HL Deb 18 July 1972 vol 333 cc675-95

3.2 p.m.

LORD KENNET rose to move, That this House calls on Her Majesty's Government energetically to pursue a reduction of world expenditure on armaments through United Nations and other multilateral arrangements, not only to lower political and military tensions, but also to release resources for the benefit of the poor everywhere, though especially in the Third World, and to improve the environment of all mankind. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the relation between disarmament on the one hand and development and environment on the other is twofold. First, there is a simple economic relation: if we can save money on armaments we can spend it on better things. That is true in this rich country, and it is even truer of the poor countries who are so tragically being forced by their interpretation of their own interests—and who shall say they are wrong?—to buy modern weapons. When we sell modern weapons systems to African or Asian countries that is a direct transfer of real wealth from the poor to the rich.

Then there is the more direct connection on the technical level. The partial Test Ban Treaty was an environmental measure. It was signed because the peoples protested about the Strontium 90 in their children's milk, and it has reduced that. If ever we get a complete test ban we shall get it on the basis of advanced seismology, and seismological monitoring for illegal tests will tell us a lot about the structure of the earth's crust in general, and about how to prepare for, and even conceivably avoid, earthquakes. All this is where environment and disarmament overlap. I will come back to that point.

Defence cuts as such must be sought for a number of reasons and a number of purposes, and they must be sought when defence expenditure in a certain category is excessive or greater than the threat ; that is to say, they must be sought when it is safe to seek them. Of course I do not mean a picture of someone looking out to sea through a telescope and saying, "It looks safe to-day, let's cut a bit", or "Pretty dangerous looking today ; better not cut anything yet". We can ourselves affect the circumstances which make it safe or dangerous to disarm. We can, with deliberate and energetic policy, act upon the international weather ; and that, if we find the burden of armaments heavy, is what we are morally bound to do.

First, simplest to conceive, hardest to bring off, and most enduring if we do bring it off, we can ask the other bloke to disarm. This is so obvious that we must pause a moment to consider it. Since about 1960 no British Government have asked the other bloke to disarm. We have never in that time proposed any actual disarmament in the nuclear or conventional field, which is the real arms race, I dare to assert that no perceptible disarmament will come about in the absence of an understanding of the principles of general and comprehensive disarmament. This does not mean that there will be no disarmament until everybody has agreed on general and comprehensive disarmament. This is different. Nor, of course, does "general and comprehensive" mean either sudden or total disarmament. "General" means that the actions, if ally, of all States are related in a single process. "General" is the opposite of "regional" or "bilateral". "Comprehensive" means that all sorts of weapons will have to conic in. "Comprehensive" is the opposite of "nuclear" or "conventional" or "chemical" or "biological". There will be no disarmament which is not general if Russia and America disarm very far that will give rise to a Chinese superiority which they will not consider tolerable, and so on down the line. There will be no disarmament which is not comprehensive, because if nuclear weapons are reduced very far that will expose a conventional instability, and vice versa. To say this is not to make the best the enemy of the good: it is to assert that the good can only be achieved if the best is held in mind. One can put it another way. One can ask: "Shall we be all right if we find ourselves going further in this process than we plan at the moment?" One has to be able to answer "Yes" to that question.

All this has never been truer than it is now. There can be no question of throwing our defences away simply because they are burdensome. Russian defence expenditure is going up and up. The Russians are the overall equals of the Americans now on the strategic level, and far ahead in megatonnage. Their new imperial navy is boringly pressing on the retreating heels of the old imperial navies. Alone with Portugal, of all the 19th century empires, they still hold a total grip on their subject peoples. Russian culture—and even more, non-Russian culture within the Soviet Union—is to-day persecuted by an apparatus of State censorship as crude and ferocious as ever it was under the Czars. We have no reason to trust or to admire the Russian Government, which is a travesty of Socialism and of democracy. It holds in contempt that which we hold most dear, and it has over and over again shot down in their own streets those heroic citizens of other countries who dared to assert a truer socialism. I am not talking here of events inside the Soviet Union but of events abroad, in Hungary and in Czechoslovakia. The present Russian Government, we have to observe in all objectivity, is a militaristic tyranny, and it is rapidly becoming the strongest Government in the world, overtaking the Americans. Russian economic weakness, which almost certainly derives from the censorship even of technical and industrial thought, they are now trying to rectify by buying Western know-how—when they can, with Western credits.

So, I would say to those few among my friends who imagine that the comparatively genial and liberalising Khushchev is still on the throne: No, he is not, and his successors have built up a military machine such as we have never seen in the hands of a Government hostile to us. Do not choose this moment to go back to unilateralism. Wait until the Russians are allowed to read what you yourselves say. Wait until ordinary Russians are allowed to come here and visit you. Wait until people like you in Russia are allowed to speak out and be heard.

But the more impossible unilateral disarmament, the more necessary is multilateral disarmament. The air is thick with conferences and proposals for conferences. It always is. No matter ; better too many than too few. And if they fail? Again, no matter. Better to have tried and failed. I do not think that lack of progress after an unsuccessful conference is more dangerous or more wasteful than lack of progress after total inactivity. At least understanding will have been gained, and acquaintance. So we very much welcome the European Conference on Security and Co-operation which the West has at last agreed to, and the negotiations on mutual and balanced force reductions which the East has, perhaps, agreed to. I doubt whether the first will achieve much. The Russians want it to declare all European frontiers immutable for ever. With Ireland in the front of our minds, I doubt whether we can agree to that. What we can agree is that change must be peaceful. For the rest, the European Conference on Security and Co-operation must not be a mere pink ribbon round a normal bundle of bilateral arrangements for the exchange of symphony orchestras and the guarantee of commercial credits from us to them. If culture is mentioned, we must remember that it is only another word for freedom. We must remember also the old pecking order of a tyranny against the Arts ; music is dangerous ; painting and sculpture are very dangerous ; the spoken or written word, like the gun, is so dangerous that it is reserved to the State.

Two possible risks confront us in the Helsinki Conference and both might arise from our own modesty. One regards Russia and the other America. The risk regarding Russia is that we might feel that any pattern of arms reductions, except one manifestly to our own disadvantage, would be rejected by Russia. We might even go to the ignoble length of suggesting a pattern of reductions which we knew to be to our own disadvantage simply to get some agreement and to reap the consequent political advantages. We should not do this but instead should propose to the Russians a pattern or patterns of reductions which we judge to be neither to their nor to our advantage but simply to be just.

If, which is very possible, they then assert that we have got it wrong and that what we have suggested is to our advantage and to their disadvantage, we should examine that assertion with them, clarify and bargain, and, admitting that no one will ever fully understand why anyone else thinks this or that is to his advantage anyway, should do a deal. But any government which went down in history as one which did not dare to suggest anything except something which they judged to be to their own disadvantage, for fear that anything less would be rejected, would go down to a very bad history indeed.

The other danger, the one regarding the Americans, is that what dominates the mutual and balanced force reduction discussions is the nearness of Russia and the far-ness of America. If Russian and American forces in Germany were to withdraw to their respective homelands, that would be 500 miles overland for Russia and 4.000 miles overseas for America. And then, what about us in the middle? If there is anything wrong in the pattern of withdrawals, in the balance between numbers and different types of arms and so on, if there is anything wrong with the technical mix, then it is the European members of NATO who will be endangered and not the North American members. American withdrawals, if they put anything at risk, will put us at risk first and them at risk only later.

There is another danger or difficulty regarding America. Let us suppose that it came to be accepted that the geographical discrepancy between Russian and American withdrawals was a really insuperable difficulty—how can we decide whether one unit withdrawn x miles overland equals two, four, eight or sixteen units withdrawn x miles overseas? The principle that distance may entitle one to greater numbers, has now been accepted in the Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement, in which the Russians are allowed more submarines than the Americans. But if we ever have to admit that we are baffled by its application on land, as I fear we may, we will no doubt turn to the possibility of disbandment instead of withdrawal.

A unit which is disbanded and returned to civilian life, its swords beaten into ploughshares in nearby Russia, may, as far as we are concerned, be taken to be equivalent to one undergoing the same process in faraway America. Let us suppose that that is what we agree upon, we will obviously want to know whether the Russians are keeping their part of the agreement. That is also true of withdrawals. Once again it is necessary to insist that we cannot simply trust the Russian Government to keep their word. The Russian people have the bad luck—it is our bad luck, too, but theirs first—to live under a Government which suppress information. This is a form of government which cannot be trusted by their neighbours ; the suppression of information and mistrust are two sides of the same coin. What, therefore, are we to do? We cannot ourselves keep an eye on the Russians ; they will not let us in. We will have to rely on the Americans, who can do it from overhead, by satellite ; by means now legitimated under the Strategic Arms Limitations Agreements. They it is who will have to tell us what is happening. It is an awkward situation and one we should face well in advance. Only the Americans will know what the risk is, but it is we who shall run it.

It will be better to sort this out now rather than later, and once again we must not be modest. The Government should, along with the other European NATO countries, put squarely to the Americans the need for the permanent, institutionalised sharing of intelligence on Soviet observance of whatever M.B.F.R. agreement may be reached. The same is true of Strategic Arms Limitation agreements, of course, but that is another point.

Let us not be too restrictive in the new Helsinki negotiations. Any attempt to confine the negotiations to those countries which have troops in Germany would not be realistic. If it is simply arranged that some troops of both sides shall leave Germany, there are plenty of countries which will worry about them turning up on their frontiers instead and complicating their lives. These countries include not only Greece, Turkey and Norway but also, and with equal force, Sweden and Yugoslavia—as well as, and perhaps with more force, Roumania. If they want to come into the negotiations, by what right shall we exclude them?

Another country is very intimately concerned indeed with where Russian troops go. I refer to China. The Russians already have a million men under arms facing China. The Government will tell us that this has been done over the last few years without any reduction in the numbers facing Western Europe, but if the numbers facing Western Europe are reduced—I think I have said enough and need not really complete the sentence—then unless they are disbanded they will go elsewhere.

At this point the argument returns to general and comprehensive disarmament and I predict, not with any pleasure, that the M.B.F.R. negotiations will in due course have to refer the matter to a reconstructed disarmament conference at Geneva with China present, or even to the world disarmament conference which the Chinese want. Not immediately but later.

All aspects of disarmament hang together. There is no reason why we should forget—there is every reason why we should remember—that the SALT talks, which have recently come to their first and well worthwhile batch of agreements, took place because the Geneva Disarmament Conference said so. Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty binds the signatories—including, of course, the super Powers—to negotiate on "the cessation of the nuclear arms race", on "nuclear disarmament" and on "general and complete disarmament". They have made a beginning in answer to that. Now let them formally report their progress to Geneva, to the Committee on the Conference on Disarmament. The N.P.T. is not yet in force as concerns most of the countries most likely to proliferate. Only the next stage of SALT, or the next stage but one—when the super Powers actually do some disarmament, presumably of land-based missiles—can hope to bring it into force.

Why do not we, as a depository State of the N.P.T. and neither a super Power nor a non-nuclear Power, now propose, nay insist on, a formal report back from SALT to Geneva or, if that is now too late, to the United Nations General Assembly? We could go further and propose continuing arrangements for the international community as a whole to verify that the arms race is indeed coming under control. This is a universal interest and not just a super Power one. It is a universal process which we hope is just starting. We must see that it is set on its way with the widest and most confident support possible.

Confidence requires knowledge. Too often in the past the United States and the Soviet Union have faced the Geneva Conference expecting fulsome congratulations for some agreement or other and, if they have seldom got it, it is because, as co-chairman, they have too often presented a bland face of impervious collusion. Let us now try to get the others an institutionalised look-in. For instance, the Moscow Strategic Arms Limitation agreements set up a Soviet-American Standing Consultative Commission to watch over their execution. Why should not this Commission be invited by the Geneva Conference to submit periodical progress reports to it? If ever it is joined by comparable commissions in other parts of the world, as it may well be, they could do the same. The means of surveillance it relies on will certainly include systems which would be of use to the environment surveillance network recently agreed upon by the United Nations Conference in Stockholm—the network called "Earthwatch" All things are one.

After all, this country is going to be in the act from now, whether we like it or not. The Russians have given us notice of it. At the time of the SALT Agreements they put out a unilateral statement that if ever Britain or France got more strategic missile-carrying submarines, they would count that number against what the Americans had and regard themselves as entitled to go above the limits laid down in the bilateral agreements. That extremely important Russian statement has gone virtually unnoticed in a British Press which, in common with other British institutions, is at the moment sinking back into insular preoccupations. The Russians are claiming that the British and French nuclear forces are, in effect, part of the American nuclear force and that agreements with America are to be held binding on us, whether or not we have participated in the negotiations which led to them.

Now there are three things to notice about this. First, and most obvious, is that it belies the claim advanced by a minority of my own Party that the British strategic nuclear force is pointless, or no good, or of no deterrent effect and therefore does not worry the Russians. The second is the fact that the Americans have stoutly, explicitly and repeatedly dissociated themselves from this unilateral interpretation by the Russians of the agreements between them. Thirdly, and unfortunately most important, is the fact that, whether we like it or not and whether the Americans like it or not, Britain and France have been made the arbiters of the future of the SALT Agreement. The future of that agreement is in our hands.

Alternatively, our future is in the hands of the Americans and the Russians. The former is the case if Britain and France get more Polaris-type submarines and the Russians got more to match, and the Americans claim the Russians have broken the Moscow agreements. The latter is the case if Britain or France, believing they ought to have more Polaris-type submarines, refrain from getting them because, with or without American or Russian pressure, they decide that the Moscow agreements are more important. In either case, the fact that we were not in on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks looks unfortunate. The Soviet Union have unilaterally claimed to limit Western European weapons without consultation and without any limitation on the Russian strategic weapons, of which there are many hundreds which can reach, and are aimed at, us and not at the Americans.

My Lords, that was only Round One of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. The negotiation is to continue and the Russians have said that in Round Two they want to talk about submarine bases abroad. The Americans have a submarine base in this country. That is an interest of ours. The Russians have been preparing a submarine base in Cuba. That is an interest of Cuba. And we ourselves still have a naval base in the Far East. Either there is talk about naval bases abroad in general, which must include this country, or there will be more of these dangerous bilateral agreements, like the last Moscow agreements, which will affect the interests of countries not represented and purport to control them. I put it to the Government that we cannot any longer afford to have our fate settled above our heads and that we must be in on these talks. So must other countries. That again points to a SALT report to Geneva and a revamping of Geneva to take account of this new situation.

And while we are at it, there is another thing to internationalise, and that is the little treaty between America and Russia about avoiding military accidents at sea. If the world is the safer because the two super-Powers agree not to buzz one another, would it not be safer still if everybody agreed not to buzz each other? I may say that the only scenario for unintended nuclear war which I have heard in the last ten years and which made any sense to me was one which started with a formation of Russian bombers flying towards a British carrier. I do not think that the Royal Navy can be happy at not getting the benefits of that little treaty, now that they know it is available.

My Lords, I have spoken mainly about disarmament and not about the development and environmental improvement which we all hope to finance out of military savings and which also appear in the Motion before the House to-day. That is because I am sure that many other noble Lords, both on these Benches and opposite, will want to talk about that. The environmental matter is new and is a hot political topic because of the Stockholm Conference. Disarmament in this country appears to be rather cold. I believe it is dangerous that it should be so. The two topics are linked ; they always were: but we understand it better every day. My Lords, I beg to move.

Moved, That this House calls on Her Majesty's Government energetically to pursue a reduction of world expenditure on armaments through United Nations and other multilateral arrangements, not only to lower political and military tensions, but also to release resources for the benefit of the poor everywhere, though especially in the Third World, and to improve the environment of all mankind.—(Lord Kennet.)

3.25 p.m.

LORD BYERS

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for initiating this debate. His Motion is certainly all-embracing. It has an octopus quality about it and I should certainly subscribe to the view that a reduction of world expenditure on armaments, through the United Nations or in any other way, is a highly desirable aim ; but whether it would result in the release of resources, directly or indirectly, to benefit the poor everywhere, especially in the Third World, is highly unlikely. Nevertheless, it is useful to have a debate on the disarmament aspect of foreign affairs, but I believe that our aim must be to improve the standard of living of the poor all over the world, whatever the state of military expenditure and commitment of resources. I do not propose to follow the noble Lord. In fact, I had the feeling that I had come into the wrong debate on the wrong day, because I was not expecting to come in to deal with disarmament, SALT, and all those other subjects. But I am fortunate to have the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, next to me who is going to comment on that aspect of the matter later on.

LORD GLADWYN

Very briefly.

LORD BYERS

I want to talk about the end of the Motion and consider what can be done to improve the environment of mankind, and with that I associate a better distribution of resources between mankind. I believe it is to be regretted that over the last two or three years there has been a polarisation of attitudes in dealing with the environment and the quality of life. I do not believe that people at either pole are wholly right ; the truth must lie somewhere in between. I do not believe in the apparent complacency at one end of the scale which pooh-poohs the warning about resources and environment and believes that something will turn up, nor do I believe that the hysteria of those who prophesy the imminent end of the world is going to help us to solve the very real problems, both in the advanced and the developing countries. There is a grave danger that a lack of balance in this matter could impede intelligent progress towards sensible solutions.

Pollution and the protection of the environment are no longer simply technological problems ; they are highly political, sociological, moral, international, and indeed national, questions. That was clearly recognised at the Stockholm Conference and I believe that a great deal more progress was made at Stockholm than has yet been recognised. We should be grateful for those who organised it. In pleading for a balanced, non-alarmist hut equally non-complacent approach towards this problem I want to put forward a few reasons for it. The first is the possible exhaustion of the world's natural resources. At the present rate of use I am certain that this is a possibility at some point in the future. It is a mathematical certainty that it has to happen, but probably nowhere as soon as some of the pundits prophesy. But the mere fact that it could happen at any point in time seems to me to be an important fact that should be recognised. There is a pressing demand, and so long as you have people in the world that demand will be there. If there are more people in the world through a population explosion there will be a greater demand. If higher standards are demanded then there will be a greater demand for the natural resources. If we want to expand energy, as we must do—in the Third World particularly—then there will be an additional demand for metals, uranium, oil, gas, and so on. If we want to develop agriculture—as we must do to feed people—there is the same increased demand. In this respect every one of us has a responsibility in seeing precisely how far that demand should be satisfied and can be satisfied.

This is why I believe it is important, in line with Stockholm thinking, to set in motion research programmes, where we do not know the answer, to try to find economic and simple methods of reclaiming for further use more of the potentially scarce materials that we consume. I believe that research on an international scale, not necessarily Government-to-Government but internationally company-to-company, industry-to-industry and so on, is needed, because, in my view, there is a very grave shortage of the scientific and technological manpower that is needed to-day if we are to be able to tackle all the problems which are now being thrown up. We cannot afford too much duplication of effort. In addition, we must encourage—and here I have an interest—and not discourage the search for further natural resources. The experience of mining and exploration is that exploration for mineral resources needs an incentive. The best incentive, of course, is the chance of finding profitable natural resources which can be developed.

I think there is a lesson to be learned from what happened in Australia in the 1950s, when the Government was so concerned about their limited iron ore reserves that they quite rightly banned exports. The result was that no one explored for iron ore, but when the ban was taken off exploration discovered the largest reserves of iron ore in the world in Western Australia. These are the sort of reserves which will be needed if we are going to preserve the standards of living and the quality of life that we need, particularly in the Third World.

Equally, unless exploration is encouraged, technology will not advance its knowledge and techniques of exploration and of dealing with recalcitrant and low-grade ores. If we are to have research into methods of re-use of materials and a recycling of scarce resources to go hand in hand with the finding of further resources, it is just as important in my mind to foster internationally co-ordinated research programmes into some of our more difficult problems of pollution and the environment. Where we know the answers to pollution we must support regional measures to tackle some of the more pressing areas of pollution, particularly, I would say, the Mediterranean and the Rhine, which if they are allowed to go on as they are for much longer will be almost impossible of solution. When we turn to our own national problems, I would plead, too, that we keep a sense of balance and a determination to implement clean-up programmes at an optimum rate and not an unreasonable one. We should recognise what we have achieved in Britain in getting clean air in this country. It has been a remarkable achievement—I take no credit for it—and it has been achieved in under 20 years. There is a tremendous improvement in our rivers, an improvement which I believe will go on.

I was interested to see reference in the Report of Sir Eric Ashby's Working Party for Stockholm to the number of cases where industry has adopted methods to clean and re-use their industrial water and in the process cut their costs. I believe that there is a good deal of scope here for discussion and co-operation between the new river authorities, industry and Government, particularly in sharing knowledge of new processes and lowering costs. I hope that the river authorities will tackle this problem of clean rivers on a comprehensive basis. To my mind it is of little value to the community to set severe consent limits on industrial discharges if untreated sewage is going to be discharged in substantial quantities into the same river or stream. I believe that a co-operative effort will improve our rivers even further.

I feel also that in the field of pollution there is a great need for more public education. I have been looking at the question of metallic pollution, and I was particularly interested in the White Paper dealing with lead in food—the Working Party's report on this came out in the last fortnight. One of the things which, in my view, prevents the proper education of the public and which is resented by doctors, local authorities, people working in Government Departments and the workers in the industries themselves, is the way in which these problems are often treated by the Press, television and radio. The "Lead in Food" survey showed that it is not the amount of lead present in any substance, animal or food, but whether or not it gets into the human diet in a form which can do harm to health. This report indicated how much work has to be done before there is a genuine understanding of the various problems involved. It is a very important report and it goes a long way to putting this particular problem in perspective. However, because it is a sober document it did not receive very much publicity.

There is a real need for public education in these matters and this can only be done by using the technical knowledge of people who have worked in this field, rather than to accept Press comments which more often are based on the principle that "bad news makes good news." The truth is that so many pollution and health problems are within a very specialist area of study, an area in which I think this country is well ahead of many others. Often there are only a handful of people who can claim the expertise to understand the problems and to help solve them. I wonder whether in this connection if we in this country are doing enough to train environmental scientists, occupational hygienists—if there is such a word—and people in other disciplines who are going to be needed in greater numbers if we are to make inroads on the problems of pollution in the environment.

I should like to know at some stage what sort of provision we are making in the universities and also through Government in this field, because I want now to turn again in this connection to the Third World. I believe that one of the ways we can help the Third World is by training people from the developing countries in the fields of pollution and environment. It is the understanding and the management of these problems which is going to be so important, not only to the Third World, but to the advanced countries, too. I would ask—although I know this is heresy to any Government—whether we cannot bring more of them over here to learn about these things and use some of our overseas aid funds to foot the bill.

Is there not a case for using a million pounds or two out of the hundreds of millions which we spend on overseas aid to help people to reach higher standards which they can apply when they go home to their own countries? This may have a tremendous effect over the next decade, if we could be imaginative enough to educate particularly the younger generation of graduates ; bring them over here, see what we can offer them in the way of solving these problems and see what we can offer them in the way of international co-operation, and generally teach them how to go about these problems. Then I believe we could make a genuine if limited contribution to solving the problems of the Third World.

3.38 p.m.

BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE

My Lords, I am sure the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in moving the Motion described by the noble Lord, Lord Byers, as an "octopus" Motion because it raises many wide and very important issues which, I feel sure, will be of great interest to many noble Lords. The Motion starts by calling on Her Majesty's Government energetically to pursue a reduction of world expenditure on armaments. I would entirely agree with the noble Lord that we should all like to reduce our own expenditure on armaments and, if possible, spend the savings on something which we feel is more useful. But the resources we do devote to external defence are, of course, related to the scale of the potential threat posed to the security of this nation and its dependants by the armaments of others. Therefore it seems to us that the only way in which we can get a reduction of such expenditure must be through international agreements where one really tries to seek a common thread of agreement.

It has sometimes been suggested that all that is necessary for progress in arms control and disarmament is a cut in annual military budgets of the order of say 5 or 10 per cent. But it is frequently impossible to verify the true state of a country's military budget, especially those of countries like the Soviet Union with closed political systems. Also, an equal percentage reduction agreed together would not in fact have an equal result on all States. But even more important, I suggest to the House, is the consideration that the level of a State's defence expenditure must be decided by its own assessment of its own national security needs. As long as any single State sees threats to its security, it must take the necessary measures to meet them. What we are all after, on which I think everyone in this House would agree, is détente, which is an elusive prize, and can only be won in an atmosphere of shared confidence and after a great deal of hard work by all those concerned.

The link between disarmament and détente is complex, and if we are to achieve, as the Motion suggests, a real relaxation of political and military tensions I suggest that we must go on concentrating on the approach to arms control which this country has adopted together with its allies. This has been to work for agreement in the international disarmament negotiations on measures to limit, control, or eliminate categories of weapons, such as, for example, biological or chemical weapons ; or, as we have seen recently with the United States and the Soviet Union, the number of delivery systems for strategic nuclear weapons.

Despite the world in which we live, I think we can say that on balance this year has been an encouraging one for those of us who put our faith in human reason and the possibility of a movement, an unfreezing of frozen positions, and a gradual rundown of a strategic arms race which threatened to become out of control. We have had the conclusion and opening for signature of the Biological Weapons Convention, which has now been signed by more than 90 States. Then in May we had the conclusion of Strategic Arms Limitation agreements between the Soviet Union and the United States. These agreements were of very real importance not only to us but to all the world, because they proved a determination on the part of the super-Powers to tackle the nuclear arms race. They also show that the United States and the Soviet Union have begun to carry out Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This obliges parties to the Treaty to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures to curtail—and maybe one day end—the nuclear arms race.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in opening this debate, spoke of the possibility of a Conference on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions in Europe. I would remind the House that it was the West that first proposed discussions on this matter as long ago as 1968. The Warsaw Pact countries have not yet formally taken up this proposal. They did not reply to NATO'S offer last October to send Signor Brosio to hold exploratory talks. However, there is now a prospect that preliminary East/West discussions on force reductions could take place before the end of the year. Where, when, and how are questions that have still to be decided. We shall do our very best to try to overcome the many problems that there are in this kind of talks. As the noble Lord pointed out, the disparity between the Warsaw Pact and NATO'S conventional forces in Europe continues to grow, and because of their geographical advantages Warsaw Pact countries can very quickly be returned to the central front, while our main reinforcements have to come across the Atlantic. It will not be easy for us to ensure undiminished security at lower cost, which must be our chief aim in such negotiations.

On the practical matter of the European Conference on Security and Cooperation, the discussions are about to be held in Helsinki, and we hope that the European conference itself will take place in 1973. However, I have little doubt that those who take part in that conference will also wish to talk about aspects of military security in Europe, and not only the question of how we can encourage better confidence between the two. The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, spoke in particular about the last part of the Motion, which asks us to consider how—

A NOBLE LORD

Lord Brockway?

BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE

I am sorry, my Lords, I do not think that I have ever called the noble Lord, Lord Byers, "Lord Brockway" before. It just happened that I caught his eye. I greatly apologise to the noble Lord. I cannot believe that they have a great deal in common. The noble Lord, Lord Byers, referred to the last part of the Motion, which suggests that if we are able to release resources from military expenditure for the benefit of the poor everywhere, and especially in the Third World, we could also improve the environment of mankind.

Whatever one may consider of the exact link between disarmament and development, it is surely clear that the release of resources through disarmament must help the international community, including the developing countries. But the fact remains that military expenditure in these countries has in general risen rapidly in recent years, and the resources released through arms limitation will certainly help to finance their economic growth. The same process could happen here in what we like to call the developed world. If we did have greater growth here it would mean a better market for the goods that are exported from the Third World. But I have assumed that the resources released in any country would be used in the first place for economic development in that country rather than instantly transferred to the poorer nations as aid.

I do not think that any of us can preempt the proceeds of disarmament for particular purposes when the economic and the other conditions which will exist if and when disarmament takes place are still unknown. The problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Byers, said, is very much wider. The question of armaments is only a small part of the very great problem of the correct use of the earth's natural resources and the preservation of our environment. The noble Lord referred in particular to the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. I think that this can be accounted a successful conference, and perhaps especially for the United Kingdom.

There were eight specific points which were listed by my right honourable friend, the Secretary of State for the Environment, on all of which some progress was made. There is to be a Global Ocean Dumping Conference in London in the autumn ; there is going to be action taken together towards a clean rivers programme, and the effective control of marine pollution was also agreed to. On top of that it is hoped to set up a worldwide monitoring system and also a referral system, in which Her Majesty's Government have taken the lead and on which detailed plans will be made shortly in London. Her Majesty's Government will also contribute to the proposed Environment Fund, because it is quite true that as a highly industrialised nation we have made mistakes in our industrial revolutions, but I think that we have also learned from them. The noble Lord in particular mentioned the Clean Air Act and our cleaner rivers, and the work being done on anti-pollution.

This particular United Nations Environment Fund will be used to finance, wholly or partly, all the new matters to which I have just referred. We have not yet decided what we can give as a contributory sum to this fund, but my right honourable friend has said that it will not be less than 5 per cent. of the total. It has also been made clear that the united contribution to the Fund will be new money. Expenditure on defence needs a particular kind of justification, because the benefits it brings to a country are indirect, while expenditure on aid and development at home or abroad needs no justification. I suggest, however, that money spent on defence is the foundation for our national existence, without which we could not use our energies in other useful ways, which we all desire.

It is very easy in what appears to be the present encouraging climate of lessening of tension in Europe to argue that our defence budget could surely now be reduced, but I suggest that this ignores the proposition that true relaxation will come about only in the context of a firm defence policy. If you unravel the defence policy and spend the money on more immediately attractive needs we could find ourselves where we were in 1939. Therefore I think we have to go on to balance arms control agreements with those countries which confront us in order to try to get some kind of agreement. It is not, as the noble Lord who opened the debate said, as if the West had any margin or spare capacity in the defence field. On the contrary, the spare capacity exists on the other side. The proportion of the gross national product devoted by the Soviet Union to defence is greater than that of any other NATO European country.

I do not wish to speak long at the start of the debate as I hope at the end to try to answer the points made. I should like to end by quoting something said by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence when we were considering the Defence Estimates for 1972. He said this: East-West negotiations are being and will continue to be conducted by the Warsaw Pact countries from positions of massive and still growing military strength. The Western Alliance must therefore remain resolute in avoiding any premature lowering of its guard. It must also insist that the imbalances in the forces confronting each other in Europe which favour the Warsaw Pact are taken fully into account in any negotiation on arms control or force reduction. Nothing has changed since this warning was given to this House and it is a warning, I suggest, that none of us ever dare ignore.