FOREIGN AFFAIRS

HC Deb 17 December 1964 vol 704 cc586-628

4.9 p.m.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home (Kinross and West Perthshire)

We are now beginning the second day of a foreign affairs debate which, I think, is widely recognised as being of the first importance. It was opened by my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) in a constructive review in which he posed many pertinent questions, to which, I may say, we have not yet had an answer. I shall repeat some of them to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Defence, whom I am very glad to see in his place following the N.A.T.O. meeting.

There were many thoughtful contributions made in yesterday's debate, including some maiden speeches which we were privileged to hear and which were particularly welcome and effective. We look forward to hearing those hon. Members again. The centre-piece of the debate was, of course, the speech of the Prime Minister, in which he made a detailed examination of the questions of defence and foreign policy. He made some very important statements during that long speech.

If I may be allowed to say so, there floated into my mind at one time the comment of the tutor on the essay, "The jam was thin, but you spread it very well". Nevertheless, the right hon. Gentleman made some very important statements. I shall treat them with the seriousness that they deserve, because some very far-reaching consequences may follow upon what the right hon. Gentleman said.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden touched on one point which has been clear every time we have debated foreign affairs or defence in this Parliament. Every such debate is of necessity dominated by the issue of the British deterrent. Until the Prime Minister and the Government have declared unequivocally whether paragraph 9 of the Nassau Agreement is scrapped and, therefore, that the Socialist Government no longer support the idea of Britain as an independent nuclear Power, or whether paragraph 9 remains and, therefore, the situation remains as it is today, our debates will be dominated by this nuclear issue.

There are many other situations in the world scene which ought to be discussed and hon. Members yesterday made a valiant attempt at times to do so. There was, for instance, discussion of the question of disarmament, but we came back again and again to the same topic for the very good reason that it simply is not possible until we know whether we are to continue to be a nuclear Power and, therefore, a Power with political influence in the world—until we know that it is really impossible to discuss either our rôle as a nation with political influence or the intelligent deployment of our military power. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that we should know about paragraph 9 of the Nassau Agreement and whether or not we are to lose our status as a nuclear Power with authority on the world stage.

There were one or two hon. Members who spoke about disarmament, notably the right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson). This is a very good illustration of what I was saying. If I may interpolate, I hope that the Prime Minister will resist the temptation always to decry the efforts at disarmament which were made by the last Government and the disarmament plans which we put forward. If he was tempted to do this in Washington I have no doubt that he got a very frigid response, because the plans which were advanced by the British Government, first, by myself at Geneva, as Foreign Secretary, and then by my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden, were in every detail worked out with the United States. They were a joint British and United States plan, a joint Western plan. So far as I know, they still represent the Western position and nothing better has been put in their place.

When the right hon. Gentleman belittles the work of people like Sir David Ormsby-Gore and Sir Michael Wright, my right hon. Friends the Members for Grantham (Mr. Godber) and Conway (Mr. Peter Thomas) he is showing himself very small-minded, particularly when he claims—as he constantly does—that all these ideas were his own. He knows quite well that they have held the field for a good many years now and that we worked on them as hard as we could. Until now as an independent nuclear Power we have been able to influence international discussions and international decisions in this nuclear field.

I was in the negotiations all through on the nuclear Test Ban Treaty. I have no doubt whatever that we would never have got that treaty unless the United Kingdom had been in a position to intervene from knowledge and had a status which could not be denied. We would not have got it if it had not been that we were a nuclear Power. If, as I fear, the Prime Minister intends to sign away most of our V-bomber force and the Polaris submarines when they come, all I can say is that decisions of future nuclear policy will be made by the United States, France, China and Russia, plus those other countries which, when the processes of making enriched uranium are cheapened, as they almost certainly will be, they will be decided for their own national ends.

Therefore, I hope that the Prime Minister will think again on this matter. The Prime Minister and his Ministers may travel the world in the coming months and the Minister dealing with disarmament may sit permanently in Geneva or sometimes move to New York, but they will not carry the voice of conviction or authority with other countries unless this country is in the position of a nuclear Power. I do not intend to use this debate to redeploy the general arguments for keeping this country a distinct independent nuclear Power, but I have two requests to make.

If the Socialist Government are to hand away our nuclear weapons, do not let them pretend that we can do this without an enormous sacrifice of power and influence for the British nation. Please do not let us have—if I may make a particular plea for this after yesterday's debate—any of the right hon. Gentle-mans' supporters talking any more about the immorality of the ownership of nuclear weapons.

If ownership of the nuclear weapons is a sin, we do not gain absolution by appointing a master sinner to deploy the weapons for us, nor by joining a syndicate which deals in these weapons, nor indeed, as the Prime Minister made clear yesterday, by keeping bombers ourselves with a nuclear capacity. So I hope that we shall not hear anything more of that kind—

Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne) rose—

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I think that I am coming to the point which the lion. Member wishes to make, because I am about to deal with the dissemination of nuclear weapons. The speech of the Prime Minister yesterday fell into two parts.

Mr. Sydney Silverman

The right hon. Gentleman is now passing from the point and I should not like him to pass from it without this being noticed. Will he bear in mind that those of us who think that nuclear weapons are totally immoral as well as being totally useless nevertheless think that any movement which prevents their proliferation does at any rate lessen the moral burden which the world bears?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

Where the hon. Member goes astray—this is why I asked him to wait—is that I do not think the measures the Prime Minister proposes will do anything to prevent the dissemination of nuclear weapons.

The Prime Minister's speech was divided into two parts. In the first, he quite properly talked about the relationship of defence to the economy of the whole country and the proportion of defence expenditure to the whole budget of the United Kingdom. He talked, also, about the general purposes of British foreign policy and, in particular, on the world rôle which he quite rightly wishes this country to fulfil. Then, in the second part, he made his particular proposals for an Atlantic force. I want to deal with those two halves separately.

My right hon. Friends and I have no quarrel at all with much of what the Prime Minister said under the heading of the necessity for a Government constantly to review defence expenditure in relation to the nation's resources. We have no quarrel with what he said about his purpose to achieve greater integration in the N.A.T.O. Alliance; although I shall have something very pertinent to say a little later, because I cannot conceive how the Atlantic force which he proposed will assist integration within the N.A.T.O. Alliance. When I heard the Prime Minister talk about political harmony in Europe, I must say that in view of the events of the last few weeks I thought his words a little hollow and unreal.

I want to make one particular comment on what the Prime Minister said about the cost of defence, in the light of his own stated desire to see Britain play a world rôle. First, let me put our defence expenditure in perspective. The Prime Minister said that it would rise to about £2,400 million next year; that is, between 7 per cent. and 8 per cent. of the gross national product. Let me subdivide it further. The conventional element in our defence forces represents 92 per cent. of the cost of our forces now and will rise to about 95 per cent. in a few years. The nuclear now represents 8 per cent. and will fall to 5 per cent. in a few years.

Those figures are worth bearing in mind. If we want a world rôle for our forces, both sets of figures are worth bearing in mind. I think that a country which seeks a world rôle should ask itself whether 8 per cent. is too much, whether the nuclear is over-weighted.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson)

Will the right hon. Gentleman explain whether the figure of 8 per cent., which it is possible to calculate by one means, includes the provisional expenditure on those bombers which the late Government intended to have a nuclear rôle?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I think that the answer is that it includes this. I do not want to go into research and development, because I am coming to that in a moment and it is connected with that. The total figure for our defence should he between 7 per cent. and 8 per cent. If the Prime Minister can correct me and show that I am wrong, I shall be glad to hear the figures. The conventional element represents about 92 per cent. The nuclear element represents about 8 per cent. now and will fall to 5 per cent. in future years.

The right hon. Gentleman, as is his way—he repeated it again at Question Time today—said that there had been a lot of waste by the former Government and that it was his intention to cut this out. As he listed the rôles for which he cast our forces, I found myself increasingly asking where the economies are to be found. The Government have said that they will retain our overseas bases, for the very good reason that they are related to considered commitments. The Prime Minister said that we shall raise our numbers in the Army of the Rhine to 55,000. I hope that he is successful in getting more money out of the Germans to help us with this. He is to increase the Navy and the other conventional forces. I do not quite know how this is to be done without conscription. I do know that increasing the conventional forces is the most expensive item of all.

Then apparently, from what we heard yesterday, we are to pay for the nuclear submarines to go into the Atlantic force, although we are not to control them. I do not see any economies under any of those headings. Indeed, I think that the bill of the present Government will probably be higher than that of the Government who went out of office this autumn.

I turn to weaponry, because the right hon. Gentleman said one or two things about having less sophisticated weapons and about research and development costs. As to less sophisticated weapons, the Prime Minister must realise that we cannot arm our troops with less efficient weapons than those held by a potential enemy. We are not thinking only of war with, let us say, Soviet Russia, or even Communist China. Indonesia has Russian planes and submarines and Egypt has modern equipment. Therefore, when we are thinking in terms of arming our troops with less sophisticated weapons, I do not believe that there is very much scope in that direction if we are to give our own forces a chance if the battle comes.

It is worth remembering, too, when talking about research and development, particularly in the air, that many of the discoveries which have been made in America have derived directly from the military research that has been done, although they can always do it on a far larger scale than ourselves.

I think that the Prime Minister, when he has examined a little further the record of the late Government, the weapon programmes and all the rest of it, will find that, if he really wants a substantial economy in the defence forces, he will have to cut some big commitments. That is the conclusion, I am afraid, to which he will come and, therefore, I think it will impinge on his own desire to see Britain an active world Power.

May I say to the Prime Minister at once that I very much welcome his decision to keep the bombers in the Far East. It is certainly realistic. They will be useful there for a long time. I myself would not have tied our hands in this way by keeping only a few in the Mediterranean and a few in the Far East. I would have kept the whole of our armament flexible. I think that this is certainly what the Prime Minister ought to have done. Nevertheless, I am very glad that he has decided to keep these bombers.

I shall not pursue the question whether these bombers are intended for a conventional or a nuclear capacity. I give support to the Prime Minister; what he said yesterday was quite right. It is not in the public interest that he or I or anybody else should comment on this.

I must give my first reactions to the central proposal of the Prime Minister's speech, which was for an Atlantic force. He will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that this force is partly to consist of national contingents, irrevocably committed, partly mixed-manned, subject to a veto by each member, the veto by those who contribute to the mixed-manned element possibly being exercised individually or collectively, that being a matter for future decision.

I should like to recall to the House the purposes of this force as we were told them in the past few months and as they were advertised to the country month after month and week after week before the General Election. Hon. Members will recall that the main purpose of the Government in trying to create a force of this kind was to give Britain a greater say in the use and control of the United States and French nuclear weapons. That was one purpose. A second purpose was greater and closer integration within the N.A.T.O. Alliance.

I must say at once that I have doubts, almost amounting to certainty, whether the force as explained by the Prime Minister will achieve any of these objectives. I will try to state, shortly and clearly, why I think as I do. First, the United States will retain the veto. I am not complaining of that. It was an essential element in any force, but I am simply stating the facts. Having stated that fact. it is, therefore, quite inconceivable that the United States could agree to the use of this force, unless it also, at the same time, brought into play its strategic deterrent.

What, then, are we in the European countries asked to do? We are asked to pay, as I understand, our contributions to the force, a force presumably meant to be of considerable significance and to have a strategic, a semi-strategic and a semi-tactical rôle. But in reality, as I see it, this force will be an extension of the United States strategic deterrent, which is already vast. Each member of this force will have a veto and, therefore, there may be eight or nine fingers on the safety catch. The force will be almost totally incredible as a deterrent. I think little of this force—and I shall say a little more about it—when I come to compare N.A.T.O. as it is now and as it would be if the Prime Minister had his way.

The Prime Minister

I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but this is very important. Does this mean that the kind of multilateral force on which the right hon. Gentleman was working involves a situation in which either we or our partners in Europe who will be members of this force would be able to plunge into a nuclear war with Russia without the United States being committed to that war? Is that what the right hon. Gentleman was meaning?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I will come to that, if I may. I want to deal with this matter in an orderly and detailed way. I will come to the question of a multilateral force. If I had been subscribing to a multilateral force it would have been a force in which everybody would have had a veto, including the United States, but I would have made such a contribution—perhaps a small contribution to a multilateral force of this kind—first within the N.A.T.O. Alliance, and, secondly, retaining for this country an independent nuclear deterrent which was viable. That is the difference.

The Prime Minister has put this forward seriously and we should consider it seriously and I now come to what I think is the most damaging criticism of his project. I believe that it is fatal. The right hon. Gentleman's purpose is to unite N.A.T.O. In answer to an interruption by myself yesterday, the right hon. Gentleman said that he thought that I and others would appreciate that there were strong reasons for putting this new Atlantic force and its controlling body outside the N.A.T.O. Alliance—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—although he kept an open mind. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If I was not absolutely stone-deaf, that was what the right hon. Gentleman said. I must look at it in HANSARD.

The Prime Minister, in response to that interruption by myself, said that if I gave it thought I would see that there were very important and good reasons for having this outside the N.A.T.O. Alliance. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Can I read what the right hon. Gentleman said? I said: Surely the whole purpose of this was to unify the N.A.T.O. Alliance and to assist it. This is something outside, which it seems to me at first glance might seriously split it. I added that I could not pursue it then because I wanted to study it more closely, and so on, and the right hon. Gentleman replied: Yes, I think that the right hon. Gentleman should. I think that he may come round to this view. If not, we are certainly prepared to debate it with him. The right hon. Gentleman wants me to come round to the view that it is probably—not certainly—a good thing not to have this in the N.A.T.O. Alliance.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Dennis Healey)

indicated dissent.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

The right hon. Gentleman was not here.

Mr. Healey

I have taken the trouble to read HANSARD, unlike the right hon. Gentleman, obviously. It would be for the convenience of the House if the right hon. Gentleman could read from HANSARD any passage which carries the meaning and is within the terms which the right hon. Gentleman has just used. There is no such passage.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

The right hon. Gentleman was not here, but was. I heard the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, in reply to me yesterday, said: First, on the question of the authority controlling the force. we feel that there are strong arguments for it not being the N.A.T.O. Council as such."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1964; Vol. 704, c. 436.]

The Prime Minister

Exactly.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

Let me take the Prime Minister's actual words, that it should not be under the N.A.T.O. Council as such. What follows? All N.A.T.O.'s nuclear arms, presumably, will be transferred to the new control body which will not be the N.A.T.O. Council as such. There would be then two bodies controlling the nuclear arms. Does that make sense? Can anybody possibly believe that this can be conceivably anything but nonsense? And what happens within the Atlantic system? Does SACEUR control the conventional force and some other body the nuclear? I am asking. It was very obscure when the Prime Minister said it.

If this control body is to be something other than the N.A.T.O. Council or the N.A.T.O. Nuclear Committee, one is driven to the conclusion that there are to be two controlling bodies within the N.A.T.O. Alliance, both controlling nuclear weapons. How can that be? This would rend N.A.T.O. in half and would weaken it irrevocably. If the Prime Minister persists in this, he need not go to Paris. To save him the trouble, I can tell him long before the Russian leaders come here how they will react to the proliferation of Atlantic commands, and I shall be surprised if European nations will be keen to pay for an expensive force which in itself will be incredible.

In reply to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman), I would say that the way to get non-dissemination is to bring forward again the Irish Resolution and to put into it a clause pledging that if a mixed-manned force of any kind comes into being it will not involve dissemination of nuclear knowledge or of nuclear arms. That is the way in which we should try once again to promote a non-dissemination agreement.

On the question of whether a new force is required, I should like to refer to what goes on at present inside the N.A.T.O. Alliance, and I should like to say a word about N.A.T.O.'s capacity as it is. The Prime Minister himself has lent some currency to the fashionable statement that the N.A.T.O. Alliance is in disarray. It is very easy to work on false premises here and to come to pre- mature and false conclusions. I should like to give the House certain facts.

The N.A.T.O. Alliance has been in operation 15 years and during that time it has preserved the security of Western Europe. All the original members are still members of it. They all work together within the organisation and in the committees which deal with both conventional and nuclear arms. There are 27 divisions deployed on the ground. There are thousands of aircraft, and a great many of them with a nuclear capability. The N.A.T.O. nuclear force includes United States weapons and the British bomber force and an enormous number of tactical nuclear weapons are deployed. In other words, N.A.T.O. already has a vast nuclear force with a formidable strike, and its targets are semi-tactical and semi-strategic.

I invite the House to remember that this force on its existing basis is one to which anyone can subscribe and from which anyone can withdraw. This force, as the House will remember, was accepted at the N.A.T.O. Ottawa meeting by all the members, including the French, and it is on that basis that it works today both in its conventional and in its nuclear capacity. There are, of course, problems for N.A.T.O. Do the circumstances today warrant a return to the trip-wire conception which was the case in N.A.T.O.'s earlier years?

How far have we gone from that? Is it possible to bring troops to bear upon the Western German frontier with the same impact by bringing them from further afield? Has the superstructure of N.A.T.O. in Paris become top-heavy? These are matters which are capable of rational settlement in the military committee of N.A.T.O. and in the N.A.T.O. Council. They do not require either a new force or new machinery. There exists, too, the N.A.T.O. nuclear command, with a Belgian officer in command of it—a citizen of a non-nuclear Power, let us remember—second in command to SACEUR. There is also the N.A.T.O. nuclear committee, to which the interests of every member in respect of the deployment of weapons and the targetting of weapons can be brought and coordinated.

The question to which we have to address ourselves, I think, is this: is anything more needed in this nuclear field, bearing in mind that N.A.T.O. has this immense nuclear strike already and works it under a system agreed by every Member, including the French? Is anything additional needed in the particular direction of mixed manning? Here, I think, there have been false premises and false action. The Americans, in particular, have always assumed that the Germans, and possibly the Italians, would wish to manufacture or acquire their own nuclear arms. I have always believed, and still believe, that this is untrue of both countries.

One after another, German statesmen have denied any such intention. Even if they did not recognise the public obligations which they have undertaken, they know that any action of this sort would shatter the N.A.T.O. Alliance and that with it would go their own security. So the interest of the Germans and the Italians in mixed-manning is not, in my belief, what is so often generally supposed and stated.

In my belief it is this—if German, Italian and American soldiers or sailors are seen together in a mixed-manned unit, particularly in a ship, this would make it, in their eyes, more difficult for the Americans ever to withdraw from Europe, in spite of the fact that they know that the Americans would operate the veto. So, from that point of view, the psychological and the political, it is worth considering whether a limited application of mixed-manning may not be worth while for some units. For myself, I would be willing to consider that and I would not rule out a ship or ships. Those who want it ought really seriously to weigh the advantages and disadvantages within the N.A.T.O. Alliance, because there are advantages, and very serious disadvantages, too.

I would, therefore, plead that these should not he hurried. I do not mind that it has taken a long time to consider it; it wants long and sober consideration. One must remember, in particular, that if a new weapons system of any kind is to be started—even if it is a small mixed-manned force—it must have a military purpose, otherwise the political purpose will be lost. A good many people who have been advocating this ought to keep this in mind.

My conclusion, then, and my first reactions—subject to what I hear from the right hon. Gentleman this evening on the Atlantic force—are that it would be disruptive and divisive in N.A.T.O. If he can say that it will not, I am willing to revise my opinion. I also believe, at the moment, that the force as a deterrent is incredible and little less than an extension of the United States strategic force.

Finally, there are some questions which I want to ask the Secretary of State and to which we did not have an answer from the Prime Minister or from the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, who wound up the debate yesterday. Will the Secretary of State for Defence say categorically that if the Polaris submarines are to be put into the Atlantic force the British Government will not allow anything like an electronic lock to be placed upon them? Will he also say that the communications systems of these submarines will not be so scrambled into the United States system that they could not be resumed under British command? I want an answer to these questions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden asked them and did not receive a reply from the Prime Minister. My right hon. Friend the Member for Conway, also, did not get a reply from the Minister of State. It is imperative that we should know whether this is so or not.

The second question which I want to ask is: what is the meaning of the word "irrevocable" in the context of paragraph 9 of the Nassau Agreement? Is this agreement being renegotiated? Is it being scrapped? I notice that the Prime Minister, in an interview on the B.B.C. a short time ago, said that this matter had not been discussed in Washington. I have the transcript here if he wants it. The Foreign Secretary, in N.A.T.O. yesterday, is reported as saying, in response to a challenge by M. Spaak, that the Macmillan arrangement and paragraph 9 of the Nassau Agreement were no longer in existence and were being swept away. This was hailed in the N.A.T.O. Council—so we understand from the report—as making it quite clear that paragraph 9 of the Nassau Agreement was no longer operative.

Can the Secretary of State, who was in Washington with the Prime Minister and at the N.A.T.O. Council meeting with the Foreign Secretary, say which is right—or are both right? Has paragraph 9 of the Nassau Agreement gone, or is it going? My right hon. Friend will have more to ask him, but I hope that on these two questions the Secretary of State will be explicit, because on this depends whether we can ever resume the command of our nuclear submarines and whether we can have any hope of remaining a nuclear Power.

I must say that I was puzzled by the Prime Minister's attitude yesterday. He told us that he was keeping bombers in the Far East and I was very glad that he is doing this at least in one area of the world. He seemed to be convinced that this was necessary because they might have to be used either in the conventional or the nuclear capacity. It is possible, now that he knows the facts, that he would like to keep all our weapons systems flexible to meet the changing scenes in the world. I am certain that the sensible thing is not to do anything irrevocable, but to keep the whole of our nuclear arms flexible for any need which might arise in future years.

The right hon. Gentleman is a prisoner of the past, desperately hunting for a force into which he can say that he has sunk our independent nuclear submarine without trace and that we shall, therefore, have no independent deterrent in the future. I am sorry if this is so. I hope still that it is not. I am sorry, because there are great opportunities for this country. I think that we all want to broaden the economic base of our economy to enable us to carry world responsibility. He said so himself. I think that we might be able to swing the rather confined outlook of the Europe of the Common Market towards a wider Atlantic community. We might be able to bring the Russians closer to the West, and we might be able to have an opportunity to begin serious disarmament talks and perhaps get some results.

But if I may say so with great respect to the Prime Minister, the mistake which he is making is to think that we can do any of these things if he takes the irrevocable action which he intends and deprives the nation of nuclear power. That is the essential mistake which the Prime Minister and his party are making. I fear that he knows it.

We cannot do things in this nuclear age unless Britain is an independent nuclear Power, and it is because I think that the Government are guilty of this grave misjudgment that unless the Secretary of State says something which will seriously alter our opinion I am bound to advise my colleagues to vote against the Government today.

4.51 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Denis Healey)

I first apologise for my absence from the debate yesterday. As hon. Members know, I was attending a Ministerial Council meeting of N.A.T.O. in Paris. I particularly regret being absent because it meant missing four excellent maiden speeches from the hon. Members for Westbury (Mr. Walters), Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. Jackson), Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) and Preston, South (Mr. Peter Mahon). I think that the concrete and pragmatic tone of their speeches contrasted favourably with the theological approach of the Leader of the Opposition. It was very primitive theology at that. The bulk of his speech was based on a simple dogma which he never attempted to explain or to justify—that neither Britain, nor presumably any other country in the world, can have influence or authority unless she is what he called an independent nuclear Power.

That is the basis of his speech. Frankly, I find it difficult to understand his now absolute attachment to the concept of independence when I remember that he and all right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite until two years ago were trying to put the whole of the economic life of this country under the control of a Government in which foreigners would have a permanent built-in majority. But I do not propose to deal with the theological side of the argument. I will leave that to the Prime Minister this evening. I will deal with the questions which the Leader of the Opposition asked which deal with hard facts and hardware.

I must say that the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) did better yesterday in basing his speech not on this simple theological dogma but on certain very reasonable questions. I do not quite see how he squares what he said with what the Leader of the Opposition said. The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden said that the Opposition would judge the Government's policy by three tests. He defined them as follows: First, will it keep Britain strong, and ensure our national defence and security in a nuclear age? Secondly, will it enable us to make our full contribution to the strength and unity of the Western Alliance? Thirdly, does it uphold our many world-wide responsibilities for the maintenance of peace and security outside the N.A.T.O. area?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1964; Vol. 704, c. 403.] In contradistinction to the questions by the Leader of the Opposition I consider these criteria valid and eminently reasonable, and I propose to measure our policies against them. But we on this side of the House would add two more: first, will our defence and foreign policies enable us to maintain a powerful and expanding economy at home, because that can be the only possible base for Britain's influence in the world; and, secondly, will they help, not hinder, the achievement of agreements on disarmament? For we believe that in the nuclear age general disarmament is the only final guarantee of security for Britain or for any other country in the world. I suspect that it is in the high priority which we give to economic strength at home and to disarmament in the world that the real differences between the Government and the Opposition mainly lie.

But there is another difference of the greatest importance, and that is that we on this side of the House do not believe that the first two questions asked by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden are really separable. We think that Britain's national defence and national security in a nuclear age depend totally on the strength and unity of the Western Alliance. It is only if we make our full contribution to that strength and that unity that we can ensure our national defence until disarmament is achieved.

No one who knows the details—as right hon. Gentlemen opposite do—which I was able to learn in Omaha last week of the stupefying nuclear power which the United States has committed to our alliance can doubt its strength, at least so far as atomic weapons are concerned. The real question lies on the unity of our alliance, and the unity of the alliance has been threatened for several years by two factors which lie at the heart of the questions which we are now discussing. The first is anxiety among the non-nuclear members of the alliance about whether the tremendous deterrent power of the United States' nuclear armoury will always be available at need.

This is an anxiety which has in part been deliberately created by statesmen like President de Gaulle in France and Herr Strauss in Western Germany; and I would say has been deliberately and consistently created by leaders of the Conservative Party both when they were in office and when they are in Opposition. The major justification used in the last General Election and since by Conservative Members for the retention of what they call an independent British nuclear capability is the belief that the American deterrent may not always be reliable. We have even had Conservative Members quoting the possibility that Senator Goldwater might become President of the United States, ignoring the possibility that the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) might become the Prime Minister of Great Britain—a very much more frightening possibility in this context.

But in addition to this anxiety about the reliability of the American deterrent, there is another factor which has been eating away at the unity of the alliance on which our security depends, and that is the concern in Western Germany and to some extent in Italy, too, about what some see as their inequality inside the alliance—the feeling that the present nuclear arrangements inside N.A.T.O. discriminate against them. On reading HANSARD, I was very glad indeed to discover that the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden yesterday said that the Opposition fully accept German claims to equal rights and status in the N.A.T.O. alliance. I hope that we may take it that this is a genuine and unanimous view on the Opposition benches, because, if it is, we should find it easier to reach agreement. He asked the Prime Minister yesterday how he proposes to solve the problem of meeting the German demands for some further influence, different from the part which they already play in N.A.T.O.

What do we offer Germany in these new proposals for an Atlantic nuclear force? This, I suggest, was a question which the Prime Minister totally evaded examining. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear,hear."] I give hon. Members the benefit of that slip of the tongue. The fact is that the Leader of the Opposition did not examine this question at all in his speech this afternoon. I think that it is very important that it should be answered by them as well as by us.

I will answer it on behalf of the Government. The question which the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden asked yesterday is perhaps the key question corroding the unity of N.A.T.O. at present, if it cannot be answered. What do we offer Germany? We offer her participation in ownership, management and control of a new strategic N.A.T.O. nuclear force on terms of absolute equality with all other participants. Moreover—and this is a consideration to which Conservative Members consistently refuse to address themselves—by renouncing our right to go it alone in case of a war in Europe, we not only offer Germany equality but we also offer the German Government and decent Germans a decisive argument against those inside Germany who are pressing for Germany to seek an independent nuclear rôle.

I put it to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, if they have the fear to which the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden referred yesterday of Germany seeking an independent nuclear rôle, somehow or other they must give some support by some means, by some new arrangement inside N.A.T.O. to those many Germans, indeed the majority in the German Government, who want to resist the pressures from Bavaria and to resist the pressure from other parts of their society.

The Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden asked a number of other questions which I will answer one by one. First, the important question of the rôle of France in the discussions which are now under way. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, one of our objectives is to find a solution which will foster the strength and unity of the alliance as a whole, and I agreed entirely with the Leader of the Opposition when he suggested that any solution which proves in the end to divide the Atlantic Alliance, whatever its other virtues, is not worthy of acceptance.

We hope that France will participate in the Atlantic nuclear force which we have proposed, and the discussions which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has been having in Paris this week have, naturally, included the French. We shall continue to seek their participation. We believe that in many respects the proposals we have made—involving, as they do, the inclusion of nationally contributed forces, particularly missile forces, in an Atlantic nuclear force—offer possibilities for French adhesion which the American proposal for a mixed-manned surface fleet did not offer. This is one of the arguments for the proposals which we have made. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday that he will be going to Paris in the new year, and this will, no doubt, be one of the subjects for discussion.

The Leader of the Opposition got himself into some trouble by asking questions about nuclear control. He finally had to admit that the Prime Minister said nothing whatever about keeping the Atlantic nuclear force outside the N.A.T.O. Alliance. The question is, what are the political control arrangements for the proposed Atlantic nuclear force? The Prime Minister explained that there would be a collective authority for the force on which all countries contributing to it would be entitled to be represented. He described the duties of that authority.

Suggestions were made in the debate that these arrangements might be taken to imply that, in some way, the authority set up for the purposes of the force would supersede the N.A.T.O. Council. This is not so. As the Prime Minister said, one of our aims is that the strategic nuclear forces thus committed to N.A.T.O. should be united under a single unified system forming an integral part of the defence of the alliance as a whole. With respect to the Leader of the Opposition, tactical nuclear weapons are now, and will remain, under the control of SACEUR. They are quite separate from the new nuclear strategic system which it is proposed should be set up as an Atlantic nuclear force.

Mr. Peter Thorneycroft (Monmouth)

rose—

Mr. Healey

The Atlantic nuclear force would be collectively owned by the participating countries, and the countries contributing forces to it would transfer title over them to the force collectively. The collective owners would then assign the force to N.A.T.O., to be used in coordination with the other forces available to the alliance, in accordance with the approved strategy and operating procedures of N.A.T.O. Thus there is no question of superseding the N.A.T.O. Council or of setting up an alliance within the alliance.

The authority of the Atlantic nuclear force would stand in exactly the same relation to N.A.T.O. as a country which assigns national nuclear forces to N.A.T.O. The commander of the Atlantic nuclear force would be in the N.A.T.O chain of command. The question of whether he would be one of the existing commanders or whether it would be a new appointment is one of the matters which we will have to discuss with our allies.

Mr. Thorneycroft

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, for these are important matters and I want to be sure that I understand just what is the answer; the Prime Minister made it perfectly plain that the authority would control all strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. He made no distinction between the two. He lumped the whole lot together. He went on to say plainly: …on the question of the authority controlling the force, we feel that there are strong arguments for it not being the N.A.T.O. Council as such."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1964: Vol. 704, c. 436.] I am still not clear from what the Secretary of State has said—and I would like to be clear about this—whether the N.A.T.O. Council is going to preserve the authority over the planning, targeting, and all the rest of it, which it holds as the ultimate authority.

Mr. Healey

To some extent this question is still for negotiation among our allies. [Interruption.] Really, hon. Members opposite, especially those on the Front Bench, must know that we are discussing a proposal which requires negotiation inside an alliance which has 15 or 16 members. We cannot lay down, in advance, every single detail of this. The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden was right to insist that we should not commit ourselves in detail on every one of these issues in the first 100 days of our Administration.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I have the OFFICIAL REPORT with me and I do not think that my impression was wrong. I would not have interrupted unless the Prime Minister had given me the most definite impression that this would be outside the N.A.T.O. Council. Indeed, the Prime Minister went on to say: It would be very closely linked to N.A.T.O., but the controlling authority need not itself be the N.A.T.O. Council."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1964; Vol. 704, c. 436.] This is different, surely? The N.A.T.O. Council now controls the policy of N.A.T.O., whether it is nuclear or conventional. This would be another body controlling nuclear matters, so, in fact, there would be two. This surely cannot make sense. I am asking the Secretary of State for information.

Mr. Healey

I think that the Leader of the Opposition is making a confusion here—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—perhaps a permissible one in view of what was said about the operational authority for the force, which would be separate from the N.A.T.O. Council, but operating with it, and the commander of the force, who would be in the N.A.T.O.chain of command. This is, after all, an entirely new nuclear force. At the moment the targeting of national forces inside N.A.T.O.—[Interruption.]. I know that some hon. Members opposite do not know the existing procedures and, to some extent, they are not entirely for public knowledge. But the fact is that at present the targeting of the nuclear forces which work with N.A.T.O. is not entirely under the control of the N.A.T.O. Council because the targeting of the European assigned forces and the forces assigned to SACEUR is integrated with the targeting of quite a separate Strategic Air Command force in the United States.

The point I have made clear—and I hope that this sets the mind of the Leader of the Opposition at rest—is that there is no question here of establishing something parallel to or outside N.A.T.O. The new force would be part of the Atlantic Alliance. The precise nature of the relationship which it would have with the N.A.T.O. Council is something still for negotiation with our allies. I do not think the Opposition can ask me to go further now, particularly if hon. Members opposite want me to answer some of the 49 questions which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden asked yesterday.

Mr. Hugh Fraser (Stafford and Stone)

rose—

Mr. Healey

I will not give way because I want to pass to the question of the Government's view on the communications system for the Polaris submarines assigned by us to this new Atlantic nuclear force and the question of physical electronic controls which might be established over the weapons available to an Atlantic nuclear force.

I appreciate that the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden had in mind particularly the British Polaris submarines. As to the communications system, that matter will be entirely British-manned and controlled. This will be entirely British. Just as we propose that the British components of the force should be subject to the same juridical controls as all the other component forces, including a British veto, so we envisage that such physical controls as may be agreed on should he applied to all component parts of the force.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in Washington, and our American allies fully accepted, that both the juridical and the physical control should he such as to permit the recovery of British and any other national contribution from the force if, by any extraordinary mischance, the N.A.T.O. Alliance were dissolved. In such a case, but only in such a case, it will be juridically and physically possible to recover the submarines and aircraft which we have committed to the force.

That brings me to the question, about which the Leader of the Opposition made so much, of the renegotiation of the Nassau Agreement. The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden and the Leader of the Opposition referred to paragraph 9 of the Nassau Statement. We have often been asked whether we contemplate the renegotiation of the Nassau Agreement and what we mean by this. What we mean is, our proposal is, that any British or other national contribution to the Atlantic nuclear force should be committed to it for as long as N.A.T.O. may continue to exist. This, we hope and believe, means indefinitely. We believe—and this I agree is the difference between us and some hon. and right hon. Members opposite—that so long as N.A.T.O. exists its nuclear defence is, and must be, indivisible. We cannot conceive a situation in which, so long as N.A.T.O. exists, any British Government would seriously think of "going it alone" in a nuclear attack upon the Soviet Union.

In so far as our position affects paragraph 9 of the Nassau Agrement, and in so far also as the arrangements which have been concluded in respect of the Polaris missiles may have to be modified when we reach the final decision on the number of Polaris submarines we shall complete the arrangements made at Nassau will have to be modified; they have not been modified so far.

I think that I have answered in detail the more important questions which have been asked and the tangential questions asked by the Leader of the Opposition. In the last two years—

Sir Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Healey

On one last point.

Sir Harmar Nicholls

Are we to take it, then, that it is the Foreign Secretary's version and not the Prime Minister's that is Government policy?

Mr. Healey

If the hon. Gentleman would clear up the confusion on his own Front Bench on this matter, I might be interested to reply to this question.

I think that we have given pretty fair replies—I know that they will not all be agreeable to hon. Members opposite—to the more important questions which they have asked about the Atlantic nuclear force. I think that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave an exceptionally detailed account of our proposals in his speech yesterday. I think that we are equally entitled to ask this question of the Opposition. How do they propose to meet the problems to which the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden referred yesterday, the uncertainty in the alliance of the dependability of the American deterrent and the growing demand in Germany and other European countries for equality of status? After all, hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite were in power for the whole of the last 13 years during which this problem has been emerging. They were in power for the last two years since the United States of America formally proposed the mixed-manned surface fleet as one means of solving this problem. We never had it clear what was the view of the Conservative Government or the Opposition on this, or whether they had any alternative to the mixed-manned surface fleet at all.

We do know that exactly a year ago today the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft) put some proposals to the N.A.T.O. Council, but he was completely sold down the river by his colleagues. Let me quote from the Daily Express of 20th December last year: Mr. Thorneycroft left high and dry. Defence Minister Mr.Peter Thorneycroft was left out on his own yesterday with his surprise proposal to N.A.T.O. to substitute the TSR2 force for the Polaris mixed-manned fleet. It became obvious that his idea was purely personal—shunned by the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, and rejected by U.S. Secretary of Sate Mr. Dean Rusk…only Mr. Thorneycroft's own Ministry continued to insist that the proposal would soon be tabled officially at the mixed fleet talks. Elsewhere in Whitehall the idea was either being studiously ignored or written off as 'merely philosophical'. British and American diplomats said the proposal was not even mentioned during any of the long talks between Mr. Rusk, Mr. Butler and the Premier. It is true that six months later the right hon. Gentleman finally won his battle and got permission from the Cabinet to put these proposals forward again, but by that time he had missed the boat. What he was proposing was too little and too late, because by that time our allies had made up their minds that if the Conservative Party won the General Election they would join the multilateral mixed-manned surface fleet in any case, and I cannot blame them.

On 10th October, only two months ago, the Leader of the Opposition, while he was still Prime Minister, told his briefing conference in London that there was a strong political argument for Britain to go into a multilateral force. Just listen to what he said only two months before and compare it with what he said this afternoon. At some point, the Prime Minister added"— he was still Prime Minister then— there would have to be a switch over from nuclear bombs to intermediate-range missiles. The question would then be whether the missiles should be on land or ships. A strong body of opinion held that they ought to be on ships, and there was a question whether they should be mixed-manned. There was nothing wrong with mixed-manning. I do not know how hon. Gentlemen opposite feel that this ties up with what the Prime Minister said this afternoon. If anyone is uncertain about what it means, it was spelt out in words of one syllable by the right hon. Member for Enfield (Mr. Iain Macleod)—now a distinguished member of the Opposition Front Bench—in a signed article in the Spectator on 16th October, written possibly just before the election, published just after it. This is what the right hon. Member for Enfield—with his unrivalled knowledge of the Opposition policy—then wrote The logic of events will take a Tory Administration into the MLF, if only because the alternative of what would, in effect, be a joint U.S.-German venture in the nuclear field is unacceptable. This is the crude reality behind the pseudo-Gaullist braggadocio of the right hon. Member for Monmouth in our last debate. The right hon. Gentleman may have bamboozled his own back benchers—[HON. MEMBERS: "That is not difficult."]—that is not difficult after dinner, but that is what the people of this country would have let themselves in for if they had elected right hon. Members opposite for another term of office.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

The right hon. Gentleman keeps quoting me, so perhaps he will allow me one more intervention. He quoted words which I had said and he said that they were at variance with what I had said to the House. I said exactly what he has quoted to the House only a fortnight ago. I said that if we are going to get a nuclear force and decide what we want and whether there is to be a mixed-manned unit, the way to do so would be to see what was the N.A.T.O. military requirement for missiles because missiles would have to succeed the bombers. Should we then decide to have some on the sea, or fixed sites on land, some possibly on aerodromes and movable? That seems to me a sensible way to go about it. I did not rule out the possibility of the mixed-manning of ships. The right hon. Gentleman has entirely distorted the sense of what I said.

Mr. Healey

Hon. Members can form their own judgment on this. All I can say is that when he addressed his political journalists on 10th October the right hon. Gentleman stated quite definitely that there would have to be a switch over to intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The only question was where they would be put.

The right hon. Member for Monmouth never accepted that there was a requirement in N.A.T.O. for intermediate-range ballistic missiles. This has been one cause of our objection to the mixed-manned surface fleet. We do not think that there is a military requirement that it needs to meet. Here there is a long-standing division between the right hon. Gentleman and the Leader of his party. Perhaps they can sort it out among themselves afterwards.

The fact is that Her Majesty's Government's new proposals provide a way out of the dilemma. I do not deny that the right hon. Member for Enfield was probably right when he suggested that if no alternative proposal was to be put forward, we should be faced with the stark choice between joining a mixed-manned surface fleet and seeing an American-German nuclear alliance. That of course is why our new proposals have received such a favourable reception from our allies. They are no keener than we are to be impaled on the horns of that particular dilemma. I believe, as a contribution to the strength and unity of N.A.T.O., our new proposals for an allied nuclear force meet the first and second test which the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden sought to apply to our policy. For it is only through the strength and unity of N.A.T.O. that we can achieve national security until disarmament is under way.

His third question was whether our policy upholds the world-wide responsibility of the United Kingdom for maintaining peace and security outside the N.A.T.O. area. I do not propose to say a great deal about it.

Mr. Hugh Fraser

rose—

Mr. Healey

I am sorry for the right hon. Gentleman, but I have had a great deal of interruption from the benches opposite and I want to conclude my speech at a reasonable time.

Mr. Hugh Fraser

It is on a point of clarification.

Mr. Healey

I dare say, but I know that sometimes some people take longer to get ideas clear in their minds than others.

One of the advantages which have flowed from this debate so far is that there is at least agreement between the two sides of the House that Britain's worldwide rôle is an essential rôle which Britain must perform and which, indeed, no other country is capable of performing if Britain does not.

We have responsibilities to the Commonwealth and to our allies. We enjoy at the moment facilities in Aden and Singapore particularly which could not be transmitted to any other country if we abandoned them. The only thing that I want to stress here is that our aim in maintaining a military capacity outside Europe is not to protect selfish national economic interests or to fight a world-wide battle against Communism. It is quite simply to contribute to stability and peace in that third of the world where political stability is most deeply threatened.

All of us have been most deeply shocked in recent weeks to hear of the reversion of parts of the Congo to a state of primitive barbarism, and all of us must be conscious that Britain has the ability, and I believe has the duty, to do what she can, if need be by military action, to ensure that other parts of Africa or Asia are not plunged into a similar state of chaos. We must be in a position to prevent more anarchy of that nature until the United Nations can take over. But we cannot operate in those areas without the consent of those among whom our military facilities are located. That is why Her Majesty's Government attach such extreme importance to creating the political conditions, both in Malaysia and in South Arabia, which will enable us to continue to fulfil a peace-keeping rôle from those territories.

But what we need for this rôle are highly mobile conventional forces capable of rapid deployment. Often a rifle or even a stave and wicker shield will be enough, but we need some sophisticated weapons as a deterrent against the escalation of a local conflict, and therefore we must keep some bombing aircraft outside the Atlantic nuclear force in at least the conventional rôle.

Several hon. and right hon.Gentlemen—[Interruption.] I think that if the hon. Gentleman listens he may hear something to his interest. Several hon. and right hon. Gentlemen have asked whether the aircraft which Her Majesty's Government intend to retain to support operations outside Europe will be restricted entirely to a conventional rôle. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday: Previous Governments have never answered any questions about the rôle of bombers outside the N.A.T.O. area. I intend to follow the line that has been taken."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 16th Dec., 1964; Vol. 704, c. 442.] I was glad to see that the Leader of the Opposition agreed about this this afternoon.

But perhaps I might put to the House some of the considerations which must govern the decision of the Government on this issue. First, let me say to the right hon. Gentleman that I do not think he will find anything in the Prime Minister's speech which suggested that any aircraft we kept in this rôle would be based in one particular part of the world, still less outside the United Kingdom. We recognise the need for flexibility here. But the most important consideration is that, by exploding their atomic device two months ago, the Chinese Government have faced their neighbours in Asia with an agonising choice. Some of them have, or believe they have, the capacity to produce atomic weapons for themselves in self-defence, and, indeed, are under pressure by their own countrymen to do so. I think that we would all agree on both sides of the House that to start an atomic arms race in Asia just at the moment when the existing nuclear powers are on the verge of halting the atomic arms race in the Western world would be an unparalleled disaster to the whole of humanity. Yet, we cannot ask our friends in Asia to renounce this possibility unless we can find some means of filling the gap in their defences which the Chinese bomb has opened. By far the best answer would be for the existing nuclear Powers on both sides of the Iron Curtain to give solemn and effective guarantees to the non-nuclear Powers against nuclear blackmail or attack.

This, I believe, must be a major priority in our negotiations with the Soviet Union, but if Russia refuses to consider such a step, then we shall have to see whether it is possible for the Western nuclear Powers to give such a guarantee by themselves. If it comes to this, serious problems might arise for those non-nuclear Asian countries which are committed to a policy of non-alignment. These are grave and complicated matters whose full implications are not yet apparent to any of those concerned, but I think the House will agree that they justify Her Majesty's Government in reserving their position for the time being on the question of the rôle of aircraft outside Europe.

I have tried to test our policies by the criteria which the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden asked me to apply. I believe that they emerge from his tests with all honours, but we on our side must apply two further tests—economy at home and a contribution towards disarmament. I believe, in spite of what the Leader of the Opposition said, that he does not really appreciate the need for choice and priorities in our defence policies. I heard of him talking recently about using Polaris submarines in the Pacific, but he must know, or should know, that the base facilities and communications this would require would add at least £200 million or may be £300 million to the nuclear bill. If he seriously considers retaining the independent nuclear capacity against all corners through the next decade, then he must start now spending hundreds of millions of £s on research into new weapons systems to follow the Polaris submarines, with thousands of millions of £s to follow later on in development and production. If we committed ourselves to such a course we should rule out any other military contribution at all. We are still over-committed in defence. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said that we must cut our commitments, but he did not suggest where we should cut them.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

The right hon. Gentleman really must give way. He must not misrepresent so much of what I said. I do not mind his misrepresenting a little, because he always does, but so much is going too far. I said that they would find when they came to assess things that if they wanted a world rôle the Government would have to cut their commitments, probably, because they seemed to be letting us in for so much.

Mr. Healey

I will ask my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to deal in detail with the figures on this question, but I must say that the way that the right hon. Gentleman phrased his question then shows that he understands very little about the nature of our defence expenditure at the present time. But he asked me a question which I am prepared to answer: how can we make savings if we intend to maintain a world rôle and maintain a contribution to the strength and unity of N.A.T.O.? I believe that savings are possible if we look more rigorously at the actual needs of war outside Europe. I believe, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, that we may find it possible to cut at least the numbers of the sophisticated and very expensive weapons which we are at the moment planning to produce. It may be possible, after rigorous analysis, to rule out certain types of sophisticated weapons altogether. I hope to give a fuller statement of my views on this matter when the defence review is completed. It may be possible to save money by organising closer co-operation with our allies in these other parts of the world. This, also, needs looking at.

The main threat to economy in our defence arrangements still lies—I know that the right hon. Member for Monmouth will agree here—in the grossly unrealistic demands which are still being made by some of the military for our contributions to the defence of Europe inside N.A.T.O. The Leader of the Opposition asked me some questions about the trend of N.A.T.O. thinking at the moment. I can tell him honestly that the meeting of the Ministerial Council yesterday may mark a turning point inside N.A.T.O. towards greater realism on this matter.

Some of the military commanders are still asking for increases in manpower and resources which no Government will make to fight a war which will never happen. The only realistic basis for N.A.T.O. defence planning is to accept that we cannot expect any of the allied Governments to invest a greater pro- portion of their gross national product in the defence of N.A.T.O. than they are doing now. Therefore, we must see whether we can secure better value for money by examining possible suitable changes in the rôle, deployment, tactics or equipment of the forces which we have.

Here, certain major questions arise. Is it sensible to tie down such a high proportion of our forces and resources to the concept of fighting a long drawn-out major war in Europe? Is this really the danger which we face? The United States has spent countless millions of dollars on constructing a deterrent force of stupefying efficiency and destructive power. Has this expenditure been so futile that it has had no effect whatever upon Soviet intentions towards N.A.T.O.? Do the size, fighting capacity and deployment of Soviet forces in Eastern Europe suggest any intention of major aggression? Whatever our conclusions on this question, are we bound to assume that we shall be attacked without warning, and must we, therefore, base our supply and reinforcement plans on this assumption?

If a major attack does take place, if we meet it as planned in our present strategy, and if the Russians persist in an attack and we then escalate to general nuclear warfare, how long will the campaign last—for months, for weeks, for days or for hours?

Sir Cyril Osborne (Louth)

Minutes.

Mr. Healey

Knowing the sombre and terrifying facts about the scale of destruction and casualties to be expected in a nuclear war, we must answer "Days", and we may even answer, as the hon. Gentleman just suggested, "Minutes".

Precisely because we know the terrifying consequences of nuclear war, we cannot limit ourselves to a strategy which allows us no alternative in any circumstances. This is why the present Government reject the so-called trip-wire strategy. N.A.T.O. must have conventional forces which can raise the threshold at which nuclear weapons are brought to bear to a point high enough to be credible if an enemy is thinking of a major attack. But we do not need to plan to fight, still less to win, a lengthy major war on the ground in Europe after the thermo-nuclear exchange has taken place.

If we accept this, as I think we must, we can then consider how our defence resources can be used in N.A.T.O. to deal with the real danger. The real danger in N.A.T.O., I suggest, is not a general attack by the Soviet Union but is an ambiguous local conflict in which Soviet intentions are unclear and in which an unpremeditated action has sprung from a local political crisis. We must be able to suppress such a conflict by conventional means, but in order to do this we shall need forces far more flexible and mobile, far better armed conventionally, and more capable of fulfilling a conventional rôle, than those which we now possess.

If we take this line inside N.A.T.O.—there were many signs yesterday that there is a growing feeling among the other Governments that this is the line which we should take—we shall not only get very much better value for every £1,000 we spend and for every battalion which we contribute, but we shall also create a military situation in which the prospects of disarmament are better.

There is no point in endlessly multiplying weapons in Central Europe when both sides already have more than sufficient. Cannot we now get together with our opponents to reach agreement on maintaining the balance of power in Europe at a lower cost, to agree on inspection posts, to freeze existing forces, and move on ultimately to reduce the level at which the balance is maintained on both sides? I believe that we can and must.

The basic aim of N.A.T.O. must be to create a situation from which we can negotiate to achieve a security which is based on co-operation in stopping the arms race, not on competition to win it. But the principal condition for achieving such an agreement is to stop the spread of nuclear weapons inside each of the existing alliances. This is the major aim of our new proposals for an allied nuclear force. This is why Her Majesty's Government insist so strongly that no force must be set up unless it satisfies the following two conditions. First, whatever solution is found for the nuclear problem inside N.A.T.O., it must not involve an increase in the overall nuclear capacity of the West. At best, it should not involve the creation of any new strategic system at all. Every conceivable target East of the Iron Curtain—I know that the Leader of the Opposition agrees with this; I think that he mentioned it in his speech—is already covered by forces already in being or under construction. If political or psychological arguments make the addition of a new system inevitable as a component in an allied nuclear force, then existing systems must be reduced in size in order that the overall balance between East and West is not upset. That is the first major condition which we pose.

The second, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out yesterday, is that we insist that equality inside N.A.T.O.—the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden made this the basis of his approach to the problem—must be achieved not by putting more fingers on the trigger but by putting more fingers on the safety catch. In no circumstances can we agree to arrangements which would involve the dissemination of nuclear weapons. On the contrary. This is why we insist that, when the Atlantic nuclear force is set up, all the participants should sign a declaration of non-dissemination if they are nuclear contributors, and of non-acquisition if they are non-nuclear contributors.

The British Government's new proposals will not only enable N.A.T.O. to round a dangerous corner—right hon. Members opposite know how dangerous a corner N.A.T.O. had reached by the time they left office—but will also make a major contribution towards stopping the spread of atomic weapons. Allied with other measures of defence and foreign policy which we shall put before the House in the coming months, our proposals will enable Britain to resume her rightful place as a major influence on world affairs.

5.38 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond (Orkney and Shetland)

Under the pressure of events, the two sides of the House are coming nearer and nearer together on defence policy. I welcome this. For the sake of old quarrels, or for the sake of pacifying the dissident members of the two parties, I hope that there will not be an attempt to maximise our differences, but that we shall see how much common ground there can be in this most important matter of defence. For this reason, I welcome the suggestion of the Prime Minister that some access to information should be afforded to the Opposition. I think that it will be difficult to confine this simply to the Leaders of the official Opposition. Some method may have to be found of allowing back benchers, including members of my party, as well as the official Opposition, some access to information.

All defence debates should be about the future. We cannot alter the present situation. It is the "given" in the problem. I propose to address myself to what I consider the policies of this country and of the Western world should be over the next 5, 10, 15 or 20 years.

The present situation sees Britain with two features which are not shared by her European neighbours. One is her possession of some strategic nuclear capacity and the other is her possession of bases which are spread around the world. These are features which will decline in importance. It is impossible for this country to keep up a sufficient stable of nuclear weapons to enable her to remain in the race with the Russians or the Americans, and, as I shall try to explain, I also believe that our worldwide rôle, important though it may be now, is also a diminishing rôle.

What I think we have to do, looking to the future, is to see how we can use these special features of this country today so that we can make the fullest contribution to the general safety and defence of the free world and also to our own safety and defence tomorrow. I want to deal with that in the context which was set by the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister told us that the defence budget now cost 7.1 per cent. of our gross national product and that this was too much. He emphasised that this was too much not so much because of what we are spending now but because it would inevitably increase. I agree with him. I believe, however, as I said in the defence debate on 23rd November, that this brings us straight back to the fact that, in defence, as, indeed, in economic policy, this country is operating on too narrow a base and that we must try to broaden our base. This is the prime reason for seeking some political collaboration with Europe, which I still believe should be a major aim of British foreign policy.

The next point made by the Prime Minister was that the emphasis in defence should be shifted from Europe to the Far East, and that was repeated by the Defence Secretary today. Here I agree that the instability in the Far East is alarming when set beside the stability in Europe generated by the nuclear stalemate and the very powerful deployment of nuclear weapons by stable alliances on either side of the European frontier. But, looking ahead, I should not like to think that this House under-estimated the dangers in Europe. I would make plain that Berlin is still a very dangerous spot in the world. I would very much agree with what was said at one point by the Defence Secretary—that, whatever we may think of the chances of a major nuclear war breaking out deliberately in Europe, there is still grave danger of incidents escalating to a point at which they cannot be prevented from entering into nuclear hostilities.

We should remember that Europe remains the place where the freedom of the world can be lost practically in one night. I wholly agree with the Defence Secretary that we must not be in the position of relying entirely upon nuclear arms in Europe. That brings me to my first question. What is to be done about the Rhine Army? I do not think that we have been told whether the Government intend to bring it up to strength, and not only up to strength but to a better condition of readiness and supplied with all the equipment it requires.

The Prime Minister also laid great stress on the worldwide peace-keeping rôle of this country. Here I disagree with him, at any rate in the emphasis he placed upon this rôle in his speech. We have, of course, specific obligations which we are bound to discharge. We have obligations in the Persian Gulf and in Malaysia. We have bases of great value and I should be the last to suggest that this country should in any way unilaterally throw up specific obligations which it holds throughout the world.

We have done an excellent job in Africa, but this is a passing phase in world affairs. I do not believe that we shall be asked again to intervene in African countries in the way we have been asked. I am not sure that it is at all desirable that we should. I do not think that this country can undertake to be, so to speak, a long stop for peace throughout the world. I do not think that it can undertake an open ended obligation of some peace-keeping rôle throughout the Indian Ocean, the Far East and Africa.

I do not think, even if we could undertake such a rôle, that we should. When we were an imperial Power it was a natural obligation on us. Now we are not an imperial Power and it is a wholly unnatural obligation for us to undertake. Furthermore, in such places as Malaysia, it seems that we may be involved already in a very long campaign which will be extremely difficult to end and which will be a continual strain upon our resources and manpower.

Therefore, in so far as the Prime Minister emphasised this general peace keeping rôle, I would dissent from him and say that the sooner we get rid of that general rôle, either on to the United Nations or some form of alliance much more suitable for ensuring peace in Africa and Asia, the better. I suspect that the Government hold the same view. Indeed, the Defence Secretary at times suggested that they do.

While I make it clear that, in my view, we must maintain our current and specific obligations, we should not count on continuing to act as general policemen, whether it is done with nuclear weapons or with batons and wicker shields.

Mr. Will Griffiths (Manchester, Exchange)

I agree very much with what the right hon. Gentleman has been saying, but, so long as these obligations remain in Asia and Africa, does he think that our rôle will be helpful in Asia and Africa with British planes carrying independent nuclear weapons?

Mr. Grimond

I do not think that nuclear weapons are helpful at all. I want to get rid of the rôle on to some international body which could discharge the job more easily and without nuclear weapons.

I want to draw attention to what the Prime Minister said yesterday in talking about a shift in our resources and total defence expenditure: In certain areas of the world, therefore, perhaps it is right that while some weapons must become more sophisticated, we should recognise that in other areas military effect- tiveness depends on more, simpler and earlier, rather than on fewer, more complicated and later."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1964; Vol. 704, c. 423.) That may be so but I suspect that this means manpower and helicopters and aircraft for Transport Command and so forth. I doubt whether this would make, in the long run, smaller demands upon our scarce resources than more sophisticated weapons do. I hope that, tonight, this breakdown between the nuclear defence budget and the nonnuclear will be given in more detail. I suspect that the 10 per cent. of the defence budget taken up by the nuclear element might be a great deal more in real terms because of its consequent strain on our resources.

The Prime Minister laid great stress on the maintenance of British bases, but these bases probably cannot continue to be in our hands. We may assure them that we are the best neighbours in the world but many countries in which we have bases are chronically suspicious of the British. They may be wrong but we shall not overcome it all that easily. Furthermore, some of these countries are neutralist or will become neutralist, and even those who are not and will not become neutralist will not indefinitely permit bases on their territory unless they are active members of the alliance such bases are supporting.

We must face this fact. It is a lesson we should have learnt. Again and again we have felt that we were on good terms with countries where we had bases and again and again we have been thrown out. In the long run, we must face the fact that these bases must become, in some form, international. One high priority of policy, therefore, should be to build up effective alliances in the Far East and I was glad to hear what the Defence Secretary said today about that.

One particularly difficult part of the Far East is India. I am sure that the Government are right—and here, too, I think that the Opposition agree with them—to say that we must offer all aid to India, although, as the Secretary of State of Defence said, it is for very serious and difficult and deep consideration whether we should go as far as offering India a nuclear umbrella, because it is peculiarly difficult to give a nation which wants to remain neutralist such protection. It would be folly to underestimate this difficulty. It would be difficult for the Indians to say that they wanted non-alignment and for us to say, "In spite of that, we intend to protect you." No doubt something like this must be worked out, but this again can be only a temporary situation and in the long run there must be some sort of international guarantee, not only to India, but to other nations in her position.

I want now to turn to the subject of the Atlantic nuclear force. The first point I have to make is also concerned with the Prime Minister's speech. The Prime Minister said that he felt that an objection to the multilateral force was that it was extremely unlikely that the Americans would give permission for the use of nuclear weapons by the multilateral force in circumstances in which they were not prepared to use their own Strategic Air Force. This seems to be a good objection to the multilateral force, but, of course, it is equally an objection to the Atlantic nuclear force.

The first question which we must ask then is why the Americans should allow the Atlantic nuclear force to trigger off a nuclear war if they were not prepared to do it direct. The answer is that they will not. The object of the Atlantic nuclear force is not to add to the West any very logical components for defence, but, as has been said often enough, to satisfy the Europeans, to make them feel that they have some say in the targeting and build-up of the force and discussions about how nuclear weapons may or may not be used and to give them some assurance that if America should ever withdraw from Europe, the Europeans would not be left without any nuclear shield.

I was greatly interested in one thing which the Leader of the Opposition said today. He said quite clearly that it was his party's policy to consider—I do not say that he said that his party was committed to it—making a contribution to the multilateral force and also maintaining an independent deterrent. That would be an extremely expensive operation and I wonder whether we should be able to do it. I strong suspect that this would put up the defence budget to a very high level. But it is much the same position as the Government now take.

I am still not quite clear from the right hon. Gentleman's speech how he regards the dangers in the world. He repeated the view that a country can be a major nation only if it is a nuclear Power. He may believe that and I have no doubt that he does, but he cannot believe that it is a desirable state of affairs. One of the objects of British foreign policy, if that is the general opinion of the world, should be to change it. The sooner we convince nations that they can be major Powers without being nuclear Powers, the better. I would have thought that that was one of the objects of building up some international force in which nations could feel that they had some say, at any rate in the planning of the matter, even if the ultimate triggering were elsewhere.

I have understood that in recent years the main argument for the independent deterrent was that it might be necessary to use it in a situation in which, say, Indonesia began to threaten Malaysia with nuclear weapons. This would be outside the N.A.T.O. area and would be the responsibility of no one but ourselves, runs the argument. It is said that if we could not offer Malaysia some nuclear umbrella, then China or someone else coming in behind Indonesia with nuclear weapons could force Malaysia to capitulate. If that is the case, the Conservative Party has its answer in that there is to be no diminution of the Air Force in the Far East.

I would also have thought that the Conservative Party would largely agree that in Europe the United States Strategic Air Force is a sufficient strategic deterrent and that whatever the British might add in Europe would be of small account. I do not want it said that I am belittling the V-bomber force or our nuclear submarines. I have no doubt that they can blow Moscow to bits, but so can the Strategic Air Force, and to much smaller bits than the British can. I would not have thought that much was added by our contribution in that respect.

If there is an Atlantic nuclear force this will give our European allies a greater feeling that they are in on the planning, and I would have thought on the financing, of nuclear defence and that they are being treated more or less as equals. I must say that Mr. Butler was quite right—I am sorry; I should have said the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler). I keep on thinking of him in his electoral capacity when he created such a powerful impression on public opinion. I cannot get out of my mind this picture of him in railway trains, but now he must be called the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden.

The Government were tactless even this afternoon in their references to the Germans. If it is to be acceptable, the Atlantic nuclear force must be free from two handicaps. First, the Europeans are profoundly suspicious of the British claim to have a special relationship with the United States. For one thing, they all think that they have it. They believe that most of us regard N.A.T.O. as simply a sort of rationalisation of our special relationship with the United States. The Government must disabuse the Europeans of that idea and in any form which the Government have suggested for the A.N.F. it looks as though we are still harping on our special position.

Secondly the Europeans must not be treated as having an inferior status. I am not certain from what the Prime Minister said yesterday what their status in the A.N.F. is to be. Dealing with the authority which would control this force, yesterday he said: The United States, the United Kingdom, and France, if she took part, would have a veto…European countries could either have a single veto or, if they wanted to do it on some group basis, that would be a matter for them."…[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1964; Vol. 704, c. 434–5.] I appreciate that this has not been negotiated, but the proposal seems to be that a nuclear Power should definitely have a veto and that non-nuclear Powers should have some veto—but on what basis? Would it be on the basis of their collaboration in the multilateral force? If so, is the force to have some political body in charge of it? I had not imagined the multilateral force as other than a purely military operation, but if there is to be a veto, some sort of political council must be superimposed on it, and that would be extremely difficult.

Mr. Healey

May I clear up one issue which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party has raised? If there is a force to which non-nuclear and nuclear Powers contribute, the nuclear contributors must have a veto, or the force will constitute a proliferation of nuclear weapons. Whether the other Powers have a veto is irrelevant from that point of view, but of course we wish to offer them the right of veto if they want it and we would allow them to be able to exercise it in any form they wished, either separately or collectively.

Mr. Grimond

There is not the slightest chance that they would join unless they had an equal power of veto with everybody.

If the Government's proposal is to run, we must prove that we are better Europeans than we have been in the past. To take up what the Secretary of State for Defence said about it not being logical for the Conservative Party to want to go into Europe and yet to want to have control over the weapons, his party is equally illogical the other way round in saying that it will not go into Europe but will hand over weapons. We must have some political coming together as well as some military coming together.

The Europeans may say that the real test of our sincerity is whether we are willing to join the M.L.F. I should like to know the Government's answer to that. The Prime Minister has made extremely hostile noises about the M.L.F. and continued even yesterday to say that he did not like the idea, but I suspect that the Europeans may say that the real test of our sincerity may be not only whether we are prepared to put our Polaris submarines and some V-bombers into the A.N.F., but whether we are prepared to joint the M.L.F. The Government may be prepared to do that, but it will be a drastic change from everything the Labour Party said during the General Election.

We may make some special approach to Germany. The Germans are anxious to have something in the nature of a standing group, or even a joint AngloGerman conference, on the subject of the unification of Germany and the arms situation in mid-Germany. For my part, I view with some disquiet the thought of a sea of atomic minefields across the middle of Europe, but this is exactly the sort of thing which we want to discuss at a political level before it becomes an accepted defence idea.

Will the council, whether it is the N.A.T.O. Council or a new council, have any political control? In one passage of his speech yesterday, the Prime Minister inferred that the new council might well have a political as well as a purely defence rôle to play. I think that I am right in saying that this, too, may be something in which the Europeans are interested. One of the inducements which the Americans put to the Europeans to persuade them to accept the M.L.F., or to enable them to point out what a good idea it was, was that it would have some political content.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

This is what puzzled me very much yesterday, and obviously it puzzles the right hon. Gentleman. The Prime Minister said that this new control body was to provide the force commander with political guidance and went on to talk about the decision to release nuclear weapons to the force commander."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 16th Dec. 1964: Vol. 704, c. 435.] The Secretary of State for Defence said today, when we were having exchanges across the Floor of the House, that this was consistent with control by the N.A.T.O. Council. It is very difficult to see how.

Mr. Grimond

I am greatly obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I was wondering what the Prime Minister meant by what he said in column 435.

Finally, I should like to repeat the question which has been asked already: what does irrevocability mean? I have indicated my view. The argument about irrevocability is slightly theological. In the sort of Göterdammerung in which the world will be destroyed, I have the feeling that the alliance will end anyhow, and the idea that there will be some formal ending of the alliance before the atom bomb is dropped is unreal.

We should not get too involved in a discussion about revocability or irrevocability. The situation in which this might arise is difficult to see. I take the point that weapons are irrevocable in normal circumstances and in Europe. I should have thought that that was reasonably acceptable. But we should like to know whether this is to be fortified by an electronic device, and, if so, who will control it.

As for the Far East, where the aircraft are to be under our control, is it envisaged that in time, when a suitable political body has been found—I make hat important qualification—the same sort of arrangement will be reached there? If not, we are simply continuing the nuclear deterrent in the old way, and the world will not be greatly impressed by the fact that we have put some of our weapons under international control. I take it that it is the Government's intention, if and when a suitable body is in operation, to guarantee some defence policy in the Far East. I should like some assurance on that.