HC Deb 11 November 1959 vol 613 cc396-8
28. Mr. Healey

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps he has taken to organise joint study with the Soviet Government of the possibility of controlling armaments in an agreed area of Europe as proposed in the communiqué signed by the Prime Minister and Mr. Khrushchev last spring.

30. Mr. Swingler

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what further consideration has been given by Her Majesty's Government to proposals for the limitation of armaments in agreed zones in Europe and elsewhere.

Mr. Profumo

The Western plan for Germany put forward at Geneva in May contained provisions for controlling armaments in an agreed area of Europe. This plan was one of the basic documents of the Geneva Conference. No other joint study is contemplated.

Mr. Healey

Is it not the case that the reference to an arms control zone in the Western proposals at Geneva was strictly dependent on a settlement of a very large number of political problems concerning Germany? Is the hon. Gentleman really trying to pretend to the House that this is what the Prime Minister and Mr. Khrushchev had in mind when they said in their joint communiqué of 3rd March that further studies could usefully be made of the possibility of increasing security by some method of controlling armaments in an agreed area?

Mr. Profumo

The hon. Member will have to put down a Question to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister if he wants to know what he had in mind when he signed the joint communiqué. It certainly did mean what I said, and this matter was discussed and put forward at Geneva. It was in conformity with the communiqué. I have answered the Question, and we have no further joint study contemplated at the present time.

Mr. Healey

I put this Question down to the Prime Minister and he himself transferred it. I very much regret that he chose not to answer the Question. Is the Minister of State really telling the House that Mr. Khrushchev agreed with the Prime Minister that this was intended when they signed the communiqué together on 3rd March?

Mr. Profumo

I expect my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would have given an Answer very much on the same lines as I have given to the House. In the context of the agreed area in Europe, we stand upon the Western proposals put forward in Geneva.

Mr. Bevan

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Have we now reached the position in which we have to ask each member of the Government what he meant by a policy statement, which means that any member of the Government can have a separate view on policy so that we have to pursue each Minister to find out what is the collective policy of the Government?

Mr. Speaker

I doubt if that is a point of order for the Chair.

Mr. Profumo

With permission, may I explain that I thought the right hon. Member was complaining that the Question had been put to the Prime Minister and transferred to the Foreign Office?

Mr. Bevan

No, on the contrary.

Mr. Swingler

Is it not clear that the proposal put forward by the Prime Minister was not put forward as conditional upon a political settlement but as an independent idea, and that a great deal of propaganda was made after the visit of the Prime Minister to Moscow about his being in favour of a thinned out zone, and so on? What has happened to his proposal? Does this mean that the Foreign Office has killed it stone dead or that it is political propaganda?

Mr. Profumo

Certainly not. The matter was dealt with very fully in the recent foreign affairs debate.

Mr. Paget

Is not the truth of the matter that neither the hon. Gentleman nor the Prime Minister can answer this question, because nobody—including the Prime Minister—has the least idea what this proposal means? It was produced off the cuff at the last moment and had not been thought out by anybody.

Mr. Profumo

I should not think that that is the case at all. Anyway, I have answered the Question.

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