HC Deb 13 June 1989 vol 154 cc685-6
1. Mr. Bill Michie

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the Soviet Union's latest planned cutbacks in its European conventional forces as announced during the recent visit of United States Secretary of State, James Baker.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Younger)

We welcome the announcement of specific proposals on conventional armaments by the Soviet Union, and particularly its inclusion figures on tanks and armoured troop carriers.

Mr. Michie

Does the Secretary of State agree that President Gorbachev's latest proposals are of major importance and that reductions of 10 to 15 per cent. at the lower levels possessed by both sides, and a further 25 per cent. reduction are very much in line with NATO's proposals on tanks, troop carriers and artillery? Surely the Government must now consider further reductions in helicopter and combat aircraft and nuclear weapons in Europe.

Mr. Younger

Yes, it is encouraging that the Warsaw pact's latest proposals fit in well with proposals made earlier by NATO, and that it is now prepared to consider all combat aircraft—at least we hope that it is—in a further round of discussions. That is encouraging and justifies all the leadership that has been given by NATO in these matters.

Mr. Beaumont-Dark

Does my right hon. Friend agree that at the present time we are having many fine words, as we had from the Chinese only a few weeks ago, and that all may be well if Mr. Gorbachev survives, but his problems are where hundreds of people are being killed in Uzbekistan? This may not happen, but we should not be taken in too easily. Does he further agree that Britain's defence is more important than just giving in when we do not know whether, in the end, Mr. Gorbachev will be the saviour or the victim?

Mr. Younger

My hon. Friend is correct. We hope that Mr. Gorbachev will continue to be successful in pursuing his reforms in the Soviet Union, but until he has delivered reductions in the Warsaw pact's enormous level of armaments, we must keep our defences strong in order to be sure that we can defend ourselves against any attack.

Mr. O'Neill

What is the importance of force-to-space ratio arguments now that we are seeing the prospect of considerable reductions in conventional defence, and what is the importance of forward defence now that we are talking about drastically reducing both sides' conventional arsenals?

Mr. Younger

The importance of both those points cannot be under-estimated. In the first case, the force-to-space ratios, which could be dramatically altered if there are reductions of the kind that we hope to see, will entail a great deal of careful military advice being made available to the negotiators, and that we have set in hand. Forward defence is a particularly important matter for NATO because, being an alliance of free democratic peoples, we are obliged to do our best to defend every inch of NATO's territory, and we must be able to do that in the future as we have in the past.

Mr. Wilkinson

In making his assessment, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the United Kingdom's air assets could be as well deployed to the flanks—to the reinforcement of Norway and the southern flanks of the alliance—as to the central front so that the overall arms control equation on the central front is not the only matter to be taken into account?

Mr. Younger

I agree with my hon. Friend. Britain's contribution to the defence of NATO's territory goes much wider than the central front. We shall have to give the maximum support to the negotiations in the CFE talks at Vienna and, when the outcome of those is known, we shall have to consider the best way in which to implement what we hope will be large reductions.

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