§ 11. Mr. Bill MichieTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he next expects to meet his Dutch counterpart to discuss European defence and disarmament.
§ Mr. Tom KingI next expect to meet Mr. ter Beek when he visits the United Kingdom, at my invitation, in the autumn.
§ Mr. MichieWill the Secretary of State confirm that at the NATO Defence Ministers meeting in Canada in May the Dutch proposed a unilateral withdrawal of all nuclear-tipped artillery shells and Britain opposed that? Will he further confirm that Germany and other central European nations will not have such weapons on their soil and that the Dutch are unlikely to have the strategic air-to-surface missile but that the British Government are falling over themselves to accept it?
§ Mr. KingNo, Sir. At the meeting of NATO Defence Ministers in Canada to which the hon. Gentleman refers, we agreed on the need for an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional weapons in Europe—and the agreement was unanimous.
§ Mr. ButcherWhen my right hon. Friend meets his Dutch counterparts, will he express his thanks to the Dutch authorities for their recent prompt action in making arrests? When he gives them our thanks for helping to preserve the lives of British service men abroad, will he also offer his full support to the necessity for proper co-ordination, functional and organisational, in attacking terrorism in mainland Europe, whether it comes from Northern Ireland or elsewhere?
§ Mr. KingI am grateful to my hon. Friend and I shall certainly do as he suggests. We owe a great deal not only to the Dutch, but to the French, Belgian, and German authorities—and the Irish as well—who, with us, are providing extremely effective co-operation against terrorism in Europe and wherever else it may occur. The recent arrests of other terrorist groups to which my hon. Friend may have been alluding were further demonstrations of our interest as democratic countries in standing together to fight terrorism.