§ 17. Mr. GallowayTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has any plans to review with his colleagues in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation the number of nuclear weapons carried by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ships; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. YoungerNATO Ministers regularly review the nuclear forces available to the Alliance, including sea-based weapons.
§ Mr. GallowayThe Secretary of State would not be so complacent if he had read the recently published American report, entitled "Nuclear Warships and Naval Nuclear Weapons", which reveals that 16,000 nuclear bombs are currently sailing on the world's waterways—that is, 16,000 nuclear accidents waiting to happen in a nuclear traffic jam on the high seas. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, even within his policy, and even within his nuclear obsessions, there is a case for talking to the other side about a reduction in the sheer number of weapons that are currently sailing on the high seas?
§ Mr. YoungerI am sure that there must be better ways of trying to get headlines than that. The hon. Gentleman must come to terms with the fact that, as long as nuclear weapons exist, our security depends upon any aggressor being certain that it cannot attack us without the risk of receiving an attack in return. That is the basis of the maintenance of peace, which the Government and the NATO Alliance are successfully achieving at the moment.