§ Mr. Denzil Davies (Llanelli)(by private notice) asked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the NATO Ministers' meeting held at Gleneagles.
§ The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Stanley)At the NATO nuclear planning group meeting at Gleneagles on 21 and 22 October, NATO Defence Ministers had wide-ranging discussions on arms control and defence matters.
The Ministers extended their warm appreciation to the President of the United States on his conduct of the talks at Reykjavik and fully endorsed his bold attempt to seek far-reaching arms control agreements with the Soviet Union. They expressed their continued support for the efforts of the United States and the United Kingdom to maintain the effectiveness and credibility of their nuclear deterrent capabilities.
The Ministers remain deeply concerned about continuing Soviet efforts to upgrade and expand their military capabilities across the board. They noted with particular concern Soviet efforts involving the full range of strategic forces, shorter and longer range intermediate nuclear forces, and short-range nuclear forces, including artillery. They also noted with concern the major Soviet effort in continuing improvements in strategic and tactical anti-missile systems.
The Ministers reviewed a number of issues and nuclear-related programmes and reconfirmed our policy and planning related to NATO's nuclear forces. They agreed that both the force structure itself and the conceptual planning underpinning it are essential components for maintaining a credible deterrent posture.
A copy of the official communiqué of the Gleneagles meeting has been placed in the Library.
§ Mr. DaviesI thank the Minister for his reply. However, we think it very remiss of the Secretary of State not to answer, or come to the House to explain the consequences of a very important meeting. Moreover, the Minister did not volunteer a statement. We had to drag a statement out of Ministers by means of a private notice question.
Will the Minister answer three questions? First, on intermediate missiles, will he confirm that the Government still fully support the zero option? It was, I believe, agreed by NATO five years ago at Gleneagles and means that, provided that the Russians remove all their SS20s from Europe, NATO will remove all cruise and Pershing 2 missiles. Will the Minister assure the House that there will be no back sliding on the zero option or an attempt to link it with short-range missiles in central Europe?
Secondly, will the Minister tell us whether the Government fully support the offer made by President Reagan at Reykjavik to eliminate all strategic nuclear weapons within 10 years? As the Government apparently had a say in the negotiating brief for Reykjavik, I take it that they fully support that offer.
Thirdly, on the SDI and the anti-ballistic missile treaty, will the Minister tell us which interpretation the Government support? Do they say that only laboratory research is allowable under the treaty or do they believe that the testing of laser beams and shooting down rockets with rockets in the atmosphere is allowed under the treaty?
§ Mr. StanleyMy right hon. Friend the Secretary of State much regrets that he is not able to make the statement in person, but he has a long-standing official commitment in Barrow in Furness—[Interruption.] On this side of the House we welcome ministerial attention in Barrow in Furness.
As for not volunteering a statement, the right hon. Member of Llanelli (Mr. Davies) will know that it has been normal practice over a considerable period to place copies of official communiqués in the Library.
I can certainly confirm that it is the Government's position that we should seek the INF zero option or equal numbers above zero, subject, of course, to effective verification procedures and the necessary agreement on collateral constraints on the shorter-range systems.
On the right hon. Gentleman's second question about the elimination of strategic nuclear weapons, the Government's position is as we have always stated it. There is obviously a direct relationship between major reductions in strategic nuclear forces arid conventional forces and it is essential that the two are seen together.
On the right hon. Gentleman's point about the ABM, treaty, he will be aware that we are not a party to that treaty, but the Government's position is that there should be conformity with the ABM treaty.
§ Sir Peter Blaker (Blackpool, South)Was it not formerly the position of the Soviet Union that an agreement on intermediate range nuclear forces in Europe could be made without its being linked to an agreement on the SDI? Has the Soviet Union changed that position? If so, is not that rather regrettable?
§ Mr. StanleyIt was our understanding that the Soviet Union had agreed to make an INF agreement free standing, but it appears to have gone back on that position at Reykjavik. We very much regret that fact and believe that we should strive to make a free-standing INF agreement.
§ Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)As Europe has every reason to be concerned about Soviet conventional superiority and about battlefield nuclear weapons, why do the Government not point out to President Reagan that it would be far better if the SDI were kept in a laboratory, especially as the Soviets are so concerned about SDI that they would be prepared to pay a much higher price to stop it and might be persuaded to include in that price the very reductions that are essential to Europe's security?
§ Mr. StanleyI am sure that the hon. Member knows that the SDI is only a research programme and that it follows on the heels of a very extensive and long-standing research programme by the Soviet Union into ABM systems.
§ Mr. Reg Prentice (Daventry)May I press my right hon. Friend to say a little more about the zero option and suggest that at least in parallel with that option there should be a search for mutual reductions in shorter-range nuclear weapons and conventional weapons? Otherwise, there will seem to many of us to be much validity in the doubts attributed to General Rogers that we may become more vulnerable if intermediate weapons are removed without other reductions.
§ Mr. StanleyI assure my right hon. Friend that, as I said in answer to a previous question, we are fully apprised of that point. It has been a long-standing element of the 1295 NATO position that agreement on long-range INF systems must be coupled with collateral constraints on shorter-range systems.
§ Mr. A. E. P. Duffy (Sheffield, Attercliffe)May I draw the Minister's attention to a report in today's issue of The Guardian which says that his right hon. Friend said that if an INF deal could be achieved that would be fine? There is no mention of any linkages to the SS21s, SS22s, SS23s, or Scud or even short battlefield systems. The Minister has heard the anxiety expressed by his right hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Sir P. Blaker) and he murmured a qualification to my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies).
It is important that the House receives clarification about how conditional is the Secretary of State's position on the zero option. Is it really a zero option or are there further qualifications?
§ Mr. StanleyI do not think I can add to what I have already said. It has been a long-standing position of the West that we should try to go for the zero option, but at the time when the zero option was made it was made clear that if it was not possible to negotiate zero-zero on both sides, it would be better to have equal numbers on both sides and reduce the large number of SS20 deployments which face the West.
§ Mr. William Cash (Stafford)Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would have been extremely unwise for President Reagan to give in on SDI, especially since the Russians have been making enormous progress in outer space with their longstay platforms and in the light of the point that he has made that the Russians are known to have carried out significant research in SDI?
§ Mr. StanleyMy hon. Friend's point is entirely valid. The American SDI research programme has to be seen in relation to the extensive and long-standing programme that has been conducted by the Soviet Union. If the American Administration had not persevered with the SDI research programme I doubt very much whether we would have under way the most comprehensive and radical arms control negotiations that have taken place for many years.
§ Mr. Denis Healey (Leeds, East)Torpedoed by SDI.
§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)Could we return to the important but unanswered third question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies)? Does the Minister's phrase "in conformity with the ABM treaty" mean that it is simply the interpretation of the Government's laboratory testing or, as my right hon. Friend says, is it laser rocket with laser rocket? Which is it? The Government surely have a view on that.
§ Mr. StanleyThe Government were not and are not a party to the ABM treaty and for that reason the detailed matter of interpretation is not a matter for this Administration. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh".] My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that we attach great importance to the maintenance of the ABM treaty.
§ Mr. John Browne (Winchester)Does my right hon. Friend accept that the United States SDI programme is a trump card in the hands of the West and that even the threat that the United States will overtake the Soviet SDI programme has brought the Soviets to the negotiating 1296 table for the first time in decades to talk seriously about disarmament? Does my right hon. Friend not also feel that President Reagan played that card correctly at Reykjavik by not yielding to the first offers from the Soviet Union and that the Soviets are likely to be back again with far more far-reaching and effective offers?
§ Mr. StanleyI agree with the broad thrust of my hon. Friend's remarks. If the United States simply abandons this research programme it would set the arms control process back rather than take it forward.
§ Mr. James Lamond (Oldham, Central and Royton)Did the Ministers have before them the paper on general political guidelines and did they accept that paper? If they did, does that make it clear that decisions taken inside NATO, including those about disarmament and the acceptability of disarmament proposals, lie completely within the scope of the elected political leaders of NATO and not within the scope of the chiefs of staff?
§ Mr. StanleyYes, I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman the confirmation that he seeks. The updating of the general political guidelines has not meant any reduction whatever in political control.
§ Sir Anthony Grant (Cambridgeshire, South-West)Since the cruise missile programme remains an essential element of NATO defence, was there any discussion at the wide-ranging Gleneagles talks about the security of these missile sites? Secondly, does my right hon. Friend agree that the security of those sites is so important that responsibility for it should be a national rather than a local matter?
§ Mr. StanleyI can certainly tell my hon. Friend that the security of nuclear weapons is regularly considered within NATO and is also considered by the Nuclear Planning Group. I appreciate my hon. Friend's anxiety about responsibility for that security and the local financial burden. I know that those are matters that he has pursued with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who has sought to make an equitable arrangement to ensure that local ratepayers do not face a particular burden as a result of the arrangement at Molesworth.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. This is a private notice question, and therefore an extension of Question Time. I shall take one more question from each side.
§ Mr. Dick Douglas (Dunfermline, West)Does the Minister concede that one of the thrusts put by the United States for SDI was the fact that the Soviets were allegedly breaching the ABM treaty relating to radar equipment and so on? Therefore, the United States had an interpretation of that treaty.
Do the Government now accept that as it was wrong for the Soviets to breach the treaty, it would be more than equally wrong for the United States to do so by testing weapons in space? In view of the sympathy that some Opposition Members have expressed on our relationship with the French, will the right hon. Gentleman indicate whether the French are now willing to join the integrated command structure of NATO?
§ Mr. StanleyI can certainly confirm that we would not wish the treaty to be breached. We are very much aware of the concern expressed by the United States about the Soviet violations.
1297 On the hon. Gentleman's opening point, I must put it to him that the impetus behind the SDI stemmed not so much from concern about Soviet violations, but very much from an understanding of the scale, length and implications of a very long-standing intense Soviet research programme into trying to create a possible antiballistic missile system breakout.
§ Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Wealden)Was the impact of the unilateral nuclear proposals of the Labour party on NATO strategy discussed?
§ Mr. StanleyI do not believe that such party political matters were discussed in that forum. However, as my hon. Friend is well aware, there is very widespread concern in many NATO countries about the serious way in which the official policies of the Opposition would undermine NATO.