Britain is ready to sign a treaty that will outlaw the use and stockpiling of cluster bombs and millions of pounds will have to be spent on destroying them, senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office sources said yesterday.

The change in Britain’s position on the Armed Forces’ remaining cluster munitions – the helicopter-mounted M73 and artillery-launched M85 – was confirmed in Dublin at the 109-nation conference that is trying to negotiate a treaty that will ban all such weapon systems.

Senior sources said that the definition of cluster bombs which was now being agreed would mean that the M85 and the M73 would be “caught”.

Britain’s negotiating team in Dublin includes military advisers from the Ministry of Defence who, until now, have emphasised that both the M85 and M73 cluster-bomb systems were needed to protect British troops when confronted by an enemy in armoured vehicles. But the sources said: “The policy we’re adopting is a British government position.”

They said that the Government was now ready to sign up to the phasing out of these systems, although there were still negotiations under way on the timetable for scrapping them.

Britain, Germany, Japan and Switzerland had asked for a “transition period” of seven to fifteen years to replace the perceived military capability gap. This, however, has been rejected by many NGOs and anti-cluster-bomb campaign organisations attending the Dublin conference, but Foreign Office sources indicated that this sticking point would not scupper the treaty.

The change in Britain’s negotiating tactics was ordered by Gordon Brown last week. He instructed the British negotiators to do everything to ensure that the M85 and M73 cluster bombs would be phased out on humanitarian grounds because of the threat they posed to civilians. “If we sign the treaty, which we expect to do, we will lose the M85 and M73 and it will prove expensive,” the sources said.

When Britain scrapped another cluster-bomb system, the M26, it cost £30 million to destroy the stocks.

The sources accepted that the M85 cluster munition, which is more indiscriminate than the M73 and, therefore, poses more of a threat to civilians, should be decommissioned, but hoped that the other weapon, which is described as a “direct-fire” system, could be phased out.

The draft text for a treaty is expected to be ready by tonight, and formal adoption agreed on Friday, although the treaty itself will not be signed until December 2 at a ceremony in Oslo.

Foreign Office sources said that rapid progress was being made at the Dublin conference, although there remained key concerns which had yet to be resolved.

The most serious stumbling block for the treaty is the question of inter-operability.

Britain and other Nato members want to include a provision that would allow its troops to serve alongside another nation’s forces even if that nation had not signed the anti-cluster-bomb treaty.

The United States has not taken part in the Dublin conference, and countries such as Britain, France and Germany, which operate with American troops, want legal assurance that they will not be in breach of the treaty if they are part of a multi-national force that includes nations that have refused to be signatories.

The sources said that the Government did not want to be accused of breaching the treaty if, for example, an American ship came into a British port carrying cluster bombs. American basing of cluster bombs on British territory also posed a problem. But the sources said there was optimism that this issue, which is so important for America’s allies, would be resolved once the complex arguments had been explained fully to representatives at the conference.

The draft treaty text prohibits providing any assistance with banned acts – in other words, intentionally helping others with the use of cluster bombs in joint military operations. The sources said that this issue was potentially a “deal-breaker”. But, with the Prime Minister pushing for Britain to sign the treaty, they said that a compromise would be found.

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