STOURBRIDGE MP Lynda Waltho has welcomed the Government's announcement banning cluster bombs.

Lynda has been lobbying the Government to ban cluster bombs since she became an MP three years ago, after being inundated with letters from constituents concerned about the worldwide issue.

She said: "I was pleased to hear about the landmark agreement reached in Dublin to ban them. It is cause for a real celebration and is a credit to the many people across Stourbridge and the UK who have been campaigning for such a ban."

Cluster bombs are a single bomb or shell which breaks up to scatter scores of small bombs across a wide area.

Many fail to explode on impact - and instead lay in the ground for months and years. When they are disturbed or discovered the explosion still kills or maims - and there has been a huge toll of civilian victims around the world.

Lynda said: "When countries take part in military action, it is sadly inevitable that the weapons they use will cause death and injury.

"But what can't be acceptable is if years after the conflict, fresh casualties are still happening - with the main victims all too often children.

"Even 30 years after the Vietnam War, cluster bombs dropped during the conflict are still killing people in south-east Asia. They include farmers tilling their land and curious children who find them when they are out playing."

She added: "These efforts finally paid dividends last week when over 100 countries agreed to ban the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of all cluster munitions. The convention, which will be formally signed later this year, is a major breakthrough."

Labour MP Lynda said PM Gordon Brown, who intervened to help broker the deal, has promised the Government will now work to encourage the widespread international support for the agreement, as campaigners are concerned major countries including the US, Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Israel have not yet agreed to sign the convention.

Lynda added: "We hope that, in time, they will. We also hope, as has happened with the landmine ban agreed in 1997, that it will encourage even those countries who did not sign to stop using such weapons.

"The UK has already taken steps to phase out their use and has already withdrawn and promised to destroy all cluster munitions without a self destruction mechanism."