§ Q4. Viscount Lambtonasked the Prime Minister if, in view of the differences in the situation in the Middle East since 1950, he will seek to redefine the Tripartite Declaration of 1950.
§ The Prime MinisterI have nothing to add to the Answer I gave on 13th April to a Question by the hon. Gentleman.
§ Viscount LambtonWill the Prime Minister be more explicit because of the 839 risk of making a statement which could be interpreted, like so much which the right hon. Gentleman says, in so many ways?
§ The Prime MinisterI am not quite sure what the hon. Member really wants me to add to my statement of 13th April, because that Answer was a simple endorsement of a statement by Mr. Macmillan on 14th May, 1963. I agree with the hon. Member about the importance of this subject, but he has hardly been very specific in his question. If he is not satisfied with the statement of Mr. Macmillan on 14th May, 1963—and he was not very satisfied at that time with his right hon. Friend—perhaps he will tell me exactly what he wants, and I will then deal with this important question.
§ Viscount LambtonThe Prime Minister will surely agree that on the last occasion when this matter was raised his right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) said that circumstances had changed considerably since 1953. As a result of that, will the Prime Minister please say how they definition stands today?
§ The Prime MinisterI am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not hear. What I said in my previous Answer was not 1953, but 1963. If the hon. Gentleman would like to explain the particular anxieties which have arisen since 1963 in the form of a Question, I will answer it. In so far as the anxiety related to the Jordan waters, which was not very much involved in the Tripartite Declaration, I answered that in a supplementary answer on the hon. Member's Question on 13th April.
§ Mr. MaudlingAs there have been very great changes in the Middle East in recent years and as new and important dangers are looming there, is there not a case for a new initiative to be taken, preferably in consultation with the United States and our French allies in this matter?
§ The Prime MinisterThat may well be so. We had discussion on this—the right hon. Gentleman will remember his own speech and mine—in the debate on foreign affairs at the beginning of last month. I think that both he and I and 840 the Leader of the Opposition expressed anxieties about new and current dangers arising from the Jordan water question. Since the Tripartite Declaration of 1950, which the previous Government quietly allowed to drop and which died, I think, at about the time of Suez, was really related to a question of arms shipments, I am not sure that this question is relevant today in relation to arms shipments.