HC Deb 13 June 1989 vol 154 cc693-4
12. Mr. Harry Greenway

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information he has on the Warsaw pact nerve gas capability; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Archie Hamilton

The Soviet Union is the only member of the Warsaw pact to have acknowledged that it has an offensive chemical warfare capability, although we believe that such weapons have been produced by other Warsaw pact countries. On its own, it possesses the largest and most sophisticated chemical warfare capability in the world and nerve agents are just one of the types of agent declared to be in its stockpile.

Nevertheless, we find it difficult to accept a number of the Soviet Union's statements about its own and its allies' chemical warfare activities. We estimate that the Soviet stockpile of chemical warfare agents is several times larger than its claim of only 50,000 tonnes.

There is an obvious need for the Soviet Union to make available much more information about its chemical warfare capabilities if the confidence necessary for a global chemical warfare ban is to be established.

Mr. Greenway

Does my hon. Friend accept that the West disarmed totally of chemical and nerve gas weapons in the 1950s, but received not a single reciprocal response from the Soviet Union, which is believed to have nearly half a million tonnes of chemical weapons? Does he agree that a similar disarmament of nuclear weapons would be a disaster and would encourage the Soviet Union and its allies to stockpile all the more, to our detriment?

Mr. Hamilton

Yes. That is absolutely right. It is an example of unilateral disarmament clearly not having worked. We did that some 30 years ago and there has been no reciprocal action on behalf of the Soviet Union. My hon. Friend is quite right to say that we would be in great danger if we got rid of our own nuclear weapons, as we are living in a world where more nations are acquiring nuclear capability.

Mr. Brazier

Can my hon. Friend confirm that those weapons give the Warsaw pact forces an overwhelming advantage, not only because they are extremely effective, but because the fact that Warsaw pact forces have them and NATO has hardly any means that the defensive counter-measures we have to take put our own troops at an enormous operating disadvantage?

Mr. Hamilton

Yes. My hon. Friend is right. Wearing the suits that are necessary to be immune from those weapons inhibits much of what our troops can do as fighting men.