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Mr. Key: I have not suggested that, nor would I suggest that Nicholas Sims or Mr. Benn is any less distinguished. That is not the point. I would have expected more briefing on such a delicate subject--I shall leave the matter there.

When we discuss the new clause, I suspect that we are really talking about transparency and public confidence, which must be the two key issues. I think that the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) is seeking to establish that. If we had not had an annual statutory report, we would have needed some sort of advisory committee. Now that the Government have given us that statutory report, which is to be laid before both Houses and is to report to Parliament on the operation of the Act, we do not need the new clause. The new clause demands not a report on the workings of the Act or the convention but on the performance of the advisory committee's function. That would be bureaucratic, expensive and unnecessary.

I thought that we might have a small advisory committee because in July the Government announced, through the Ministry of Defence, that they would set up an animal welfare advisory committee to look into much of the work that is done at Porton Down and elsewhere within the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. I thought that it might be a good model--it has only three independent members and is an important, tight, little advisory committee. But then I realised that the fourth term of reference of that committee stated that the

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committee's function was not to monitor the Act--the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986--but to monitor other committees, to monitor ethics, to monitor evidence on the reduction of the use of animals, to monitor statistics, to review training and education of DERA personnel, to review initiatives and to maintain high standards of animal welfare. Therefore, the committee's function was quite different and could not easily be read across to the Bill.

New clause 1 would clearly require a large committee. The hon. Member for East Kilbride should realise that establishing the sort of committee that he wants would require a large bureaucracy and be expensive. It would be a large committee, representative of all the interests. The compliance cost assessment of the DTI quotes the Chemical Industries Association as saying that there would be up to 2,000 plants to be declared twice a year. If the committee were to look at each of those plants twice a year, it would have to be a large committee, working full time. If I have correctly understood what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, I cannot see it working.

Mr. Dalyell: I did ask the Minister about generic testing.

Mr. Key: I will allow the Minister to give his own answer, if I may.

One of the main reasons why I regard the new clause as unworkable is confidentiality. We know that industrial espionage is rife on an international scale and is a significant problem. Confidentiality is crucial, and it is an international issue in the convention. It is not only a matter for this Parliament.

The excellent Royal Society of Chemistry, in its excellent briefing, which I shall now quote, if I may, to the Committee, spoke of the chemical industries negotiating with the Department of Trade and Industry. It said:

"The key to their accepting it was express recognition by the negotiators that the industry's intellectual property, which was often the product of great investment in research and development, would need to be safeguarded against abuse of site inspections and other controls . . . The bias towards secrecy which this device imposes on many of the operators of the treaty stands in contrast to the transparency mechanisms which the treaty in its domestic implementation also require. This, however, was the price which had to be paid for creating conditions within which the chemical industry would be willing to co-operate.

So huge is the chemical industry and so multipurpose its facilities and feedstocks that there was never any real alternative to cooperation. If there were one, it would have had to be a control regime for chemical industry in which whole areas of chemical technology were subjected to prohibition and repressive surveillance."

That is terribly significant, and that is one reason why we cannot accept new clause 1.

8 pm

I wish to make one more argument--the argument to which I referred when I said that some of the advice that we had been given was flawed. It has been suggested in some of our briefing that the Bill--and the end of chemical weapons, which we hope will occur--is compromised by the constitutional, legal and commercial position of the Chemical and Biological Defence

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Establishment, Porton Down. I believe that that is simply not the case. ISIS briefing paper No. 48 has, I believe, mistaken that position.

I wish that people would not speak about "Porton". There is a large civilian community in the village of Porton. There are two distinct scientific establishments there--the CBDE and the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research, sponsored by the Department of Health. On behalf of my constituents, who work at both, I draw attention to the fact that they are different. I ask people please not to confuse them.

ISIS asks, where is the assurance that Porton, part of the next steps agency, will in future provide the Department of Trade and Industry with the assistance that it requires for the convention? ISIS alleges that assistance would be "of course" a public service, but then it declares that that would have to be

"paid for out of someone's budget".

To make that happen, ISIS suggests that further legislation might be necessary, even in the Bill. Let me try to explain why that argument is flawed and try to allay those fears.

The assurance that ISIS seeks may be found in the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency framework document. Every member of the staff at CBDE Porton Down is a civil servant attached to the Ministry of Defence and, through their Ministers, is accountable to the House. The activities of the agency are determined in that framework document, which is published.

CBDE operates with a trading fund. That does not mean that it tries to rob Peter to pay Paul, nor does it equate to private sector accounting. A trading fund is a discipline and a mechanism to introduce to the public sector the rigours of private sector budgeting, accounting and management. I believe that, together, the framework document and the trading fund encourage just the type of transparency that we all seek.

Mr. Ingram: I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has said. Can he confirm that the CBDE has advisory committees, and that those advisory committees work successfully alongside CBDE? We seek in new clause 1 something analogous and similar to that, using the expertise from CBDE to assist the DTI as a national authority.

Mr. Key: I have sought the advice of CBDE about advisory committees, and it is beset with advisory committees. Not only does it have advisory committees for the DERA establishments, but it told me that the international bureaucracy from The Hague will be very substantial. CBDE will spend its time coping with the international bureaucracy in The Hague and inspecting other nations, because we happen to be the best in the world at doing that. If we, on top of that, impose more committees to oversee the work of the committee that must look after them, it becomes absurd. I believe that CBDE will not be able to do its job properly as a result.

As for public confidence, which is so important, my constituents would wish to assist the Department of Trade and Industry under the legislation. Ever since CBDE was established, in the early part of the century, its mission has remained the same. It exists to provide the best scientific advice to protect the citizens of the United Kingdom from chemical and biological weapons and it will continue to do that, with or without another committee and whether it is regulatory or advisory.

Mr. Dalyell: The hon. Gentleman railed against extra committees, but I would not have bothered to interrupt

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him had he not been a member of the Medical Research Council--a lucky Member to be so, because it is a very important organisation. It has endless committees, because, if one is to have peer group monitoring, one must have all sorts of sub-specialist committees. If I may say so, it is a little glib to rail against committees which, as the hon. Gentleman should know from his Medical Research Council experience, provide proper peer group control.

Mr. Key: It was a huge honour to be a member of the Medical Research Council and I did not enjoy the day when I had to leave it because I was invited to form--to join--the Government of Margaret Thatcher. [Interruption.] Would that I had been invited to form the Government.

However, the hon. Gentleman is mistaken in that we are talking not about sub-specialist committees but about independent outsiders coming in to oversee the work. They are not comparable with the Medical Research Council's committees. Incidentally, it is possible to find scientists working in the Medical Research Council in their various projects who would have said how strongly they believed that all those committees were thoroughly overdone. Nevertheless, let us not argue, because I am trying to come to a conclusion.

The CBDE advises the Government. Ministers are responsible to the House for that advice, and for the work of the national authority, under the legislation. I hope that the House will reject the new clause.

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