HC Deb 06 December 1965 vol 722 cc30-1
53. Mr. P. Noel-Baker

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many meetings the Committee of Eighteen Nations held during the seven weeks of its recent session in Geneva.

64. Mr. Blaker

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the most recent session of the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee.

Mr. M. Stewart

Seventeen plenary meetings were held during the session of the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee at Geneva between the 27th of July and the 16th of September.

Much useful work was done at the Committee's last session in clarifying the issues involved in the attempt to reach agreement on preventing the further spread of nuclear weapons and on a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.

Mr. Noel-Baker

Has my right hon. Friend observed from the verbatim record of this Committee that it met on the mornings of Tuesdays and Thursdays, that its working week was, on average, less than four hours and that Lord Chalfont's protest against this programme of work went unheeded? Can my right hon. Friend secure some reform in this most important organ of international negotiations?

Mr. Stewart

I hope that we shall be able to do so. My right hon. Friend will know that the timetable of meetings has to be settled by agreement among all members. Our representative urged that the frequency of plenary meetings should be increased. I hope that in the future that may be the practice.

Mr. Blaker

What new proposals were put forward in the Committee by the present British Government which had not previously been put forward by the former Government?

Mr. Stewart

There were the two proposals I mentioned. There was a proposal for the "freezing" and destruction of some nuclear weapons, and we shall, in accordance with such progress as is made, have further proposals to make.

Lord Balniel

Can the Foreign Secretary explain why, week after week, he refuses his right hon. Friend's request to publish a progress report on the British Government's achievements in the field of disarmament? We should all be very interested to hear what progress has, in fact, been made in the past year.

Mr. Stewart

There are Questions hearing on that a little later.

Mr. Speaker

Very much later, I am afraid.

The Foreign Secretary—statement.