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Lord Sainsbury of Turville moved Amendment No. 5:
- Page 2, line 23, leave out "An order under this section may" and insert "The Secretary of State may by order"
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 3 [Technical assistance controls]:
Baroness Miller of Hendon moved Amendment No. 6:
- Page 2, line 37, at beginning insert "Subject to the provisions of section (Academic Freedom),"
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville moved Amendments Nos. 7 to 9:
- Page 3, line 13, leave out "this section" and insert "subsection (1)"
- Page 3, line 19, leave out "An order under this section may" and insert "The Secretary of State may by order"
- Page 3, line 22, leave out "Controls may be imposed under this section" and insert "Technical assistance controls may be imposed"
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Baroness Miller of Hendon moved Amendment No. 10:
- After Clause 3, insert the following new clause—
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville moved Amendments Nos. 11 and 12:
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Razzall moved Amendment No. 13:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 14. The amendments relate to our simple debate in Committee about whether the Government are honouring in the Bill the commitment in the Labour Party manifesto at the last election that the new export control legislation would,
I believe that the importance of this issue has been demonstrated more recently by events in Zimbabwe. Paul Farrelly, who, in a former life, was the City editor of the Observer and is now the Member of Parliament in another place for Newcastle-under-Lyme, has discovered two very recent cases of extraterritorial arms brokering by UK individuals or companies, both relating to Zimbabwe. In one case, quite a well known UK-based arms dealer has been identified as the main supplier of arms to Mr Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and he brokers those arms extraterritorially. He would not be
The Government's position, as clearly set out by the Minister in Committee, is that they will bring in regulations to implement the extraterritorial nature of the Bill. But the dummy orders that have been published, and the Government's stated intention, indicate that full extraterritorial controls on brokering will be imposed only for deals involving transfers to embargoed destinations, transfers of equipment used in torture or transfers of long-range missiles. That is the Government's position.
From these Benches we take the view that that does not go far enough. We believe that arms brokering in general—not limited to the three categories to which the Government have indicated they are prepared to extend the controls—meets at least five of the six Home Office criteria for determining whether extraterritorial legislation is appropriate. We made that point in Committee but the Government do not accept it. The substantive argument put forward by the Government is that, if the proposal, as set out in this group of amendments, were put into law, vulnerable individuals would be sitting brokering arms outside the United Kingdom and would not be aware that their activities were making them liable to criminal penalties in the United Kingdom. In Committee, that was the substance of the Government's defence. I find it an extremely thin argument.
I believe that anyone who has any connection with the United Kingdom and is involved in the arms-brokering business must be aware—if he is not, he should be—that extensive controls are applicable. I find it very difficult to accept the argument that the extraterritorial nature of these controls should not apply to arms dealers in transactions wherever they are located. For that reason, I commend the amendment.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, I am pleased to speak to Amendments Nos. 13 and 14. I, like many others who are in touch with voluntary organisations throughout the world, am concerned about the apparent ease with which arms, large and small—I include both—are transferable throughout the globe.
I am glad that the UK Government have taken such a leading role within the European Union in pushing for a legally binding convention on arms brokering. That is good and to our credit. I thank them for that. However, it is important that we in the UK put our own house in order. The most vulnerable groups of people in places such as, to quote an area that I know well, central Africa—that is, many of the poor and the powerless, including many women and children—continue to suffer as the result of arms made available through arms brokering. Some such activity is conducted by UK citizens and some by people who are not UK citizens but who are resident in the UK.
Therefore, it is good that the Bill seeks to address the problems created by arms brokering by dealing with arms brokering itself. However, it is hard to understand why Her Majesty's Government are reluctant to assist in and ensure the exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction of UK arms brokers. That is very puzzling.
As we all know, the precedent for the exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction already exists. There is no legal impediment to creating fully extraterritorial legislation. As recently as January this year, the Government placed full extraterritorial controls on corruption offences as part of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, ensuring jurisdiction over nationals for offences of corruption committed abroad. That seemed to be eminently sensible, necessary and wise.
Therefore, in some areas this Government are willing to make provision for extraterritorial control but they seem to be reluctant to do so in this Bill. Why cannot similar action be taken with regard to the brokering of arms and with regard to people who, while not being terrorists themselves, are equally resourceful, cunning and deceitful and enable others to engage in activities which are unhelpful towards human flourishing? There seems to be a loophole here for those who deal with non-embargoed countries. One could name some, such as Pakistan, Indonesia and Syria. The loopholes allow for deals to be made off-shore, and those loopholes need to be closed.
I am told that the military procurement documents discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, show that in the midst of the genocide there—I understand that 3 million people died in five years in that country—arms which originated from Albania and Israel were secretly flown to Zaire. At the time, Zaire was not an embargoed destination. From Zaire, it is a short and easy journey for the arms to reach embargoed Rwanda. Documents later found in the secret military archive of the exiled Rwandan government highlighted the central role played by a UK company in brokering those deals.
Arms brokers, such as a UK company which I shall not name, contributed to the carnage but have not yet faced persecution. As I understand it, under the present Export Control Bill, as it stands, they will remain unlicensed, unregulated and legal. I speak having met four African bishops from the Congo, Rwanda and that part of central Africa in the past 10 days. They have to live with the consequences of arms brokering as it is currently allowable. I hope that we shall support these amendments.
"ACADEMIC FREEDOM
(1) Unless any form of restriction is permitted under or by virtue of any other Act, or is required by any international treaty obligation of the United Kingdom or a Directive of the Council of the European Community, an order made under section 2 or 3 of this Act may not impose any control on—
(a) any information already in the public domain anywhere in the world (whether or not it is the subject of any patent, copyright, or other form of protection for intellectual property);
(b) the placing of any information in the public domain by publication orally or in writing or electronically (including for the purposes of a patent copyright or other form of protection of intellectual property); or
(c) the transfer of any information orally or in writing or electronically in the ordinary course of academic teaching or research unless the person placing or transferring the data knows or ought to have known that such information is or may be intended for use in connection
with the development, production, handling, operation, maintenance, storage, detection, identification or dissemination of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or the development, production, maintenance or storage of missiles or other unmanned vehicles or other devices capable of delivering such weapons.
(2) Nothing in this section affects the powers of the Comptroller-General under section 22 of the Patents Act 1977 (c. 37) (secrecy directions) or any statutory modification or re-enactment thereof which otherwise affects any obligation imposed by any other enactment or at common law relating to the secrecy of official information.
(3) Nothing in subsection (1) restricts the application of transfer or technical assistance controls to the transfer of any information to a person who, or a place which, is outside the European Community by a person who knows or ought to know that the information in question is or may be intended for use in connection with the development, production, handling, operation, maintenance, storage, detection, identification or dissemination of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or the development, production, maintenance or storage of missiles or other devices capable of delivering such weapons.
(4) An order made under section 2 or 3 of this Act may not apply to the supply of services or the transmission of technology if that supply or transmission involves the cross border movement of natural persons."
Page 4, line 1, leave out "An order under this section may" and insert "The Secretary of State may by order"
Page 4, line 9, leave out from "section" to end of line 10.
Page 4, line 18, leave out "may" and insert "shall"
"control the activities of arms brokers and traffickers wherever they are located".
My submission in Committee was that the Bill as drafted does not currently live up to that commitment. I would like to develop that argument further. It is obviously not for me to defend the Government or explain why they are not living up to their manifesto commitment.
6.45 p.m.
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