HL Deb 19 June 1968 vol 293 cc831-42

9.43 p.m.

LORD BROCKWAY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they have reconsidered the Department under which the Porton chemical and biological research centre functions, the de-classification of its research and the provision of the results of that research to other Governments.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, Members of this House will be relieved to hear that I have torn up the notes which I had prepared for my speech this evening. I have done so partly out of consideration of the long hours which your Lordships have been engaged here, partly on behalf of the staff who have had to remain during those long hours, but, still more, because I think it is inappropriate that the very important subject which I am raising tonight should be dealt with in a small House at a late hour. Perhaps, in response to my attitude in this matter, it may be possible for the three Front Benches to consider whether at an early date we ought not to have a debate on a subject than which there is none more important in the whole world today.

I cannot help remembering a conversation which I had with someone whom I was very privileged to call a friend, George Bernard Shaw, many years ago. We were going across the fields near Ayot St. Lawrence, towards the church, when he stopped, waved his stick and said: "I don't know why our war scientists have not more sense. They are now creating weapons which not only destroy human lives but destroy cities and industrial structures, when, if only they found a method by which to make toxic gases which could destroy the whole population and leave the industrial structures and the cities, they would be able to occupy them without the great task of reconstruction." I am not sure how many years ago that was, but we have now reached a stage in preparations for war where that idea of Mr. Bernard Shaw could be carried out.

My Lords, the Question which I have on the Order Paper is directed to the Porton Chemical and Research Labor- atory, but in addition to Porton there is Nancekuke, in Cornwall. I want to say at once that I recognise that the main purpose of those research laboratories is defence, but, quite clearly, if methods of defence are to be effective they must be tested on offensive weapons; and thus it is that at Porton and at Nancekuke offensive weapons are produced.

At the present moment, so far as we are able to have knowledge, these weapons are in three forms. The first is the gas known as C.S. This gas is supposed to be only a riot control agent, and not to be fatal. It has been produced at Nancekuke in large quantities, and it has been exported to other countries. It has been exported to the United States of America and, I think, to France, and the United States of America is now using it in Vietnam. I would only say to the members of our Government that while repeatedly it is declared that this is not a fatal gas there is a good deal of evidence that in practice, in Vietnam, it has been fatal and death-dealing in its results—particularly among the aged, the children and the sick.

My Lords, the other great agents of export are the V-agent gases. These are a discovery by British chemists, including those who are at Porton. No-one has suggested that they are not fatal and death-dealing; they are the most destructive and fatal of all the gases which have been produced since the Second World War. They are being produced from research in our laboratories. That information is being sent to America, and as a result America is stockpiling these offensive weapons. We are responsible for providing the knowledge by which they can do it.

My Lords, the third offensive weapon that we are producing is the design for the aerosol operations. These operations are for the purpose of distributing not chemical agents but biological agents. The research into these methods of warfare has now proceeded to the point where diseases can be spread which will decimate whole populations. There is one agent called botulinus toxin. Half-an-ounce of this is estimated to be able to kill 20 million people—and the spreading of disease by this weapon would be by the aerosol operation. I am going to ask definitely whether that has been designed at Porton and whether the design has been forwarded to the Government of the U.S.A. This is of tremendous importance because the Government of the U.S.A. declined to sign the 1925 Geneva Protocol which prohibits the use of these chemicals and biological elements and particularly of gas. I say at once that I do not know how anyone in this country can morally justify their production in our laboratories from research work on the potentials of offensive weapons and, subsequently, their supply to a Government which has not signed the Geneva Protocol and which is stockpiling them as offensive weapons.

In saying this, I want to recognise that Porton does valuable work in research, both for industry and for agriculture. I recognise also that at Porton there is research and production for the Armed Services of such defensive weapons as masks against gas and chemical attacks. What I regret is that when this work is so largely defensive it should be secret, that it is classified. Secrecy itself is a war danger. It creates suspicion; it creates tension in the international sphere, with Governments wondering what other Governments have done, what advances have been made. From that point of view it would be good if we declassified what is being carried on at Porton. When at least 75 per cent. of that activity at Porton and Nancekuke is for defence, surely it would be much better that these suspicions should be removed and that classification should end.

I give the example of Sweden. The other day I got into trouble in this House for saying that I regarded Sweden as the most civilised country in the world. Certainly in the sense of chemical and biological warfare it is. Everything is known and open, and because of this there are no suspicions. Indeed, Sweden has been able to go very far in regard to defensive weapons. This week, or perhaps at the end of last week, it was announced that there is to be an open day at Porton. I wonder how much visitors will be allowed to see on that open day. I wonder whether they will be allowed to see the portions of Porton which are secret and classified.

I want to say how much I welcome the fact that Her Majesty's Government have indicated that they are going to reopen this issue on an international scale and make it part of disarmament proposals. May I say, with all sincerity, that I think the best thing the Government could do in the international sphere would be to use what influence they have with America to get her to sign the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which so far she has declined to sign, and perhaps to say to America, "The results of our research will not be open to you unless you sign this Protocol which has been accepted by practically ever) other Government in the world". I want to urge on the Government that they should now transfer Porton and Nancekuke from the Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Health and the Medical Research Department, in view of the fact that the greater part of its work is not done for offensive or war reasons.

My Lords, I have tried to speak briefly, and I hope that I have put the case. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will reconsider their present decisions in this matter and so restore some confidence and some hope that these appalling developments in science for war purposes may be used instead for constructive and civilised purposes.

9.58 p.m.

LORD TAYLOR OF GRYFE

My Lords, I am pleased even at this late hour to be associated with the plea of my noble friend Lord Brockway in what is a very important matter by any standards. Like many Members of your Lordships' House, I saw the television programme the other night on the subject of biological warfare. When the programme ceased I felt quite impotent to do anything about it, quite powerless; and so I am glad to have this opportunity of at least expressing a view on the matter and associating myself with the plea that Porton Down and the associated establishment should be transferred to the Ministry of Health, if the purpose of these establishments is purely defensive and productive.

If it is right that the purpose of the establishments is to provide vaccines and to devise measures to protect the country against man-made epidemics, I suggest that the proper Ministry is the Ministry of Health, because it is within that Ministry that we take the necessary steps and undertake the necessary work to protect people against influenza and other epidemics. But I am very conscious of the fact that the main transference of responsibility to the Ministry of Health would be a very small gesture. However, it would at least be a gesture supporting the belief that the work is purely defensive.

The more we look at this problem the less convinced we become that defensive and offensive can be separated. My noble friend Lord Brockway mentioned the case of the nerve gases, now known in the United States as V-agents. He said that the discovery of these gases was the discovery of British scientists but that they were leased to the United States and are now being developed there, with the results that my noble friend outlined. I am afraid that once we become associated with the whole circle of micro-biological warfare we are caught up in the network of alliances in which offensive and defensive become difficult to separate. While I welcome the assurance that there will be open days for M.P.s, I am not sure that this is enough. I am sure that the world would welcome the gesture of the transferring of this work to the Ministry of Health as some indication of our feelings with regard to the purpose of this research.

As my noble friend commented, by the use of new devices bacteria can now be spread in aerosols or dry and they can now make warheads that will carry these bacteria into enemy countries. One of these warheads dropped on a small country could destroy as many as 20 million people. We have become so insensitive as a result of watching television programmes and reading articles in our newspapers that we are losing some of the important values that make life worth living. We are deeply concerned on occasion about saving this or that life, or about this or that disaster, but when we try to contemplate what microbiological warfare means, we fail to realise that 20 million people are 20 million human beings who can be destroyed by these methods. The more I contemplate it, the more I feel that we ought to opt out of this whole circle.

I watched the television programme and read the reports in the newspapers about the power and purpose of these new devices, and I kept asking myself how this was being done in my name. I felt that as an individual I had a responsibility to the country for these things. It is easy to look back to the 1930s, to the rise of Hitler and all the terrible things that happened in Europe then, and think: How could it have happened? Yet we were part of those events. When I contemplate the events of our own time at this moment, I feel that we should opt out of responsibility. I feel a deep personal concern and responsibility for these things happening in our land.

A great deal was said this afternoon about student unrest, and many younger noble Lords who participated in the debate said that the country had lost its idealism, was no longer able to inspire faith in young people or give them a cause and that the old standards were dying out. Reference was made to the Vietnam war as an element in this process of disillusionment and losing faith. I believe that the development of the instruments of biological warfare in this country is part also of this disillusioning process.

I feel strongly that the Government should make this initial gesture of transferring this work to the Ministry of Health as a beginning, but that we should all think deeply how far we are being committed to what is a total catastrophe; namely, the destruction of millions of human lives. I think it is an affront to a Christian country to feel that it is involved in this kind of thing. Therefore I have great pleasure in associating myself with the sentiments so well expressed by my noble friend Lord Brockway.

10.5 p.m.

LORD WIGG

My Lords, I will not trespass too long on the time of your Lordships' House, but there are one or two things that I think need to be said on this subject. The noble Lord who has just spoken asked in a rhetorical way: How comes it that the generations who were in charge of our affairs, or indeed those who lived through the period of the two wars, could have permitted terrible things that happened?—the rise of Mussolini, the rise of Hitler, and the Second World War, while the memory of the First War remained with us. The answer, in my judgment, is this. I do not think the charge can be laid at the door of the men who work in Porton, and who underwent the scientific disciplines involved in the studies. I think far more is to be laid at the door of those who share the views of my noble friend Lord Brockway. It was muddle-headedness that caused the two world wars; the easy resolutions to which the noble Lord has always been addicted. China—pass a resolution demanding that the United Nations do something about it. A revolt in the Middle East—pass another resolution. Mussolini invades Abyssinia and uses poison gas—pass another resolution: always asking somebody else to go and do something about it, instead of doing it yourself.

I share the noble Lord's view. I feel it acutely, because I grew up as a lad and had no boyhood. As a child, I was a soldier. In between the two wars I soldiered in the ranks. I have only ever been to Porton once, and they may have saved my life. I went through a gas chamber and was violently sick. It was discovered that, having a long face, the standard gas mask did not fit me. They sent me to Porton, and I was there fitted with a gas mask. I never had to face a gas attack, but if I had, the fitting of that special mask would have made all the difference between living and dying. Those of us who have memories of gas attacks, first, on the Canadians, in the early part of the war, and then on British troops, can only be grateful for the work done by those dedicated men. If I had to choose between the work going on at Porton, and between the views of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, the noble Lord who has just spoken, and Professor Ernst Chain, I know whose view I would take.

Just let us pause for a moment. We have heard the horrific accounts about the use of research at Porton. Does anybody seriously believe that, with all the vast resources of the United States, they are depending on research at Porton, or that in this particular field we have any effect on American defence policy? Just compare the size of the budget. Do not listen to the television, but read the annual report that is made to Congress by the Secretary of Defence. There is no secret about it.

The only constructive idea that we have had from the two noble Lords is that, in the face of this vast horrific account, we should transfer from the Vote of the Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Health. Can there be any more nonsense than this? The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, asked that when Porton is open to the public secret works should be shown. I certainly hope not. If it is secret and classified, then somebody has taken a decision that in the interests of this country these matters should remain secret. I hope they will. Of course, it is absolutely true that one can build up an appalling picture of the consequences of science, but there is another side of the story. I well remember a friend in another place, whose life has now ended, a wise and a good man, Sir Barnett Stross. We were friends for many years; for a while he was my doctor, and looked after my wife and my children. I remember his saying to me once, after the dropping of the nuclear bomb—he was a man given to reflection—" You know, we have touched the hem of God's garment. For the first time, man has been given access to unlimited power."

Additional power has been given to us from the researches which are being carried on at Porton. The researches in themselves are not wrong; they are adding to knowledge. What is wrong is what we do with it. Oh, yes, you can blow yourself to Hell. Some madman can seek to destroy civilisation so that it goes back to the slime and has to start again. Or you can make the desert bloom.

All the terrible things in the world are not the result of dropping bombs in Vietnam. There are plenty of other terrible things in other parts of the world—for example, the celmenthic diseases in the Nile Delta. How important it would he if somebody could find a cure for them! Much of the work at Porton is fundamental research, which can be used for peaceful purposes or warlike purposes. But to say the kind of things that have been said tonight—a kind of horror literature, or basing one's views upon a television programme—is surely palpable nonsense.

What this House should do, if it accepts the responsibility for the Defence Vote, as it does, is to give its backing to those men who dedicate their lives to the undertaking of the widening of fields of human knowledge. We should not call these workers names, but get down to the fundamental task of organising our society in such a way that the conflicts that make war are removed and the necessity or possibility of using these noxious gases, hydrogen bombs and atomic weapons, is removed from our midst. But they will not be removed by the kind of speeches we have heard tonight, or by phrase-mongering.

We must go back to fundamentals and perhaps even attempt the impossible task of changing human nature. Because again I say that we have the capacity to destroy, or we have the capacity to make the desert bloom. But I reject in toto the idea that anyone who is engaged in the service of the Crown in the defence field is ipso facto an assassin, or that any scientist who gives his services to fundamental research under the Defence Vote is something next door to a criminal. That is palpable nonsense. The men who serve in the Armed Forces and the civilians who assist them are doing an essential job in the preservation of peace, and they are entitled to our support. If our consciences are such that we cannot give them that support, then for Heaven's sake let us at least give them the benefit of the doubt and try to understand what they are really attempting to do.

10.15 p.m.

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS (LORD WINTERBOTTOM)

My Lords, I hope the House will forgive me if at this late hour I am brief. One thing I cannot understand, either this evening or at other times, is why individuals or organisations pick out one specific weapon as a target for their criticism and concern. Nobody seems to be concerned about what are known as "conventional weapons", and yet these can do things as terrible as any of the so-called non-conventional weapons. Nothing that a nuclear weapon can do to a human individual cannot be done by a flame thrower, and this is true of every other conventional weapon. What is terrible is war itself, and what I can understand is a clear and absolute pacificism.

But there are some of us, and I think my noble friend Lord Wigg would agree with me, who believe that although war is terrible there are some things which are perhaps even more terrible. I will not debate it to-night but those of us who believe that there is something more terrible than war, either conventional or in some science fiction future, believe that we must have a defence policy, and the Porton establishments are part of that defence policy. They are not directed to offensive ends. I am certain my noble friend Lord Brockway has never suggested that any British Government, either Labour or Conservative, has offensive intentions. We are too mature and too vulnerable to have mad ideas such as that. Therefore, the work at Porton is defensive, and in so far as offensive weapons are studied this is simply to understand the offensive weapon and to create defensive measures against it. The result of this is that the great bulk of the research done at Porton is strictly defensive, and is indeed of a pure scientific nature.

Possibly the most impressive thing that has happened recently is the research done at Porton into the vervet monkey disease that suddenly killed 20 people in Germany and two scientific research workers in Yugoslavia. Literally no-one knew the cause of this and the only establishment in Western Europe where the research could be done was at Porton. Under the guidance of the World Health Organisation Porton took the leadership. There was a major conference in East Berlin, attended by the Russians, the French and the Western World, to discuss this particular problem, and research is going on at Porton at the moment to find a vaccine which is effective against the vervet monkey disease. This is an essential scientific establishment aiding knowledge in this field and also, as a minor part of its activities, aiding the defence of this country, which I believe—and I think most noble Lords believe—is an essential part of our national effort.

My Lords, if there is a defensive element here it must be subject to security controls. There are many good reasons, which I will not argue at this late hour, why security is essential. It does not create world suspicion. After all, a substantial number of senior Russian scientists have visited Porton and have discussed various scientific subjects with our scientists there. This is a research establishment of the first importance, but those small elements of it which are necessary for the defence of the realm must be kept secret, and for this reason I will answer quite briefly the three points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway.

The two research establishments at Porton must remain under the Department where they are at the moment. The work done there, where it relates to the defence of the realm, cannot be declassified, and the results of that research cannot be given to any other Government, unless that Government is friendly to us, and bound to us by treaty.

LORD KILBRACKEN

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down I should like to ask him one question, particularly in view of the opinion expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that we could never have the capability in this country of producing something which the citizens of the United States of America cannot produce: whether we are in fact exporting these products from Porton to the United States, and, if so, why?

LORD WINTERBOTTOM

My Lords, other than C.S. we are exporting no products.