Examination of Witnesses (Questions 205-219)
RT HON
MARGARET BECKETT
MP, MR PAUL
ARKWRIGHT AND
MS MARIOT
LESLIE
15 MARCH 2007
Q205 Chairman: Secretary of State, you
are most welcome. May I ask your colleagues to introduce themselves?
Ms Leslie: I am the Director for
Defence and Strategic Threats with, among other things, responsibility
for arms control.
Mr Arkwright: I am Head of the
Counter Proliferation Department in the Foreign Office.
Q206 Chairman: May I start with an issue
where the Committee has expressed great appreciation for what
the Government has done, namely in leading on seeking to secure
an international arms trade treaty, and could I ask you at the
outset what you feel the prospects are and, indeed, what are the
prospects that not only conventional arms but dual-use goods and
equipment might be covered as well? I know it is a bit of a crystal
ball-gazing question but it is an issue that we are very interested
in, like yourself.
Margaret Beckett: First, it is,
as you say, really quite hard to be confident at what the prospects
are. I think we can take a certain amount of encouragement from
the fact that we got a more favourable response than we were anticipating.
I do not think any of us really imagined that we would get 153,
I think it was, states voting in favour. A number obviously of
key players abstained; that is clearly not surprising but not
as encouraging, but only one, unfortunately the United States,
voted against, and all of that, I think, is better than we could
have anticipated in terms of a mood to make progress. As to how
fast we can proceed that is something of another matter. We are
now, I believe, moving towards the area where experts will begin
to be engaged, and I suspect that like a lot of these things there
will turn out to have been more support for the general principle
of trying to make progress of this kind than there will be for
the detail when we come to contemplate that.
Q207 Chairman: What about the EU's
position? Given that the EU has not been able to transform the
code of conduct into a legally binding common position for reasons
we all know, or at least think we know, does that indicate a rather
weak EU position in trying to promote a legally binding international
arms trade treaty?
Margaret Beckett: I do not think
there is necessarily an automatic read-through. I can see why
it raises that question but I do not think there is necessarily
a read-through because there are specific difficulties in terms
of linking of issues and so on within the EU which do not necessarily
really arise if you are talking about a global treaty, so I do
not think one can necessarily assume that, because we have not
managed to make as much progress as we would like on the one,
it automatically indicates there will be more problems with another.
Q208 Judy Mallaber: We recently met
a delegation of Ukrainian parliamentarians seeking to set up their
own monitoring committee systems, and we also visited the Export
Control Organisation which brought home to us the complexity of
managing to monitor and control arms exports controls. If there
were an international arms trade treaty we would clearly need
to give considerable assistance to developing countries to be
able to implement the sort of systems we have been discussing
that would enable the treaty to mean anything at all in practical
terms. Maybe you could say something about how the UK would respond
to that and what resources you would be able to put into assisting
other countries if we did get an arms trade treaty to be able
to monitor it?
Margaret Beckett: Particularly
given the fact that it is likely to be quite some time before
we make substantive progress on detail in moving towards a kind
of endgame, first it is too early really to assess what the shape
might be of proposed control or monitoring or enforcement regimes,
but certainly we are not proposing to wait until we have nearly
got a treaty and then say: What can we do to help people? What
we are trying to do is work with people now and in the future
to build up understanding and acceptance of the kind of standards
that might be useful, to learn from best practice and so on. So
I do anticipate that we will do what we can to assist others with
the process of enforcement, compliance and so on, but I am not
envisaging there will be some kind of big push as we come towards
a point of a treaty being considered; more that we will try and
help people to build up their capacity in the interim, which would
be better anyway because it means that over the whole period you
are gradually raising standards in a way which, apart from anything
else, could have a knock-on effect on what people find acceptable
in a treaty. If they do not feel there is a bigger gap between
what they are able to do now and what might be in a treaty, that
is helpful in getting acceptance.
Q209 Judy Mallaber: We know there
are obviously relationships with other countries and exchanges
of practice and so on. Is it possible to describe a little bit
more about how extensive that is, how it works, which countries
you do exchange that with, and who you give assistance to in developing
their systems?
Ms Leslie: We already have some
capacity building and assistance programmes under a number of
the other regimes. To take just one example, the Proliferation
Security Initiative comes together with quite a lot of workshops,
practical exercises, group and regional seminars, and also bilateral
assistance that we give from the Foreign Office with the help
of partners from the Ministry of Defence and the Department of
Trade & Industry, so we have things like workshops for customs
officials showing them how to inspect consignments and findings;
we have help with legislation and legal frameworks for controlling
armaments; we have a small budget already that we have within
the Foreign Office that we use for that. There are similar things
going on in some of the other weapons regimes, chemical weapons
and so on, so as we move towards the point where a treaty might
be ratified and implemented, we would have quite a lot of experience
to build on and we could be gradually moving towards what the
provisions of the treaty were.
Q210 Linda Gilroy: On future trends
and strategic export controls, the 5 February Defence News
reported European and US government and industry officials as
concluding that defence export regimes on both sides of the Atlantic
are bankrupt due to their "rigidity, their backward-looking
Cold War foundations and the global outsourcing and transfers
of intangible know-how in the defence sector". Is that the
way you look at things? Is it an accurate summary of where export
control is in 2007?
Margaret Beckett: No, you may
be relieved to hear! I have to admit I am conscious of the fact
that a report along those lines appeared but no, we do not take
the view that that is an appropriate criticism. We do, in fact,
as you know, and I believe I have heard the Committee complaining
about this in the past, tend to say that everything is dealt with
on a case-by-case basis and so on, and whatever the weaknesses
or whatever the concerns the Committee may have about such an
approach it does give you a degree of flexibility to respond to
a changing situation, and I would not say I have ever really detected,
having been at the other end of some of this process a few years
ago, a kind of Cold War mindset that does not understand that
there may be different dangers in today's and tomorrow's world.
Q211 Linda Gilroy: Except that arguably
things have got a great deal more complicated and have moved from
being territorial to being one of end-use; the types of items
are much more difficult to determine and therefore to control
with intangible technology and dual-use—
Margaret Beckett: Certainly.
Q212 Linda Gilroy: —and you
have also got many more potential suppliers and the trade patterns
have changed; there are all the issues to do with intra company
exchanges with subsidiary companies in different countries, so
does this maybe argue for a framework, a formal system of end-use
monitoring?
Margaret Beckett: I am not sure
that it does, to be honest—insofar as one can. But I think
that all the points you make are well taken about how much more
difficult and complex and varied the situation is now, but it
seems to me that that argues for continuation of the case-by-case
and "What is the equipment that we are talking about?"
kind of approach, as opposed to a more rigid—and I suspect
in fact, that this is the reverse of the accusation that was being
made—formulation, which was looking backwards to the days
of the Cold War and which might perhaps ignore some of these complexities.
I have great sympathy with Committees' concerns about end-use
monitoring, diversion and so on but, as I think the Committee
will appreciate, these are genuinely extremely difficult areas.
We do what we can, but I do think that to adopt the approach which
we have done of putting the emphasis rather on pre licence scrutiny
and thinking through these things and what the possibilities are
and trying to take them as realistically as one can into account,
is the answer. Of course, if you took them into account to the
extreme degree you would probably never sell anything to anybody—which
some people might prefer, of course.
Q213 Linda Gilroy: Indeed. One of
the things the Committee has been particularly concerned about
is the position of the overseas subsidiaries of UK companies and
making sure they do not export arms manufactured under UK licence
to destinations to which the UK would not allow direct arms exports.
Margaret Beckett: Well, the Committee
will, I am sure, know that there is a review going on, and that
is definitely one of the issues that people will be considering
as that review proceeds but, again, that is really quite a complex
area and one where it is quite hard to see that one can simply
oversee and supervise.
Q214 Linda Gilroy: It certainly is
hard but, on the other hand, it sort of illustrates what I have
just been saying about the complexity of things in general and
the need for maybe moving towards some sort of end-use monitoring.
Margaret Beckett: Yes, but let's
take it out of this context. If the suggestion was made that we
as the British Government should be trying to supervise the activities
of companies who are producing elsewhere in the world perhaps,
you know, under some kind of franchise and so on, I think there
are a lot of people who would have concerns about whether that
was possible or, indeed, whether it was viable, whether it was
something that could be achieved. I completely understand and
sympathise that in this context there will be people who feel
we should be trying to do that, but you only have to think of
it outside this context to realise it is really not that easy.
Chairman: As you say, Secretary
of State, it is an issue that will come up frequently, I am sure,
during the review, and hopefully the Committee might have something
to say on it as well. David?
Q215 Mr Borrow: Can we move on to
the sorry saga of the difficulties in the ITAR process for getting
arms exports from the US. Dennis Burnett, who is vice-president
of the trade and export controls at EADS North America is quoted
on 5 February as stating: "Everyone agrees that the ITAR
process [of vetting US defence goods and services for export]
is broken". Would you agree with that analysis and, if so,
what do you think should be done to change the situation?
Margaret Beckett: I am cautious
about agreeing with it, not least because I am not as steeped
in the detail of it as perhaps he is, or maybe even you are, Mr
Borrow, but certainly my understanding is that there is reconsideration
being undertaken as to whether that process is being run as well
as it should. That is not really a matter for us: it is a matter
for the Government of the United States, but certainly we are
trying, as we always do on these issues, to encourage as much
co-operation and understanding as possible in order to try to
ensure that what we can get is a flow of information and a co-operative
approach and something that allows us, if the argument is that
the present system is broken, under any new system to have the
right kind of co-operative and constructive relationship that
will work to the benefit of our industry and, hopefully, to our
mutual benefit.
Q216 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Secretary
of State, on this question of the waiver which would have granted
this country a privilege from the need to license American exports
to this country, this Committee urged you to pursue this pointing
out that it would help British companies, and in the Government's
reply it said it put a high priority on the importance of US/UK
defence industrial co-operation and trade. How do you square that,
though, with the United Kingdom participation in the European
Defence Agency which was set up in 2004 to share European technology
and research? How can one expect the Americans to grant us a favour
if we are going into a separate agency in competition with the
Americans?
Margaret Beckett: I am not sure
I would regard it as being directly in competition. There are
different roles and different responsibilities. I think it would
be strange if we said we wanted nothing to do with the European
Defence Agency and not particularly productive and I think, too,
that there are particular links and co-operative programmes with
the United States, and the Joint Strike Fighter is one, I think.
So it seems to me that, as in much of our foreign policy, what
we are striving to do is keep open relationships which are both
trans-Atlantic and also European.
Q217 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: The aim
of the European Defence Agency is explicitly to promote research
aimed at creating a leadership in strategic technologies and strengthening
Europe's industrial potential in this domain. Now, if you are
an American congressman you must wonder why this country should
be exempted from licensing requirements if we are going into an
organisation to share that technology with a European agency in
competition with the United States. Surely we have to choose here,
and you are trying to have it both ways?
Margaret Beckett: Is trying to
have it both ways a bad thing automatically, do you think? Of
course, any co-operation we have with the United States would
be bound to be on the basis that it is not disadvantageous to
the United States; there is no dispute about that and I am sure
that has always been the basis of the understanding in the past
and is likely to be in the future, but I would not wish myself
to forego either opportunity to co-operate and it seems to me
that is to the advantage of British industry.
Q218 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Of course
you want to co-operate with everybody but how can you express
surprise at the action of the American Congress when simultaneously
with saying we want to co-operate with the United States we are
actually co-operating with industrial rivals in the European Union?
Surely there is a problem here? Can you not see the politics of
it? The American Congress cannot be expected to grant us a favour
in the light of what we did with the European Defence Agency?
Do you not acknowledge a choice that has to be made here?
Margaret Beckett: Of course I
recognise that there will be individual congressmen or women who
take such a point of view and are bound to raise it but, if I
may say so, with deep respect, I find it difficult enough always
to analyse the actions and thoughts of members of this House without
trying to do them in a different legislature. All I would say
to you is that successive American governments have reached agreements
of that kind with us and successive American governments, as I
understand it, have also urged the European Union to take greater
defence responsibilities and, indeed, to be more active in such
a field. So I can see why particularly perhaps individual Congress
people might raise concerns; I think, however, our goal should
be not to exacerbate them but to reassure them.
Q219 Robert Key: Secretary of State,
can you confirm that nearly half of our defence attachés
are to be withdrawn next year as part of a cost-cutting excise?
Margaret Beckett: No, because
I am not sure that any such decision has yet been made. Certainly
there are changes likely to be made and I believe the Ministry
of Defence is considering the impact of those changes at this
time, but I am not aware of any decisions having been made.
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