HC Deb 25 January 1983 vol 35 cc871-8

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Major.]

10 pm

Mr. Bob Cryer (Keighley)

I am pleased to have this debate, although it is no substitute for a full debate in Government time on disarmament and the disarmament negotiations that the Government are pursuing from time to time.

The number of United States nuclear bases in this country has grown stealthily year by year. In December 1980, I asked for the parliamentary basis of their presence, and I was told that, among other things, it was the North Atlantic treaty, which was debated on 12 May 1949 when Ernest Bevin and Winston Churchill vied for the title of "cold-war warrior". Neither mentioned storage or deployment of nuclear weapons. Bevin claimed that NATO would provide for a reduction in the cost of armaments through comprehensive arrangements. Rab Butler, winding-up, urged the Ministry of Defence to pile up more armaments."—[Official Report, 12 May 1949; Vol. 464, c. 2018, 2113.] That has certainly been done over the years since 1949.

Other treaties quoted in the December 1980 answer, which allowed an American nuclear presence in our country, received scant parliamentary attention. The exchange of notes relating to the sale of tobacco, which gave more housing and community facilities to United States troops, was noted only in what I suspect was a planted parliamentary question on 8 June 1956.

The memorandum on the Fylingdales early-warning system was debated only in a private Member's motion in March 1960. It was never debated in Government time. I was told in a parliamentary reply that no central record of the treaties and notes is held by the Ministry of Defence. The House of Commons Library, on a somewhat smaller budget than the £14 billion that the Ministry of Defence has each year, managed to dig them out for me in less than an afternoon.

Included in that list is the agreement reached by Attlee and Truman in October 1951 when Parliament was not sitting because of the general election. The agreement was not therefore debated and approved by Parliament. The agreement allowed the use of United Kingdom bases by the United States and stated that operational control of the bases would be a matter for joint decision between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the United States in the light of the circumstances prevailing at the time. That is a meaningless phrase which gives the United Kingdom Government no right of veto. The Prime Minister relied on the wording again this afternoon. As we know, her attitude is based on lickspittle subservience to the cold war attitudes of Reagan's Government.

On 18 June 1980, I asked the Secretary of State for Defence to list the number of bases operated, in whole or part, by the United States forces in the United Kingdom. I was given a total of 12. Further questions produced a total of 39, yet a further parliamentary question produced three more, including the largest underwater base operated by the United States.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has claimed that there are over 100 United States bases. Many of them must be linked to the deployment of nuclear weapons by the United States in our country, but, typically, the Ministry of Defence operates in a furtive and secretive way when giving information properly requested by hon. Members.

Winston Churchill, for example, was astonished in 1951 that £100 million was spent secretly on the atomic bomb without Parliament being made aware of it."—[Official Report, 23 October 1952; Vol. 505, c. 1271.] However, that great democrat decided that secrecy was the best policy and he continued to make decisions behind closed doors.

Recently, operation Chevaline meant that £1 billion was spent without reference to Parliament on updating Polaris. The same policy of secrecy as that of the previous Conservative Government was continued. The reason for all that secrecy is that it is claimed that the Soviet Union is a mighty and growing power. That was claimed in a debate in 1949 and is part of the mythology that is used to justify, Trident, cruise and the United States nuclear bases on our soil.

I glean facts from documents provided by other institutions, including the Ministry and pro-NATO organisations. SALT II gave strategic warheads in the United States as 11,894 and in the Soviet Union as 6,005. The current Institute of Strategic Studies publication on military balance states that the United States has 9,268 and the Soviet Union 7,300 warheads. In reference to theatre nuclear weapons, the term of "arriving warheads" is used. The figure for the Soviet Union is 1,085 and for NATO it is 563, due to the deployment over the past two years of SS20s.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute suggests that NATO outnumbers the Soviet Union in tactical nuclear weapons by 7,000 to 3,500—2:1. However, the Ministry of Defence will not reveal the precise number. It can challenge my figure if it wishes. The number of strategic and theatre warheads, both types of which are targeted on the Soviet Union—only strategic warheads are targeted on America—is for the United States 9,831 and for the Soviet Union 8,385.

I give that background information to counter the constant propaganda by the Government that the number of nuclear weapons and the amount of money spent by the Soviet Union is growing, so cruise missiles must be sited in our country. The Government have accepted without question the siting of those cruise missiles on yet further nuclear bases operated by the Americans. That will be part of the escalation that the Government are planning through the purchase of Trident, which means that more missiles will be targeted on the Soviet Union from the United Kingdom, as if, for some reason, there are not already a massive number of nuclear weapons on both sides. That is the one thing that the world has been able to achieve—a massive overkill of the world's population. We cannot feed the people, we cannot clothe the people, but we can kill them with the greatest efficiency known to mankind.

The figures that I have given are from a pro-NATO source. The truth is that the figures for the Soviet Union are based on guesswork. In answer to a question that I asked in 1980 the then Secretary of State for Defence said: Since the Soviet figures are so unreliable, we have to make our own estimates of its expediture and this is done in great detail every year by assessing the cost to the Soviet Union of all known items of spending, and aggregating them for purposes of comparison according to the NATO defintion of defence expenditure".—[Official Report, 7 July 1980; Vol. 988, c. 54.] Senator Nino Pasti put that guesswork into its context. He is a former member of the NATO Military Committee and former deputy supreme allied commander for NATO nuclear affairs. He wrote in the CND magazine Sanity in 1979 as follows: The truth is that NATO forces, both conventional and nuclear, are stronger than those of the Warsaw Pact countries. During the last ten years the Soviet Military budget has remained stable. My colleagues were unhappy abut this situation, because they could not justify increases in their own expenditure. So they invented a 'pricing' system. It is easy to see how the figures were inflated to show higher Soviet expenditure". However, on those guesses, 160 cruise missiles are being accepted by the Conservative Government. There is no right of veto over their use. The United States could use cruise missiles without our agreement in the light of circumstances prevailing at the time. There is no physical control—the so-called dual key method. That has been admitted by the Government on several occasions, although I would not accept cruise missiles with that right of veto anyway.

I wish simply to draw attention to the fact that there is neither an agreement for a veto over the use of cruise missiles nor physical arrangements for such controls.

There is no verification of the use and deployment of cruise missiles. That is one of the advantages much vaunted by the United States. The Prime Minister herself makes it clear that if we are to have arms reduction there must be means of verification on both sides. Yet the Government are proposing to accept a weapon not easily subject to verification.

The Pentagon strategists are talking of a limited theatre nuclear war in Europe in which cruise might well be used. The Daily Mail, not a usual source for comments in support of the campaign for nuclear disarmament and Labour Party peace policy, on Thursday, 5 November 1981, under the heading Haig's nuclear warning shot", said: If Russia made a conventional attack on Europe, the West could fire a nuclear rocket as a warning 'shot across the bows.' This was revealed yesterday by the United States Secretary of State Mr. Alexander Haig in evidence to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Haig said that President Reagan was 'precisely right' when he said in a recent interview that a nuclear conflict with the Soviets might be confined to Europe. Of course, the Secretary of State for Defence in the United States tried to cover that up but the fact is that Mr. Haig, no longer Secretary of State was head of NATO and is a credible source of Pentagon and NATO thinking.

Cruise may be fired by accident, computer error or the sort of sequence of events that led to the shooting down of an RAF Jaguar fighter near the Russian border on 25 May 1982 by an RAF Phantom. Then cruise, released by accident in a sequence of events about which we would know nothing because we are not privy to the operation or control of these weapons, and flying under radar, might produce a launch on warning retaliation by the Soviet Union.

If the Minister says, as he probably will, that the massive stockpile of nuclear weapons has kept the peace, he must answer the question why nuclear weapons have increased year by year. If the possibility of mutually assured destruction was reached in the early 1960s when both sides could knock out major cities and destroy people in millions, why is it that the number of nuclear weapons has increased steadily on both sides year by year, with the West taking the lead in almost every case in numbers and technological innovation? Why would the advent of cruise not spark off yet a further escalation? Indeed, the Soviet Union has promised that it will develop and install cruise missiles if the West does so, particularly when the United States and NATO are armed to the teeth.

It is interesting, too, that in the Franks debate the Prime Minister has made it clear that sending ships to the Falklands before the Argentine invasion might have provoked the very invasion that she claimed she wished to avoid. That is a very strange contrast to the decision to arm ourselves with Trident and cruise without the possibility, it is believed, of provoking a similar conflict which she is trying to avoid. Why do the Government not press NATO to accept the offer by the Soviet Union of no first use of nuclear weapons? Why will they not accept the parity between Russian missiles and French and English missiles offered by Mr. Andropov? Why will they not seek a real zero option and reject the deployment of a means of mass extermination as a way of negotiating the first step to a nuclear-free zone in Europe? May I remind the Minister that the majority of the world's nations are non-nuclear? We should join that majority. Any of these steps would demonstrate support for an extremely important treaty which has been largely ignored by this Government and previous Governments—the United Nations non-proliferation of nuclear weapons treaty, article 6 of which says: Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. That is already many years overdue. Some of the signatories to that treaty are asking why the nuclear nations have not taken action to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Cruise is a step in the direction of escalating the number of American nuclear bases here and the general number of nuclear weapons in the world. That is why the women of Greenham Common are right to demonstrate in their bold, courageous and peaceful way against those nuclear weapons in an effort to stop their installation in Britain.

The Guardian poll on Monday, 24 January showed that a majority disapproved of Britain accepting cruise—61 per cent. disapproved while 27 per cent. approved. Forty per cent. said that prospects for world peace under the Government were worse while only 30 per cent. thought them better.

Paragraph 106 of the defence White Paper for 1981 said: We still have no reason to believe that Soviet leaders are specifically planning to attack NATO. Yet the Government are massively increasing nuclear weapons, both on their own and in conjunction with the United States.

In complete contrast, the Labour Party's policy, passed by a two thirds majority at the annual conference in October 1982, involves the closing down of all nuclear bases, British or American, on British soil or in British waters. We shall join Canada and Norway in NATO in rejecting the deployment of nuclear weapons and link up with the massive and growing peace movement of the United States in rejecting the growing threat of the use of nuclear weapons. That is not to say "Yanks go home". I am proud to say that I took part in a massive demonstration of 1 million Americans in June on the opening day of the United Nations second special session on disarmament. They represented the voice of America in wanting to freeze expenditure on nuclear weapons and say "No" to further expenditure. Those are the people with whom we would link up and the growing strength of the peace movement in Britain, Europe and America can no longer be ignored.

10.16 pm
The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Peter Blaker)

The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) has this evening raised issues of great importance. He will not expect me to agree with his conclusions, but none the less I welcome the opportunity to set out why those conclusions represent a threat to the peace and freedom which we have enjoyed in Britain since 1945.

Britain's security is the first duty of the Government. That security depends on our ability, together with our NATO allies, to deter aggression—to prevent war. It is essential for the success of deterrence that any potential aggressor should understand without any doubt that the United States is fully committed to the defence of Western Europe. The deployment of American forces in the United Kingdom, as in other European countries, is the most visible proof of the United States' readiness to identify its national security with Britain's and to defend it similarly.

Since the beginning of the North Atlantic alliance in 1949, all successive British Governments, including that in which the hon. Gentleman served from 1976ߝ78, have agreed to and welcomed the continued stationing of American forces at bases in the United Kingdom. The use of these bases is governed by an agreement reached by Mr. Attlee and President Truman in 1951 and reaffirmed by Mr. Churchill and President Truman in a joint communiqué in 1952. I shall refer later to that agreement.

The combination of an ability both to defend its territory and to threaten a response to aggression involving if necessary the use of nuclear weapons has formed the basis of NATO's policy of defence by deterrence for more than 30 years. During all that time we have had peace in Europe. To continue to keep the peace, we together with our allies, must ensure that we have adequate forces, both conventional and nuclear, to demonstrate to a potential aggressor that he has nothing to gain by aggression.

At the same time, we have worked and are working for significant, balanced and verifiable reductions in the arsenals of both East and West. The Governments of NATO believe that genuine arms control and disarmament will enhance the prospects for security and peace. In the current arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union in Geneva, the Western position with regard to both strategic and intermediate range nuclear forces is based on a desire to see significant reductions in the nuclear arsenals of both super powers. Indeed, for the first time the Soviet Union is discussing actual reductions in nuclear weapons. In the INF talks the West has consistently supported the abolition of an entire category of nuclear weapons—the longer-range land-based missiles which are of most concern to both sides—but security and peace could not be maintained if the West were to follow the path of one-sided disarmament and thus provide an inadequate balance to the military might, both nuclear and conventional, of the Warsaw Pact. There should be no doubt that our purpose is peace, and we are most likely to keep it. The lessons of history, not least the lessons of the 1930s, are against the one-side disarmers. The policy that the hon. Gentleman proposes would remove the incentive for the Soviet Union to join the United States in agreeing substantial reductions in nuclear weapons and would positively harm the prospects for peace, as did Western disarmament in the 1930s.

That commitment both to deterrence and disarmament was most clearly reflected in the decision taken by NATO's Foreign and Defence Ministers in December 1979 to modernise its intermediate range nuclear forces, while at the same time seeking through the process of negotiation with the Soviet Union genuine reductions in armaments, which would enable the West to restrict or perhaps even cancel the deployment of new missiles. I remind the hon. Member that at the time of the "twin track" decision the United States undertook to withdraw 1,000 nuclear warheads from Europe, and this has now been done. There was no equivalent response from the Soviet Union. The deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles—if it takes place because of lack of agreement in the disarmament talks—will not lead to any increase in the numbers of warheads in Europe. Further warheads will be withdrawn by the West to match the new deployments on a one-for-one basis. In addition, NATO is at this moment conducting a thorough review of its shorter-range nuclear weapons systems to ensure that the size and composition of those forces is no more than is required for the purposes of deterrence.

Before I examine the prospects for progress in the arms control negotiations, I remind the House of why NATO reached the decision to introduce the cruise missile in several European countries, and in the Federal German Republic the Pershing II, in the absence of agreement in the disarmanent talks. There are two reasons.

Since the 1960s, NATO's intermediate range nuclear forces have consisted of British and American aircraft stationed in England. The British aircraft—the Vulcans—are no longer operational. The remaining aircraft will, over time, become increasingly vulnerable to new Soviet weapons and the Soviet ability to strike at airfields far from their homeland. So the first reason is that NATO's existing intermediate range nuclear forces are ageing. If we do not modernise our forces we shall be disarming ourselves one-sidedly by default.

Secondly, the Soviet Union has been building up a formidable intermediate range nuclear force, the most disturbing element of which is the deployment since 1977 of SS20 missiles. These missiles are sophisticated, mobile and extremely accurate. Each has three warheads and can strike three different targets. Each has sufficient range to strike targets throughout almost all Western Europe from bases deep within the Soviet Union but outsde Europe. Their steady deployment has produced a growing imbalance in capabilities between NATO and the Soviet Union. Today there are 333 SS20s, of which about two thirds face west, and 275 SS4s and SS5s—older missiles with a shorter range—are operational in the Soviet Union. Together with the warheads on the older missiles, there are now some 1,000 warheads on intermediate range nuclear missiles threatening Western Europe. NATO still has no comparable missiles—I repeat, no comparable missiles. It was against that background that we and our allies decided that to maintain a credible deterrent at this level a modernisation of our own intermediate range nuclear force capability was necessary.

I shall now deal briefly with the other aspect of our security policy, that of the vigorous pursuit of realistic measures of arms control and disarmament. I say "realistic" because the disarmament I want is that which maintains and, if possible, increases, our security, not the sort proposed by the hon. Gentleman. His disarmament would tear up all that has been achieved ever the years and imperil our security for no good reason. Our approach to the INF talks in Geneva is an example of our policy to maintain forces strong enough to deter aggression, while at the same time seeking to reduce them in a fair and balanced way. It is clear that the alliance's determination to take the necessary steps to maintain effective intermediate range nuclear forces has brought the Soviet Union to the negotiating table. In fact, it has not only brought it to the table, but has persuaded it to start talking about reductions.

The Soviet Union would not have been persuaded to contemplate reductions in its massive SS20 missile force if NATO had not stuck to its 1979 decision. If Britain had adopted the Labour Party's policy, or if the Soviet Union believed it likely that we would do so, the Soviets would not be negotiating now. So far, what the Soviet Union has offered is inadequate and unacceptable, but at least it is now for the first time talking about reductions. Only by remaining resolute in our approach shall we have a chance to obtain the agreement that we want.

I do not have time to go into the details of the negotiations. The talks resume in Geneva this week, and the negotiating table there is the right place for such matters to be discussed. The United States, on behalf of its allies, will be seeking to clarify what Mr. Andropov's widely reported offer amounts to. For our part, we continue to belive that the zero option—no missiles on either side—is the best objective. But the alliance will be ready to consider seriously any fair and sensible proposals.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in the House: The best balance between the Soviet Union and NATO is zero … One hopes to achieve the zero option, but in the absence of that we must achieve balanced numbers."—[Official Report, 18 January 1983; Vol. 35, c. 167ߝ68.] President Reagan has made it clear that any sensible proposals will be studied carefully. Equally, we shall be impatient of proposals that are designed, not to make progress in the negotiations, but to play to the gallery with attractive but bogus packages.

At Geneva we have had results, but if no concrete results emerge the Government will proceed with their plans for the deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles in the United Kingdom. The first of those missiles will become operational at RAF Greenham Common at the end of this year. Deployment of missiles at RAF Molesworth will not begin for some years yet. There will be an important British presence at each base. A senior British officer and supporting staff will be stationed permanently at each base, and a substantial proportion of the cruise missile security force will be British. That force will provide security for the missile vehicles both on and off base, and British Ministry of Defence policemen will control entry to the bases.

Some of the anxiety that is felt by some about cruise missiles is the result of misinformation spread by the one-sided disarmament organisations. It has been alleged that the only possible justification for such a missile is that NATO is seeking a first-strike capability in Europe. Nothing could be further from the truth. NATO is and always has been a totally defensive alliance pledged never to use any of its forces except in response to an attack. Anyone who knows anything about the cruise missile knows that it is totally unsuitable, because of the speed at which it travels, for such a first strike.

Equally, there is no substance in the suggestion that the deployment of cruise missiles is designed to make possible the fighting of a limited nuclear war in Europe, or that the basing of cruise missiles at Greenham Common and Molesworth makes this country more of a target.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the control of cruise missiles and an agreement made between Mr. Attlee and President Truman, which was endorsed by Mr. Churchill and President Truman.

That arrangement has been held to be satisfactory by Governments of both parties for the past 30 years and more, including the Government in which the hon. Gentleman served. It has been examined and found satisfactory by no fewer than eight Prime Ministers of both main parties. It covers the use of bases for all American forces in the United Kingdom, including the nuclear capable F-111 aircraft that have been based here for more than 10 years. It will also cover the cruise missile bases. It provides for joint decision, not just consultation or an American decision alone.

NATO's decision to deploy American Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe enhances deterrence by demonstrating to the Russians that the United States sees the defence of Europe as indissoluble from the defence of America. I recommend to hon. Members the remarks made by President Mitterrand during his recent visit to Bonn. The President emphasised repeatedly the importance of cohesion between the European allies and the United States, and said: Whoever would bet on uncoupling the European continent from the American continent would, in our view, put in jeopardy the balance of forces and the future of peace. That was a Socialist president speaking.

Neutrality has never provided an adequate safeguard against a determined aggressor. The maintenance of our defences in conjunction with our allies remains the best way to preserve peace and offers the best prospect of success in negotiating substantial reductions in armaments in both East and West.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.