§ Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton)I congratulate the Minister on his new appointment to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Some people have called it a sideways shift following his row with his previous boss on the Housing Bill. If it is, he has done quite well out of it because he has got quite an interesting portfolio. He has a bit of a reputation as a stonewaller. Some people might think that that is appropriate for the Foreign Office, but I have to warn him that there is a spirit of glasnost now, so he might come up against a few problems if he stonewalls. I wish him well in his new job.
One of the Minister's important jobs concerns disarmament, which is the subject of this debate. I recently received a postcard which simply had a picture of the globe. At the top, coming out of the shadow, was an arrow marked, "Them", and in the middle of the globe was another arrow marked, "Us". The legend said:
The Russians, being cunning and devious, hide their country behind the curve in the earth so that we can't see. We, on the other hand, are right out in the open on the flat part.I am afraid that that has been the cold war attitude of some people in the West. The result has been a disastrous build-up of military spending. It has meant a continuous cold war of the type to which the postcard refers, and an enormous drain on the resources of both sides which could be much better used elsewhere, and it has perpetuated impoverishment in the Third world because while we spend on arms we cannot relieve poverty and suffering there. It has also involved a high risk in terms of the potential destruction of our people, particularly from the nuclear element.In addition, there has been an increasing risk of accidents. Chernobyl is the prime case, arising from the drive to create more nuclear material, but the Iran Airbus is a more recent example of how accidents can happen. If it is said to be in defence interests to shoot down an Airbus, it may also be in defence interests to fire a nuclear weapon. Those are the consequences of the cold war and the material build-up that we have seen since the war.
Mikhail Gorbachev has attempted to break the logjam, and since he came to office all the initiatives have come from the Soviet Union. As Frank Blackaby, the former director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said, a more liberal-minded, intelligent elite has risen to a position of influence in Soviet politics. The Soviet Union has enormous economic pressures. About 16 per cent. of its GNP is spent on defence, which is immensely crippling and wasteful. That pressure has brought about the initiatives.
NATO has been reacting primarily. It has been intransigent in many respects, especially on short-range nuclear missiles. There was a great chance to get a deal on them, but the Prime Minister in particular would have none of it and that worked its way into NATO philosophy. Moreover, the Government have imposed great pressure to increase militarisation and military spending. That is what modernisation is all about. Only last week during defence questions, when the Secretary of State was asked about burden sharing and the Americans pushing more of the costs of NATO on to European countries, he made it clear that he was acquiescing in more defence spending and Britain picking up a bigger part of the bill. We should 771 be reducing expenditure when there is an opportunity to do so, not increasing it. NATO has not even produced a comprehensive concept of arms control and disarmament. It has not got its mandate together to go to the negotiating table. That is poor when there is an opportunity to make big reductions.
Recently the Government produced a leaflet entitled "The UK Role in Arms Control a short guide to British Government policy". Short is the right word because there is precious little substance in it. It should have had a photograph of the tea and salmon sandwiches that the Prime Minister gave Mr. Gorbachev at Brize Norton because that is about the biggest contribution that the Government have made to arms control. It even states:
The UK's national deterrent is a minimum force, and it will remain so when the new Trident submarines become operational.Trident represents an eightfold increase at a time when the super-powers are trying to get rid of some of their weapons in that category. Yet the Government still described that as a minimum force. One can only conclude that the Government use those words as they choose and that in that context "mimimum force" means just what they want it to mean.The document discusses the Geneva protocol and Britain's role in it back in 1925, as well as new efforts to reach agreement on getting rid of chemical weapons. I pay tribute to the Foreign Office for what it did up to halfway through last year in trying to get an agreement to a chemical weapons ban. Subsequently, however, there has been undue delay and foot-dragging by the Government on this matter. Out come the same old slogans about the Soviet Union's chemical weapons supply, and we are told the Russians have 300,000 tonnes. No justification has ever been given for that and the Soviet Union has said solemnly that it has 50,000 tonnes. Whatever it is, Conservative Members may laugh, but the Soviet Union is keen to get a deal. We should be taking the Russians up on it to ensure that they get rid of chemical weapons.
The foot-dragging has come about because on 16 December the United States resumed its supply of chemical weapons—in particular the new binary and big-eye weapons. It already has enormous stocks even without the new binary systems. According to my information, the United States has over 1 million GB nerve gas artillery rounds, 13,000 GB nerve gas bombs, 300,000 nerve gas artillery rounds and over 1 million mustard gas artillery rounds. They must be in good condition because the West German Government have said that there have been no accidents or leakages in West Germany where they have been stored. The United States ambassador once said that many of the weapons could strike into Soviet territory. The Americans have stocks, although the United States has not published figures. If the Government are pushing for the release of true information from the Soviet Union, they should do the same with the United States; they should ask what its stocks are.
The Foreign Office says that the United States provides information about the composition and location of its stockpile in order to build the confidence needed to underpin a comprehensive ban. Yet the Select Committee on Defence said that the United States had not published the figures to show the size of its chemical stockpile. The Secretary of State for Defence said to that Select Committee: 772
There is no agreed NATO strategy covering the circumstances in which chemical weapons may be used.The Committee said:From the evidence we have received, it seems that the arrangements for moving US chemical weapons to Europe or authorising their release has still not been adequately clarified within the Alliance. Until this is done, chemical retaliation in kind hardly remains a viable option for the Alliance; and a lack of clarity about the procedures involved carries with it other dangers. The urgency for progress to be made in this area remains undiminished.The Select Committee says that the urgency is undiminished, but the Government have actually slowed down. Now the Secretary of State has said that chemical weapons fall within the flexible response strategy, so he is even contemplating their use.The Government should get a move on and start getting together with the Soviet Union for a realistic ban on chemical weapons. We should get an agreement and get the United States involved as well.
This foot-dragging has had appalling consequences because we have seen in the middle east, in the Iran-Iraq war, the use of chemical weapons. Unfortunately, the combatants have had some success with these weapons —success in war terms though terrible in human terms —and this will result in other countries wanting chemical weapons and being prepared to use them. That is why we need an immediate global ban on chemical weapons. The British Government do not seem to be aware of the need to take urgent action in this matter.
In terms of conventional arms, there is a chance for agreement to be reached on a degree of disarmament at all levels. Following a meeting of the Warsaw pact on 16 July, the pact renewed its initiative for sizeable cuts in conventional armaments in Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals. It called
for early talks to leave NATO and the Warsaw Treaty countries with forces and systems needed for defence but insufficient for a surprise attack or offensive operations, with a corresponding curtailment in military spending.Three areas were covered in that initiative. The first wasto achieve equal, lowered levels—roughly equal and balanced collective levels—in troop strength and convention-al weaponry"—certainly lower than currently exist on both sides—mutually eliminating imbalances and asymmetries.That was achieved in INF terms for one category of nuclear weapons, so it could be achieved as well for conventional forces.The second point was designed to prevent a surprise attack, and it referred to
lowered arms level strips…zones created along the line of contact between the military/political alliance, again ensuring only a defensive capability; and confidence-building measures which would limit military activity in those zones.It went on to say that there should be a ban on major exercises and restrictions on troop movements.The third part of the initiative on conventional weapons was for data exchange and verification. That would, naturally, involve the exchange of information on both sides, with on-site inspections and possibly an international verification commission to check that all was working properly.
Those were the main aspects of the initiative—
to strengthen stability and lower the levels of armed forces and armaments, with the principles of equality and equal security being observed and being verified.I make no apology for quoting at length from that text because it is an important initiative that is now on the 773 NATO stocks. It has been welcomed—in terms of a pan-European summit—by President Mitterrand, who is reported as having said thatthe reduction of conventional arms was an absolute priority which should take precedence over any reinforcement of short or very short-range nuclear weapons.That was a direct snub to the British Government, who take the opposite view and who do not seem to be interested in that aspect. They seem interested only in increasing that type of short-range weaponry.The West German Government have welcomed the idea of new talks on lowering conventional arms levels. They have every reason to take that line because, demographically, the numbers in the West German conscript army will be 40 per cent. lower in the coming decade, so they desperately need reductions in convention-al arms.
The British Government do not seem to be worried about the concerns of our allies in this matter. We seem prepared to allow them in the coming 10 years to be in a perilous position, which we have already done in terms of short-range nuclear weapons, a subject to which I will come shortly. So, again, the British Government are foot-dragging. They are among the few Common Market Governments not to have welcomed the idea of a pan-European summit. The block is the weapons with dual capability, conventional and nuclear, which the Government refuse to include in any conventional arms reduction talks. That is what is stopping NATO getting a mandate together and getting realistic talks started. Dual capability weapons should be part of the negotiations. Why should a whole category of weapons not be subject to arms control or even negotiations? In this area, as in any other, asymmetry can apply, with cuts in different types of weapons on each side. If such weapons are not included in conventional arms talks, they should be the subject of separate but simultaneous talks.
The Government must take up those initiatives in a big way. The right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan), who was recently appointed to a post in Europe, wrote a pamphlet supporting the idea of a demilitarised zone free from tanks, heavy artillery and nuclear weapons. That would create greater stability. Only the Government seem to believe the opposite. At Defence Question Time the Secretary of State spoke ominously of having nothing to do with demilitarised zones, but NATO must take up those initiatives as well as getting rid of all tactical nuclear weapons systems and limiting the total number of heavy battle tanks in Europe. Those initiatives could release money from defence to be used for social purposes.
I shall deal briefly with the nuclear aspects as others may wish to participate and I want to leave plenty of time for the Minister. The INF agreement is to be welcomed, although it represents only about 3 per cent. of the world nuclear stockpile, following a huge build-up of such weapons before the talks, so it is not such an amazing achievement. The Russians have issued a postage stamp commemorating it, and that is about what it amounts to proportionately in terms of the total number of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, it is welcome.
Short-range nuclear weapons should have been included in that agreement. We should have had the triple zero. The West German Government wanted that because 774 they realise that blowing up part of one's own territory is self-defeating. That should have been taken into account and we shall have to come back to it in future talks. Strategic arms reduction talks are going on for a 50 per cent. cut in strategic weapons, but I do not believe that it will really be 50 per cent. on a strict count. They are already fiddling with the arithmetic so that short-range attack missiles count as only one, and so on. Nevertheless, an agreement would be extremely welcome.
There are two blocks in the way of such a development. The major block is star wars, to which I shall come in a moment, but the other is the sea-launched nuclear weapons. It is shocking that the United Kingdom's Trident and Polaris missiles are not on the negotiating table. In my view, they should be in the negotiations. Sea-launched nuclear weapons could get in the way of strategic arms reduction talks. If they remain uncontrolled —there are now 16,000 weapons at sea—they could destroy a START agreement. They must be brought within the limitation and verification procedures. I appreciate that verification would be difficult, but the Government should insist that the super-powers start talking about sea-launched nuclear weapons and should put their own on the table, as it were.
Star wars—SDI—is a dangerous development. It is a first-strike capability and an enormous continuation of the arms race. It breaches the ABM treaty and it is a block to START. I have heard it said that the Russians are unlikely to agree to START while the star wars development remains in being. That could be the position. At Congress, the office of technical assessement has said that technically SDI is not feasible. It is wrong that the Government should be acquiescing to star wars. They are pursuing every contract that they can get and giving the impression, with the memorandum of understanding, that they are in favour of the project. They should come out against it so that we can secure a START treaty.
The Government seem still to take the view that a limited nuclear war could be fought and won. They are still wedded to the possibility of first use of nuclear weapons. They are still wedded to the modernisation of nuclear weapons when the world wants to see countries getting rid of these weapons. Modernisation would cheat on the INF and on a START.
The Government should be pressing for a comprehensive test ban treaty and a non-proliferation treaty. Unfortunately, the Government are still wedded to nuclear weapons for whatever and for ever. That seems to be their attitude, and that is a block to disarmament. They should wake up to the new world attitude. The peoples of the world are not interested in nuclear weapons and ever-increasing military spending. They are interested in life, health and the progress of mankind. They want more social spending. The Tory Government are a dinosaur. It seems that they are incapable of recognising world opinion. The British public want disarmament. They understand that world-wide agreements are necessary, and they will be angry when they realise that it is the British Government who are blocking these agreements at every turn.
§ Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone)I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, especially as there is now litte chance that the debate in my name will be 775 reached. As I can find no way, even with the greatest ingenuinty, of introducing the financing of the University of London into a defence debate, I shall turn to what has been said by the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen).
Before taking up the remarks of the hon. Member for Leyton, I add my congratulations to those that have been offered to my hon. Friend the Minister. I wish him well in his new role, to which I am sure he will bring the distinction that he has brought to other roles in his career in government.
Before the hon. Member for Leyton commenced his oration, if it could be called that, we were all in great suspense waiting for him to wake up and get here. Having listened to his speech, I am still waiting for him to wake up. He appears to have no appreciation of the true state of affairs when it comes to arms negotiations and of who has been giving the lead in arms reductions.
The hon. Gentleman paints NATO as the dragon of the picture. He ignores the unilateral withdrawal of 1,400 warheads, the destruction of the United Kingdom's stocks of chemical weapons, President Reagan's initial zero-zero option, and the long lag before NATO introduced updated weapons to match the Russian SS20s in the form of cruise. None of those actions of restraint met with any reaction of equal restraint from the Soviet Union. Rather, they resulted in an escalation on the part of the Soviet Union. It is very much to the credit of the British Government and, indeed, the United States that they insisted on negotiating from a position of strength, which has brought about the very arms agreements that we have been seeking for so long.
Perhaps it is somewhat unfair to refer to the Soviet Union before the days of Mr. Gorbachev. Perhaps we should now try to look at the Soviets in a rather more trusting light. The position has changed, and we now have the prospect of major arms agreements. That, however, leaves us in a position completely ignored by the hon. Member for Leyton, in which we still face overwhelming conventional superiority on the part of the Soviet Union. We also face the prospect of severe cuts in land-based nuclear missiles.
Because the nuclear missile has always been designed to deter not only a nuclear but a conventional attack, it is doubly important for us to ensure, when reducing our nuclear stockpile and still facing conventional superiority, that we have the most modern and effective weapons in those categories that are still left to us. That is the purpose of the modernisation so derided by the hon. Gentleman. It should be seen not as an escalation, but rather as making effective what we have left and could use.
It is easy to say that we are wedded to first use. We are not, but it would be totally ineffective to set something up as a deterrent and say, "This is what we could use," and then deny that we would use it. The hon. Gentleman knows that as well as I do. He is well aware that for a deterrent to be effective a potential enemy must understand that we would actually use it. He is also well aware that nothing that NATO has done has met with much response from the Soviet Union, that the present cuts have been brought about as much from economic pressure within the Soviet Union as from some great enlightenment, that we are still faced with overwhelming conventional superiority and that we are pursuing an enlightened policy of gradual, verifiable and mutual arms reductions. That policy is the surest method of retaining peace, as it has done for the past 40 years.
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. William Waldegrave)I am grateful to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) both for his kind words and for enabling me to address the House—although not a packed House—on such important matters so early after my new appointment. I am not sure that it is entirely truthful to say that I wished to speak about them first at this time of day, but one must not complain.
I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe). It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that she has answered the debate very thoroughly herself, and she made a number of sensible points, some of which I shall echo.
I could not forbear from a wry internal smile when the hon. Member for Leyton teased NATO for not having got its mandate together. There may be clear mandates in some parts of his party's activities, but it must be said that, in whatever order I read the words in which the leader of his party expresses his mandate, they do not seem any clearer. I have tried the moving interview that he gave to my good friend John Mortimer, but I think that it must have been printed backwards, because it did not seem to make much sense. I had some difficulty in understanding the exact thrust of the right hon. Gentleman's mandate. I found the speech of the hon. Member for Leyton a great deal clearer and I pay tribute to him for that, but it is not a great competition to have won.
Within the first week of my appointment to an extremely important portfolio I am sure that the hon. Member for Leyton will not expect me to have sketched out any new directions or to say anything that will surprise him. However, I am grateful to him for allowing me the opportunity to put certain things on the record.
The range of the hon. Gentleman's speech was wide, and he covered the subject comprehensively. I shall try to cover some of that ground. The North Atlantic Council meeting in June 1987 at Reykjavik is a good place to start. At that meeting we and our allies set out our future arms control priorities. We strongly refute the idea that it is the Soviet Union that has set the agenda. To be fair, the hon. Gentleman should agree that it was the West that suggested the zero proposals on INF. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said about the contribution of the Foreign Office and its efforts to eliminate chemical weapons. The West also took the lead in that respect.
After Reykjavik, the agenda set out for the future meant 50 per cent. cuts in United States and Soviet strategic nuclear weapons, the global elimination of chemical weapons and the elimination of the imbalance in conventional forces in Europe. I shall survey the progress that has been made in each of those areas since last year.
It is worth considering the implications of the word "disarmament", which is the title of the debate. The Government consider that the agenda is about arms control. The Government support balanced and verifiable arms control agreements which are consistent with maintaining our security. We must beware of proposals for wholesale disarmament which see the reduction of weapons as an end in itself. That is not the end. The end is greater security, and that is an important distinction. The Government believe that nuclear weapons will continue to be necessary for the foreseeable future for maintaining deterrence. We take a different view from the hon. Gentleman. We shall continue to support NATO's 777 policy of keeping only the minimum number of nuclear weapons necessary to achieve that. My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone said that the Alliance has reduced its stockpile of nuclear warheads in Europe by 35 per cent. since 1979. However, we must record the fact that there has not been a comparable reduction in the Soviet Union.
Reducing the numbers of our weapons to the minimum necessary is one side of the coin the other side is the requirement to keep them up to date. If they are to provide an effective deterrent, our nuclear weapons must be credible. So we firmly endorse the determination, expressed by NATO Heads of Government at their meeting in Brussels in March, to ensure that all the Alliance's forces, conventional and nuclear, are kept up to date.
Two of the arms control priorities I mentioned earlier related to nuclear weapons. Since Reykjavik, the INF agreement has been finally accepted by the Russians, and the INF treaty entered into force on 1 June 1988. That was a major step. The significance of the treaty and the credit which the achievement of it reflects on the Alliance have been, as my hon. Friend for Maidstone has said, fully discussed in this House on earlier occasions. I need not dwell further on it today.
As the hon. Member for Leyton said, the negotiations between the Americans and the Russians about reductions in their strategic nuclear weapons are continuing in Geneva. The Government warmly endorse the determination shown by the United States Administration to negotiate carefully on the many difficult areas still to be resolved. We are convinced that there should be no question of allowing political time tables to dictate our security requirements. If anyone is tempted to become impatient at what may seem slow progress in Geneva, he should consider—the hon. Gentleman has considered the subject in detail and is similarly aware—how complicated the issues are that are being discussed. The verification regime for a START agreement, for instance, would be far more complicated even than that established under the INF treaty, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledged. After the two nuclear parities are achieved, the nuclear situation in Europe will have received enough attention for the time being and the spotlight should focus on the conventional and chemical theatres.
Despite our welcome for the hope for the world that the regime of Mr. Gorbachev represents—and I would not underplay that—it is our duty to be careful about the security of our own peoples, and we must be on our guard against any attractively-packaged offers to denuclearise Europe. Whenever attention shifts to conventional forces, the Russians try to divert it back to denuclearisation. We must not let that ploy succeed, and it will not. History has shown that, tragically, even a complete balance of conventional forces has not been enough to guarantee peace.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the shorter-range nuclear forces. NATO is united in rejecting a zero solution on SNF, which would be the third zero. We and our allies are currently engaged in considering what the Alliance's future SNF requirements will be. We are determined to keep our holdings to a minimum—again, in contrast to the 778 Soviet Union which now has a 14 to one advantage in SNF missile launchers—but we are sure that NATO must retain an effective SNF capability.
Arms control is not just about nuclear weapons. Progress in the nuclear area increases the importance of improving conventional security. Britain and Europe have suffered dreadfully from conventional wars during this century, and modern conventional weapons are many times more destructive than those of 40 years ago. The present concentration of conventional forces in Europe of NATO and of the Warsaw pact comprises the greatest conventional destructive potential ever assembled. That is why we must insist that nuclear arms control must not make Europe safe for conventional war and why we attach so much importance to redressing the imbalances between NATO and Warsaw pact conventional forces.
In Europe, the Warsaw pact has three times as many tanks as NATO, more than three times as much artillery and nearly twice as many tactical aircraft. Furthermore, its forces are configured and deployed in ways which would permit them to initiate a surprise attack and to undertake large-scale offensive action.
That is why the elimination of that imbalance, which so favours the Warsaw pact, is the Government's major arms control priority, now that the INF treaty has been concluded and START negotiations are in train. To that end, we and our allies are discussing with representatives of the Warsaw pact in Vienna the terms of reference for new negotiations on conventional stability which would cover an area from the Atlantic to the Urals. The aim of the negotiations will be to establish a stable and secure balance of conventional forces at lower than the present levels. We shall also seek to eliminate disparities of forces which are prejudicial to stability and security. We want to eliminate the capacity to launch surprise attacks and initiate large-scale offensive action. That is very important. Mr. Gorbachev's proposals of 16 July are a welcome move towards the Western approach. We need more detail, but the proper place for the deployment of the detail is the conventional stability talks.
The Government hope that the negotiations will start during this year. They will take place within the framework of the CSCE process. The outcome of the current CSCE review meeting in Vienna must be balanced. We cannot conclude agreement on that section of the review without progress in other areas, notably in respect of human rights. Hence, our concern to make progress in all the sectors of the review.
I now turn to the hon. Gentleman's comments on chemical weapons. He was generous in saying that, over the years, the British Government have played a real part in the pursuit of a verifiable, comprehensive and global ban on all chemical weapons. We have submitted detailed technical papers to the conference on disarmament in Geneva. Two years ago we chaired the negotiations. Last year my predecessor set out in Geneva the detailed steps that remained to be taken to make the chemical weapons ban effective.
We are both pleased that during the past two years there have been some real signs of progress. The issues are complex, and much effort will be required if we are to develop effective solutions. We seek a convention that will enhance and will be seen to enhance security. To do that, once again there will be a need for reliable verification. I 779 assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no foot-dragging here. The nearer one gets to a substantive agreement, the more complex things become.
All countries must have confidence in such verification. There is still some way to go, because unless the small print of verification can be seen by all to work in practice countries will not sign an agreement, even if one can be reached. The urgency of achieving a meaningful treaty which we could press others to join is only re-emphasised by recent events of the Gulf war. The negotiations have not, therefore, been a matter only for East and West, as the latest tragic events have shown.
Proliferation underlines the vital need for the convention to be global, yet that raises is own problems. Even the modest provisions of the 1925 Geneva protocol have yet to be universally agreed to. At the United Nations special session in June, my hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary called for renewed impetus to be given to the 1925 protocol. Countries which have not yet signed it—50 in all—should now do so. He called also for prompt international investigation of allegations of the use of chemical weapons. When use had been demonstrated, he said that there should be effective action by the international community. We are working to build on that call.
Openness is crucial. The United Kingdom unilaterally gave up its chemical warfare capability in the 1950s, as the hon. Member for Leyton mentioned. The Soviet Union possesses a substantial chemical weapons capability—but it did not acknowledge that until last year. In fact, no more than three countries admit to possessing chemical weapons. That shows how far there is still to go. If all countries are committed to a ban, as they say they are, why are they so reluctant to come clean? How could we be confident that a ban would work unless there was certainty about what it covered?
The hon. Gentleman may be interested to hear that we have just conducted a significant experiment. In May this year a Soviet delegation visited the United Kingdom chemical defence establishment at Porton Down. There, chemical weapons experts discussed the full range of chemical weapons related activity. Many of these issues were directly related to the work of the conference on disarmament. Other discussions ranged more widely.
At the beginning of this month the Soviet Union reciprocated with an invitation to Britain to visit its chemical plant at Shikhany. We were pleased to have had that opportunity, but it was evident from the exchanges 780 that attitudes to secrecy remain different in the Soviet Union. Glasnost has not yet reached all the parts of Soviet military thinking.
Many questions and concerns about Soviet capability remain. We have a long way to go in the chemical weapons negotiations. The Government are determined to continue to work energetically for the goal that we have set ourselves over many years. It is important to remember that that goal is a convention with robust verification which adds to our security, not a rushed, skimped exercise that would leave crucial problems unresolved.
A ban that works is a prize for which the world has striven ever since chemical weapons were first invented. The progress that we are making now must not cause us to rush in any way that would let that major prize slip from our grasp.
The hon. Member for Leyton repeated the argument, sometimes advanced, that the SDI breaches the ABM treaty. No doubt he has debated this subject often before and will know that we strongly believe that to be wrong. We think that SDI, as a research programme, is allowed under the ABM treaty. The Soviet Union has admitted that it is conducting similar types of research.
As for modernisation, NATO is not in the business of building up stocks of nuclear weapons for their own sake, but in order to deter, and our deterrent must be modern and known to be effective. A threadbare deterrent is perhaps the most dangerous thing of all.
The hon. Member for Leyton said that all the disarmament initiatives had come from the other side. That is not fair, and it is easy to refute by reference to the list that was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone. The arms control agenda has been set by the West and by the democracies, as one would expect. The INF zero proposal was made by the West, and Mr. Gorbachev is coming round to our conventional arms approach. The West is taking the lead in conventional arms reductions.
In the short time available, I have been able only to refer briefly to the Government's objectives in arms control, in which traditionally we have played a prominent role and will continue to do so. The problems are often intractable, partly because we are seeking not simply to reduce weapons but to improve security, which is not necessarily the same.
§ It being Eight o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.