News and Events

One year of the APPG a round-up of our work and achievements

On 22 July the House rose for the summer recess and although it’s been a very busy few months for the APPG the work of the Secretariat doesn’t stop. We’re now busy preparing for the Autumn term and the Party Conferences.

This past year has certainly been eventful.

When the new government took office Nigel Ellway acting as the Secretariat began recruiting a new membership and a new chair for the new APPG. He spent time briefing a large number of MPs and Peers individually on the huge importance of humanitarian demining and victim assistance, the maintenance of UK’s capability in explosive ordnance disposal and how they as Parliamentarians could play a vital role.

Once the new APPG was established and registered with Helen Maguire MP for Epsom and Ewell as the Chair, Nigel worked with the officers to set the agenda for their first year with a strong focus on how the changing geopolitical environment would define the group’s future focus and activity.

To get the group of enthusiastic new MPs and Peers off to a good start Nigel planned and organised two events in the House of Lords with two new Government Ministers in defence and security — Dan Jarvis MP and Al Cairns MP. The main attraction however was the Metropolitan Police Bomb Squad (the REAL Trigger-point!) bringing their response vehicle into the Royal Court for MPs and Peers to look over the equipment and learn about their operation.

During the first six months Nigel brought in a number of specialists for individual briefings and in December last year our chair Helen Maguire MP was able to secure a Westminster Hall debate through which we were able to highlight the APPGs work.

Every year the 4th of April is designated by the United Nations as the International Day for Mine Action Awareness. To mark this the APPG held a briefing session chaired by our APPG vice-chair Alex Ballinger MP with three of the leading UK NGOs in the mine action and victim assistance arena: HALO Trust, The Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and the REVIVE Campaign.

The group followed that event with a cross-party round table discussion on The Global Impact of Explosive Ordnance organised by Ellie Finch and chaired by Helen Maguire MP on the 20th May.

As well as several members of the APPG we were honoured to have senior representatives and specialists from several leading mine-action NGOs: Halo Trust, Humanity and Inclusion, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), The Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and the REVIVE Campaign.

Some of the key points from both of these sessions included: the sheer magnitude of the task ahead, especially with the conflict in Ukraine and the bombardment of Gaza. We discussed the impact of the United States cutting off humanitarian mine-action funding combined with a decrease in the UK's international development budget. Concerns were expressed that the conflict in Ukraine had led to a number of countries leaving the international conventions on the ban on anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions – conventions that were designed to be effective more in times of conflict than in peacetime.

One of the key take-aways from the meeting aired by the APPG and REVIVE’s expert advisor Brig (Rtd) Gareth Collett was that the UK Government should encourage much more co-ordination and communication between all of the players in the EOD/mine-action arena – commercial, third sector and particularly the military.

Finally, each of the NGOs was given the opportunity to give a short presentation on their operating structure and areas of key activity.

Summer function

The APPG’s main event took place on the 2nd June in the Terrace Pavilion. This was originally scheduled for a date in January, but had to be cancelled at the last minute due to an event at Buckingham Palace.

As it was, the Government decided to hold its Strategic Defence Review on the same day, which meant we lost our ministerial speaker and some of the more significant parliamentarians. We were very honoured however, to have Maj Pete Norton GC as our keynote speaker. He was inspirational. (Pete was awarded the George Cross for bravery after being catastrophically injured by an explosive weapon in 2005)

We hosted over 200 participants from industry, NGOs, military, security and academia. The resultant feedback on LinkedIn was quite phenomenal!

The APPG would like express its gratitude to the six organisations who exhibited and contributed to the costs of running the event: Thanks then to Jez Earnshaw, chair of Counter Explosive Ordnance UK and Alford Technologies; Steve Priestley, Tetra Tech Munitions Response; Michael Simpkin, Trimax Technologies; Jonathan Starkey, Specialist Risk Group; Steve Wisbey, NIC Instruments; Mark Livingstone, G4S Ordnance Management; Tim Illingworth and Chris Clark, Safelane Global and finally Anna Zagrebelna from REVIVE Campaign who did a magnificent job of managing the day.

In May Helen Maguire, Nigel Ellway and Joshua Hughes had the opportunity to spend the day at the UK Defence Academy at Shrivenham specifically to see their research and development work and meet some of the British Military instructors of explosive weapons disposal. Many thanks to Col Steve Roberts for the invitation and organising our day.

In June, at the invitation of Nigel Marsh at the Counter Explosive Ordnance Defence Engagement unit (CEDE), Helen Maguire and Joshua Hughes attended the International Ammunition Technicians Course (IATC) visitors’ day at Cranfield University Ordnance Testing & Evaluation Centre Live Demolition Range while Nigel Ellway was present for the IATC Graduation Ceremony at the Foreign Office later that month.

The visitors’ day included demonstrations of the disposal of assorted types of foreign ordnance (rockets, mortars, mines and projectiles), the effects of a range of different explosive weapon types to understand the technical considerations of their disposal.

What’s coming up

The APPG’s major inquiry into the ‘UK’s capability in Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Mine Action and Victim Assistance in a time of extreme geopolitical instability’ will begin as soon as the requisite funding has been secured.

In November our vice chair David Reed MP will be hosting an event for the Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action with the Azerbaijan Ambassador HE Elin Suleymanov.

Other meetings and events will be announced in due course.

The Launch

The 24th of February was a poignant day to launch the new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Explosive Weapons and Their Impact.

Hosted by our chair Helen Maguire MP and vice chair Baroness Foster of Oxton, the event had standing room only with parliamentarians, military EOD specialists, commercial members of the Counter Explosive Ordnance UK Group, and the REVIVE Campaign and Apopo UK representing the NGO sector.

The subject of Ukraine was on everyone’s lips as the day was the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of the country. Ukraine will no doubt become the main focus of the inquiry that Helen announced into the Capability of UK Plc to provide equipment and training in the EOD arena.

We are immensely grateful to Safelane Global for their financial support and to Chris Clark as our guest speaker for the evening. Both Chris’s and Helen’s speeches are attached here.

Westminster Hall Debate

Following this event Helen Maguire led a Westminster Hall debate on the 11th December entitled "Government Support for the Explosive Ordnance Community" with Veterans Minister Alistair Carns responding.

On the 13th January 2025 the APPG held its inaugural meeting at which Helen was voted in as Chair and our officers chosen.

New All-Party Parliamentary Group on Explosive Weapons and Their Impact

On the 12 November 2024, at a meeting in the House of Lords the new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Explosive Weapons & Their Impact was born.

Chaired by the Lib Dem MP for Epsom & Ewell Helen Maguire – herself a former army Captain, MP s and Peers met with members of the EOD community from across the military, commercial and voluntary sector, plus a few academics and two victims of the Manchester Arena bombings.

Stars of the show were the Metropolitan Police EOD team – the real ‘Trigger Point’ - who brought in their fully equipped response vehicle.

We were also delighted to welcome two government Ministers to the meeting: Veterans Minister Alistair Carns and Security Minister Dan Jarvis.