§ 3.10 p.m.
§ LORD ROWLEYMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy with regard to the nine-point disarmament memorandum recently received from the Soviet Government.]
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD CHALFONT)My Lords, we are carefully studying this memorandum, which sets out the Soviet Government's views on the measures that should be agreed following the conclusion of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Her Majesty's Government's own views on future arms control and disarmament objectives were explained by my right honourable friend the Minister of State with special responsibility for disarmament matters in another place on June 19. We regard the Non-Proliferation Treaty as the first essential step in achieving the end of the nuclear arms race, and progress towards general and complete disarmament. We shall press at the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee for urgent work to be done, both on further measures in the nuclear field to follow up the Treaty and also on conventional disarmament problems.
§ LORD ROWLEYMy Lords, in view of the unlikelihood of arriving at agreement on the nine points in Mr. Kosygin's memorandum, is it the intention of Her Majesty's Government to seek to achieve partial measures of disarmament, such as the freezing of the production of nuclear weapons and the reduction of nuclear stockpiles, the banning of underground tests and the total abolition of the use and production of chemical and bacteriological weapons?
§ LORD CHALFONTMy Lords, my noble friend has raised four specific points and one general one. So far as the general point is concerned, I would say that we are interested in moving towards general and complete disarmament by stages—that is, by the practical stages of achieving measures of arms control which appear to be practicable at the time.
466 So far as the specific points hat he has raised are concerned, the reduction of stockpiles of nuclear weapons is, as my noble friend will know, an existing American proposal as well as appearing in a slightly different form in the nine points of the Soviet Government's proposals, and we welcome the interest which the Soviet Government have shown in making progress in this respect. We hope that we shall be able to make such progress.
On the questiton of the limitation and reduction of strategic nuclear delivery systems—the "freeze", as I think he called it—this, of course, is again a pi oposal made, I think two or three years ago, by President Johnson, and the fact that the Soviet Union now seems to be interested in this as well leads us to hope that we will make progress in that field, too. On the question of a comprehensive test ban, I think my noble friend is aware of our views on that. We regard it as a very important objective of our policy. He will know that the main difficulty here is the question of international inspection, and I hope that we shall be able to resolve that difficulty in the course of the forthcoming Geneva talks.
Finally, on the question of chemical and bacteriological weapons, it is indeed our hope that the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee will consider, among other urgent matters, what can be done in regard to chemical and biological weapons. I think what we really need to do is to bring up to date and strengthen the existing Geneva protocol.