Lord Coaker (Lab)

Let me give a general answer to the variety of points made by the noble Baroness. Of course people can campaign against what they see as the arms trade and against what they see happening in various places across the world. Of course they can campaign about Israel and Saudi Arabia; they can campaign about a whole range of different things. What the document says, however, is that the defence industry is a perfectly legitimate way of doing business in the country. People like me, and many others, take the view that preventing people being able to offer jobs and opportunities to people at universities or through various trade fairs—that is, the inability of people to do so without fear of intimidation—is not right, either. So it is a dual responsibility. I perfectly accept that, as long as the noble Baroness or anybody else conforms to the law and is non-violent, they can protest. As we saw, there are protesters at DSEI every year—although some went beyond. They are perfectly entitled to protest as long as they keep to the law. However, people are also perfectly entitled to go to DSEI, to purchase defence weapons, and to look at and discuss with other people what more might be done to ensure that we have the equipment we need. That is the only point I would make. There is not a moral certainty on one side or the other here; that is the point that I want to make. I am sorry to go on about this. It is the same with respect to whether the Armed Forces can go into schools, to defence fairs and all of those things. Of course they should be able to do that. All of those things are really important. It is not a case of, “These people can protest but those can’t”; it is about people mutually respecting each other’s rights to pursue legitimate activity. I respect the noble Baroness’s right and that of others to protest against what I stand for and what I say, but I also recognise that I and many other people have a right to express our view as well.