§ 2.50 p.m.
§ LORD BROCKWAYMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government how far practice in the United Kingdom in relation to biological and chemical agents for war purposes conforms with the policy announced by President Nixon for the United States of America; and whether the United Kingdom representative on the Political Committee of the United Nations will be instructed to support the proposal of the Soviet Union for a Convention prohibiting the manufacture of all biological and chemical weapons.]
§ LORD SHEPHERDMy Lords, the House will be aware of the intiative which Her Majesty's Government took on July 10 this year when we tabled, at the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament in Geneva, a draft Convention for the Prohibition of Biological Methods of Warfare. We have no biological weapons and no intention of acquiring them. We welcome President Nixon's expression of support for our draft Convention and his intention to seek United States ratification of the 1925 Geneva Protocol to which we have long been a party. So far as the second part of my noble friend's Question is concerned, the Soviet proposal presents certain difficulties in our view, and I would rather not go into detail as to what we would do if it came to a vote.
§ LORD BROCKWAYMy Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that many of us greatly appreciate the initiative which Her Majesty's Government have taken at Geneva and approve the decision which President Nixon has made? But may I also ask him whether the position is not now arising where chemical agents, as well as biological agents, could be brought into a Convention, particularly in view of the fact that the Soviet Union and its Allies are prepared to accept such a Convention?
§ LORD SHEPHERDMy Lords, we ourselves welcome the Soviet concern over these weapons and are pleased that the Soviet Union and its allies have now come to see the force of the argument put by the British Government as far back as July, 1968. We are surprised, however, that the Soviet draft Convention was presented to the Union Nations General Assembly instead of to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament. We are sorry, because there are many detailed points which we shall have to consider in regard to the Soviet proposals and which could be better considered at a Committee than at the General Assembly. We should hope that this draft Convention could be submitted to the Committee at Geneva. There is some difference between possible biological warfare and the use of biological weapons, and chemical warfare, and it was for this reason, as I explained to my noble friend, that we ourselves felt that we ought to go for the biological warfare Convention first and then deal with the more difficult one as regards chemical warfare later.
§ LORD BROCKWAYMy Lords, without wishing to defend the Soviet Government's attitude, may I ask whether it is not the case that they made these proposals at the Disarmament Conference at Geneva and it was open for discussion there before they made the proposal at the United Nations?
§ LORD SHEPHERDMy Lords, the proposals that the Soviet authorities have placed at the United Nations are the first substantive form that we have seen and that we have been able to consider.