NATO Council (Ministerial Meeting) (Hansard, 14 December 1982)

§ Mr. Denis Healey (Leeds, East)
I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely, the recent ministerial meeting of the NATO Council. No one can deny that the meeting was specific—it took place last week and has been the subject of widespread comment and controversy all over the world ever since. No one can deny that it was important—it dealt with matters of life and death in the most literal sense. However, all these vital issues were left by the meeting in a state of complete confusion that can be cleared up only by a debate in the House.
First, there was the furtive, shifty and muddled handling of the planned move of the American headquarters from Germany to Britain. I choose my adjectives carefully, out of deference to parliamentary procedure, but the way that this was handled by all Governments, including our own, created maximum concern and suspicion throughout the Alliance. The move was first denied, then admitted as a contingency plan in case of war, and now appears to be planned to take place in time of peace. We now know that the British, German and American Governments knew about the plan months ago, although they denied all knowledge of it when the plan was first leaked to the press on Friday.
Even more important, the meeting left us all in complete confusion about a problem that is directly relevant to the survival of all hon. Members of the House and all the men and women we represent. I refer to the concern that there should be agreement on theatre nuclear forces between the Soviet Government and Western Governments in time to make unnecessary the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles at the end of next year.
The depth of anxiety on this matter becomes even more evident as the weeks pass, not only in Britain, in Greenham Common and Hyde Park, but in West Germany, Holland, and every country where it is proposed to place the missiles. The Foreign Secretary's press briefing as reported in The Guardian on Friday was to the effect that the general feeling was that the Soviet attitude on this matter had started to harden in the past few weeks.
Thanks to press leaks in an American newspaper, we now know that the Soviet Government made a new offer in the past few weeks, as far as I know after Mr. Andropov succeeded Mr. Brezhnev as leader of the Soviet Government. This offer included a cut of 50 per cent. or more in the number of SS20 missiles targeted against Western Europe. Many hon. Members and many people outside, in the United States and all over Europe believe that this offer gives us an opportunity that may not recur unless it is immediately seized. I do not wish to discuss the offer in detail, but I should like more detail of it from the Foreign Secretary if you will accede to the the request I am making, Mr. Speaker.
It has been reported that President Reagan has rejected the Soviet offer out of hand, while the Danish Prime Minister in the White House yesterday said that he thought that it deserved consideration. The Foreign Office briefing 157 yesterday, which was widely published in today's newspapers, says that we need clarification across the negotiating table.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this matter. We believe that the Soviet offer gives us an opportunity of taking a decisive step towards peace, an opportunity that may not recur if it is not seized now. We also believe that if the agreement can be reached by negotiation it will mark a decisive step towards the type of nuclear arms freeze that was overwhelmingly approved by the United Nations General Assembly yesterday and that is gaining wild-fire support both here and in the United States. We also believe that the offer would strengthen Western security by reducing the number of Soviet long-range nuclear forces close to the level of Western long-range nuclear forces.
Finally, discussion of this matter is urgent because talks between the United States and the Soviet Union on arms control in Europe will resume on 27 January 1983, only a few days after our Parliament reassembles. However, discussion among the allies on this matter to settle the American negotiating position must start taking place now. There is no opportunity for us to influence the ultimatum position before then.
We know that American officials are divided on the matter. Mr. Paul Nitze, the leading American negotiator, whom I know well, and who is the most cynical, hardheaded and experienced of all American negotiators on this subject, is said to want to pursue the proposal. Unless the British Parliament can express its view immediately on the matter, we may lose the opportunity of exerting any decisive influence on the United States.
The Foreign Secretary, in a press conference in Brussels on Friday, said that it was his intention that the British House of Commons should not be allowed to consider the question of the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles before, or indeed after, the British Government took that decision.
When the NATO Governments took that decision at the end of 1979 to pursue simultaneously the preparation of a possible deployment and negotiations with the Soviet Union, they assumed the ratification of the SALT II treaty. It has not been ratified. Recently President Reagan made proposals which, if carried out, would violate not only the SALT II treaty but the SALT I treaty. Moreover, any decision on deployment was held to depend at that time on an honest attempt by the Western powers to negotiate an agreement on arms control, which would make this unneccessary.
It is my view—and I believe that I have the support of my right hon. and hon. Friends—that it is essential that the House of Commons should have an opportunity to clarify what happened at the NATO Council, to clarify the position of the Western Alliance on this matter, and to do so immediately, because unless we take the opportunity now it may not recur, and we shall all carry a heavy responsibility for the fate of our descendants.

§ Mr. Speaker
The right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely, 158 the recent ministerial meeting of the NATO Council". May I say to the House first that, in reaching my decision on his application, I am not at all influenced by the supposed statement of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. I do not believe that that has as much bearing on the question as other matters have. I am satisfied that the matter raised by the right hon. Gentleman is proper to be discussed under Standing Order No. 9. Has the right hon. Gentleman the leave of the House?

§ Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South-West)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I heard every word uttered by the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), either from the Bar of the House or from my seat, and I seek your clarification on one matter. I do not seek to dispute your decision, which I believe is the right one, but it seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman rather abused the tradition of the House through the length of his speech. I repeat that I heard every word that the right hon. Gentleman said, and it seemed to me that he advanced the arguments and did not merely ask for a debate—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Many of the questions and statements have seemed very long to me this afternoon. Therefore, we had better let that point of order be lost for the time being. The debate will take place tomorrow.

§ Mr. James Wellbeloved (Erith and Crayford)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think that the House will be indebted to you for your ruling on the motion of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). I should like to ask whether you would take what has happened today as a welcome precedent in the relaxation of the stringent rules which heretofore have applied in relation to such applications. It is for the benefit of the House that an hon. Member should be able to put a concise application under Standing Order No. 9, as the right hon. Member did, and I hope that we may all take it as a welcome precedent for the future.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. That point of order was as helpful as all the hon. Gentleman's points of order.