HC Deb 24 March 1987 vol 113 cc153-4
9. Mr. Clelland

asked the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment his Department has made of the effects upon the British Army of the Rhine of NATO's possible use of battlefield nuclear weapons in Europe.

Mr. Stanley

The effects of nuclear weapons would be entirely dependent on the number and the yield of the weapons used. However, the central purpose of the possession of nuclear weapons is to ensure that a potential aggressor cannot contemplate either conventional or nuclear attack. That policy has had more than 40 years of uninterrupted success in western Europe.

Mr. Clelland

Will the Minister admit that the decision was taken in Montebello in 1983 to modernise battlefield nuclear shells, which are potentially lethal to British troops at the front and which are already in the NATO stockpile? Does he agree that Ministers have misled the House on this issue over the years and that they should now resign?

Mr. Stanley

The hon. Gentleman is wholly incorrect. If he wants to pursue the issue, I hope that he will address himself to how the Labour party, with its non-nuclear policy, will provide any sort of protection for the British Army of the Rhine.

Mr. Mates

Is not the factor of the shorter-range nuclear weapons in Europe one of the most important aspects of any agreement to be reached on INF? Would we not be wrong to go ahead blindly into an INF pact without addressing the problem? Will my right hon. Friend be reassured by the fact that most people in Britian are just as worried about the Russian preponderance of small-sized nuclear weapons as they are about medium ones?

Mr. Stanley

My hon. Friend is entirely correct. It would certainly make no sense at all to enter into an INF agreement if we did not introduce some constraints over the shorter-range Soviet systems, in which the Soviet Union has an enormous superiority and which it can use perfectly well to cover those targets that are currently covered by its long-range INF forces. That is why we have made it quite clear that collateral constraints on some of the short-range systems are an integral part of any sensible INF agreement.

Mr. Douglas

That is nonsense. You will regret saying that, Stanley.

Mr. Speaker

Order.

Mr. Douglas

He did not mean that.

Mr. Speaker

Order. I do not know what the Minister meant.

Mr. Campbell-Savours

Does the Minister accept that had it not been for Dan Plesch's work under freedom of information legislation in the United States of America, Britain would never have known of the modernisation programme that has taken place? Is he aware that I have a book with me that sets out three years of ambigous answers from Ministers and ambigous letters to individual hon. Members, all in the language of ambiguity and all trying to deny that the modernisation process has been undertaken? Why is it that the Government have sought to mislead Parliament for three and a half years in this way? Why did they not tell the truth after Montebello?

Mr. Stanley

The hon. Gentleman, not for the first time, is talking absolute nonsense. The results of the Montebello meeting were set out in a public communiqué that has been in the Library of both Houses for over four years.

Mr. Latham

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there will be no use by NATO countries of battlefield nuclear weapons or any other weapons unless they are attacked first, and that that is the whole basis of NATO's strategy?

Mr. Stanley

I fully agree with my hon. Friend The whole essence of the possession of nuclear weapons is to provide an essential element of deterrence. That is the whole philosophy, and it has worked in theory and in practice for more than 40 years.

Mr. McNamara

The right hon. Gentleman may have made an error earlier when he said that the agreement on short-range weapons was an integral part of INF negotiations. Would he like, on consideration, to withdraw that statement? Does the point that he made in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland), that no decisions have been made, as far as British forces are concerned, to modernise after the Montebello agreement, also apply to the weapons that are currently owned by the United States but which are in British care at the moment, namely, shells? Have they been modernised? Have any British forces been engaged in any exercises using modern shells?

Mr. Stanley

Dealing with the second part of the lion. Gentleman's question first, the answer that I gave applies to nuclear weapons that are British-produced and, therefore, in British custody, and to American-produced weapons that are assigned for service with British forces. As far as the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question is concerned, nothing that I have said today is different from what has previously been said in the House. I refer the hon. Gentleman to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on this point on 12 March. I repeat it for his convenience. She said: An INF agreement must provide for restraints on those shorter-range systems which could he used to circumvent an INF agreement. These are the longer-range SRINF; in practice it means the Soviet SS12, SS22 and SS23. I believe that the draft treaty tabled by the United States will do that effectively."—[Official Report, 12 March 1987. Vol. 112, c. 461.]