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Lord Rea: I rise to support the amendment. One of the very few aspects of prior scrutiny that my noble friend did not mention is the fact that, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, prior scrutiny takes place in the United States and Sweden without seeming to damage the export potential of either country, particularly the USA.
The Government have rejected this as a supporting argument on the grounds that the systems employed in those countries would not be useful in the UK context. But members of the Quadripartite Select Committee actually noted during the debates on the Bill in the other place that the systems employed in those countries did have certain weaknesses which should not be imported wholesale. The committee considered those weaknesses and the peculiarities of the UK system when drafting its proposals. They have been outlined extremely skilfully and in some detail by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. I commend strongly all three proposed amendments. They are workable. They should be considered by my noble friend.
In closing, I should say that my noble friend has been quite modest. He did not declare that he has been a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee of another place. He says that there is absolutely no question of any breach of security. As confidence grows between the intelligence and security services and the committee, more and more and more sensitive information will be discussed without any harm being done to our security services.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: It is very late at night. It would be helpful if one of the three who tabled the amendment went on the record. I cannot compete with the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, who has gone off for his own child to be born. I am waiting for a grandchild to be born which should have been born yesterday. It looks as if it has missed today and it will be tomorrow. But there it is.
The basic assumption about all this is the Scott report's criticism regarding the lack of accountability and transparency in legislation. Those two issues are at the heart of it and are the two issues that govern my desire to support the amendment. We have heard a structure—a way forward—ably outlined. I do not have a better way forward.
To say that we have an accounts system at the moment—we rehearsed the issue earlier—is transparency post hoc and not prior scrutiny. I think that the Government might be glad of the kind of scrutiny that has been suggested and proposed. We might have avoid the kind of situation that we had over the sale of the air traffic control system to Tanzania if we had had some prior scrutiny of the situation. One can say that America or Sweden are not typical. That is all right, but let us buy into the principle again and work out some kind of proposal as
has been suggested tonight over the next month or so that meets the concerns that the Government quite rightly have about secrecy, confidentiality and so on.We need to make some provision for prior scrutiny that allows the public, the NGOs and the people beyond Britain to feel that we are consistent in our application of the UK criteria for arms export; that we are following the EU code and the proposals contained in the Bill. I hope that the Government will not be too coy but will buy into the principle and think creatively about how it might be worked out.
The Earl of Sandwich: I should like to express regret that the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, could not remain with us because of the late hour. She would have been able to offer much wisdom on the subject.
We are most fortunate to have the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, with us in Committee. He had a special position in the other place, and I know that he has already earned a special place in the Chamber this evening. The noble Lord made a very powerful case, on which I shall not elaborate. However, when we are talking about delay, I should like to stress that we must remember, for example, the components of the Hawk aircraft that we allowed the Zimbabweans to have at a time when they were fighting in the Congo—not necessarily with that aircraft, but, as has been universally recognised, it was not something that we should have done. The committee was not able to follow it up, but it could have done something about it if it had been established at the time of the application.
Lord Judd: I must confess that I am among those former defence Ministers, albeit, in those days, a junior member of the team, who has seen the light. We have seen the light because of our experiences when in office. It is very significant that former defence Ministers are putting their names to an Early Day Motion in the other place. I, too, should like to put on record my deep respect for my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours—we are neighbours in Cumbria—for his longstanding and salutary work in this whole area over many years. He spoke powerfully this evening.
I should also like to draw attention to the strength of argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, this evening. It would be possible to rehearse many of the arguments, but I believe that they have been more than fully covered. I have two questions for my noble friend the Minister that I hope he will address in his response. First, it seems extraordinary that the Government could view the operations of a committee modelled on the Intelligence and Security Committee as being in danger of breaching commercial confidentiality. If the Government really believe that a committee modelled on such an excellent committee with all its records so far could endanger commercial confidentiality, they must tell us why. That view certainly raises some pretty profound questions about the other committee that is already carrying out its work. The Government must be consistent and open about their argument in this respect.
Secondly, given the number of precedents for the Government consulting a committee or agency in the exercise of its functions, and the repeated emphasis that a defence export scrutiny committee would have a purely advisory role, can my noble friend clarify whether the Government foresee a constitutional barrier to the establishment of such a committee? I have certainly had sight of legal advice which says that there is no constitutional barrier. If there is such a barrier, the Government must specify exactly what it is.
Finally, we are not discussing this matter in a vacuum, or in an academic kind of way. In recent decades a number of very disturbing incidents have taken place that have come to light only after the persistent lobbying and outcry and, indeed, the courage of many people who have insisted that they should be taken seriously. That is no way to approach an issue of this kind, where we are all agreed that the irresponsible exporting of arms can have profound dislocating effects on international security and peace, as well as on the well-being of people. The need to approach the matter with a sound and convincing arrangement of the kind outlined by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours is really overwhelming. Therefore, as has already been argued, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to say this evening that he has listened—it is always good when a Minister can say that he has done so—that he will take the point seriously, and that he will take it away and return on Report with a convincing position.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The amendments would add new clauses to the Bill that would provide for the Secretary of State to take advice from a parliamentary Select Committee or a committee of parliamentarians in the licensing process. As we have heard, it is intended to provide for the prior parliamentary scrutiny of individual licence applications, a subject that has been raised by the Quadripartite Committee in the other place, and to which the Government have responded in the past. The amendments would, of course, extend prior scrutiny to licensing decisions made under the other powers in the Bill.
The question of prior scrutiny has already been considered at some length by the Government, in response to the recommendations made by the Quadripartite Committee. The Government's position on the issue was set out in their response of July last year, in which we stated that there was an important principle involved about the respective roles of government and Parliament. That can be best expressed by quoting from the Government's response:
- "The Committee has reiterated that a system of prior scrutiny 'would not mean that a Committee would share responsibility or take decisions'. However, the Government strongly believes that bringing the Committee into the export licensing process, regardless of the formal status of the Committee's recommendations to Ministers, would in practice be bound to blur this responsibility. The Government therefore remains of the view that, as a matter of principle, it would be wrong for Ministers to be required to consult Parliament before taking decisions in individual cases".
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote, set out the issue with remarkable clarity in his speech at Second Reading. I hope noble Lords will bear with me if I quote his views on the subject in full, as he explains the position admirably. He stated that:
- "Speaking personally, I am against prior scrutiny and am in favour of the Government's refusal to agree to its incorporation into the export licensing regime".—[Official Report; 8/1/02; col. 484.]
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