Cook under fire on 'ethical policy'

Robin Cook may lose out in Queen's Speech

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have seized on reports that Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's 'ethical foreign policy' has been dealt a major blow.

If this report is correct, it is profoundly disappointing

Menzies Campbell MP

The Guardian newspaper reports that the government will not bring forward any new laws in the next parliamentary session to further regulate the arms trade.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Francis Maude says the reported omission of an arms trade regulation bill from the next Queen's Speech is an acute embarrassment for Mr Cook, while the Liberal Democrats say there are disappointed.

But the Foreign Office has not confirmed the reports, saying it is impossible to pre-empt the Queen's Speech which will take place in late autumn.

Mr Maude said: "Robin Cook will now enter the general election entombed with the remnants of his much-vaunted 'ethical foreign policy'.

"If these reports are true, he can now add his scrapped bill to licence the arms trade to his mausoleum dedicated to his much-vaunted 'ethical foreign policy'."

Arms sales

Mr Maude also accused the government of having double standards on sales of arms to Zimbabwe and Indonesia.

But the government has repeatedly defended the sale of Hawk jets and spare parts to Indonesia as being due to contracts settled by the previous government.

If a the bill on arms is missing from the Queen's Speech, it could mean the government entering a general election campaign without having implemented the recommendations on arms brokering made by Sir Richard Scott in his report on the arms-to-Iraq affair.

Ironically, the foreign secretary made much of the last Conservative government's problems over the Iraqi arms link.

If brought forward, the bill would have updated legislation dating from the 1930s and required arms exporters to be licensed or face criminal sanctions.

Regulations 'a test'

The Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said: "If this report is correct, it is profoundly disappointing.

"There is no more effective test of a foreign policy with an ethical dimension than arms export policy."

Highlighting Labour's rhetoric while in opposition, Mr Campbell said the party had promised much.

He said: "To fail to make the necessary changes in legislation in the course of a parliament hardly suggests the kind of commitment to change for which Labour argued when the Scott Report was published."