subject to affirmative procedure.
I have touched on the need for greater transparency and accountability in the UK implementation of the convention. Another concern is export controls. The Bill bans the transfer of chemical weapons or substances that will be used to manufacture chemical weapons. The result of that is that exporters of substances of potential use in warfare need to show that such substances will not be used for war purposes. I shall paint a scenario that is not unrealistic.
A major UK chemical manufacturer has gone out into the market place and obtained a large order abroad for his goods. Fulfilling that order will be good news for the company and the balance of payments. The substances concerned can be used for the manufacture of chemical weapons, but there is no real proof that they will be. The
DTI could be under very strong pressure not to press the issue further by undertaking stringent checks on the end use of the substances. The Foreign Office may know very little about it.
That scenario is not unrealistic. The Scott inquiry has already shown that such tensions can and do arise. In theory, the UK chemical weapons national authority would ensure that such events never occurred, but the powers of the national authority are vested in the DTI, the very body that has the responsibility to promote exports.
I have already pointed out that relations between the Foreign Office and the DTI can be far from good, as the delay and confusion in bringing forward the Bill has shown. Such poor relations were clearly shown in the Scott inquiry as well, as was pointed out in Monday's edition of The Independent in an article which dealt with a letter from a previous Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The article went on to say:
Will the Minister furnish the House with a detailed description of the links between the DTI, the Foreign Office and Customs and Excise with regard to the way in which they will deal with the export of chemicals as a result of the Bill? Who will have the final say in resolving such conflicts--the DTI, the DTI's national authority, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence or some other Government agency?
We must ensure that the circumstances which led to the Scott inquiry are not repeated when potentially dangerous chemicals are concerned. Clear guidelines need to be drawn up to ensure that the chemical weapons convention is not subverted by decision or default.
We do not want to obstruct the UK ratification of the chemical weapons convention. We deplore the delay that has occurred so far because of Government inaction and hesitancy. Nor, however, do we want to wave the Bill through if improvements can be made--even at this late stage. The experience of the chemical weapons convention will be drawn on when other forms of arms control are introduced in future--not least with regard to biological weapons.
We firmly believe that the Bill can be significantly improved by increasing the accountability and transparency of the UK national authority. That would have beneficial consequences for international relations and arms control. That point of view is of course supported by the Royal Society of Chemistry and other experts.
"For the purposes of increasing the transparency of national programmes related to protective purposes, each State Party shall provide annually to the Technical Secretariat information on its programme".
"The Secretary of State may make regulations requiring persons of any description specified in the regulations to inform him that they are of such a description."
Although that is a wonderful piece of parliamentary draftsmanship, it needs clarification. Will the Minister explain how it will work in practice? How will individuals and especially small companies, in the research sector primarily, become aware of the legislation? That point is particularly important since the Government have given no sign that they are intending to set up an outside body to act as a contact point between themselves and individuals.
"A rift had developed between the Foreign Office, which wanted to maintain an embargo not just on arms but also machine tools, which could be adapted for use in the manufacture of arms, and the DTI, which feared that the machine tool ban would wreck British trade relations with Iraq."
If we substitute "chemicals with warfare potential" for
"machine tools", my point is clearly made.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |