§ Order for Second Reading read.
10.36 pm§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd)I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill completed its passage in another place on 17 June. It will enable effect to be given in the law of the United Kingdom to certain provisions of the protocol on inspection incorporated in the treaty on conventional armed forces in europe—the CFE treaty. The Bill has two purposes: first, to create rights of access, entry and inspection for the purpose of conducting challenge inspections under the protocol on inspection and secondly, to confer certain privileges and immunities on inspectors and transport crew members in connection with all inspections under the protocol.
Before turning to the Bill, I will give a brief introduction to the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe and its system for inspections. The CFE treaty was signed at Paris on 19 November 1990 by 22 states, all 16 members of the North Atlantic Alliance, including, of course, the United Kingdom, and a further six states, which were then members of the Warsaw pact, including the Soviet Union. The treaty was negotiated at a time of very great change in central and eastern Europe, and signed shortly after German unification and with the Warsaw pact drawing to a close.
The treaty is part of a process, a stage in the negotiations on conventional armed forces in Europe. It is now being followed in Vienna by negotiations to limit manpower—the so-called CFE-1A negotiations, between the same 22 participants. We hope that they can be completed by the time of the Helsinki conference on security and co-operation in Europe follow-up meeting in March next year. Further ahead, we look forward to a new process of dialogue and negotiation after the Helsinki meeting, open to all 35 CSCE members, which will enhance stability and openness in military affairs in Europe. Informal consultations will start in Vienna in September to prepare for that.
The treaty is of necessity detailed and technical. For the purposes of the Bill it is sufficient to note that certain categories of conventional armaments and equipment—battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, artillery, combat aircraft and attack helicopters—are limited by the treaty. Those are known as treaty-limited equipments—TLEs in the jargon. The limitations apply within the area of application of the treaty, which is the European land area from the Atlantic to the Urals. Each state has to limit and, if necessary, reduce—destroy or convert to other use—its holdings of treaty-limited equipments to specific numbers. The treaty includes detailed provisions on the exchange of information and on verification.
The verification regime is contained in the protocol on inspection, in accordance with which the parties are given 873 specific rights which will enable them to monitor each other's compliance with the provisions of the treaty. The inspection regime is two-pronged.
First, the treaty creates the concept of an object of verification. That means, a military unit or installation at which treaty-limited equipment is regularly present or normally held. They include, for example, regimental and other military headquarters and garrisons, air bases, storage sites, sites where destruction of equipment takes place under the protocol on reductions, and the like. Parties must declare where those are located and what equipment is held there, and must allow inspectors from other parties to visit the sites to check that the information given is correct. At those declared sites, no party is entitled to refuse inspection of objects of verification, except in certain very limited circumstances. In practice, in the United Kingdom, all objects of verification will be Government-owned or controlled.
§ Mr. George Robertson (Hamilton)What would happen if a treaty partner, the Soviet Union for example, designated an area of Cheltenham that includes GCHQ? Would there be a command inspection of the facilities there? Would that be possible for members of the Red army, before it was possible for Members of this House?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThe sort of equipment which comes under the treaty and which I have itemised would not be disclosed at a site of that kind. Of course, it would be open to a Warsaw pact country to carry out a demand inspection at sites in the United Kingdom, and I cannot prejudge what the Government's attitude to that would be. Clause 2(1) gives the Secretary of State discretion over issues of authorisation; it uses the word "may", not "shall", and those words are in the Bill because they form part of the treaty.
We can ensure that access can be given to all objects of verification in the United Kingdom within the time limits and under the conditions prescribed in the treaty, without the need for legislation. Allies with forces stationed in the United Kingdom also will be bound to accept inspections.
The second aspect of the verification regime is the so-called challenge inspection of specified areas. Those provisions mark a new, and very welcome, step in arms control verification. They are designed to give each party the right to inspect any place in another party's territory, whether Government-controlled or not, to ensure that the provisions of the treaty are not being avoided—for example, by the relocation of treaty-limited equipment away from military premises or by the failure to declare all objects of verification.
It is likely that challenge inspections will usually be made at military sites that are not declared sites—that is, those that do not have objects of verification present at them—such as other Government-controlled sites or large industrial warehouses, owned or controlled perhaps by major defence contractors. But the treaty gives inspectors the right to inspect any building or site within the United Kingdom capable of holding treaty-limited equipment, or to demand access to any area to check for the presence of treaty-limited equipment, subject again to certain rights of refusal.
In summary, the essential elements of the challenge inspection regime are: the Government must be able to 874 secure access to any premises or sites within specified areas chosen by the inspecting country; and in practice, under the time limits agreed in the treaty, there will be no time to allow the owner or occupier of premises to argue before a court that his premises should not be inspected.
The Bill is needed to give effect to the United Kingdom's obligations under the CFE treaty in respect of verification teams on our territory. Without it, we should not be able to ratify the treaty, which we hope to do in the autumn.
§ Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)I thank the Under-Secretary of State for his clear explanation of the elements of the Bill, which my right hon. and hon. Friends welcome both for itself and as a sign of progress across the whole spectrum of arms control.
A chapter in arms control ended with the signing on 19 November last year of the conventional forces in Europe treaty. It recognised the end of the cold war and marked a further step in the new east-west security relationship.
We recall that in 1975, when the Helsinki process was established, there existed the two blocs of the east and west, together with the intermediate group of neutral and non-aligned countries. A measure of the changes that have occurred since 1975 is the dissolution of the Warsaw treaty organisation and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary and Czechoslovakia and from Poland by the end of next year.
Only 10 years ago, President Brezhnev of the Soviet Union was able, in a quite different world, to boast to his 26th party congress:
In literally all fields, world socialism"—as he defined it—is advancing steadily.Today, we find ourselves in a different context. President Gorbachev will shortly seek financial assistance from the G7 countries, Mr. Yeltsin heads the Russian federation, the Baltic states seek their independence and the Warsaw treaty is no more.It is perhaps a paradox that treaties such as the CFE, which were deemed so necessary in the light of events when they were formulated, are today much less necessary. The rapidity of world change has overtaken the need for them. The world has moved on. Problems that once seemed insuperable, and which lay behind the CFE treaty, are the problems of yesteryear. Today we face new challenges in arms control—particularly that of proliferation, which has attained a new significance at a time when other challenges are being met.
The November 1990 CFE summit was a watershed. Subsequent events served to emphasise that there is no finality or ultimate haven in international affairs—only ports of call that offer a temporary respite before we set sail again.
Since last November, a range of new problems has arisen to pose new challenges in arms control. They include the Gulf war and its consequences—and in only the past few days, we have seen the difficulty of verification in Iraq, with that country's grudging admission that it has sought to develop a nuclear capacity.
The new Germany has come into being, there is an acceleration of the intergovernmental conferences that are to be held later this year, and a debate has begun on the 875 defence security component for the new Europe. We are witnessing also the resurgence of the old nationalisms in Yugoslavia.
There are encouraging signs in South Africa and China, but, alas, the nuclear facility in Algeria recently spotted by satellite suggests that there is a problem there. We face new hopes and new fears. Finally, within this catalogue of changes since November last year, there are the events in the middle east, the hopes that were raised after the Gulf war, and the dashing of those hopes despite the valiant efforts of Mr. Baker. The middle east remains a major threat to world peace.
As a counter to the argument that the debate has moved on, we can examine the difficulties arising from the details in the treaty since November last year—the manoeuvrings give some idea of the serious issues at stake—and the importance of carefully considering the wording of the schedule to the Bill. The House will be aware of the reasons for the delays since November last year. Differences of interpretation surfaced in two key sectors.
First, there was the Soviet resubordination of over 2,500 tanks, armoured combat vehicles and artillery, combined, to naval coastal defence units, so as to exclude the equipment from the treaty limitation obligations. Of those 2,500 items, 900 were tanks—some 75 per cent. of the tank force size in the British Army now, before the proposed cuts. That shows the strength of the Soviet army. Secondly, in the months preceding the treaty signature, the Soviets transferred 57,000 items from the area of application—the Atlantic—to the Urals, which was against the spirit, if not the letter of the November treaty.
It was encouraging that the USSR found no defenders of those actions among former Warsaw pact countries. After a US compromise proposal was tabled in April, the stalemate was broken and by the end of last month, the issues had finally been resolved, on the basis that the NATO countries would allow the USSR to keep those items assigned to coastal defence units provided that it destroyed an equivalent number of such items within the Atlantic to the Urals area. Furthermore, the USSR agreed to let western inspectors visit those coastal defence units, but the inspection regime will be less thorough than under the terms of the treaty. One understands that this was the result of efforts to achieve a compromise, but it is difficult to see why it should be so in principle. The USSR has agreed to destroy 14,500 of the 57,000 items that were moved east of the Urals.
As the Minister said, the wrangling over the CFE delayed moves to open negotiations on personnel a category ultimately excluded from the CFE to ensure that it was ready for signature at the November summit, which shows that summits impose their own timetables. The CFE-1A personnel negotiations will lead to problems—for example, the dilemma of how to negotiate when it can no longer be bloc to bloc, and how one defines symmetries and parities within the new context, given that some think that these concepts are redundant. It will help the House if the Minister says a little more about the prospects for CFE-IA and the inspection regime.
The first major test of new agreements reached last November has been posed by the internal problems in Yugoslavia. In terms of power bases, the European Community has played a far more significant role than the CSCE. That certainly shows present realities, although in future the CSCE will be able to play a stronger role.
876 Perhaps the Minister will say more about the strategic arms reduction talks. The United States slowed the pace on START while there were outstanding disputes about CFE. However, in the past month there has been substantial movement on START, which aims to scrap 40 to 50 per cent. of the United States and USSR strategic nuclear arsenals. The treaty will allow each of them 16,000 delivery systems and 6,000 warheads. In the past few days, the press has been full of the visit to Washington on Thursday and Friday of the Soviet Foreign Minister and his team of experts. It is assumed that progress at that meeting will be so rapid that it will pave the way for a super-power summit before the end of the month. On the basis of those press reports, is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office optimistic that the START negotiations will be concluded by the end of the month in time for the summit?
The CFE talks were also meant to trigger SNF negotiations. Some observers claim that full-blown negotiations are unlikely because the Soviet Union has withdrawn its SNF from the former German Democratic Republic and NATO has abandoned the search for a replacement for the Lance missile. All nuclear artillery is also to be phased out. There is an argument about whether SNF negotiations are relevant in this new context. NATO is to produce an SNF mandate by the autumn and it looks as though it wishes SNF negotiations to proceed. In the light of those fundamental changes, is there any reason for the SNF negotiations?
I shall not give a catalogue of other arms control negotiations that are under way on chemical weapons, testing, a partial test ban treaty and biological weapons. Suffice it to say that in the past major obstacles have been placed in the way of negotiations on all those matters. As a result of the co-operation between the super-powers, a new spirit now seems to be abroad, enabling us to look forward to significant progress in each of those areas.
The United States claims that a treaty is possible on chemical weapons by mid-1992, and wants the 39-nation UN disarmament conference to remain in permanent session until a treaty has been signed. One of the key sticking points has been United States and western objections to mandatory challenge inspections. Is the breakthrough in CFE on those inspections relevant to chemical weapons?
There has been rather less progress on the partial test ban treaty. The two super-powers as were have ratified protocols to the threshold test ban treaty and the peaceful nuclear explosions treaty which was signed in June last year. The biological and toxic weapons convention of 1972 was the first multilateral arms control treaty. The third review conference on that convention will be held in September and is likely to focus on ways to improve the convention. The biological weapons treaty has no verification provisions. Is the breakthrough on verification in CFE relevant to the biological weapons treaty?
As for arms control in the middle east and the disillusion after the high hopes at the end of the Gulf conflict, we welcome the proposals of President Bush, which he announced on 29 May, aimed at banning chemical and biological weapons, freezing and eventually scrapping the arsenals of ballistic missiles such as Scuds, banning nuclear weapons and ending Israel's production of nuclear material.
We very much favour the proposed United Nations register of arms sales, which should shame the sellers into 877 curbing their appetites for profit and the buyers into reducing their appetites for ever more sophisticated weapons. Perhaps the Minister will comment on arms control in the middle east, which is still the most volatile area of the world. It is the area that is most combustible and the one most likely to lead to armed conflagration.
It is clear that new ground has been broken for verification with the CFE treaty. It is based on the detailed exchange of military information between the parties and, as the Minister has properly underlined, provisions to carry out inspections. The key to the treaty is that it involves reciprocal obligations. Even though we in Britain may find some of the obligations onerous, it is necessary for us fully to comply to ensure that there is corresponding compliance by other treaty partners.
I ask the Minister some questions about the powers of CFE inspectors to have access to premises. Have the Government given any thought to the provision of compensation to private companies that may find that their production process, for example, has been halted as a result of an inspection under the terms of the treaty, and may suffer damage as a result? Is there provision for compensation, financial or otherwise? If there is, what are 878 the Government proposing to do? It is clear that there can be inspections of Government premises and of industry with substantial Government involvement. What guarantees can there be that the provisions of the treaty will not be used for other than military purposes, such as industrial espionage? Are there sufficient guarantees within the terms of the treaty to prevent facilities from being thus misused?
The Opposition accept that the overall scope of the Bill is limited to what is absolutely necessary to comply with the treaty obligations that were entered into in the Paris summit of the conference on security and co-operation in Europe in November 1990. We recognise, too, that the implementation of that agreement of last November is potentially of great benefit to European security. We recognise further than the challenge procedures under the terms of the treaty are important in themselves in creating a climate of confidence and are a possible precedent in other areas. As I have said, the challenge inspections which could be implemented for the first time under the treaty, could feed into the chemical weapons treaty. They are therefore a considerable bonus. They could also be relevant in terms of biological weapons.
We are convinced, having read the treaty, that confidence breeds confidence. We look forward to increasing and positive movement across the spectrum of arms control in the months and years ahead.
§ 11.4 pm
§ Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South)My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) referred to the Paris summit last autumn. It was probably the height of expectation not only of the arms control process succeeding at long last, but of peace breaking out and a new world order probably being established.
The enthusiasm was somewhat tempered by a number of factors, not the least being the allegations against the Soviet Union of cheating. Between 1989 and 1990 the Soviet Union managed, Paul Daniels style, to lose 77,910 items that hitherto it had declared. That somewhat took the gloss off the existing situation. It meant that the strategic arms reduction treaty would not be signed. Mercifully, the log jam has been broken and trust is being re-established. The bilateral agreement between the Soviet Union and the United States has generally resolved the dispute about whether the Soviet Union was cheating, to the satisfaction of all sides. However, arms control is now seriously back on the agenda. We could never have allowed it simply to wither away.
An important element in arms control is verification and inspection. Indeed, that is a critical and highly controversial element of arms control. Arms control requires trust, particularly between countries that for a generation, and even longer if one wishes to be more historical, have been in a state of semi-war. That trust takes time to establish. It would be naive to assume that one simply accepts in good faith what the other alliance says it will do in a treaty. The lesson of the allegations of Soviet cheating surely confirm that view. It would be equally naive to assume, however effective verification and inspection are, that they are anything more than a panacea, and that somehow establishing a decent inspection regime will remove anxieties and the threats to one's security and the security of one's alliance.
Verification and inspection are important, but they must be seen as a supplement to other approaches to arms control and disarmament. There will still be an important role for satellite reconnaissance and what is euphemistically called national technical means. It is important to have regular and consistent exchanges of data and a much greater transparency of armed forces and society than exists now.
§ Sir Dudley Smith (Warwick and Leamington)Like me, the hon. Gentleman was a member of a European organisation very much involved in defence, and he will know just how sophisticated satellite reconnaissance is compared with what it was five or 10 years ago. Is he aware that considerable progress is now being made in data gathering via satellites, through the Western European Union and probably also through the hon. Gentleman's North Atlantic organisation, which considerably supports what he, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) have been saying, and that that is to be welcomed?
§ Mr. GeorgeI am grateful for that intervention. Satellite reconnaissance is important. However, one of the lessons of the Gulf war is that satellite reconnaissance on its own, however sophisticated, is simply inadequate. Anyone who has observed pictures taken by satellite will have seen that they are not sufficient. One knows now the difficulties that the allies had in detecting the extent to which Iraq had succeeded in developing nuclear weapons. 880 Despite all the superior satellite reconnaissance we still appear to have been left very much in the dark about the extent of the Iraqi capability, which is now becoming clear, not so much as a result of satellite reconnaissance as of Iraq's fear that it might be bombed again.
Although there are apparently simple solutions to the problems of inspection and verification, a wide spectrum is appearing. One example is the "open skies" arrangement, and I hope that a treaty will emerge soon.
It is important to have adequate confidence and security building measures, which have long been seen as the poor relation of the arms control process. It is also important to make the observation of military exercises more sophisticated, to establish more conflict prevention centres and, no doubt, to use traditional means—another euphemism, denoting covert activities and spying. Let no one imagine that the KGB, or even its western equivalents, face immediate unemployment.
Let me concentrate for a while on one of that range of methods: inspection. Under the conventional forces in Europe treaty, there are four types of inspection: inspections of declared sites, challenge inspections within specified zones, inspections to witness reductions and inspections to witness what is described as certification. There is no right of refusal for inspections of declared sites, or for certification or reduction inspections. The number of inspections that can be carried out is clearly defined in the CFE treaty and includes challenge inspections, which are our principal concern this evening. Under the treaty, a joint consultative group will be set up to address compliance or circumvention and to resolve ambiguities or differences of interpretation.
We are gaining considerable experience. On-site inspection, and inspection generally, has become a routine part of the arms control process. Following the conference on disarmament in Europe and, in particular, the intermediate nuclear forces treaty, inspection has become institutionalised. On-site inspection is a vital component of the verification of agreements. Shortly, following the CPE treaty, we shall see the introduction of more inspections. In the event of treaties on chemical weapons and strategic arms reduction, there will probably be almost as many people running around each other's countries inspecting as were defending them hitherto.
I do not mean to deprecate the achievements of arms control so far, but there are problems. The process is expensive for both the country that is inspecting and the country that is being inspected; it is costly in terms of both manpower and opportunity costs. To shepherd teams of inspectors, which in turn can split up into sub-groups, requires an enormous amount of organisation. It requires the deployment of people who are skilled in the task of inspection and receiving inspections. It can also be very disruptive; not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East said, to the company that might be inspected—I suspect that that will not happen, bearing in mind what the Minister said—but to military establishments that will be inspected principally by the Soviet Union.
I suspect, however, that the task facing the Soviet Union will be infinitely more complicated and expensive. The Soviets are likely to be inspected by a range of alliance countries but, because of the disintegration of their alliance, they will have only their own means to inspect other countries—including, I suspect, countries that were formerly members of the alliance that they led.
881 The task of verification and inspection will be difficult in the case of chemical weapons. In order to implement and monitor the intermediate nuclear forces treaty, an on-site inspection agency was established in the United States which had infrastructure establishments that crossed 19 time zones. The CFE treaty is more restricted geographically, but the task will be more complicated than that under the INF treaty because of the larger number of sites where treaty-limited items will be stored.
Inspection must operate according to certain legal principles and a number of goals must be set. One of those must be to provide greater warning time for each alliance. However, one suspects that should any country contemplate aggression it would hardly be likely to take inspectors to sites where those acts of aggression were about to be perpetrated. I do not believe that we should assume that inspection and verification will lead to greater security through their ability to provide a sudden warning of attack. However, inspection is likely to contribute to a greater deterrent effect and confidence building, which are more important than an increased warning time.
The inspection teams must follow certain rules. Those inspections must be sufficiently intrusive to give a reasonable assurance to the inspecting country that cheating is likely to be revealed. More important, that inspection must be sufficiently intrusive to encourage the countries inspected to understand that if they try to pull a fast one, it will be revealed with potentially disasterous consequences. Short-notice inspections are an important means of discouraging cheating.
All inspections must be sufficiently comprehensive, although I accept that they can never take all the sites within their purview. However, it is possible statistically to determine a limited number of inspections, which should be adequate.
It is important to obtain adequate information. The base line data must be extensive and agreed beforehand. Notwithstanding Soviet attempts to evade the CFE treaty, which they were obliged to go back on, many have reached the conclusion that the Soviets have largely complied with their obligations under the INF treaty. They have permitted many of the required inspections.
We must not heap all our hopes of eradicating the Soviet threat on the inspections; the Soviets would be unwise to take a similar view. On-site inspections and inspections in general are merely two of a number of tools that must be used; they are not a panacea. This Bill will be replicated in one form or another by many countries in NATO and the former Warsaw pact. Once the legislation is implemented and the inspectors get to work, that will contribute significantly to a reduction in tensions. Therefore, the Bill must be welcomed by all hon. Members.
§ Mr. Menzies Campbell (Fife, North-East)I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not seek to emulate the tour d'horizon of the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) or the more technical exposition of the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), who speaks with much authority on these matters based on his long interest in them and on his long membership of the North Atlantic Assembly.
882 It is appropriate that we should be debating the Second Reading of the Bill on the occasion of the publication of the White Paper on defence for 1991. The White Paper's central thesis is that the reduction in tension between east and west has reached the stage where it can be asserted with some confidence that we have achieved the end of the cold war. The formal dissolution of the Warsaw pact in the past 10 days serves only to underline the accuracy of that assertion.
I have always believed that arms control and disarmament were most likely to be achieved by the hard bargaining that formed part of treaty negotiation, and that mutual reduction, enforced by treaty, was much more likely to be effective than anything unilateral.
Where I part company to some extent with the hon. Member for Swansea, East is on his suggestion that perhaps the conventional forces in Europe treaty had been superseded by the speedy passage of events since it was first promulgated. It cannot be regarded as something that is now part of history, the necessity for which can no longer be justified. I firmly believe that progress on the strategic arms treaty would not have been achieved but for the conventional forces in Europe treaty. I see the latter, essentially, as the key by which the door to the former can be opened. It is notable that, since the CFE treaty has been recognised and the difficulties eliminated, progress on the strategic arms reduction treaty has been notable—one might almost say breakneck.
These matters are never easy, as we know from the difficulties created by the Soviet Union's attempt to assign certain divisions from the army to the navy. It is wrong to assume that, because the Soviet Union has embarked on a different path from the one that it has followed for 40 years, everything will be sweetness and light, that negotiation will not need to be hard and sometimes abrasive and that verification will not have to be rigorous.
It must also be noted that the treaty that we are discussing creates rights in our favour and, as has been acknowledged, parallel obligations. In discharging those obligations, the United Kingdom and its citizens may be put to inconvenience or indeed to embarrassment. The success of the attempt to limit conventional forces in Europe depends of the mutual obligations in the treaty.
We are entitled to feel some sense of achievement about a treaty that controls conventional forces in Europe, but we cannot allow this occasion to pass without recognising that, as tension in east-west relations appears to have abated, the possibilities for conflict elsewhere in the world appear to have become much more likely. That should cause us soberly to reflect on the fact that, although there may be more comfort among European countries, elsewhere in the world there are still many opportunities for conflict, which are unpredictable and may arise at any time.
We should be grateful for what this treaty achieves, but recognise that it does not provide anything approaching a universal bulwark against conflict or difficulty elsewhere in the world. I hope that the Bill will receive a unanimous Second Reading.
§ Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West)I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) that the Bill, important and welcome as it is, is part of our attempt to seal the armistice in the cold war that has 883 divided the world so destructively since 1945, and is off focus from the point of view of the real dangers that will confront us in the coming decade.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) referred to confidence breeding confidence. We also know that suspicion deepens suspicion. The true lessons of the Gulf war are yet to be learned. While I happily supported the official Opposition policy throughout that war, we should not be blinded by events to the horrors of that campaign.
It is perhaps a surprise to realise that only 7.4 per cent. of the weapons used were precision weapons and that the great majority missed their targets. It took 27 attempts to hit each bridge in the Gulf war. The remainder were weapons of mass destruction.
The Bill is based on conventional weapons. Unfortunately, the division that we have understood to exist between conventional weapons and chemical, biological and nuclear weapons is no longer clear-cut. The weapons that did maximum damage in the Gulf war had the effect of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. They were the multiple-launch rocket systems, fuel air explosive weapons, cluster bombs and daisy cutters. Their effect was devastation over a huge area. On 30 January, 28 B52 bombers were in the air—
§ Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd)Order. Will the hon. Member refer me to the clause to which he is speaking?
§ Mr. FlynnI am speaking to clause 2, Madam Deputy Speaker. This being a Second Reading debate, I was going somewhat wide of the clause.
§ Madam Deputy SpeakerEnormously wide. I hope that the hon. Member will address his remarks to the clause.
§ Mr. FlynnThe Bill is all about transparency. The Prime Minister said that the challenge inspections that will take place here are welcome. But they will produce some bizarre situations, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East said, and he referred to the possibility of Mr. Gorbachev asking for inspection of GCHQ. Other such situations could arise. For example, a challenge inspection might be required of Aberporth, a rocket-firing station in west Wales. The Soviet Union could legitimately ask for such an inspection. The facilities there were used recently by General Pinochet, who is still head of the armed forces in his country. Presumably we would allow inspection to take place under clause 2.
But from the point of view of hon. Members, what happens at Aberporth is a secret. Indeed, I received a communication from the Defence Research Agency yesterday saying that it is secret. In other words, welcome agreements—attempts at transparency—are being made throughout Europe, but we in Parliament are not allowed to know matters that can be discovered easily by groups against whom we were ranged for the best part of half a century.
We advance with this important measure from arms control and disarmament, very much on lines agreed at the European summit in Luxembourg. I urge hon. Members not to study the conclusions of the presidency's consultative document, but to direct their attention to annex 7 which deals with the extreme dangers of the over-armament of the world. We may settle the position in Europe and the cold war will end—it is no longer the real 884 threat; the great threat is in the rest of the world, where arms bazaars are selling hideous weapons of mass destruction to any country that can afford to buy them. That will lead to the end of peace in many corners of the world and so threaten a world war. It will lead to instability in huge areas and to the impoverishment of many third-world countries.
The Bill is one building block in the construction of the new world order. We need many more.
§ Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton)I shall speak more briefly to this Bill than I did to the previous one, no doubt to the House's delight.
Arms control and disarmament have been off the agenda for far too long, so I welcome the Bill or any measures which put them back on the agenda. They have not been on the agenda because of the Soviet Union's continuing problems with its different populations and because of the involvement of the United States in the Gulf war, but they must again be brought to the forefront of world interests.
The Soviet Union and the western alliance—especially the United States and this country—are still going broke because of their overwhelming commitment to armaments. Of course, the Soviet Union is going broke more quickly, but that also has serious and unpredictable consequences for us. The military could easily take over if we do not reach the agreements outlined in the Bill.
The economies of the west are struggling with recession and debt because they have not agreed on the much-needed disarmament, and also because of their competition against those without such a heavy burden of commitments, especially Japan and Germany. There is an element of immortality involved, because we are wasting money on yet more weapons when that money should be used to deal with the dreadful problems of the third world.
That is a summary of what I want to say about the Bill, but I have some specific questions. The Bill enables inspections to be made in the United Kingdom under the conventional forces in Europe treaty, but that treaty has not yet been ratified by the United Kingdom. Why not? When will we ratify it, and what is the hold-up?
What about the short-range nuclear forces? When will negotiations begin on them? In 1989 NATO promised that they would start as soon as the CFE treaty had been concluded. Can we have some information about when negotiations will start?
When will the Government participate directly in more arms control measures? Only two weeks ago, in answer to a written question, the Prime Minister said that the United Kingdom would not enter the strategic arms reduction talks until significant cuts had been made in United States and Soviet nuclear arsenals and only
if there had been no significant improvements in defensive capabilities".—[Official Report, 27 June 1991; Vol. 193, c. 512.]Perhaps the Minister will explain what the Prime Minister meant. Was he alleging that the Soviet Union is breaching the anti-ballistic missile treaty? If so, he should say that overtly instead of casting aspersions and dropping hints which merely damage the arms control process. He should produce evidence. If he cannot do so now, perhaps he will in Committee.In a written answer, a Foreign Office Minister said that Britain could not sign the anti-ballistic missile treaty 885 because it was a bilateral agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. That is a pathetic argument, and for too long it has been used as an excuse for Britain not taking part. I am sure that, if the British Government were willing, the Soviet Union and the United States would be prepared to adapt the treaty to make it multilateral and to include a proper verification regime.
I wish to ask the Minister about a technical matter. What happens if wrong information is given to inspectors? Clause 3(1)(b) rightly makes it an offence wilfully to obstruct any member of the inspection team, but it should also be an offence wilfully to mislead or wilfully to attempt to provide false information to the team. The offence of wilfully misleading would, of course, extend to Governments.
What will the Government do to prevent people from misleading the inspection team? Are they prepared to make it an offence wilfully to mislead? Is the Minister confident that any attempt to mislead will be spotted by the inspectors? If so, he is admitting that inspections work and that we should have more of them and more arms control. If he says that inspections do not work, that emphasises the importance of making it an offence wilfully to mislead the inspection team.
Britain and 139 other states have signed the non-proliferation treaty. It should be given more importance. Although many countries do not have nuclear weapons, they are close to having that capability. What will the Minister do to strengthen the treaty? The British Trident system could be seen as violating it, because it offers evidence that Britain is not undertaking to pursue negotiations in good faith or effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race, as the NPT demands. Trident is dangerously close to violating the NPT. If Britain is not doing its duty, that gives other nations an excuse not to abide by it.
There is a link between testing and the NPT. The final review conference is to take place in 1995, and there is a danger that it will founder if there is no significant ban on nuclear testing. The Government have set their sights firmly against that and have blocked it on every occasion. I hope that they will change their mind.
In 1987, France set up the missile technology control regime. What effort are the Government making to ensure that missile proliferation is controlled?
As for the strategic arms reduction talks—[Interruption.] These are the most important issues facing the world at present and they should be at the top of the agenda. They are worth airing so that we can try to make some progress in arms control and disarmament. The Guardian yesterday said that the four disputes holding up the START agreement were
an agreed procedure to inspect missile factories, ways to distinguish new and modified variants of strategic missiles from older models, a formula to reduce the number of warheads on missiles not being dismantled, and an agreed way to encrypt data from test missiles so that both sides can decode it.Will the Minister throw some light on the extent to which those are holding up the START agreements? As the article said,even after the treaty is complete, each side will be able to deploy 9,000 strategic nuclear warheads, which some analysts believe is more than either side had when the talks began.886 It would be a disappointing outcome for a major treaty if both sides end up with more missiles than they had at the start of the negotiations.The Government must put their will behind the Bill so that the conference on security and co-operation in Europe can tackle arms proliferation and the worldwide arms trade. We must have some answers from the Minister to show that the Government have the will to back proper measures for arms control and disarmament.
§ Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South)I welcome this important Bill, and I have listened carefully to the Minister's opening remarks. We are fortunate that Parliament has a number of hours in which to examine the issue at our leisure, rather than having the debate curtailed at tea-time to allow hon. Members to go home for a cup of tea and a slice of toast, as proposed in a subsequent motion.
In his opening motion, the Minister kept referring to the Warsaw pact countries, but the Warsaw pact has been disssolved.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydI said "former" Warsaw pact countries.
§ Mr. CryerThe Minister now says "former Warsaw pact countries", but he did not say that during his speech. I point that out as an indication of the Minister's cold war thinking. I hope that the Bill is a new step toward better relations in Europe—by which I do not mean the Common Market but the whole continent of Europe, east and west. I hope that, when he winds up, the Minister will assure us that the Government are not wedded to the idea of the cold war but welcome its dissipation and that they want NATO to be wound up. The cause of tension between east and west could then be brought to an end.
The Bill deals with conventional weapons and is important because many nations in Europe are armed to the teeth and could inflict great damage with conventional weapons. It is also important that we should be able to control conventional weapons so that conflict can never take place, because conflict with conventional weapons is probably a prerequisite for the onslaught of a nuclear exchange, so the two are interlinked. NATO's flexible response policy can roughly be summed up by saying that if they come at us with tanks—it had the Soviet Union in mind—we shall reply with conventional weapons. If they come at us with nuclear weapons, or carry on with conventional weapons and we cannot beat them, we reserve the right to blow up the world by using nuclear weapons. Therefore, the two are closely linked.
I hope that the Government carry out the terms of the legislation, because I am concerned that a number of nations are looking at the Government extremely cynically. They say that, although the Government have signed the United Nations nuclear non-proliferation treaty, they are not honouring it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) said, clause 6 commits us to getting rid of nuclear weapons, but we have not done so since the formation of the treaty. The vast majority that signed that treaty are non-nuclear nations, and have told nuclear nations at several review conferences that they are committed not to manufacture or deploy nuclear weapons. However, the nuclear powers continue to increase the numbers of their nuclear weapons. Exceptions to that are 887 the United States and the Soviet Union, which, through the intermediate nuclear forces treaty, are also nuclear power signatories.
The important nuclear power signatory to the non-proliferation treaty is the United Kingdom. The adoption of Trident nuclear weapons is in breach of the non-proliferation treaty. All the non-nuclear signatories to that treaty have said that they are concerned. A joint statement was not possible at the last review conference because of disagreements over the position of the nuclear signatories to the treaty.
Some of the non-nuclear nations may look at this important legislation, based on the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe, and ask whether the United Kingdom seriously commits itself to a permanent reduction in armed forces and whether it will honour the treaty that it signed, in view of the Government's failure to honour the non-proliferation treaty.
That is not the Government's view. For some extraordinary reason, they believe that getting more nuclear weapons that are more powerful than this country has ever had—
§ Madam Deputy SpeakerOrder. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware, as I am, that the Bill deals with conventional weapons. I am sure that he is coming to that point.
§ Mr. CryerAt the beginning of my remarks, I mentioned that there is no question in most strategists' minds but that a nuclear conflict will begin with an exchange of conventional weapons. The point that I am making is that, when nations enter into treaties, their conduct in carrying out those obligations qualifies the attitude of nations towards the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe, which the Bill is designed to implement.
Through their handling of the passage of the legislation, and by honouring that important treaty, I want the Government to show that they will carry out its terms. Although I know that the Bill deals with only conventional weapons, there are too many of those and they should be reduced. It seeks to do so by providing the facilities to carry out that treaty, which is important. Failure to implement the United Nations non-proliferation treaty may reveal to other nations the serious nature of this Government's attitude towards the Bill.
Arms control and disarmament, and the inspection of those facilities, are important. We had a recent example in Iraq involving not conventional weapons, but nuclear materials. We are all concerned that no powers should develop nuclear weapons. Inspection is vital to ensure that nations do not exceed their agreed limits on arms of all types, and to see that they move towards reducing their numbers.
Although the treaty is not before us, the Minister said that it lists a certain number of weapons, and that a challenge inspection can be requested by another party to the treaty on sites where those weapons are kept. My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) asked the Minister whether he would have to allow an inspection of GCHQ if requested to do so. The Minister shuffled his papers for rather a long time and then said that clause 2 states that the Secretary of State "may" issue an authorisation in respect of such an inspection. Does the treaty actually oblige the Secretary of State to issue an 888 authorisation? In relation to the treaty, does "may" really mean that it is expected and understood that such authorisation will be given?
I am sure that the Minister would not refuse a challenge. The Government want to co-operate with the terms of the treaty to the best of their ability—which brings me to Menwith Hill. It is a communications centre, with a direct link to British civilian communications at Waterstones Tower two or three miles away. About 800 people work at Menwith Hill, even though the site has never been authorised by Parliament—I wish that it had been. The site has been associated with information about the sort of conventional weapons that the Minister says are linked with the legislation through the treaty.
I have no doubt that information about the movement of troops and weaponry and about the storage and disposition of tanks will be recorded—amidst all the other chatter of communications—and analysed at Menwith Hill, where a great many Americans from the National Security Council are employed without the approval of Parliament. In any event, will it be open to a challenging party to demand to see Menwith Hill and what it does, so as to be satisfied that the communications system there is not being used to move various items subject to the treaty from one place to another?
Some signatories to the treaty may become suspicious. Many years ago, the Public Accounts Committee discovered that a base in Cyprus had seemed to have full petrol tanks only because the one that was inspected had been filled from several others, which had been drained. An ingenious system of piping devised by entrepreneurs in the armed forces that linked all the tanks ensured that only one of them needed to be kept full, so that the contents of the others could be sold off.
It is possible that a challenge inspector would say, "You claim that you have 50 tanks at Aldershot barracks, but we believe that the communications system could be used to move some of them for the purposes of an inspection, because you"—that is, the British Government—"want to conceal an increase in your conventional weapons." We might hold the same suspicion about another Government, but we would have the right to issue a similar challenge. There must be some reciprocity.
Will it be within the purview of the challenging parties to enter a secret, hidden base, not authorised by the House—such as that at Menwith hill? If so, I welcome the Bill. The sooner we rid ourselves of the cloak of secrecy that surrounds some aspects of our armed forces—such as the operation at Menwith hill and GCHQ, which is linked to it—the better we will be able to look Iraq, Iran, or any other country in the face and say, "We behave with absolute honesty. We expect you to do likewise. If there has been any chicanery or covering up of information, we expect you to reveal it, because we do likewise under the treaties that we sign."
No lower standard of honesty should be expected, but it is a matter of concern to me, and to many others, that the Government's standards are not—alack, alas—of the highest.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThe Bill has been welcomed by hon. Members in all parts of the House, understandably, because the issue is one of great concern. The debate has at times ranged wide of the Bill, but I hope that my general 889 comments will touch on most of the matters that hon. Members have raised. If I fail to give a satisfactory response in all cases, I will write to the hon. Members concerned with further clarification and details.
The hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) raised a number of questions that went wide of the debate. I will deal first with international considerations, and then with arms limitation in the European context. We welcome the prospect of a START agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. Work is continuing in the alliance to prepare for short-range nuclear forces negotiations.
I remind the House of the proposal by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, on which work continues, for a United Nations arms register. Conventional weapons transfers are a priority and must be carefully considered. We hope for early progress also towards a chemical weapons convention. Discussions among our allies continue, and in those we share the conviction that such a convention must include an effective verification regime.
Within Europe, we are pressing on with conventional arms control. Reference was made to the CFE follow-on negotiations in Vienna, specifically in connection with military manpower in Europe, in which agreement will be reached on national, not bloc-to-bloc limits, as was the case with the CFE treaty. The NATO is preparing a position for consultation among 35 CSCE countries this autumn in Vienna, to prepare for the new process of dialogue and negotiation to begin in mid-1992.
The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) mentioned open skies, and NATO recently made proposals for the relaunch of this. We await the Soviet response. It is obviously immensely important in the context of the equipment that was withdrawn east of the Urals. I endorse the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the importance of inspection in arms control verifications.
Hon. Members, and in particular the hon. Member for Swansea, East, have asked about compensation. We have to put this point in context. We already have inspections in the public sector interest, for example, for safety at work and for public health. Inevitably, in a complex world, such public inspections are increasing. No compensation is paid for such inspections and a provision for compensation in this process would set an unfortunate precedent. We do not expect that the burden of the inspection regime to be particularly great. Under the rather complex provisions by which we calculate the number of challenges and inspections that can take place, we anticipate that there will be about 10 challenge inspections in the United Kingdom and our European territories each year, and that each one should be no more than 48 hours long.
The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) asked about requests for inspections. The treaty makes provision for us to protect information in the interests of national security. That also answers a point made by the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer). The inspection will be of bulky equipment—tanks, armoured carriers, artillery, combat aircraft and helicopters. We are entitled to shroud that equipment so as to deny access to certain sensitive points. The only question that is pursued is the existence of equipment, not the detailed nature of it, which can be disguised by shrouding. It will be up to companies to make adequate arrangements to protect commercially 890 sensitive information. It is important to keep in mind that the verification regime is concerned only about the presence of equipment of the types limited by the treaty.
The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) raised another point. As I said, the CFE treaty is about equipment of certain types, and all the information that has been given to other parties has been made available to the House.
I sense that the wish of the House is to move on to other matters, so I invite hon. Members to give the Bill a Second Reading.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Bill accordingly read a Second time.
§ Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Boswell.]
§ Bill immediately considered in Committee.
§ Clause I agreed to.