§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my Dame on the Order Paper,
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what proposals they are making to the Disarmament Committee at Geneva for the prohibition of biological and chemical warfare and what has been the response.]
§ The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Shepherd)My Lords, as my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs with special responsibility for disarmament said in another place on July 10, he tabled on that day in the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee at Geneva a draft Convention for the Prohibition of Biological Methods of Warfare, with an associated Security Council resolution; these documents have now been published as Command 4113. We are hopeful that urgent consideration will now be given to our draft Convention in the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee and we look forward to receiving the comments of other countries on it.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that many of us want to congratulate Her Majesty's Government and our Minister of Disarmament on bringing this Convention forward? I should like to ask just two questions. The first is this. Is it still necessary to separate biological and chemical warfare in the Convention? 562 While, in the first instance, the Report says that international opinion requires this, is it not the case now that there has been an extraordinary advance in international opinion; in the United Nations resolution extending "chemical" to "biological" and in the extraordinary decision by the United States Senate Armed Services Committee to abolish all expenditure on both chemical and biological warfare? In view of this new open atmosphere, could not this Convention be extended to chemical as well as biological warfare?
§ Lord SHEPHERDMy Lords, my noble friend will remember that in a recent debate on this subject I explained some of the difficulties that confront us in regard to chemical agents. The view of Her Majesty's Government was that we were more likely to make progress if we treated these two as separate subjects. We think there is perhaps a greater need to deal with biological than with chemical agents, in view of the consequences of biological warfare. But my noble friend will see that if the draft Convention was accepted the countries would undertake to proceed and continue with discussions and negotiations in the chemical field.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, I thank my noble friend again. My second question is this. In view of the apparent fact that Soviet Russia is disinclined to support this Convention because of its fears of the absence of China from the Disarmament Conference, would it not be possible to take, through the British representation in China, independent diplomatic steps to try to secure the support of China for this Convention?
§ Lord SHEPHERDMy Lords, is to what is or may be the future attitude of Soviet Russia towards this Convent on I should not wish to speak, because we are in the very early stages of negotiations. Clearly, China is a country which we should wish to see one day associated with this Convention as also with other forms of the United Nations Charter. But I should not have thought that at this present stage such an approach would bring the results that we should wish to see. However, we must certainly bear this in mind.