§ 54. Mr. Usborneasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what significance there is in his use of the words "treaty" or "pact" to describe the documents he signs when making agreements with the representatives of foreign countries.
§ The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. David Ormsby-Gore)There is no particular significance in the use of the words "treaty" and "pact". International compacts are sometimes termed not only treaties or, occasionally, pacts, but agreements, acts, conventions and the like. There is no essential difference between them, and their binding force upon the contracting parties is the same, whatever be their name.
§ Mr. UsborneSince all pacts and treaties are generally signed and negotiated between sovereign States, which equally habitually interpret them differently and call them "scraps of paper" whenever it suits them, can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House how many pacts, treaties, agreements, etc., his Office has signed in the last twenty years that were worth the paper they were written on?
§ Mr. Ormsby-GoreThe hon. Gentleman will realise that that is a much wider question than the one that he has on the Order Paper and I cannot answer it now.